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 EXCURSIONS TO THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 
 
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 B are issued 
 St March. 
 
 my's Steam - 
 and Sounds 
 
 l^i 
 
 During July and August next it is proposed to organise another series 
 of Excursions from Zew Zealand to TONGA, SAMOA, TAHITI, 
 RARATONGA, and other of the beautiful (Groups of the South Seas. 
 
 Full particulars of these Trips will be aduertised in the da 
 
 GUIDE BOOK TO NEW ZEALAND.! 
 
 The new Guide Book MAORI LAND," an indispensable companion 
 to the New Zealand Tourist. Price, 2s. 6d. To be obtained from all Book- 
 sellers. 
 
 Every information may be had on application to the Company's Offices — 
 COLLINS STREET "WEST, MELBOURNE, 
 NE^W ZEALAND WHARF, SYDNEY, 
 MACPARLANE BROS. & Co., Macquarrie St., SYDNEY- 
 HEAD OFFICE, DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND, 
 And the various Branches and Agencies throughout New Zealand. 
 
6 
 
 
THE AUSTRALIAN ABROAD 
 
 ON 
 
 BRANCHES FROM THE MAIN ROUTES 
 ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 By JAMES HINGSTON. F.R.G.8., 
 
 ("'/. H:' of the " Mcllmtnic Ar-us:' ) 
 
 WITH 75 ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 WILLIAM INGLIS AND CO., 
 
 MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, HOBART, DUNEDIN, AND LONDON. 
 
 London Publishers : 
 
 GRIFFITH, FARRAN AND CO., ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. 
 
 1885. 
 
 [All rights reserved. 'X 
 
 n irci 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
^ -ry 
 
 u 
 
 
 - 
 
 PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 
 
 The following Notes of Travel are the outcome of a long holiday 
 taken by an Anglo-Australian, who, after twenty-five years of 
 active occupation in Melbourne, was enabled to indulge a long- 
 cherished desire to make a tour of the globe. Without com- 
 panions, save such as he found by the way, and unassisted by 
 Guide Books, he travelled through large part of the chief countries 
 of each of the world's five divisions, and recorded the impressions 
 made upon his mind by what he saw and heard while such were still 
 fresh. The chapters, in their present shape, were actually written in 
 the localities which they describe, and were thence posted to a lead- 
 ing newspaper in Melbourne. In the columns of the Argus they 
 appeared weekly for a period of nearly two years. Thus produced, 
 they attracted increasing popular attention, and the Author ventures 
 to think that, written as they were, they convey a more faithful 
 description of the scenes and people visited than could otherwise 
 have been obtained. 
 
 The kindly welcome eagerly accorded to them in their serial form 
 has induced their publication in a collected shape for the reading 
 of a larger public. The recount of travel begins with the leaving 
 of the American Continent at San Francisco, and opens at Japan. 
 Thence is continued the notes of visits to China, Cochin China, 
 Malasia, Sunda, and Java, onwards to the Northern Territory of 
 Australia, and so downwards to, and through. New Zealand. 
 
 Following on this came an homeward tour by the Overland 
 Route, wherein Ceylon, India, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, were 
 in turn visited. The journey through the Holy Land was done in 
 the old-accustomed style of tent-life, with accompaniment of drago- 
 man, camels, mules, a cook, and other attendants. The experienced 
 guide, engaged at Alexandria for this part of the journey, rendered 
 all book-reference unnecessary, save as furnished by the pages of 
 
 ivi3091291 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 a marginally-annotated Bible. The toilsome travel of six weeks 
 through Syria and Palestine was relieved mostly by nightly 
 Biblical studies, aided by such help as the Handbooks found 
 with fellow-travellers happened to afford. But for such occupa- 
 tion, varied by writing down notes of the day's impressions, this 
 time of tent-life would have been far more wearisome than the 
 same period of time at sea. 
 
 Books of travel in the Holy Land are plenteous enough, but it 
 is a great advantage to the traveller to have read none of them. 
 Such was the case with the Author, who, in ignorance of the 
 opinions of others, gained his ideas only from what he personally 
 saw and heard. 
 
 Melbourne, Australia, 1880. 
 
 PREFACE TO PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 The favour found with the Public by the two expensively pub- 
 lished Volumes of " The Australian Abroad," has led to the issue 
 of the present more popular form of it. The issue of the pre- 
 ceding edition in its two-volume form at fourteen shillings per 
 volume was done in the interest and sole discretion of its London 
 Publishers. Such was altogether against the Author's ideas of 
 book publishing, which tend more to the present form of production, 
 as meeting the spirit of the times and the needs of the reading 
 public. 
 
 The Author has ventured to append to this Preface some 
 shortened criticisms and Press notices of " The Australian 
 Abroad," of which scores of others, all equally eulogistic, could be, 
 did s^mce permit, also published. He had not thought, as an 
 unknown writer, to have met with any notice whatever for 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 his work at the hands of such Reviewers as those of the Saturday 
 Revie7u, the Athenceiim the Illustrated London Neius^ and the half- 
 dozen other leading journals, whose kindly notices he received. 
 More favourable criticism from such high sources could not well 
 have been awarded to any author known or unknown to the 
 reading world. 
 
 The thanks of the Author are due especially to the Proprietors 
 of the Argus, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Leader, in whose 
 columns the substance of the following chapters first found favour. 
 Wanting such kindly introduction to public notice, "The Australian 
 Abroad " would have remained wholly unknown to the large public 
 of the Australasias, and the larger public to which it was intro- 
 duced by the London pubhshed edition, and by the unexpected 
 highly favourable criticism bestowed upon it. 
 
 Though nothing in the way of a Guide Book was intended by 
 the Author in these chapters of travel talk, the book may be a 
 companionable one on any of the routes by which Australia is 
 left, or by which it is reached ; those via Torres Straits, New 
 Zealand, or the Overland Route. Many of those returning by 
 the American Route may be induced, when leaving San Francisco, 
 to change their road for that by way of Japan, China, and Java, 
 as did the writer to his great advantage. 
 
 Finally must be noticed the book's great recommendation to 
 travellers on long or short journeys, and to desultory readers. 
 Each chapter is wholly independent of anything preceding or 
 succeeding it, being complete in itself. Though the narration of 
 travel is continuous, there is no plot or story necessitating a com- 
 mencement at any part of the work, nor any connection of one 
 part with another. At sea or on land, on board ship, on the rail, 
 by the bedside of the invalid, or for the travelling bag of the 
 tourist, the book is one equally adapted for beguilement of other- 
 wise unoccupied hours. 
 
 Melbourne, Australia, July^ 1883. 
 
NOTE TO THIS EDITION, 
 
 A LEADING Melbourne journal, in noticing the first appearance 
 of The Australian Abroad^ remarked — 
 
 " Before saying anything of the many merits of this work, we must 
 take a capital exception to the manner of its publication. It bears 
 the name of a London and not of a Melbourne publisher on its title 
 page. Wholly of Australian production, as the work is (its author 
 being Australian, and the substance of his work having been 
 first published, chapter by chapter, as he wrote it, in a Melbourne 
 newspaper). The Australiafi Abroad ought, by right, to bear on 
 its title page the name of our city, coupled with that of a Mel- 
 bourne publisher. All the credit of this notable production, 
 from first to last, is due to Melbourne." 
 
 ^^ This, the only cavilling (?) criticism made by the press upon 
 this book, is, it is to be hoped, now removed by the 
 manner of its present publication, due wholly to the 
 enterprise of a Melbourne publishing firm (Messrs. 
 William Inglis and Co.), who have, by the price fixed, 
 placed it within the reach of all readers. Its simul- 
 taneous publication by the London Agents of the firm 
 will give it equal popularity in both hemispheres. 
 
 Melbourne, July^ 1885. 
 
J. H." ON ''TRAVEL. 
 
 [Argus, loth February, i88j.\ 
 
 At the Mayor's Luncheon to Mr. J. A. Froude, the historian, and to 
 Lord Elphinstone, at the Town Hall, Melbourne, on 9th February, 
 Mr. Kingston being called upon to reply (with Lord Elphinstone) to the 
 Toast of "Travel," spoke as follows: — 
 
 "Travellers in times past have had a very bad character. (Laughter.) They 
 have, unhappily, been stigmatised as the tellers of lies — 'travellers' tales,' as 
 they are called in proverbial language. (Laughter.) It originates, I believe, from 
 the book of Job, which is generally believed to be the oldest book in the world. 
 Therein we have prominent mention of one who has been misconceived as the 
 prototype of all travellers. When asked on his appearance among a number 
 of good men what he had been doing, Satan answered. 'Going to and fro upon 
 the earth, and walking up and down therein.' (Laughter.) This plain, straight- 
 forward reply contains the condensed essence of all that has been said by all 
 travellers up to the present time. (Hear, hear.) For that reason the world 
 has mixed up all travellers with this first one. (Laughter.) Most of those 
 who migrated to Australia were satisfied they had had enough of travel in 
 coming hither. (Laughter.) Four months of a sea voyage is a very satisfactory 
 time of it. Those who have experienced it understand to the full the 'sea 
 sorrow' mentioned by Shakspeare in 'The Tempest.' (Laughter.) They have 
 mostly only two desires towards the end of the voyage — the first is to get ashore 
 and stay there — (laughter) — and the second is to punch the head of the man 
 who wrote the joyful song of 'A Life on the Ocean Wave.' (Laughter.) The 
 author of ' Home, Sweet Home,' is known never to have had a home — (laughter) 
 — and it is my belief that the writer of 'A Life on the Ocean Wave' was never 
 at sea at all. (Laughter.) Australians have really nothing whatever to travel 
 for. (Hear, hear.) They can, in their mind's eye, see all the world in the ac- 
 counts of it supplied to them through the press by those who follow the foot- 
 steps of Job's traveller in going about the earth, for, it is to be hoped, better 
 reasons. They have no need to travel for change of climate — the climate 
 changes often enough here. ( Laughter. ) Of scenery Australasia supplies every 
 sort, and all of the finest samples. (Hear, hear.) In the mountaineering way 
 there is enough for the Alpine Club on the snow-covered peaks between Beech- 
 worth and Gipps Land, and anything further wanted in that line is to be found 
 in Mount Cook and the vast glaciers of New Zealand — that grand land for the 
 picturesque. (Applause.) For coast scenery there is no equal in the world to 
 that of the West Coast Sounds, and for lakes it will be hard indeed if the grand 
 ones of New Zealand do not satisfy. (Hear, hear.) For strange people there 
 is no need to seek ovit of Australia. Its population comprises varieties of 
 the human race from all parts, and good samples, too — the pick of the world's 
 basket. (Laughter.) For fortune there is no occasion for the Australian to go 
 further afield. If he can do anything he can do it to best purpose in Australasia, 
 and if he can do nothing he is as well or better off here than anywhere. 
 (Laughter.) Any man can make his fortune in Australia by the simple method 
 of minding his own business. (Laughter.) The Australian not satisfied with 
 
viii "j.H." ON "travel." 
 
 the land he has settled in, would likely not be satisfied in any of Mahomet's 
 seven heavens. He would be always wanting to explore the other six. 
 (Laughter.) It is of Australia and such dissatisfied ones of its people that 
 Monckton Milnes, the poet, had in mind when writing — 
 ' A man's best things are nearest him — 
 Lie close about his feet ; 
 But 'tis the distant and the dim 
 He ever strives to greet.' 
 
 (Hear, hear.) Such people are as inquiring in their way as Mrs. Hemans' 
 famous child in its anxiety as to the whereabouts of the 'Better Land.' 
 (Laughter.) Having no faith that they have already found it, they go hence, 
 on some vamped-up excuse or other, really seeking if there be any better 
 place than Australia. That they all come back here is answer enough to 
 all such inquiries. (Hear, hear.) If these Australians go abroad by the Over- 
 land Route, they see, in Ceylon and India, Crown colonies which teach them 
 the value of the free colonies of Australia. (Hear, hear.) They see their less 
 fortunate kinsmen toiling and perspiring under a tropical sun for fortune, while 
 those in Australia can make here both fortune and fame. In Ceylon and India 
 there are no parliamentary honours to be got — no ;{^300 a year to l^egin with, 
 with ^^1500 a year to follow when a fellow gets into the Ministry. (Laughter.) 
 Neither in those colonies, nor in all America, are any titles to be got, such as 
 we get here when we attain to the Chief Secretaryship, and to the Chairman- 
 ship of either House of Parliament. All the titles to be got in America are in- 
 significant beside knighthood. Who ewes to be called, as almost everybody is 
 in the States, general, colonel, or 'old hoss?' (Laughter.) The returned 
 traveller from Australia comes back to it a wiser and a gladder man. (Hear, 
 hear. ) He sees how imperfect his education has been, how little he knows, and 
 how much he has to unlearn of the nonsense stuffed into him in early days. 
 (Laughter.) He has seen that his beliefs, prejudices, and iirepossessions have 
 been "all matters of education, and that had he been left a baby in India he 
 might have been brought up as a good Thug, or if left on the Cannibal Islands 
 have done as cannibals do. (Laughter.) He has had the self-conceit knocked 
 out of him, and has gained, instead, that self-respect, which teaches him to 
 respect others and those distinctions of character which he had before thought 
 to be but heresies, faults, and failings. (Hear, hear.) 1 le has been a rolling 
 stone in his travels, and finds that it is not moss but polish that gives a stone 
 any value. (Hear, hear.) He has had his sharp corners rubbed off, and is 
 himself rubbed up and brightened mentally and intellectually. (Hear, hear.) 
 I have said that there is work in Australia for everybody who can do anything, 
 but I do not wish to falsely raise the hopes of our distinguished visitor and 
 guest. (Laughter.) Australia is the happy place, and Australians the happy 
 people that, alike, have no history. ('Hear, hear,' and applause.) Although 
 there is no work here for the historian, there is plenty for one who can write 
 'Short essays upon great subjects.' ('Hear, hear,' and laughter.) Australia is 
 a great subject, and "the shortest thing to be said about it is that those who come 
 to it know well indeed the advantages of such travelling as they have already 
 done, if they never travel further." (Laughter and applause.) 
 
PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 The Graphic, January 14th, 1880. — "The 'Australian Abroad,' by James Kingston, is an 
 entertaining volume of notes of travel, the outcome of a tour of the globe by sn Anglo- 
 Australian. There is a bright vividness and a decided originality about his writing which 
 make his book singularly entertaining. There is also a remarkable amount of 'go' in the 
 style, and the 'Australian Abroad' is just the volume with which to pleasantly while away 
 an idle half-hour, for it is fresh, odd, laughter moving, and by no means too learned." 
 
 The Morning /'^^jf concludes its notice thus : — " Since the days of Captain Cook several 
 men have managed to get around the world ; few, however, have given so interesting an 
 account of their tours as that which Mr. Kingston presents. That gentleman has fairly 
 earned his right to publish a book of travel ; he is a clever writer, his subject is good, and 
 his knowledge of it thorough." 
 
 Illjistrated London A^ews, September 25th, 1880. — "Among clever, original, amusing books 
 of travel a prominent place must be assigned to the ' Australian Abroad,' by James Kingston, 
 a large, handsome, liberally and strikingly illustrated volume, in which a keen observer and 
 very droll writer records the experiences he sought and found in Ceylon, India, and Egypt. 
 He professes to have offered an almost virgin personality for the reception of impressions, 
 having carefully abstained from enlightening himself by means of books about the countries 
 he intended to visit ; and he inferentiallj- recommends the same abstention to others. This is 
 highly disinterested conduct on his part, for, if his advice were followed, nobody, of course, 
 would read his book ; that is, nobodj' with anj' idea of travelling where he has travelled. And 
 nowadays everybody appears to have an idea of travelling everywhere. Let his advice, there- 
 fore, at any rate so far as his own book is concerned, be utterly disregarded ; for whoever 
 reads the book may or may not pick up a large amount of useful information, but will certainly 
 find excellent entertainment and enjoy many a hearty laugh. Nor is the writer humourous 
 only ; he can be pithy, picturesque, and even eloquent upon occasion, Kis humour, however, 
 presumably Australian, but very much in the American manner, is his chief characteristic ; 
 and it is sometimes irresistible. As the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it may be as 
 well to give a taste of our traveller's quality in his capacity of writer, and the following 
 passage, descriptive of one among the many interesting sights he saw in Ceylon, will 
 serve the purpose : — ' Korace Vernet's Rebecca goes by with her chatty on her head, 
 in which to fetch water from the well, as the like of her did thousands of years ago, and 
 will do for thousands to come. Such prophesying is quite proper in this Eastern part of 
 the world. She looks a grand girl, this Rebecca, and her polished brass chatty is as a golden 
 crown to her stately form and proudly carried head. Her large, flashing eyes return my gaze 
 and squelch me, similarly as the eyes of Sir Simon Simple affected Mould ; " He knows the 
 Latin Grammar and French, and 1 can't stand his hej'e 1 " I felt that this woman, or one of 
 her counterpart great-grandmothers, knew the Eastern world in all its grandeur, and all the 
 great men and glories of the wonderful olden time — knew the East before it had gone to sleep, 
 and so let the white men of the Western world emerge from their yet uncleared forests and 
 •swamps to have their feverish day and to die as other nations have done — while this enduring 
 East of unalterable fashions sleeps for its time. She glanced towards me as I sat by the road- 
 side, as an oak of centuries old might regard the fungi about its feet. " Forty centuries 
 looked down " upon me more effectively from her eyes than they did from the pyramids upon 
 Buonaparte." There may be something strange and incorrect about a picture in which a 
 Cingalese woman is made the modern representative of the ancient Rebecca ; but there are 
 sufficient points of resemblance in the Eastern tj'pe of beauty and the Eastern fashions. The 
 passage, in any case, is a fair example of the author's mixed style, in which liveliness, with a 
 touch of humour, is tempered by an evident inclination towards serious reflection. _ In the 
 same manner he deals with the more or less wonderful persons and things he fell in with 
 during his travels in continental India, in Egypt, in Palestine and Syria. A more pleasant 
 book, a more readable book, on the whole, combining a great deal of amusement with a fair 
 amount, one would say, of useful information, is not often published." 
 
 Saturday Review, February 7th, 1880. — " Selections from some lively descriptive articles 
 furnished to the Melbourne Argus, during a grand tour of the Globe, fill the pages of this 
 pleasant volume. The writer is a quick observer of details, a tolerable humourist, and 
 master of a crisp and nimble style. He does not go too far in affecting an innocent and self- 
 depreciatory kind of egotism, which is amusing. As a companion for fire-side visits to the 
 distant places he treats of he does very well. He surveys many exotic varieties of human 
 
X PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 life in a spirit free from censorious bigotry, though he has great spite against the Dutch for 
 their way of dealing with their colonial possessions. To his fancy the ideal, pre-historic 
 civilization of the Eastern Asiatic Islands was a charming one, which the intrusion ot 
 European greediness and sordid dulness has dispelled. He is in general inclined to be rather 
 sceptical of the presumed advantages even of our own social life and institutions when com- 
 pared with the cheaper and simpler comforts of the alert and cheerful Japanese. But this 
 we may pardon in an Anglo-Australian journalist going back from Osaca to Melbourne, 
 having bidden a long farewell to London and Paris." [Two columns and a half of criticism 
 as highly favourable as the foregoing, concludes thus] " Mr. Kingston contrives to be 
 generally entertaining." 
 
 The Athencsutn, January 24th, 1880. — "Our author has acted wisely in discarding 
 references to previous books, and in deciding to trust to his own impressions. His work may 
 not be more instructive in consequence, but, as he has considerable powers of observation, 
 aescription, and humour, it possesses a certain amount of originality. On the favourite 
 Australian dream — the annexation of New Guinea — Mr. Hingston remarks that if that island 
 were worth anything, the Dutch would have taken the whole, instead of only the corner of it, 
 which for a long time has been in their possession, and found to be valueless." 
 
 Daily Ne7tis. — "The articles thus collected and produced as 'The Australian Abroad' 
 have been published in serial form as the letters of a traveller over the world. They are 
 quaintly original, facile in style, showing novel powers of observation. They have all the 
 originality of the Mark Twain writings, with additions which are desirable and omissions of 
 what is otherwise." 
 
 The British Mall. — "The author's mode of dealing with the various experience.-, he 
 encounters is excellent. The book ('The Australian Abroad') is a model of what a well told 
 narrative of travel and adventure should be. The illustrations have been selected entirely 
 with a view to making the text clearly understood, and not, as too frequently the case, to 
 make an attractive show. We cannot speak too favourably of the volume as calculated to 
 afford pleasure to the reader." 
 
 The Home News, February 13th, 1880. (First Notice). — "A keen observer, Mr. 
 Hingston, tells us, in delightful language, his adventures in following one of the most pleasant 
 journeys in the world. Crisp, fresh, and racy, he reminds of .Mark Twain, and yet shows 
 the sober earnestness of the genuine Anglo-Saxon. Following his steps we can promise the 
 traveller an enjoyable tour, and to those who can indulge it only in imagination, we can say 
 do so by getting the book and devoting a few hours to the perusal of this charming volume, 
 The woodcuts alone are enjoyable, and the book altogether well put together." 
 
 Sporting, and Dramatic Netvs, September i8th, 1880. — " Mr. Hingston dealing with all 
 lands has something fresh to tell us of all. He is not one of those holiday pilgrims who relate 
 their experiences in volumes of diluted guide books, nor is he of the wild adventurous school 
 who cannot get through a page without e pistol shot, or other sensational adventure. He is 
 a traveller in earnest, wanting to know, and telling well exactly what the reader wants to 
 know, and .sparing no trouble to get and to give the information. His style is graphic and 
 vigorous, with many touches of humour, and there is an all pervading common sense in all 
 his views, which argues well for his reliability. He rises with his subject, and when speaking 
 of Eastern scenery, he shows a force and picturesqueness worthy of his theme." 
 
 Home News, November loth, r88o. (Noticing Second Series.) — " Mr. Hingston, the author 
 of ' The Australian Abroad ' (Sampson Low), is well known as a fluent writer, and keen 
 observer of men and things. The 'second series' of his interesting work, which has just 
 seen the light of day, treats of Ceylon, India, and Egypt, and, it should have been added, 
 Palestine. On these .subjects books numerous, good, bad, and indifferent, have been written. 
 But if it is not easy to find anything new to say, the task, difficulty notwithstanding, Mr. 
 Hingston readily accomplishes. His method is a good method. He has taken no guide-book 
 as his instructor, but has trusted to his own powers of observation. The result is that we 
 have here a record of the impressions made on the mind of the traveller and man of the world. 
 Those who have been fortunate enough to visit the places described will find in his work much 
 to supplement and confirm the information they have acquired. Others, the less fortunate 
 majority, can from this pleasant, honest narrative of travel, form a fair notion of these distant 
 countries and peoples. Mr. Hingston writes with a considerable insight into the humourous 
 side of every day affairs. In some respects his descriptions will call to mind those of I\Iark 
 Twain. And if he lacks that quaintness of style which the American writer has made 
 peculiarly his own, it may be said that, on the other hand, he displays an innate veneration 
 for things sacred, the absence of which makes 'The Innocents Abroad' more than distasteful 
 to the cultivated mind. The account of Galle, Colombo, and Kandy, which opens the book, 
 is singularly good of its kind : but the author outshines himself when he comes to describe the 
 visit to and ascent of the Pyramids, the journey to the Dead Sea, and the bathing in the 
 Jordan. These are the salient features of a book which is characteristically illustrated, 
 and instructive and interesting throughout, and can for these qualities be honestly commended.' 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. r'^^^ 
 
 Introductory ' 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Tycoon's Town ^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Japanese Sphinx ^3 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Mikado's City 20 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 An Eastern Venice 26 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Life with the Japs 3^ 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Inland Sea of Japan 40 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 A LAST Look at Japan 4^ 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Three Days at Shanghai 52 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Chinese Ports . 5^ 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 A Look at Canton (No. i) 65 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A Look at Canton (No. 2) 7° 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 In China 75 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 In Cochin China 81 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Singapore and the Straits 86 
 
 JAVA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 In Netherlands India . . . . " 92 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Sundanese Capital . 97 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE. 
 
 BUITENZORG AND THE HiLLS IO4 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Sandanglaya to Samarang (Sunda-Java) 109 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Solo and Jockio (Java) 114 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Javanese Upas 120 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 The Boer Buddha Temple 126 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Samarang to Sourabaya 131 
 
 AUSTRALIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 Sourabaya to Somerset (Torres Straits) .... 137 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 New South Wales : Sydney 146 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 New South Wales: The Blue Mountains .... 150 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 South Australia : Adelaide 154 
 
 NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 New Zealand : West Coasting and Landing .... 158 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 Eastward Ho ! on Wheels 163 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 Close Quarters with Royalty 166 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 The "Square" City — and People 171 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 The Maori-land Bird— The Moa 176 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 The Maories "at Home" — to Dinner i79 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 East Coasting, and Coaching 188 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 North and South Contrasts (Auckland— Dunedin) . . 192 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 Cook's Straits— "The Middle Passage" i95 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 Picton and the "French Pass" i99 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 The Maori Family — "in Town" 202 
 
CONTENTS. Xlli 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. page. 
 
 In the richest of all Gold-Mines— The Caledonian . . 210 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 The "Silver Thames" — with Golden Banks .... 214 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 The Water-King's Head-quarters 217 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 The Pakeha's Progress 220 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 The Maori's Decline 224 
 
 cp:ylon. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 Galle and Wakhwella 230 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 Colombo and Kandy 236 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 Peradinia and Pusillawa ........ 242 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 Newera Eliya to Dondera 248 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 At Madras 254 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 On the Hooghly 260 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 In Calcutta 265 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 The "Holy City" of India 271 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 The Palace City of India 278 
 
 ' CHAPTER LIII. 
 India's Mohammedan Capital 285 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 The Tomb City of Hindoostan 291 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 The White Wonder of India 298 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 Hindoostan's "City of God" 305 
 
 CHAPTER- LVII. 
 With the Thugs . , 312 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 India's Cave-Temples . . . . . . . . -317 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 India's Metropolis 323 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. page. 
 
 At Apollo Bunder 330 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 'TwiXT Africa and Arabia 337 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 In Lower Egypt 343 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 The Khedive's City 35° 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 Old-World Wonders 357 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 Up the Nile by Rail 3^4 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 An Awakened City 37^ 
 
 PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIL 
 Land of the Cross and Curse 37^ 
 
 CHAPTER LXVni. 
 In Steps of Crusaders 3^6 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 Camped on Mount Zion 394 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 The City of Shrines 4^3 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 On Jordan's Hard Road 412 
 
 CHAPTER LXXII. 
 By the Dead Sea Shore 421 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIIL 
 Strange Holy Land Life 429 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 On Mount Carmel 437 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV. 
 Nazareth and the Nazarenes • 444 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 The Pearl of the East 452 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 The Oldest of Cities 459 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVIII. 
 Across the Lebanon 468 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 At a Syrian Sea-port 47^ 
 
 CPIAPTER LXXX. 
 Westward Ho ! 482 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Boer Buddha Temple ...... Frofitispiece. 
 
 Japanese Waggoners ......... 2 
 
 The Jinrickishaw .......... 3 
 
 Ascent to Heights (eighty-six steps) o^ Tokio ..... 7 
 
 A Japanese Temple .......... 10 
 
 Fusiyama ........... 14 
 
 Dai Butsa ........... 15 
 
 Ehmidji Castle .......... 17 
 
 Japanese Street 19 
 
 Temple at Kioto 25 
 
 Japanese Wrestlers 29 
 
 Female Musicians (Japan) . 32 
 
 Japanese Lady ........... 35 
 
 Ladies' Outdoor Dress ......... 36 
 
 Domestic Life (Japan) yj 
 
 Japanese Almanac .......... 46 
 
 Two Sides of a Merchant's Card ........ 51 
 
 A Chinese Tea House . 56 
 
 Amoy Harbour .......... 58 
 
 Chinese Women at Home 63 
 
 Chinese Palanquin .......... 66 
 
 A Chinese House .......... 67 
 
 Macao from the Bay ......... 76 
 
 Javanese Carriage-chair 98 
 
 Javanese Musical Instruments ........ 99 
 
 Weaving the '"Batuck" ......... loi 
 
 At Prambanan . . . . . . . . . . 117 
 
 Emperor's Residence (Soerakajarta) . . . . . . . 119 
 
 Native Musicians (Java) . . . . . . . . . 121 
 
 The "Gamelong" ......... 122 
 
 The Hotel Verandah (Sourabaya) . . . . . . . 133 
 
 Port Darwin ........... 137 
 
 An Aboriginal .......... 138 
 
 A Native King . . . . . . . . . . 139 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 A Native Queen 
 
 Native Mia-mia 
 
 Waterfall, Otira Gorge (New Zealanc 
 
 A Maori Lady 
 
 A Queen 
 
 A Magnate 
 
 Very Ordinary 
 
 Still More Ordinary 
 
 Maori Dress (Male) 
 
 Maori Dress (Female) 
 
 Artistic Tattooing (i) 
 
 Artistic Tattooing (2) 
 
 Maori Women . 
 
 An Attempt at Music 
 
 Road from Colombo to Kandy 
 
 Ruins of Anaradhapura (Ceylon 
 
 Interior of Palace, Delhi . 
 
 An Indian Tomb-Palace, A;:^ra 
 
 Cave Temple of Ajanta 
 
 The Banyan Tree 
 
 Cloth-Vendors . 
 
 Sphinx and Pyramid 
 
 Valley of Jehoshaphat 
 
 Siloam at the foot of Olivet 
 
 Bethany .... 
 
 A Jew's Store, Jerusalem 
 
 Lepers outside the City Gates 
 
 Bethlehem 
 
 Jordan's Hard Road 
 
 The Baptismal Place, Jordan 
 
 A Bedouin 
 
 Rock-cut Monastery of Mar Sab; 
 
 Bedouin Camp 
 
 A Syrian Carpenter . 
 
 A Provender Carrier 
 
 Syrian Women 
 
BRANCHES FROM THE MAIN ROUTES 
 ROUND THE WORLD, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The wharf at San Francisco has, I find, steamers of largest size leaving 
 monthly for Japan. They He alongside those leaving the same wharf monthly 
 for Australia. An Australian has thus the choice of returning to his adopted 
 country by way of Honolulu and Fiji, or by way of Japan and Singapore, at 
 which last-named port he can monthly meet with the Torres Straits mail. 
 There can be little question which route offers the greater attraction to the 
 traveller. Japan is a country but sixteen years opened to the world. There 
 are now three European settlements upon its shores. From all parts of 
 Europe settlers have gone thither. Scarcely an Australian but can remember 
 some one from some part of Australasia who has made Japan a home. To 
 see how they are all doing there, and the wonders of the newly-opened 
 country, are attractions that outweigh many other considerations. Life should 
 not be all business, any more than all beer and skittles. Pope tells us that it 
 " can little more supply, but just to look about us and to die." The world has 
 accredited him with wisdom, knowledge of life and of human nature beyond 
 that of most men. His opinions, therefore, carry weight. I went accordingly 
 to •' look about" in Japan, and have to tell something of what can be seen 
 there. 
 
 The " City of Tokio." a steamship of the large size of 5500 tons register, 
 made a pleasant passage of twenty-one days. On the voyage, the 15th of 
 December was dropped out of the calendar, so that I never saw that birthday 
 of mine. The coloured steward of our vessel was a sort of Uncle Tom in his 
 opinions. He did not see, he said, how man could interfere with Providence, 
 and take a day out of the week of seven days that the Creator had given us. 
 It reminded me that, when the calendar was reformed in our grandfather's 
 days, a party in Great Britain clamoured against it on religious grounds, 
 resolving to adhere to the "old style," and wanting back " the days taken 
 from them" by Act of Parliament. 
 
 Yokohama is our landing-place — a pleasant-looking stone-built seaport, 
 with very clean and macadamized streets. The three of them that lie parallel 
 with the sea beach make up the white settlement. Behind those is a busy 
 settlement of Japanese, a native town of 40,000 or so, that have come down 
 from Yeddo, twenty miles distant, to live upon the white settlers, who had 
 come thither to live upon them. These whites are not now more than 2000 
 in number at Yokahama. Looking at the fact that the town is only sixteen 
 
2 TJu Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 years old — that not a building stood upon the low, flat-lying spot in i860 — it 
 is really a surprising place to the stranger, and looks at least three times its 
 age. On the " BluftV to the left of the settlement, are the villa residences of 
 the Europeans — comfortable places, surrounded with gardens, and, but that 
 they are all bamboo -fenced, very like the villas of South Yarra. 
 
 Commodore Perry came here in i860, with the compliments of President 
 Fillmore, and a gunboat. He presented a respectful letter to the Tycoon, 
 and, for himself, added that he would take back only a courteous answer. 
 The port must be opened to American traders, or the refusal taken as a 
 declaration of war. The officials told him to go away down to Nagasaki, 
 where the Dutch had a settlement, on the island of Decima ; but the com- 
 modore pointed to his guns, and dropped his anchor. That resolute behaviour 
 had its effect. The Tycoon granted him permission to land at Yokohama, 
 and make a settlement there, but to come no nearer to Yeddo — the London of 
 Japan. Other countries followed suit, and got similar permission, and thus 
 was the shut-up Japan, the Great Britain of the East, opened to the world. 
 The miserable Dutch had, for two hundred years, had a trading settlement at 
 Decima, and submitted there to every possible indignity for the sake of the 
 dollars made by the small trade that the Japanese permitted them to do. 
 Left to Dutch enterprise, Japan would have continued as closed to the world 
 as the neighbouring Corea still is. 
 
 
 
 JAPANESE WAGGONERS 
 
 Fortunes are no longer made cjuickly in the white settlements of Japan. A 
 steady jog-trot trade is now done, similar to what might be done at any of the 
 New Zealand ports. The Japanese manufactures have been hitherto works of 
 art in metal, porcelain, cottons, and silk. These have been exported largely, 
 and the demand has now decreased. The bronzes, vases, and curious porce- 
 lain wares have l)ecome not the curious and expensive things that they once 
 were, and no longer pay the profits they did. The mines of Japan have not 
 been found profitable up to the present. Japan is five-sixths liills and moun- 
 tains. Sheep and cows are almost unknown in it. The hill-sides are cultivated 
 
The Japanese. ^ 
 
 but little. Round the base of a few are to be seen the graded rice-fields, 
 with which the land abounds. Rice and fish are the staple of Japanese food. 
 In fish everything is eaten, the shark and octopus included. The latter, which 
 is the great curiosity of British aquariums, is a common article in Japanese fish- 
 markets. The drink of the country is a weak tea, taken without milk or 
 sugar, and drunk throughout the twenty-four hours. Fires are of charcoal 
 only, and made in square boxes lined with metal. Chopsticks are used instead 
 of knives and forks. After the first day I bought a spoon, and used that, 
 failing to make any progress in taking up rice curries with two penholders. 
 
 The Japanese are a small race. The men are rarely over 5ft. 4in.,and the 
 women usually under 5ft. They are the most polite, cheerful, and pleasant of 
 people. It is easily accounted for. They eat the most easily digested of all 
 food, and drink nought but that which cheers but not inebriates. They are 
 strong people in the way of endurance, of which I saw notable instances. If a 
 Victorian were to tell me that he could run forty miles — say, from Melbourne 
 
 THE JINRICKISHAW. 
 
 to Kyneton — at six miles an hour, stopping but three times, for a short half- 
 hour each time, on the way, I should think that he romanced, and that he 
 altogether over-estimated human powers if he told me that he could also drag 
 me after him in a light haiisom. Yet the Japanese do that all through Japan. 
 They have no horses. The palanquin was the mode of conveyance until the 
 Japanese saw an American buggy, and the way of making light wheels and 
 springs. Seven years ago this ingenious people made the jinrickishaw (man- 
 power carriage), which is a cross between a perambulator and a small hansom. 
 One man could, between the shafts of this conveyance, do the work that two 
 had done hitherto with the palanquin. This new pull -man-car is now the 
 national vehicle of Japan, I went forty miles with ease in one day in one of 
 these, and the same conveyancers brought me back forty miles the next day.. 
 
4 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 In these long journeys two men will go. one as an emergency man, to occa- 
 sionally take a turn in the shafts, and up-hill pull at a rope in tandem fashion. 
 At first it looks objectionable to be dragged about by one's fellow-beings in 
 place of horses. The traveller, however, gets used to everything in time, and 
 comes to look upon whatever is as being right. Our prejudices and predi- 
 lections are all accidents of birth. Our thoughts, beliefs, and tastes are of 
 education. 
 
 Travelling in Japan would be all the pleasanter if one knew the language. 
 The little Japanese guide would be a philosopher and friend as well, if he 
 could. His knowledge of English is very limited, but he speaks it better than 
 the Chinese, and does not invent new words that belong to neither language, 
 as the Chinaman does in his " pigeon English." Living in Japan is very cheap 
 indeed, and so is locomotion. For the forty miles' journey I was only charged 
 los. a day, and the bills of the tea-houses on the road came to a mere nothing. 
 The tobacco-smoking of Japan is as mild a thing as the eating and drinking. 
 It is the weakest of all tobacco to begin with. The pipe-ljowl is less than a 
 child's thimble in size. Three whifts exhaust its contents, and that is enough 
 smoking for three hours for a Japanese. His liver being always in good order, 
 his ideas are so likewise. His religion is, like his eating and drinking and 
 smoking, a mild and cheerful thing. He stops at a temple and washes his 
 hands at a small tank in front. He then ascends the steps, prostrates himself 
 for four minutes, mutters a formula of prayer, and advances to a wooden trough 
 in front of the image of his deity. Into this trough he drops two or three 
 coins of a value that go 200 to an English shilling. That done, he pulls a rope 
 that rings a bell, and calls the attention of the gods to his donation. The 
 service is now ended. The lavation, the prostration, and the donation have 
 taken six minutes only. He goes away light-hearted and happy. No 
 Scotchman who has stood or sat through a sermon of an hour long could be 
 happier. He that " keeps the keys of all the creeds" can alone say what form of 
 worship, of all the thousand forms extant, is the right one. I will not judge 
 that I may not be judged. 
 
 Yeddo, now called Tokio, is a fine, busy, bustling city, with goodly-sized 
 streets, and not the narrow chinks that disfigure the cities of the Chinese. The 
 number of the inhabitants has been much over-estimated — -especially by Lord 
 Elgin. It is nothing like three millions. I doubt if it approaches more than 
 half that number, and the secretary to the resident British Minister, who had 
 best means of knowing, shared my doubts. The city, being mostly of 
 wooden houses, of one or two storeys, is very liable to fires. One that 
 occurred there on New Year's Day of the present year destroyed some thou- 
 sands of buildings. It was, however, thought nothing of. Other parts of the 
 city showed signs of similar disasters. New wood-built houses are rapidly 
 raised to replace the burnt ones. Here and there, on the scenes of these fires, 
 stand up two-storey buildings that appear as if built of polished black slate. 
 In these buildings, which are fire-proof, the neighbours store their valuables. 
 They are, I was told, built of clay, coated with a cement that takes a polish. 
 After a fire these buildings stand about — dozens in number — among the 
 surrounding blackened stumps of the burnt houses, and have a curious 
 appearance, like to a concourse of funereal mutes scattered over a large 
 graveyard. 
 
 The Japanee is the cleanest of mankind. Cleanliness is, so to speak, more 
 than godliness with him. Though he has no soap, he washes all over at least 
 once a day. He worships but once a week. His candles are made of vegetable 
 Avax. He uses a cotton coverlid, well stuffed and padded, for bed-covering 
 and mattress. A sort of stereoscope case — made of wood — makes his pillow. 
 He resorts to that, and so do his wife and daughters, that their carefully 
 
Japanese Habits. 5 
 
 arranged hair may not be disarranged during sleep. No head-covering is worn 
 by the Japanese. No nation dresses the hair so tastefully. Usually it is with 
 the men shaved in sections. They are coming now to wear it in European 
 fashion. They are adopting all European customs. On Icvce day I saw the 
 reception at the Mikado's palace in Yeddo. Every one presented had to come 
 in European full dress. That dress does not become the Japanese figure. He 
 looks awkward in it. His legs are too short. The tails of his claw-hammer 
 coat drag on the ground, and the black dress trousers wrinkle up and get baggy 
 around his feet. His European-fashioned clothes have been sent out ready 
 made from America or England, and in no case did I notice anything; 
 approaching to a good tit. Yet he smiled and looked happy, though he could 
 not get his heels halfway down his Wellington boots, and his hat was either too 
 large or too small for his head. He always smiles and looks pleasant. Nothing 
 can make him grumble, and he has not learnt to swear. He is satisfied to be 
 paid his due, and never asks for more. As a London cabman he would be the 
 very man that London wants. 
 
 Railways, gas, schools, telegraphs, barracks, and military drilling, directed 
 by Europeans, are spreading throughout Japan. A Melbourne man, who had 
 been a " super" at the Theatre Royal, was, I found, tutor at an up-country 
 school at 200/. a year. He intended to stay in the country. Educated 
 Englishmen are thus utilized by the Japs. Japan is opening all its cities and 
 ports to the world generally. It was for some time doubttul about opening- 
 Yeddo, but that being done, everything followed. The Mikado was brought 
 down from his sacred city of Kioto and set up in Yeddo, in place of the 
 Tycoon, who was then and for ever abolished. Kioto is now open to the 
 visitor. The way thither is by steamer to Kobe, a thirty hours' journey. Here 
 a second Yokohama is seen, with a native settlement called Hiogo in its rear. 
 A good line of rail takes one in an hour to Osaca — a Japanese Venice of many 
 hundred bridges, and the most commercial city in Japan. Some of these 
 bridges — I was told they numbered 848 — are of stone and iron, and well built, 
 but the majority are of w ood, and some of very curious build. Osaca is more 
 surprising to the visitor than is Yeddo, Another hour's railway ride, and I am 
 in Kioto. To get thither a passport from the British Consul was necessary. 
 For what reason is not so very apparent, except that one is getting into the 
 heart of the country, and is supposed to want more looking after than when 
 on the seaboard. No traveller now requires any guard beyond his guide. He 
 is welcomed everywhere with smiles and politeness. There is nothing to spend 
 much money upon. The theatres and shows are like to what one supposes 
 them to have been in Britain 500 years ago, in the time of the tournaments 
 and the hawkings, and the jesters and the Joyous Life, before avarice had 
 eaten into the heart of the world, and made money-making the end, aim, and 
 object of existence. Avarice has not got hold of the Japanese as yet. He is 
 careless about money, so long as his daily wants are supplied. Frugal, 
 temperate, and happy, he takes little thought for to-morrow, and none for the 
 day after. Any overplus he may have he spends in some exhilarating amusement. 
 Of that Japan shows plenty. Jugglers are at the street corners, open-ai-r 
 dramas are performing in the market-places, and the Eastern story-teller sits 
 under his umbrella and tells his tales, wherever an open space will afford him 
 room to gather his laughing audience. I wished I could understand the farces 
 I saw thus acted, and the stories I heard fold. They must have been good. 
 That was evident from the interest they created. I subscribed when the dish 
 came round in place of the hat, for the novelty of the sight was worth paying 
 the two-hundredth part of a shilling for. A shilling goes a long way in Japan, 
 but one has to get one's guide to carry the coin. Five shillings' worth of 
 copper "cash" would seriously impede one's progress. 
 
6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 From Kobe I take steamer and pass down the inland sea for another thirty 
 hours' journey to Nagasaki — the third of the white seaboard settlements in 
 Japan. It has more seaport characteristics than either Kobe or Yokohama, 
 and is more of a resort for shipping in want of ship stores and repairs. For 
 the latter purpose it has a graving-dock and other ship-repairing conveniences. 
 Here is the little Decima, the wretched island on which the Dutch settlement 
 stood, as dirty a hole as one can see anywhere. The beauty of the inland sea 
 is something surprising. It is like to Sydney harbour, stretched out for a thirty 
 hours' steam-boat journey. I don't think that any description could convey a 
 better impression of its beauty than those few words. The white settlers at 
 Nagasaki are less in number than those at Kobe or Yokohama, and more in a 
 ship-chandlery and boat-building way. It has not that appearance of cleanli- 
 ness and respectability which characterizes the two other white settlements. 
 Its surrounding scenery is, however, far superior. In a land-locked basin, 
 surrounded by tree-covered hills, and goodly Japanese temples and well-built 
 houses, it forms a striking picture to the traveller's eyes, and well repays a 
 visit — as indeed does every place in Japan. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE tycoon's town. 
 
 Of the characteristics of the pleasant Japanese land, the first is the Tycoon's 
 town — the London of Japan. This Jeddo, or Yeddo, is now called Tokio, 
 " the Eastern capital." It is a town of many hundred thousand inhabitants. 
 There is no certainty as to how many, but the number is very large. Its 
 streets have the great blessing of good width, fine length, and well-kept 
 roadways. There is not much to speak of in the way of side- walks, but all is 
 smooth and clean. 
 
 The working King of the Japanese, called the Tycoon, made this city his 
 residence until late years, when the idle and mysterious other sovereign left his 
 seclusion at Kioto, and came down to Yeddo to change its name, to govern in 
 person, and henceforth do the Tycoon's work. The Tycoon thereupon quietly 
 retired into private life, which he still adorns. The feudal lords of Japan, 
 called Daimios, were then deprived of their territories, and made pensioners on 
 the state. Their pensions are generally reduced every year. They bear the 
 reduction as quietly as if they were Victorian civil servants. There are 
 exceptions to all rules, and a recalcitrant Daimio stood out and fought for his 
 own land, causing some little trouble for the time. Generally, however, all 
 the many wondrous revolutions made and making in Japan are quietly effected. 
 Folks are all pleasant and complaisant there- — born philosophers, who seem to 
 think that all institutions must change, or end, some time or other, and that 
 there is nothing in this world much worth fretting or fighting about. They 
 have a way of keeping their heads cool— by wearing no covering — that 
 perhaps goes a long way in helping to an easy mind. The head is also well 
 washed daily, and its top tastefully laid out by a barber, who has the skill of 
 a flower-bed gardener. The bodies of the general run of Japanese are covered 
 with a blue blouse, tied with a sash around the waist. Of all things in the 
 world they wear mostly blue serge tights for the rest of their dress, and blue 
 
Tokio. 
 
 7 
 
 cloth shoes with thick paper soles to them. Arrayed in this attire the happy 
 Japanee looks like to a Christmas pantomime sprite, with a mixture of l)lue 
 and white hieroglyphics and heraldry stamped upon his back. 
 
 Wandering about Tokio, looking at its scenes, I came upon the tombs of the 
 Tycoons. They are situated at Shiba, the enclosed grounds of several small 
 temples. Here was something different in the way of tombs to what I had 
 seen in other Eastern lands. Large l^ronze vases here stood upon blocks of 
 granite under wooden canopies. From the little English I could get out of the 
 Japanese boy who was with me, I could not ascertain whether it was the vase 
 or the stone beneath it that enclosed the remains of the deceased. The effect 
 was very good. Nothing gaudy, but something solid and appropriate seemed 
 these tombs of the Tycoons. In their graves, as in their dwellings, the 
 Japanese do not make any useless display. The palaces and castles of Jaj)an 
 are substantial but very unpretentious places. Very different are they in that 
 respect to those of other Eastern nations. In Hindoostan the splendour of the 
 palaces is mostly equalled by that of the tomb. Near to these tombs of the 
 Tycoons was a small temple, in which I found three of the sweetest sounding 
 bells that were ever made. The bells of Shandon, in the church of St. Mary, 
 at Cork, were still in my remembrance for their pleasant sound when I heard 
 these at Shiba, which were certainly the sweeter. 
 
 ASCENT TO HP:IGHTS (EIGHTY-SIX STEPS) 
 
 Atago Yama is a sort of hill in Tokio froni which a splendid view of the 
 •whole city can be obtained. To get to it I had to mount one hundred very 
 steep steps of a foot and a half high each. They were of roughly-hewn 
 granite, and from their width and steepness reminded one unpleasantly of 
 getting up the Pyramid of Cheops. From the tea-house on the top of this 
 mount all Tokio can be seen. It is not a fine sight. The city stands on a 
 dead flat. The houses are all roofed with dark-coloured tiles, and are of 
 similar design, and destitute of chimneys. It all looks too flat and plain, and 
 wanting in variety. A church steeple, or a few hundred of them, or bulbous 
 domes of mosques, or graceful minarets or turrets, would have been a real 
 
8 2Vie Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 relief to one's eyes. The temples have all plain-ridged roofs, are low in height,, 
 and squat-looking things seen from any eminence. The vastness of Tokio 
 could be well seen from this position, but the eye failed in singling out objects 
 that would arrest attention. For a variation from the tasteless tea, I took at 
 the tea-house on this mount some "sakura-ya." It is a drink made of salted 
 cherry-blossoms steeped in hot water — a mild Japanese drink, no doubt, and 
 quite an acquired taste ; one, too, that seemed likely to take some time to 
 acquire. 
 
 The River Simoda is the Thames of Tokio, and I was told runs up, in 
 navigable size, twenty miles from the sea. From that bridge all distances are 
 measured in and about the city, as they used to be in London " from where 
 Hicks's Hall formerly stood." A good idea of the size of the teeming city 
 could thus be obtained. To the north a line could be drawn three miles 
 through streets and houses, and to the south for five miles. To the east 
 a line could be extended six miles, and for four miles to the west. A 
 goodly city, measuring nine miles by eight, but a bad one for a stranger 
 to be lost in. My Japanese boy (Kampadgi) was so like every other 
 Japanese boy, that on stopping to look at the wares on the different 
 shop-boards I could not always again recognise him amongst the crowd 
 that soon surrounded me. I had a mob around me whenever I stopjDed. 
 They never tired of looking at the hairy face, the stove-pipe hat, and the 
 European clothes. I feared several times that I had lost Kampadgi, and if I 
 had I might have probably wandered in Tokio to this day. To avoid that 
 trouble we handcuffed ourselves together by the wrist, and I adopted that plan 
 henceforth. Any one who has ever been lost in a strange city, where no one 
 could be made to understand a word one says, will appreciate my foresight. I 
 got lost in Jerusalem once, and wandered, with another Englishman, for two 
 hours and more, vainly asking the way to Joppa Gate. When I looked at the 
 size of Jerusalem and its form on the map, it seemed quite impossible that any 
 one could be lost for so long in it, but the fact nevertheless remained. The 
 name, in Syrian, that I should have said for "Joppa Gate" was something 
 that took nearly half a day to learn. When seen on paper, no clue was 
 afforded to the sound when spoken. The Frenchman reads "Ironmonger- 
 lane," only as "Ereenmongjeelarney." He fails to make Londoners under- 
 stand that when asking for the place. 
 
 In looking into a larger-sized building than usual, in a street leading out of 
 the great road called "Ginza," I observed this pleasant inscription : — 
 
 NOTIS. 
 
 No Chits. 
 
 One 
 
 Drink 
 
 IS 
 
 Cents. 
 Here was English at last. I found that something similar was spoken by 
 several of the inmates, and concluded to stay there while I was in Tokio. The 
 "no chits" I found meant "No I O U's taken" — a sort of Eastern polite way 
 of saying "No trust." 
 
 My first evening at this new lodging was disturbed by a large fire that broke 
 out in a distant part of the city. It disturbed dinner very much to see the 
 flames reddening the sky more and more, every five minutes. My host had a 
 vein of humour in him, and was quite inanimate about fires. He had seen too 
 many of them. I need be in no hurry to go, he said ; if I waited long enough 
 the fire would possibly come to me ; very probably too, if the wind changed 
 towards our quarter. Five or six thousand houses were nothing in one Tokio 
 fire's consumption. 
 
A Great Fire. 9 
 
 After "chow," as Japanee calls his meals, I took a jinrickishaw, or pull- 
 man-car, and went to the great fire. To avoid the trouble of taking Kam- 
 padgi, and looking after him in his separate vehicle — a pull-man only com- 
 fortably holds one — I entrusted myself to the guidance of the centaur, only 
 getting Kampadgi to inform him that I was bound for the fire and back again. 
 It was aljout three miles or so distant, and the crowd gathered thicker as I 
 neared the place. It got soon unpleasantly thick. Half the jinrickishaws in 
 Tokio appeared to l)e going to Asakusa, where the fire was. It was soon 
 dangerous travelling in so thick a crowd. It was also unpleasant to meet every 
 now and then a dead man carried on the shoulders of men coming from the 
 fire. On all sides, and back and front, I was shut in by thousands upon 
 thousands of men, women, and vehicles. The vehicles often collided. Mine 
 was wheel-locked twice, which perhaps saved it from being thrown on one side 
 altogether. At last the shafts and front bar of a vehicle running behind mine 
 came through the back of it, and pitched me violently forward on to the back 
 of my man in the shafts. 
 
 We both rolled on the ground. The lantern that he carried — as all these 
 men do at night — in his hands at once caught fire on its paper sides, and we 
 had hastily to rise to avoid catching fire also from the flaming oiled paper. 
 Merry Japanee only laughed at the disaster. He took another lantern from 
 beneath the seat I had sat upon, lighted the candle, and resumed his trot. I 
 wished very shortly that I had not gone to this fire : but, having got into it, I 
 was, like to Macbeth, "stepped in so far that returning were as tedious 
 as go o'er." 
 
 The crowd of vehicles increased, and some ran with reckless haste, 
 drawn by two men in tandem fashion. In that case, the foremost man ran 
 six feet or more in advance of his fellow in the shafts, and pulled by a rope 
 or a strap over one shoulder and across the back under the other. Such a 
 waste of power in drawing so far off" from the load showed great ignorance 
 on Japanee's part. He ran well for all that, and shouted as he ran. This 
 shouting added new terrors to one's troubles. It was a strange shout in 
 an unknown tongue, and therefore bewildering. More dead men now went 
 by on stretchers. Strangely-attired men, whom I afterwards learnt were 
 firemen, came rushing by, having on their heads that unheard-of thing 
 in Japan, a head-dress. They dragged a small machine, about the size 
 and appearance of a washing-tub, on wheels, with a churn in it. That 
 was the Japanese fire-engine. It was only calculated to extinguish the 
 fire in a dog-kennel or some dwelling of similar size. Bamboo-made 
 ladders followed in plenty. The flames now became apparent, and soon 
 our progress on wheels came to a deadlock. My centaur took his car 
 into a tea-house, and I handcuffed him carefully to my wrist, to his great 
 amusement, and went forth to thread street after street filled with crowds all 
 looking aflame with the glare from the great fire, which reddened also the 
 water running in the gutters. 
 
 This fire at Tokio, on New Year's night, consumed 6000 wooden houses. 
 I found that it extended over streets and cross streets for more than a mile 
 onwards in a straight line. The earth was strewn everywhere with smoking 
 and smouldering wood ashes, reddened now and again into a glow as the wind 
 came their way. The fireproof stores or go-downs stood out in bold black 
 relief over the frightful scene, and looked like to giant monsters standing 
 sentry in the fiery, infernal regions. The smoke was unbearable to the eyes, 
 making them smart and water in a way that stopped all progress through the 
 streets of this fire quarter. Away on everj^ hand it looked a wilderness of 
 flame and smoke and burning logs — a painful sight to look at, and equally so 
 to think of. Now to get away from it. 
 
lo The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 The tea-house had to be found at which our carriage had been put up, and 
 then tea was of course served to both self and centaur, and paid for with a few 
 cents. The stuff was warm and wet, and that was all that could be said of it. 
 It was the only thing that was to be had thereabout. My centaur again put 
 himself in the shafts, and started homewards. Our road was lighted by the 
 glimmer of thousands of hand lanterns that showed like to large glow-worms. 
 It was worse returning than in going. In that going journey my vehicle was 
 ■on the same way as all the others — going with the tide. Now it was going 
 half with and half against it, and centaur had often to pull up very short and 
 make sharp turns that nearly upset him, to avoid collisions. At last, in some 
 soft spot, he slipped up and fell flat on his back, and as the shafts dropped I 
 pitched forward full length on to him and his prostrate lantern. 
 
 We were again all on fire, or nearly so, and had to burn our hands, and my 
 handkerchief, to extinguish the blazing paper of the lantern. This lantern was 
 of value now, as being our last one. The other had been burnt on the down- 
 ward journey. My stove-pipe hat was crushed in on the side, and presented a 
 stranger sight than it did before to the mob of laughing Japanese around, but 
 the centaur only laughed at our troubles, as he did before. The Japanese 
 laugh at everything. He again got between the shafts, and by midnight, or 
 after, I got back to No Chits' house, and to shelter. I don't think that I 
 shall go to another fire in Japan. 
 
 A JAPANESE TEMPLE 
 
 The timber trade ought to flourish in this land. The frequent fires must 
 promote that industry. Where wood is not used, the walls are built of stones 
 that are cut so as to lean inwardly and gravitate towards each other. No 
 mortar seems to be used in the walls of Japanese buildings. 
 
 The kites that nearly every fifth old man or boy seems to be flying are of 
 square shape, and have two tails. Another and live kite that is seen in 
 plenty is a dark-brown bird that hovers over all the cities of Japan, and has 
 eaten up all the sparrows, if there were ever any al)out. 
 
 The Tori-i, a stone gateway-like erection in front of every temple, is a 
 feature of the streets of Japanese towns that one soon comes to take notice of. 
 
Ne7v Year's Day. ii 
 
 The word translated means 'bird rest," and is a distinctive feature of 
 Japanese temples — no resemblance to which had I seen in any other Eastern 
 land. The Great Temple of Asakusa, that was formerly one of the sights of 
 Yeddo, is no longer to be seen there. It was a Buddhist temple, and the 
 Sintoo religion having become the one encouraged by the Government, it was 
 sought to turn many of the temples of Buddhism, and that of Asakusa 
 amongst them, into the worship of Sintoo, " the religion of the gods,'' Let it 
 be recorded to the honour of the priests of Asakusa, that they would 
 not submit to such a desecration. They burnt down their temple — the 
 finest in the city — and, as martyrs, they afterwards forfeited their lives for 
 the act. 
 
 " Saiyoken" is, I find, the proper name of the house I am staying at. It is 
 a very comfortable place — for Tokio. In addition to the notice in English to 
 w^hich I have referred, the Japanese proprietor makes other attempts at 
 propitiating the foreigner. Stoves are placed in the bed-rooms instead of the 
 pans of charcoal. As, however, the stoves have no chimneys to them, they 
 are as bad as the open charcoal boxes, or worse. Although it is very cold, I 
 bundle my stove outside the door of a night before going to bed. The door is 
 of course represented hj a sliding sash panel in the window-frame. I might 
 awake alive in the morning without taking this trouble overnight, but it 
 looked to much like an attempt at a French suicide to sleep with a stove of 
 lighted charcoal in a closed -up room twelve feet square. I was told that it 
 never caused any inconvenience to the Japanese, and that they often took a 
 pot of charcoal to bed with them and placed it between their feet, in warming- 
 pan fashion, and so slept. The top rim of the pot would keep the coverlid 
 from touching the burning charcoal at the bottom, but such a sleeper must 
 needs never turn or kick about. 
 
 There is, perhaps, plenty of coal in Japan, if proper means were taken to 
 find it. The everlasting hills that one sees all around wherever one goes have 
 surely something in them ! The sterility of their exterior warrants that sup- 
 position. The Japanese, however, fall back entirely on charcoal for their fuel. 
 Pots of it stand about everywhere. In my bed-room is the novelty of a 
 polished steel mirror in a blackwood case, raised at the sides to save the 
 surface from scratches. It has a handle bound round w ith strips of bamboo. 
 A wooden stand is made to hold it, in which is a niched half-circle. This 
 mirror is quite as good a refiector as the best of silvered glass. I could fancy 
 myself an ancient Roman as I handle it, but for the queer Japanese letters at 
 the back of it. As these articles are very cheap, I invest in half a dozen 
 small ones for presents in distant lands. 
 
 The trees that meet one's eyes everywhere that I have gone are pines and 
 firs, that seem to be taken great care of. There are a few cocoa-nut palms 
 also to be seen, and l)aml)oos abound everywhere, as do cherry-trees in the 
 orchards. 
 
 It is the day after New Year's Day, and a general holiday in Tokio. The 
 lattice-work is put up on the shop-fronts. Such answers the purpose of 
 shutters here. New clothing appears on the backs of everybody. The 
 Japanese flag, a white ground with a red ball in the centre, is flying every- 
 w^here. Boys and old men are sending up kites in hundreds. Girls are out 
 side every second house playing at shuttlecock. Every one seems happy and 
 contented. There are no signs of poverty or misery about, and no beggary. 
 The sun is shining, and the sky is blue, and the air clear. As I get w^arm 
 with walking, I begin to feel that it is a good thing to be alive and well. 
 Were I able to express to Kampadgi what I want, I think I would buy a kite, 
 and try the sensation of flying it, as I did ever so many years back, when 
 happy as a Japanee 
 
1 2 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 Crowds in market-places and at street corners soon attract one's attention. 
 Here, under a canopy, rapping a baton now and then, and gesticulating like a. 
 Frenchman, sits a cross-legged real Oriental story-teller on a raised bench, 
 telling some thrilling tale, and enchaining the attention of between lOO and 
 200 folks who understood his language. In another place I find a similar' 
 crowd witnessing open-air theatricals by a company of strolling players. It is 
 some farce that is performing, and three of the drajnatis personam are all that 
 are upon the ground at the time. It must be very amusing, from the merri- 
 ment it excites ; as far as the pantomime is concerned, I can see that it is well 
 done, and wish that I could understand more of it. The only thing that mars- 
 the appearance of the merry faces all around are the blackened teeth and 
 shaved eyebrows of the married women. When they smile they are quite 
 repulsive. In Victor Hugo's Les Miserable^, the reader's horror is excited by 
 Cosette's mother selling her two front teeth to a dentist for bread, and leaving 
 an ugly dark hole in the front of her mouth. A double row of blackest teeth 
 is, however, a more disgusting sight. The love of the Japanese wife for her 
 husband must be something great to make her so sacrifice her comeliness, for 
 the disfigurement is done to please him. How many of the women of the 
 western world could be induced to commit such a sacrifice ? to so put an end 
 to all hope of flirting henceforward ? 
 
 Further on I came upon a juggler, who has been, all unassisted by tables, 
 assistants, or apparatus, amusing an immense crowd. To make himself look 
 very distinguished, he had got on some cast-oft European clothes that by no- 
 means fit him. The trousers are a foot or more too long for his short legs, 
 and much too tight around the waist. He has burst them in several places, 
 but seems quite unconcerned about that. The coat, also, is too long in the 
 sleeves, which are turned up nearly to the elbows. He has a bell-topper hat 
 on, and appears to hail my appearance in a similar one as that of a brother, as 
 he makes some allusion to me that causes a roar of laughter. Before I recover- 
 from the attention so suddenly brought upon me, he comes up and musters all 
 his English to say, " Give me money." He would, I know, being a Japanee, 
 be more polite if he knew other form of words. That the performances may 
 proceed I comply with his request, and see him go on with his wonders. He 
 appears to be able to do anything and everything in the way of sleight of 
 hand, and has a world of ready pattering talk, like to a British Cheap Jack, by 
 which he keeps his large audience in good humour, and gets showers of 
 coppers thrown to him. By an allusion that he makes when he comes to me 
 again for a contribution, I perceive that he takes me for an American. I lose 
 some faith in his powers being supernatural after that mistake, and go away to- 
 something else. 
 
 This time it is to some acrobats who have erected an open-air gymnasium, 
 and have covered up the back with rush matting. Here are long bamboos at 
 work balanced on the chests of those who carry them, with boys thirty feet up 
 in the air performing all kinds of break-neck things at the other end of the 
 stick. Occasionally the boy would leave the bamboo and take a rest on a. 
 trapeze which was made to oscillate with him, while he clung to it with his- 
 feet — with one foot — with the back of his heels or his chin. He could no 
 doubt have hung on by his eyebrows, but I did not witness that. 
 
 Down below, top-spinning was going on, and the drawing out of a bale of 
 cloth from the interior of a small box. Then followed the ground tumbling 
 and the elevation of a boy on the top of some twenty half-barrels, supported 
 on the soles of the feet of a performer who lay upon his back. When the 
 half-barrels, piled up one after another, reached a great height, they were 
 kicked away from beneath the boy, who stood on the topmost one, and he thea 
 alighted, quite naturally and easily, on the soles of the feet of his fellow-performer. 
 
Jugglers and Acrobats. 1 3 : 
 
 All these performances were to be seen for nothing. Contributions were quite 
 voluntary, and were plentifully made. 
 
 To see something that one had to pay for, I went into a sort of hall, at 
 which twopence, or its equivalent, was charged for admission. A gong was 
 beating at the door. The check handed to me in return for the money was 
 made of wood, and was about the size of a bootjack. Some hieroglyphics 
 were inscribed on it. Had there been a chance of carrying such a thing in 
 one's bag, I would have kept the check as a curio, and cleared out the front 
 way, and missed the performance. But the curio was too big. vSuch a check 
 as that was worth twopence to handle. I gave mine to Kampadgi to carry 
 along with his own. vSuch checks for a whole family would have needed a 
 handbarrow. The hall had no seats. I forgot that Japanese houses have no 
 chairs or stools. I stood with the rest. The curtain. had gone up, and a 
 Japanese gentleman, in squatting attitude, was making an oration from the 
 stage. It was impressive but not intelligible. A lady performer then came on 
 who made a top walk across an open fan, and did other wonders, followed up 
 by elongating her neck some ten feet, and looking down upon us in a swan-like 
 manner from that elevation. Her hands remained in her lap as before, and she 
 now looked down upon them as they proceeded to keep half-a-dozen little balls 
 in motion at once. It was a very short but a novel and entertaining performance 
 for 2d. With another speech from the orator we were bowed out, and the 
 gong sounded for the entrance of a fresh batch of visitors. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE JAPANESE SPHINX. 
 
 FusiYAMA, or Fusinayama, the volcanic mountain of Japan, is to be seen from 
 everywhere about Yokohama and Tokio. It is in winter (as I see it) covered 
 with snow, rearing its graceful conical shape in midday sunshine and in the 
 glow of evening sunset, with frosted silver casing and crown. With the 
 exception of Mount Egmont, on the Northern Island of New Zealand, a more 
 perfectly-shaped mountain it would be difficult to meet with. Its foot can be 
 reached from Yokohama or Yeddo in an easy day's journey. The ascent and 
 descent is usually divided by a night's rest on the mountain. The height of it 
 I could not find any two folks to agree about. It was variously stated as being 
 from 8000 to 12,000 feet. To ascend it in the winter time was an impossibility. 
 To avoid seeing it was also impossible. It came next to the sun and moon in 
 that respect. 
 
 The traveller soon understands why this majestic mountain has so entered 
 into the Japanese mind. In this part of the land the volcano is always in full 
 view. At sunset it receives the last gilding rays of the setting luminary. 
 Twice I saw it resplendent with this gilded glory. Rays of light seemed 
 aurora like, to shoot out from its crown. No wonder, then, that the Japanese 
 make it their characteristic eml:)lem on their lacquerware, in their drawings, 
 paintings, and printings, their inlaid work, their vases of bronze and porcelain, 
 and in their figured silks. The mountain of Fusiyama is to the traveller in this 
 part of Japan similarly impressive. He calls attention to its varied aspects 
 from his fellow-traveller. It is the first thing that is looked at in the early 
 morning, and it claims the last look from one in the starlit l)rightness of the 
 night 
 
14 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Next to Fusiyama, the great sight of Japan is one of the works of man — of 
 many hundreds of men. It is a great work of metalHc art, perhaps the greatest 
 of such works. Very appropriate is it, therefore, in a land that is famous for 
 such labours. It is a gigantic bronze-built Japanese sphinx-like figure, much 
 larger than what is now to be seen of the Egyptian one. This sitting figure of 
 Buddha has its place away in loneliness among the hills, twenty-three miles- 
 from Tokio. Its name is " Dai Butsa," which in common talk is pronounced 
 as " Dieboots." It is one of those sights that the traveller is forbidden to 
 leave unseen. It is the greatest of the metallic curios that Japan has to offer 
 for one's admiration, and it was for actual sacrilegious sale a few years back. 
 All through the East I had seen figures of the calm, contemplative Buddha in 
 all the temples, but here was one of fifty feet high to l:)e seen — an antique too, 
 and seated in a wilderness away from temples, and as if dropped there from 
 the clouds in the ancient days when Vulcan and the Cyclops might have worked 
 at the making of it. It is possible, on looking at it, to believe that they did 
 so. 
 
 FUSIYAMA. 
 
 The snow covered the ground, and the day looked very unpromising, but 
 those who regard the clouds will miss seeing much on their travels. I 
 found a companion who would join me in the cold journey, though he at first 
 spurned the idea. A good example was, however, too much for him, so he 
 kicked off his slipj^ers and went for his overcoats. It was certainly nippingly 
 cold in the open jinrickishaws. The snow soon again began to fall, and a 
 biting wind blew it in our faces and into our perambulators. I quite envied 
 the man in the shafts, who by running could keep himself warm, as could also 
 the one who ran in tandem fashion in front of him. The snow had to be 
 cleared out of the vehicles every hour of the six long ones that the journey 
 down occupied. At those times I took exercise Ijy running behind the 
 vehicle for a spell when it again started. The snow, however, froze 
 as it fell, and made walking and running very slippery work to one 
 
Dai Butsa. 
 
 15 
 
 who had not walked on snow but once lately, at Kansas city, for 
 a quarter of a century. The chance of getting snowed up altogether 
 seemed imminent. The beauty of the country round about would have 
 been most attractive in fine weather. As it was, one's face had to be 
 covered up from snow and cold wind, and I wished Dieboots at the deuce 
 before our journey was over, so wretchedly cold and desolated did I feel, and 
 perhaps deserved it, running after strange gods as I was doing. The tedious 
 journey came to an end at last. Surrounded by hills that greatly dwarf its 
 tall appearance, we found the solitary Buddha sitting — sphinx-like — in the 
 wild scene. A temple appears to have covered this majestic statue at one 
 time, but only bits of the foundations are now left. The grand figure is of fine 
 bronze, and is about fifty-six feet high. Its appearance altogether fascinates 
 the spectator. The sweet, placid expression, the downcast eyes, the look of 
 deep thought, or rather serene contemplation, that appears on the face of this 
 figure, are things that bid you regard it, make you continue to gaze at it, and 
 come back again and again to look at it, until you finally unwillingly leave it^ 
 
 i^^: 
 
 DAI DUTSA. 
 
 The sight was voted between us as being a full recompense for the journey we 
 had taken, unpleasant though that had been. The face of this figure measures 
 ten feet from chin to forehead. It is thirty feet in width across the shoulders. 
 The head is covered with knots or knobs of metal of the size of large apples to- 
 
1 6 The Main Ro2ites Roimd the World. 
 
 represent curls. The fine materials of which the metal is made seem to 
 ensure it from decay. It looks quite untouched by time, and as durable as the 
 hills that surround it. All the statues of Buddha that I had hitherto seen in 
 those strongholds of Buddhism, Ceylon and India, were as nothing compared 
 to this one. This really looked like something to be worshipped. It com- 
 manded admiration from the alien. There was something awe-inspiring in its 
 gigantic size. In its look were peace, contemplation, and eternal rest — 
 the great majesty of repose. As our centaurs knelt before it and bowed their 
 heads to the earth, we thought that they had quite sufficient cause for doing 
 so. Had the figure stood in a building, every one would naturally uncover 
 before it. It enforces respect, and has altogether a veritable "Presence" — 
 distinctly to be felt. 
 
 A mile or more from this statue of Buddha stands a temple, wood -built, 
 dedicated to Kuanon, the Goddess of Mercy. It enshrines a gigantic 
 full-length figure of the goddess, forty feet in height, and richly gilt. 
 The miserable small temple is not one-fifth large enough to show this fine 
 statue to advantage. Standing against its walls, one has even to bend the 
 head far back to get a full view of it. The walls are not anywhere ten feet 
 from the statue. Insufficient light is admitted also. The figure appears to 
 be holding something like to a crown and sceptre in its hands. From what little 
 could be seen of it in its dimly-lighted prison, I thought that it deserved a far 
 finer dwelling. It would be the greatest sight in Tokio were it to be removed 
 thither. Speaking of removals, I heard on every hand that it had been 
 proposed by the Japanese Government, instigated by the Sintoo priests, to sell 
 the great statue of Dai Butsa for its weight as old metal. It seemed 
 incredible that such vandalism could have been thought of, but it is under- 
 standable when one learns that the Sintoo religion is the present ruling one in 
 Japan. Its priests, therefore, desire to insult Buddhism to the utmost, and 
 counselled the sale of its grandest idol. Threepence per pound was the price 
 asked. No buyer was found to offer more than i^d. — an enterprising 
 American offered that — so that no sale was effected. The figure has been 
 made in many castings, and could be taken down and reunited. The interior 
 can be explored by a staircase, from which I learnt its construction. As fine 
 bronze alone, no doubt largely mixed with silver, it was well worth the price 
 asked. I wonder if the Khedive will ever offer the sphinx for sale at so much 
 per pound ? He wants money, and is parting with an obelisk to America 
 just now. 
 
 The physical endurance of the Japanese was well shown in this journey and 
 another long one that I had, though the latter was not in the snow. The journey 
 had been a good one on such a day, even for a strong horse and buggy. The 
 two little Japanese fellows had got through with it apparently easy, and came 
 in quite light-hearted. All the refreshment they had taken on the journey was 
 a cup of tea at two wayside houses, and "chow," consisting of fish and rice, 
 at Kamakura. No two Europeans could have run for forty-six miles, 
 dragging a light hansom with list, of weight in it. Man is truly an adaptable 
 animal. I had never seen him more like an animal than when engaged in this 
 novel conveyancing business. The Japanese is, however, a born conveyancer. 
 For untold years his forefathers ran with the heavy palanquin, here called a 
 " Norimon," until some happy genius, seven years back only, invented the 
 jinrickishaw, in which the wheels take all the burden off his shoulders, and 
 leave only half of it on his hands. 
 
 Returning from Tokio to Yokohama, I take ship southwards for Hiogo, and 
 and at Kobe thirty hours afterwards. 
 
 These ports of Japan are all similar — a foreign settlement with a native 
 own at its back. Hiogo is the native town here, and Kobe the foreign one. 
 
Ehmidji. 
 
 17 
 
 It is, if possible, a cleaner, Ijrighter-looking settlement than Yokohama. Its 
 river-side, or "bund," as it is called here, is planted with trees and flanked 
 with grey stone buildings of two stories. The streets are wide and well paved. 
 Altogether, Kobe looks as bright as Bath when one sees Lansdowne-crescent 
 on a sunshiny day. But then Bath wants the fine bay of Kobe to complete 
 the comparison. 
 
 The voyages to all places on the Japanese coast are made pretty well in 
 sight of land. The hilly shores, dotted with small fishing-stations, are always 
 visible, and so are the boats. These "sampans" are engaged trading or 
 fishing, but mostly in fishing, at the little villages. The boats, with their 
 yellow sides and large sails, produce a pretty effect as seen from the deck of 
 the coasting vessels. In these little villages, half the people cultivate their rice 
 and grain at the foot of the hills, and the other half go fishing, and all are 
 happy, or seem so. The fish and rice together make the "chow," which is 
 the staff" of life to the Japanese. In some such way our ancestors lived before 
 we got vitiated and smoke-dried, mistook our ways in the world, and the 
 objects of life. 
 
 EHMIDJI CASTLE. 
 
 A good hotel at Kobe is kept by an English widow, 'who conducts it with 
 admirable attention to business and the comfort of her guests. With a guide 
 supplied by her hotel, I started on a visit to the great castle of the Prince of 
 Akashi, forty miles distant, at Elhmidji. 
 
 The Castle of Ehmidji is reached at the end of a long day's ride, much of 
 which is along the sea-shore. Its white sides can be seen upon the plain 
 against a dark background of hills many miles before it is reached. It was 
 night when I got there. The novelty occurred on this journey, and near to 
 the city of Ehmidji, of crossing a river otherwise than by a bridge. Bridges 
 
1 8 TJie Main Routes Round the JVorld. 
 
 are the specialties of Japan. They seem to grow over the rivers naturally, so 
 numerous are they. The river in this case had resisted embankment, and 
 spread about all over the place, like to the rivers of New Zealand. After 
 crossing the well-washed stones, that indicated a river's bed, for some distance, 
 I came upon the water, now making another course for itself, and had there to 
 be ferried across. It was the only instance of a ferry I met with in Japan. 
 
 In the morning I left the tea-house, in which I had formed the usual l)ed by 
 spreading a padded quilt on the floor and heaping two others above it, and 
 took my way through the town. It was a large place this town, and had 
 grown up around three sides of the walls of the great castle. One street of it 
 ran directly down to the sea in a straight line, a distance of fully eight miles. 
 The streets were all wide and clean, and the place looked prosperous and com- 
 fortable — quite Japan-like. 
 
 I came now in view of the castle walls, surrounded by a wide moat, in 
 which grew the lotus, covering the water with its now dead leaves. At the 
 castle gate I was stopped by the outcoming of fifteen separate bands of soldiers 
 for morning exercise in the neighbouring parade-ground. It was so cold 
 standing about, and they filed out so slowly, that I wished I had stayed for 
 breakfast l:)efore coming. When I essayed to go in, I was stopped by the 
 sentry. My native boy was here useful, and so was my passport. It had to be 
 taken in first and overhauled, and then I was fetched in and introduced to 
 the potentate of the place, who appointed a body-guard for me, and passed me 
 on. If any one will take the buildings seen on the willow-pattern plate, and 
 multiply them to the height of 200ft. l)y putting walls beneath them for the 
 first 40ft., and then putting the buildings one on top of another, decreasing in 
 size as they go upwards, a good idea of the Castle of Ehmidji will be obtained. 
 The timbers of the castle are stout and strong, but very roughly finished. The 
 doors are covered with sheet iron. Rude staircases mount from floor to floor. 
 I counted about a dozen flights of stairs, and then lost count. No attempt at 
 finish or fine work was anywhere to be seen. The place was as plain as a 
 barrack, and nearly as rough as a barn. Its lord and master, who had given 
 up the revenues of Ehmidji, and now lived in Tokio on a pension, did not 
 evidently care for luxuries, at least not in the way of a residence. 
 
 The view from the summit of the Castle of Ehmidji was a sight worth seeing. 
 On that fine, clear morning, everything was visible for miles around. The 
 view over Ehmidji from that castle, like to the view over Tokio, was not 
 befogged in any way by coal smoke. Let that much be said in favour of the 
 use of the wretched pots of charcoal. From that castle-top I might, ten years 
 or less ago, have, with i^ermission of the Prince of Akashi, looked upon a 
 feudal scene such as I might have looked upon in England hundreds of years 
 ago. Round this large castle had grown up the great town. Within the castle 
 walls I was shown the foundations of the houses in which had dwelt the hundreds 
 of armed men, " Saumarai," who were the body-guard of their lord and 
 Daimio. They had gone now, their houses had followed them, and the great 
 castle was a Government barrack. The prince was a pensioner, but what had 
 become of his vast body of two-sworded fighting-men I could not learn. 
 Providing for this large number of disbanded semi-soldiers has been one of the 
 troubles of the Government. They are of too advanced an age to learn to run 
 about with the perambulators, and they know nothing of agriculture or fishing. 
 Somewhere perhaps among the soldiery that I had seen defile out at the gate. 
 It was really a novel and goodly sight all around on that morning, and kept 
 me on the castle-top much longer than I thought to be there. Shut in by hills 
 on nearly its three sides, the whole town beneath, and the country right away 
 to the sea in front, seemed to lie at one's feet, as it had for centuries done at 
 ;the feet of the owner of this lordly place. 
 
Akashi. 
 
 19 
 
 On the way back to Kobe, I passed through the village of Akashi — a small 
 place, in which is situated another castle of the same great prince, now deserted 
 and going to ruin. The part of it that had been used for residence is now 
 occupied as a local school-house. The schoolmaster's I^nglish tutor had no doubt 
 written the following notice. It appears on a board just within the castle 
 gate: — "Notice: — All hountings are prohibits in the limite, hyoyoken," It 
 is meant to warn off sportsmen. 
 
 Inside this castle gate of Akashi, and at the back of it, I found steps leading 
 to a room over the gate. Here were two big drums and an immense bronze 
 bell of excellent sound. The sticks lay near that had, in times gone by, beaten 
 a call to arms on these drums and this bell. My native boy ran to prevent my 
 striking either, in fear, I suppose, that I might alarm the little township. 
 Inside the inner moat I found most of the buildings pulled down, and the rest 
 going to ruin — a melancholy sight altogether this deserted Castle of Akashi. 
 One of the Saumarai was here pointed out to me. On the back of his blue 
 blouse was a white stamp about the size of a five-shilling piece. On the back 
 of the lower orders are hieroglyphics the size of a fr}-ing-pan. Were the 
 blouses of a whitish colour, the wearers would look, on the rear-view, like 
 to prisoners from some gaol bearing the Government brands on their backs. 
 The Japanese had run with the vehicle these two days eighty miles — two men 
 to each — and they did not seem fatigued in any way. I had heard before of 
 men outrunning horses, and now saw proof of it. 
 
 JAPANESE STREET. 
 
 Temples are the sights to which foreigners usually pay most attention in 
 Japan. They are, however, but second-rate compared to those of India, and 
 about on a par with the Buddhist temples of Ceylon. The bell is, however, a 
 speciality in these Japanese temples, as is also the money-box. The first is 
 shaped like to a Pope's hat, and the latter is an oblong trough, railed over, and 
 with slanting shelving within, that the amount of the " collection " may not be 
 seen from the outside. The worshipper washes his hands in water from a 
 neighbouring stone tank, and wipes them upon a blue cotton cloth suspended 
 near to the tank. He then drinks water from the same tank in a wooden 
 
20 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 scoop, and, having thus washed his mouth and hands, he mounts the steps of 
 the temple, pulls the rope of the bell to call the attention of his deity, and then 
 throws his money-oftering into the trough. After that he kneels, clasps his 
 hands, and mutters a formula of prayer, for about a minute only. His worship 
 then seems to be over for the week. The Eastern world is generally fanatically 
 religious, but the Japanee is French in his politeness and in his religious 
 feelings. The female Japanee does not seem either to be more devout than 
 the male. The European custom of observing the seventh day is gradually 
 being introduced in Japan, together with the European system of almanacs 
 and time-keeping. Hitherto the Japanee has stolen a march on the Western 
 world by observing as a holiday one day out of six, instead of one out of seven 
 only. Perhaps to that is to be credited his greater jollity as a nation, and his 
 happiness as an individual. 
 
 The smooth roadways and the light-running jinrickishaws with their unshod 
 drawers, avoid much of the clatter, rumble, and roar that offends the ear in 
 London, New York, and other cities. In the latter city it is difficult to hear 
 conversation in the steeets. Tokio is a busy city indeed, with many thousands 
 — it is said fifty — of these little hansoms running about, but it is not a noisy 
 one. The Japanee is a quiet and low-voiced man. His laugh is full of fun, 
 but not boisterous. There is no smacking of whips heard, nor any calls to 
 horses. Nobody is run over and killed. No "bolts" occur in which a 
 frightened horse is seen dashing through a crowded street with a rocking 
 vehicle and its screaming occupant behind. No collisions occur, and no 
 breakdowns. A mild cry from one centaur warns another on which side he is 
 about to pass, and there are no blocks in the crowded streets, no stoppages, 
 and no swearing of car-drivers, omnil:)US, and cabmen. That vehicles should 
 be drawn by men between the shafts is not a pleasing sight to a European, but 
 it obviates many troubles that occur in the use of horses, and one never has to- 
 fear that one's steed may be vicious or badly broken to harness. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE mikado's city. 
 
 I WANTED a guide at Hiogo who would accompany me for a week or more on 
 an up-country journey to Kioto, the formerly reserved city of the mysterious 
 Mikado. This place is some seventy miles from the coast. A passport is 
 imperatively necessary to those who visit it. I was advised to apply at the 
 post-office for a guide, which I did, and saw one there who was introduced as 
 an English scholar. Next day I was waited upon by a young Japanee, who 
 handed me the following note :— " Sir, I have the honor to send you the barer 
 as gide. Cannot say mugh for his Englis, but he as knowledg of the plas you 
 go too, and is best I find at present thoug not number one. — Yours, &c., J. N. 
 January, 1877." In the Japanese idea of English, everything good is called 
 "number one." It was the opinion of my friend, it will be seen, that the 
 gentleman sent to me did not classify as such. My hostess of the Hiogo Hotel, 
 a blooming widow, took all the interviewing business out of one's hands, and 
 interrogated Minerva — for such was the nearest apjiroach I could make to my 
 guide's name — in this style: — 
 
My Has f ess. 21 
 
 *' You been long in Kobe and Hiogo, and where?" 
 
 *' Been six years ; most with Nicolas and Jawl^reaker." 
 
 *' You been to Kioto with pigeons?" 
 
 *' Many time ; last time two year." 
 
 " How long you take to show this pigeon Kioto ? " 
 
 "Three days. I go everywhere that time." 
 
 " Where will you sleep him ? " 
 
 " At naughty Maria's ! " — so it sounded. 
 
 " No, you take him to Marianna's, Mind that ! " 
 
 I thought of Tennyson's Moated Grange at this last name, and did not like 
 the associations that such recollection and these feminine-sounding names called 
 up. My lady resumed: — 
 
 "You take him to buy things and you not squeeze him — no commission now! 
 This pigeon is cousin of mine," which I was certainly not, nor anything like a 
 pigeon either. 
 
 " All right. I do as you say." 
 
 "How many days you take to show pigeon Osaca? You know Osaca, 
 boy ? " 
 
 " No ; I know all about it. I take three days go everywhere." 
 
 "^Yhere you sleep him at Osaca?" 
 
 "I go to Judie's, up town." More feminine-sounding names. 
 
 " No! You go to Judie's on Concession — mind that! And now, I see every- 
 thing this pigeon buy ; and mind, if you let him be squeezed, I take care that 
 you never take another one away from here. If you do well, I get you plenty 
 others. Boys are always wanted from this hotel," 
 
 "No; I do well." Minerva frequently said "no" when he should have 
 said " yes," but many of us also do that. 
 
 " Now, boy, what he pay you ? " 
 
 " One dollar a day and chow." 
 
 "Yes — likely! Now you shan't go. A dollar a day and chow indeed! 
 Nicolas and Jawbreaker never gave you that for a week." 
 
 " I was told to ask a dollar a day and chow! " 
 
 "Well, I tell you to ask half a dollar a day and your chow. If you don't 
 take that, I send one of my boys, and you can come here and work in his place 
 at that rate! " 
 
 " No! I go! " And so the bargain was concluded. 
 
 I could understand now how Lady Hester Stanhope had, all alone in the 
 East, established her great authority over the native Syrians. There is 
 something sublime in female nature when it developes itself in the form of 
 bounce ! My hostess had dwelt for fifteen years among the Eastern people, 
 and had learnt to sulxlue them with that powerful mind and tongue of hers 
 in a way that I could only wonder at. All the Japanese that I saw her deal 
 with quailed before her. On my return from a visit to Ehmidji and its castle, 
 I had asked of my centaurs who had dragged me there and back what was to 
 pay to the four of them, and was told fifteen dollars, which seemed reasonable 
 enough for eighty miles' work for two days and two vehicles. My hostess, 
 however, stepped in between us. 
 
 " You shall pay nothing of the sort. Did you pay for their chow ?" 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes, I paid for their meals all the way along, and for their lodging, if it 
 was charged for. I paid four dollars." 
 
 " They squeezed you, then ! — it did not come to that. They must be paid 
 a dollar a day only. That's what I pay a day when I travel." 
 
 Now, my fair hostess of forty was buxom to boot, and very much heavier 
 than myself. It looked a species of cruelty to animals, not to say men, to 
 
22 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 ask them to take 4s. a day for running forty miles between the shafts with such 
 a load as herself behind them. 
 
 I said then that I would take a middle course, and give half what was 
 asked, and double what my hostess spoke of. 
 
 "You shall do nothing of the kind. You will spoil the market for others. 
 I will settle with them, and charge to you." 
 
 "No, no; I shall pay them what I say. They have been good fellows, 
 and have earned their money well. It is about half what a horse and trap 
 would have cost elsewhere." 
 
 Thatwould not, however, satisfythis weighty and careful woman. Asshelooked 
 on at the folly I committed in paying a fair price, as things went, for the 
 hardest day's work men ever did, she said, " All right ! If I don't take two 
 days' ride out of those fellows for nothing, and so square it, I'm not a 
 woman." 
 
 She said that, too, in the presence of the men, who knew enough of her, 
 and of English, to understand what was in store for them. They were 
 Japanese, and therefore merely smiled. I wonder what an English — or, better 
 still, an Irish — cabman would have said on such a matter. Madame would have 
 then met her match. 
 
 All throughout the East — in Ceylon, India, Egypt, Syria, Japan, and 
 China — the natives are accustomed to such rough language and overbearing 
 treatment from the English as I have narrated in this little matter. Bounce, 
 bluster, and abuse all through. 
 
 I went with Minerva to Kioto, and entered that city, which up to two years 
 before had been as shut up and as sacred as Mecca or Medina. It was plain 
 to see that a European, or one in European costume, as I was, was still a 
 novelty in the place. I had a little following everywhere of those who were 
 attracted by my outlandish appearance. It was all innocent curiosity, how- 
 ever. Their native politeness shamed them for it. When the crowd darkened 
 the shop-boards, and I was forced to look up for light, not an eye would then 
 be looking at me. Oh dear, no ! The articles round about, or the appearance 
 of the sky or the sun, were all that these people were then looking at ! 
 
 Kioto was not in the best condition for a "visitor at that season. Its river — 
 the Kanagawa — was quite run dry. Its wide, stoney bed was being used for 
 bleaching purposes. To look at it from any of the bridges was very unsatisfactory 
 — too much like to a general washing-day appearance. The Mikado was 
 there upon a visit, however and holding a Icvec or reception, to which, as at 
 Tokio on New Year's Day, every official was going in the regulation European 
 dress suit and stove-pipe hat. It might have been the 5th of November, 
 looking at the Guyish appearance presented by the majority of these folks.. 
 Scarcely the hat, coat, or ]:)00ts of one of them fitted, or came near to a fit. 
 These clothes could scarcely have been made by any Western tailors, so 
 grotesquely were they fashioned. The hats were either too small or too large, 
 and were only balanced on the head in the first case, or padded up with paper 
 in the second. Nearly all of them had been crushed in some way, and their 
 rims were stuck up or bent down, or levelled all round in a stiff outstanding 
 circle — a fearful and wonderful sight in the way of hats. The coats were 
 mostly too long, and the tails trailed at the wearers' heels. In the cases in 
 which the coat was short, it mostly came up too high in the neck. The waist 
 was, in that case, somewhere between the shoulders, and bursting at the 
 seams. The trousers were never turned up at the feet when too long, but 
 worn in folds and ridges about the leg, from the knee downwards. When too 
 short, it was equally ridiculous to see the wearer's comical appearance, 
 especially when he could not get his heels down in his boots. That was very 
 often the case, and a trouble that the trouser legs, when too long, helped often 
 
A Levee 23 
 
 to conceal. Scarcely a pair of these leg coverings but what had burst some- 
 where before or behind. Nothing, however — not even misfitting boots — 
 troubles the serenity of a Japanese ! He smiled at me as I smiled at him; 
 and when he bowed, I could not but do the same in return, and wish that the 
 Mikado had ordered the clothes for these folks when he issued the order for 
 the wearing of them. It was reallya shame to put people so ready to please and be 
 pleased into such uncomfortable misfits as they had been, by necessity, forced 
 thus to wear. The Japanese figures, male and female, are not adapted for 
 showing European costumes to advantage, but that does not trouble them. 
 
 Plenty of time was given to study the appearance of the folks of Kioto on 
 that day. The police, which the Japanese have adopted in imitation of 
 European fashions, kept nearly all the crossings barred on the line of road 
 along which their Majesties were to pass. The Empress was to be there also, 
 but I could not hear the proper title of this feminine Mikado. I noticed that 
 those going about in Icvcc dress were allowed by the police to pass through the 
 barriers, so that I pinned up, with Minerva's help, the half part of the tails of 
 a frock coat, and then looked in regulation dress costume, and passed muster, 
 and so onwards. 
 
 Like to most [apanese cities, this up-country capital stands on a small plain 
 shut in hy adjacent hills. It looks almost imprisoned by the surrounding 
 heights. They give it a walled -in and oppressed appearance. Lying there 
 among the hills, all shut in, as it appears to be, it was the very city for the 
 dwelling of the mysterious Mikado — the hereditary King of Japan, who 
 reigned Init did not govern — whose kingly functions were exercised solely by 
 the working king, the Tycoon down at Veddo. The Mikado's palace here, 
 now untenanted, called Goshio, is an unpretending place compared with some 
 of the Daimois" castles. His semi-sacred character was, I suppose, sufficient 
 protection to him. Goshio would otherwise have stood but a very sorry 
 chance if built to resist an attack. 
 
 Minerva, away from my hostess's feminine influence, \\hich had oppressed 
 him down at Kobe, reasserted his right of judgment, and took me to 
 Nackamarya's house. It was, I found, a tea-house at the foot of the hill, and 
 had the blessing a out it of a boy who spoke a little English. The landlord 
 with the long name could only bow me a welcome. The boy brought me, 
 whilst waiting for a mid -day meal, the quaintest of guide-books among the 
 hundred or so that I had happened upon in my travels. This guide-book to 
 Kioto was by a Japanese who had got hold of a little English, and had also 
 got a little of wood engraving done to help it out. The price of the book 
 was a dollar, but had it been more, the price had not parted me from such a 
 gem as this queerest of guide-books I Each page is headed with a rough 
 woodcut, which occupies half of it. The balance of the page is funny letter- 
 press, in language the like of which is worth sampling. Take the page 
 headed " Biwa," the cut at the top of which is meant to represent a lake-side. 
 This pretty chapter is as follovv's (the only punctuation is in the long dashes 
 l)eLween some of the words, as copied) : — 
 
 " Biwa. 
 
 " Biwa, the lake in the east of Kioto, is a very nice lake with many fine views 
 
 all round The beauties of the lake are eight in number First the 
 
 strange fir-tree in Karasaki Second the view of the fliying down of wild 
 
 geese Third Awatsu Fourth the moon lighting night in autumn in 
 
 Ishiyama, and Fifth the evening in Sheta Sixth the boats sailing to 
 
 Yabashe. Seventh the snow mountain, Hira, evening sight. Eight If you 
 go to the Meditra you will see nearly all of them." 
 
24 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 The book and the city it iUustrates are well matched. It would be a shame 
 to publish any other guide-book to Kioto in place of it. I copy further from 
 it another chapter — the heading to which is a woodcut of an enormous 
 tree : — 
 
 " Karasaki. 
 
 " The fir-tree in Karasaki, as I said before, is one of the eight remarkable 
 
 things round the lake The tree is grown near the shore of the lake, and its 
 
 branches are spreading far over the water It is said that the tree is at least 
 
 two or three hundred years old. The rain dropping from branch to branch, 
 and at last in the water, makes a peticular sound." 
 
 The chapter on Sheta and Ishiyama is also as good as any. The woodcut 
 heading it represents a long wooden bridge : — 
 
 "Sheta and Ishiyama. 
 
 "The bridge Sheta which crosses the outlet of the lake is a most famous 
 
 and large one The sight of the evening is very pretty and many visit it 
 
 when the sun is set The finest scene is when the wind blows and the sun 
 
 shines The waves of this lake then look very pretty like silver The 
 
 temple Ishiyama stands on the hill near the outlet of the lake and the lower 
 
 part of it can be best looked over from here The place is visited in the 
 
 autumn by many people who pass a moonlight night. " 
 
 In Kioto I found a bird of the duck species, the drake of which is more 
 prettily feathered than any bird I have seen. It is difficult to believe that it 
 has feathers, so closely do they lie, and so fantastically are they cut and 
 shaped Iw nature, I thought at first that the bird had surely been covered 
 with fancifully cut paper, and then painted and lacquered up. This bird is 
 called the Oshee Tori as nearly as I could get to the sound. My inquiries for 
 a stufted one were numerous, but I failed to obtain it. It was swimming 
 about with its mean-looking and plain-feathered ducks in a pond at a small 
 menagerie. In the background of that place I came also upon a sad sight. 
 It was a young Australian kangaroo that had gone stone blind. The poor 
 thing was in bad condition, its bones being all too prominent. I fed it with 
 some cut turnips, and fondled it with that feeling which one Australian exile 
 must naturally feel for another. What misfortune had drifted the poor wretch 
 from the green plains of pleasant Australia to this out-of-the-way corner of the 
 world ? Why had its eyesight gone ? In the cold air of the winter weather 
 here among the bleak hills it was visibly shivering, equally with myself. It 
 stood up to take the cut turnips I offered, and held my hand with its little 
 hand-like fore-paws as if it would detain me. It was the only Australian that 
 I met with in that city of Kioto, and it is characteristic of travelling Austra- 
 lians to greet each other gleesomely. 
 
 The Mikado and his wife came at last — in a closed English l)rougham 
 drawn by two horses, and driven by a coachman dressed as he would be in an 
 English city. The Japanese might have thought it grand, but it looked to me 
 very shabby — this plain turn-out, with its coachman and two outriders in 
 European costume, where nearly everybody else was Orientally dressed. A 
 British consul might have made such a modest appearance on a special day, 
 but for the Mikado to visit his old stronghold in such style was very dis- 
 appointing — to me. The English do not travel to see English fashions repro- 
 duced in second-hand sort. 
 
 The temples of this Kioto divide honours with those at Nikko, in the north 
 of Japan. There is much of sameness alxnit them, and great want of height 
 
Japanese Cemeteries. 
 
 25 
 
 and impressiveness. In the eyes of the Japanese they are of course sul:)lime. 
 Near to one of them I came upon something more interesting — a large 
 cemetery, fenced in as an EngUsh one would be. 
 
 The cemeteries of Japan are very like those of Europe. Each grave has its 
 grave-stone. The stones have their inscriptions also cut into them. It would 
 look almost as if space was economised in a country where all available land is 
 cultivated, by reducing the length of these graves to about 4 ft. only. Of that 
 length only a flat stone is laid upon each grave. On the centre is then placed 
 upright a stone of 4 ft. high by i ft. side measurement. The thin head-stones 
 seen in English graveyards are not used here. Some of these graves are 
 fenced in with wooden palings, and by each of them stands a stone vase of 
 narrow form, in the mouth of which a sprig of some evergreen was always 
 
 TEMPLE AT KIOTO. 
 
 apparent. The appearance of these graves and their short coverings lead one 
 to the idea that the dead are interred in a sitting posture. To protect the 
 inscriptions from the weather, many of these little monuments had domed caps 
 to the top of the upright stone, from which the rain would drain off clear of 
 the writing beneath. This cemetery stood near to the KioDiesya Temple. 
 
 The Japanese doorways are made to suit folks of not more than 5 ft. 8 in., 
 and these not with stove-pipe hats on. I was continually getting mine 
 knocked oft" whilst in Japan. The Japanee is short. _ He wears no hat, and 
 shaves the crown of his liead, or jiarts of it. I wcnild have abandoned my 
 British hat in favour (jf the fashion of the country, had a headdress existed. 
 The blue rag, with hieroglyphics on it, which the lower orders wear on 
 holidays, does not look well with European costume. It wants the blue blouse 
 to match with it, and the brown Japanese face. 
 
 Some fine lacc|uer-work and some lovely thin egg-shell china were for sale at 
 Kioto. Had my luggage aftbrded room for it, I felt that I had purchasing 
 inclination to anv extent in the rich and rare things to Ije seen around one. It 
 
26 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 was quite the city for a man to come to with a wife of good taste — he having a. 
 good purse to back it. About a dozen well-filled packing-cases would be the 
 result ; one of them of large size, to hold the famous fire-screens that these 
 Japanese make, and which at Kioto are to be seen in best form. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Kioto I was shown the measured ground — about a 
 mile in extent — in which unfaithful wives are doomed to walk between a guard 
 of soldiers until they can walk no more — until the pricking of spears will no 
 longer goad them onwards or move them upwards \\hen they fall, there to lie 
 and die of hunger, thirst, and over-exertion — a sad sight to any single man. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AN EASTERN VENICE. 
 
 OsACA — lying midway between Kioto and the port of Hiogo — is a city of 
 bridges. They n-umber, it is said, 840. It is the Venice of Japan, and yet Venice 
 only in the way of water — not of gondolas. The pull-man car maintains its 
 supremacy. The traffic on the endless waters is restricted to merchandise. 
 
 Minerva — my boy guide — has a patriotic feeling, and takes me to that native 
 hotel (Judie's) which is situated in the city, and it is, I find, a large two-story 
 tea-house with a splendid water frontage. If I don't like it, I am to go to 
 that other Judie's, which is in the foreign settlement of Osaca, called the 
 Concession. It is a dark night, and I have to walk through unlighted streets 
 for two miles or more before I reach this tea-house. It is a cold and freezing 
 night too ; my upstairs room overlooks a river on one side, and a scjuare 
 courtyard, with leafless trees in it, on the other. I cannot get warmth from 
 the square box with the charcoal in it. The bedroom, with this box and 
 nothing else for its furniture, looks cold, and indeed feels so. I go to bed to 
 forget all about it, and am soon in the solace of sleep, for which the long walk 
 and the cold night well provided. 
 
 All is different when daylight comes, and the morning sun glamours and 
 gilds everything. The balcony overhanging the river affords fine views of wide 
 water. On an island to the right are some hospital buildings of neat ap]')earance. 
 River craft and coasting boats are passing on their way, propelled by hand 
 labour, or trusting to their queer-looking sails. I can see three bridges from 
 this position — two of wood and one of stone. The piers are substantial, but 
 the arches too narrow and numerous to suit English taste. Japanese boats, 
 however, make their way through all difficulties. They could otherwise never 
 get into or out of the crowded state in which they lie on some parts of these 
 Osaca rivers. To enable large vessels to get to their destinations, some of 
 these bridges have a swing or a turnstile on one of the central supports that 
 is easily opened and closed. 
 
 I hang about on some of these Osaca Ijridges with ceaseless gaze on the 
 scenes before, behind and around me. The rivers of Osaca, called the Cowa 
 and the Ajacowa, divide into many branches, forming forks and islands which 
 builders have been busy upon. No land is wasted in Jaj^an. The seas and 
 mountains, and the rivers take up so much s])ace that the Japanese have to be 
 economical with that little of level earth that is left to them. Economical they 
 are, and nurse and nourish and improve their patches of land as they do their 
 families. 
 
Osaca 2 7 
 
 From the bridge that crosses to the foreign quarter, " The Concession," some 
 good water views are to be had. The grand water view is, however, from the 
 great bridge called the " Tinsinbash," or some similarly sounding name. It 
 is the greatest bridge of the 840. From its sides, dividing streams are to be 
 seen either way. The great river here parts itself into two streams, each 
 seemingly little less large than itself. Each of these is spanned by many 
 bridges. The setting sun was on the waters when I looked upon the scene 
 from this bridge. I went again next day to see the same sight at high noon, 
 but found that the view of the previous evening, seen by the setting sun, had 
 been by far the finest one. Wide, clean waters, filled with craft of novel 
 form, are here to be seen flanked by the queer-looking water-side houses of 
 the Japanese merchants. The view that the traveller obtains at sunset at this 
 bridge of Tinsinbash is one that will be retained without effort, and recalled 
 always with pleasure. I stayed over next day to see its grandeur again. 
 
 I wander from this bridge towards the next one, that has midway for support 
 an island, or an artificially-made and stone-faced central earthwork. That is 
 planted with trees and shrubs, and has a picturesque appearance. A fine view 
 of the greater and undivided bridge of Tinsinbash is obtained from this one^ 
 which appears to be the most expensively-built of all the bridges of Osaca. 
 The ironworker has had his share in this bridge work. Several of those I saw 
 were of his construction. 
 
 From the bridges I pass on, with Minerva's help, to the Sinsidori — the 
 leading street of Osaca. To get thither T go through a highly respectable- 
 looking street, in which are some broad-faced buildings, with large open doors, 
 and nothing exhibited in front. I cannot understand from Minerva what these 
 places are. He endeavours to prevent my entering them. I must not go in, 
 he says. He has, however, said that so often at other interesting places, that 
 I immediately resolve on going in, and do so. The buildings prove to be 
 Japanese banks. The clerks are squatting on the floors, but a large outer 
 counter acts as a barrier between them and the customer. They bow a welcome 
 to me as I look about the place. Minerva must have been brought up to look 
 upon it as wrong to go into any place whereinto business had not called him. He 
 stayed my progress also into a large building, which turned out to be a gigantic 
 general store — a sort of Japanese " .Stewart's" of New York — where everybody, 
 one hundred at least, seemed very glad to see me, as a probably large customer. 
 
 The Sinsidori of Osaca is quite a Cheapside in respect of width and length 
 and traflic. The absence of glass to the shop windows, and of aside-walk, is, 
 of course, a difference, and so is the absence of tall houses, omnibuses, and 
 horses. All, however, is bustle and business with the bare-headed and blue- 
 bloused crowd. Everything that a body can want is for sale here, save milk, 
 butter, soap, beef, mutton, and beer, and a few such like superfluities of life. 
 Any Englishman walking this street may say, as he may say indeed in any of 
 the leading streets of the world, " How much there is there that I don't 
 want !" It all looks so useful, and much of it so pretty, that it is almost a 
 pity that one can do without any of it. 
 
 Brown, a mercantile man from New Zealand, who is passing through Osaca 
 with me, observes, " If I were not gone out of business, and retired from its 
 bother, I could purchase in this city, and ship to Australia and New Zealand 
 for 500/. what would sell there for 1500/." My unmercantile ideas had some 
 hazy notion of this kind in all the cities I had passed through in Japan. The 
 same sort of things are seemingly imported by everybody into those two countries 
 Brown had named. The markets must be glutted and clogged with such wares. 
 Here in Japan are all new articles to tempt the best class of buyers, and those 
 are they who buy only to spend their money, and not to satisfy the mere daily 
 wants of life 
 
2 8 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 " How many other ways have you seen, Brown, hy which a fortune could be 
 made during your Japanese travel?" 
 
 "Fully half-a-dozen. I wish I had come her fifteen years ago, instead of 
 going to New Zealand." 
 
 We had by this time got to the street devoted to theatres and shows, a 
 quarter of the town where theatres large as the minor ones of London are at 
 one end of the street, and a sort of English country fair going on in full swing 
 at the other. The theatres were entered, notwithstanding Minerva's strong 
 objection to such intrusions, through the unfastened doors. We found them to 
 be large, clean, theatrically-shaped places. Benches, raised one foot only from 
 the floor, covered the lower part. A gallery (one only) ran round the three 
 sides of the building half-way between the floor and the roof, after the fashion 
 of an English chapel. On a seat, a foot high only, a Japanee sits easier than 
 he would on a common chair. We rest the foot only upon the floor. He 
 prefers to rest the leg from the knee downwards, in the older fashion of the 
 earlier nations of the earth. One empty theatre after another was explored in 
 this manner, no one interfering with me. The good manners of Minerva 
 would not allow of his venturing further than the doorstep, where I always 
 found him tremblingly waiting my return. 
 
 Outside the theatres were gorgeously-painted boards, largely lettered with 
 announcements of the performances for the next evening. None were to take 
 place that evening. The boards took the place of printed playbills. Japan 
 has not got to bill-printing and sticking as yet. The walls of Osaca are not 
 ■defaced by paste and placards. No men are seen sandwiched between adver- 
 tising boards. The public vehicles here are undefaced by the huge advertise- 
 ments that make those of England and America hateful to one's eyes. These 
 theatrical performances are not satisfactory to the traveller. There is little to 
 speak of in the way of scenery. The theatre and stage is lighted with candles. 
 Exits and entrances are made from doors at the back of the stage. The music 
 is very queer, and not pleasing to English ears, and goes on too, strange to 
 say, while the speakers are declaiming. After twenty minutes of such a 
 theatrical evening one feels that one is quite satisfied, and wishes to retire. 
 The thirst for knowledge in that direction is slaked. You feel as if you had 
 seen it before, and did not want to see it again — a feeling of full satisfaction. 
 
 If the theatrical part was all dumb show and noise to us foreigners, we had 
 no such cause of complaint among the shows and showmen at the other end of 
 Theatre Street. We were quite at home there. A wax-work exhibition first 
 claimed attention. Coins equivalent to 2d. each were paid, and Minerva 
 loaded up with the planks of wood, given as checks, in return. Outside the 
 show the attraction was wax figures in motion. Inside we found that the 
 motion was given by wooden wheels turned by hand-power. Quite a mound 
 of machinery was made in the middle of the show by this rough mechanism. 
 The various tableaux were arranged around this motive power, and numbered 
 about twenty groups, equal in execution to anything to be seen at Madame 
 Tussaud's, or any other waxworks show. Not all of them were pleasing 
 sights to European eyes. A revengeful man had destroyed another's house, 
 and had his foot upon his prostrate victim's neck, whom he was about to 
 brain with an uplifted door-post. He had previously plucked out the eyes of 
 the fallen man, which lay now upon his cheeks — a horrible sight ! Minerva 
 explained, from the handbill, price one cent, that this group meant 
 "Vengeance." Mechanism was here used to make the eyes of the destroyer 
 roll in his head, and this was most effectively done. The next group repre- 
 sented two soldiers in pursuit of the man who had, in the preceding group, 
 been seen taking revenge into his own hands. In the third group Nemesis 
 had overtaken him. He was here seen suffering the dread penalty of the law. 
 
Waxwork Wrestlers. 
 
 29 
 
 Enclosed between two upright boards, the executioners were seen sawing hian 
 in half from the neck downwards. The waxwork was good. The exhibition 
 had certainly a moral to it, and a good one, too. The machinery, in the case 
 of the last group, moved the saw. The whole was a great sermon against 
 murder. 
 
 The finest group in this waxwork show was that of the wrestlers. It was 
 really worth buying and exporting. The figures were full life-size — the size of 
 Japanese wrestlers, who are the biggest men of Japan. These men are fed 
 and trained as athletes, and reserved for wrestling, as the Roman gladiators 
 were for fighting. The Japanese training has on them a very different effect 
 to what is outwardly produced by European training. In the Western world, 
 the man trained is reduced in weight, and looks, when stripped, of a spare 
 and sinewy shape. These Japanese athletes are very bulky men, with heavy 
 limbs and stomachs. If the object has been to develop weight and bulk, it 
 has been most successfully done. The man who is heaviest is considered, I 
 suppose, as the most difficult one to throw. 
 
 JAI'ANESE WRESTLERS. 
 
 In the group now on show, two heavy men, of fully 16 st. each, are repre- 
 sented as publicly wrestling for a prize. A small, tightly-strapped l)anclage 
 round the hips is their only ctjvering. Close to them followed, with bent 
 form and eager eyes, the umpire whose duty it is to see that the rules of the 
 ring are complied with, and that the fall that we see impending shall be a fair 
 one. The perspiration that is starting from every pore is well shown in the 
 waxwork of this group, and waxwork perspiration was new to me. Good also 
 are all the anatomical details. One man has been got upon the hip of the 
 other, but holds fast with one foot around the other's leg, and one arm around 
 his neck. The struggle seems to be for life itself. The features of each show- 
 strength tested to the utmost — every muscle and nerve strained to bursting. 
 
30 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 It is all so very real, the skin so well coloured, the hair, eyes, and teeth so 
 perfectly natural, that one waits to see the fall which is so imminent. In this 
 case, the machinery is used to make the group revolve only. It is impossible 
 to get away from these wrestlers under half-an-hour. If the model could be 
 got into a portmanteau instead of requiring a ship's cabin for its conveyance, 
 not many visitors would leave it unpurchased. Wrestling is one of the great 
 sports of japan. It is perhaps, therefore, less wonderful that the modeller 
 has so well succeeded in his life-like rendering of this group. 
 
 It is very cold weather, and I get gladly to the charcoal fires at one end of 
 this waxwork show, and sit down on the raised bench to take hot tea, warm 
 my hands, and see a theatrical performance by wax figures that will take place 
 ■on the raising of the curtain opposite to me. It differed from other marionette 
 shows in the figures l)eing life-size, and the performance consisting of three 
 tableaux only. The groups were raised through a trap in the stage, and disap- 
 peared through another in the roof, after the fashion in which Marguerite is 
 seen leaving the stage, and the world, at the end of "Faust." What the 
 tableaux meant I coi>ld not guess ; the playbill was silent about them, and 
 Minerva was ignorant, and objected to ask questions to enlighten others or 
 himself. He had nothing of the inquiring mind in him — a pattern of placidity 
 and self-satisfaction — a happy Japanee. 
 
 A monkey show came next, in which monkeys were to be seen doing every- 
 thing that would help to illustrate the Darwinian theory, but not more than 
 •one sees done in such sights elsewhere. Japan has not developed monkey 
 power any further than the general European showman. It has got on about 
 as well only with birds. The bird saloon was very crowded, as the payment 
 was left to the option of the visitor — a plan that it would be best to adopt at 
 all places of amusement. People then pay in proportion as they are pleased. 
 The bird proprietor found the system to answer well. He got the people in 
 crowds, and then trusted to his cleverness and that of his birds to charm the 
 payment from his visitors' pockets. Not one left, I think, but paid something. 
 
 Acrobatic shows on raised platforms and scaffolds brought up the finish of 
 this street of amusements. As a fit conclusion to it, some enterprising Japanee 
 had erected a tall platform, like to a fire look-out, from which, for a cent, the 
 traveller could see Osaca as a bird does. The timbering of this structure, so to 
 speak, was of bamboo only. It was strong enough, no doubt, but looked, at 
 its 60 ft. level, a very light and skeleton affair to trust one's self upon. The 
 Venice of Japan lay now all before one, clear in its smokeless air, and flat- 
 looking in its uniformity of houses, destitute of chimneys, towers, spires, 
 turrets, or minarets, but grand, indeed, in its waters and bridges. 
 
 On one part of the river, near to this perch, shipbuilding was going on to an 
 extent that reminded one of the Clyde-side at Glasgow. The six or eight iron 
 hulls that are there to be seen building in one builder's yard were represented 
 here by the same number of wooden vessels, called sampans, of large size and 
 clumsy build. They are built, however, for dwellinghouses, as well as for 
 ordinary ship purposes. Convenience and utility are therefore studied before 
 clipper qualities. In a distant part of this large city we saw the smoke of a 
 fire that might grow to the size of that terribly-devastating one which I had 
 seen at Tokio on New Year's Eve. A fire is, I should think, one of the usual 
 features of a bird's-eye view of a Japanese city. 
 
 Minerva stopped our course near to this point that he might go and pay his 
 weekly ten minutes of worship at a neighbouring temple. Having washed his 
 hands from a stone tank that was in front of it, and drunk a little of its water 
 afterwards, he proceeded to pull a rope that hung in front of a sitting image. 
 The rope pulled a l)ell to call the attention of the idol to what was coming. 
 That was the deposit of some copper coin in a trough in front of the figure, 
 
A Night Walk. 31 
 
 and afterwards the kneeling, Ixnving, and muttering a prayer by Minerva, who 
 now wiped his hands on the interior of his frock. He said that he felt better 
 for it, and looked so. 
 
 If the gift of Tokio or of Osaca were offered to one, the choice would 
 probably be with most travellers in favour of Osaca, Its revenues may not be 
 so large^; the Mikado does not live there, but it is a large and bustling city, 
 and its fine rivers and multitude of bridges give it a more interesting and more 
 picturesque appearance than any other of the cities of Japan. Its chief defect 
 lay in its unlighted state at night. The population do not seem, as they do in 
 Tokio, to move much about the streets after dark, carrying each his pretty 
 lantern, nor do the shopkeepers, as in the former city, do evening business, 
 and court it by hanging large lanterns, bearing their names and signs, over 
 their doors. 
 
 Minerva took me now to Judie's other house in the Concession, the foreign 
 settlement of Osaca. This settlement is a very clean and well-built place, and 
 on a large aiid growing scale. The hotel here was different to the tea-house 
 that I had stayed at on the preceding night. The rooms were better warmed, 
 .and for that reason perhaps were more favoured by mosquitoes. These little 
 torments I hailed as Australian friends, and slapped them about on their backs 
 iis often as they gave me the opportunity. Their existence in such cold 
 weather was probably no pleasure to them. It was certainly none to me, as 
 the bed was curtainless. 
 
 The oysters brought to me for supper at Osaca seemed to bleed, a peculiarity 
 about oysters that I had not noticed elsewhere. 
 
 That night Brown and myself bought lanterns that folded up, with Ijamboo 
 ribs, and could be easily shut and carried in the crown of one's hat. These 
 lanterns had handsome hieroglyphics on them in red letters, and were altogether 
 dandy affairs. The candles put into them were of vegetable wax, and the 
 wick made seemingly of a msh, round which cotton had been twisted. The 
 candles burnt well, and shed a good light through the oiled paper on the 
 pathway, and about four feet along it, that we were treading. The lanterns 
 were of no weight, and no inconvenience whatever. Armed with them and a 
 walkingstick, w-e, much to the disgust of ^linerva, who wanted to smoke and 
 sleep, or to go and see his sweetheart, explored something of Osaca by night. 
 How its governing powers can permit it to lie in the state of darkness it does 
 after sundown passed our understanding. 
 
 " Brown, what do you say to a gas company here? Easy to lay the pipes, 
 plenty of craft to bring coals up to the river side, good levels, no opposition, 
 and no need to create the want !" 
 
 The want was but too conspicuous, as Brown, in listening to my argument, 
 had run his lantern against a post and extinguished the candle. As he had 
 with him a box of matches, that evil was soon remedied, and suggested a new 
 thought. 
 
 " All these matches are imported. Brown ! Labour and material are 
 plentiful here, and yet most Japanese have to use the old flint and steel. Join 
 a match factory to the gas one !" 
 
 " That makes about ten industries that you have mentioned to-day. Make 
 it a dozen before we get back !" 
 
 It was really difficult to go about this Japanese Great Britain and not see 
 what great wants existed that European enterprise might supply — seeing also 
 how readily all European ideas had been adopted by the people as soon as 
 started. It was impossible to walk about thus with a Japanese lantern to 
 lighten the darkness, and not to think of Londoners' lanterns and their whale- 
 oil lamps in the streets fifty years ago, and then of the gas that had changed 
 all that state of things there as it might do here. 
 
32 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LIFE WITH THE JAPS. 
 
 The singing and music-playing girls of Japan are quite an institution there. 
 They are in request at all little convivial meetings, such as I saw at the tea- 
 houses. At these meetings in the evening three girls generally gave their 
 
 FEMALE MUSICIANS. 
 
 services, and added a game of forfeits to their singing and playing that caused 
 much merry laughing. It consisted in two girls repeating some little rhyme, 
 and keeping time by alternately clapping their own hands and then those of 
 each other. A failure to keep time was followed Ijy merriment and the pay- 
 ment of some counter or other sul)stituted trifle as a forfeit. Occasionally an 
 excited Japanee would drop his pipe and cup of saki, and rise and "declaim a 
 piece," as the Americans phrase it. These tea-house convivialities are mild 
 substitutes for English tavern evenings, with the addition of three dolls of girls 
 sitting on the table. For "dolls" these little Japanese musicians appear to 
 be, as they sit there in their gay-coloured dresses, with painted lower lips, 
 powdered faces, and decorated hair — that hair which the Japanese woman is 
 so careful of, and ornaments so very tastefully. That it may not be 
 
A Japanese Dinner. 33 
 
 disarranged, she sleeps, I was told, with her neck on a stereoscope case-shaped 
 " pillow," at the risk of making it stiff. Similarly, in the old time of the 
 Georges in England, it was customary for ladies whose heads had been 
 elaborately puffed, pasted, bolstered, and powdered up in the fashion of the 
 period for some ball or party, to sleep the night before in an easy chair, that 
 the head-dress might not be disarranged. The musical girls are to be easily 
 recognized as they pass along by their superior dress and the accompanying 
 coolie girl who carries the music and the zither. The lower class of men and 
 women — the working class — ^are in Japan, as elsewhere in the East, called 
 " coolies." 
 
 Among the customs of the Japanese that are curious in strangers' eyes is 
 that of planting trees on New Year's Day in front of their dwellings. The 
 plantation is not intended to be permanent. At the end of a few days the 
 little bush or sapling has died, and is removed. My host at the Seiyoken 
 Hotel at Tokio celebrated New Year's Day by an extra good dinner to his 
 lodgers and some outside friends. He is evidently bidding for British patronage, 
 introducing chairs and tables, bedsteads, pillows, soap, and suchlike matters 
 into his house. \Yood ashes have been used, instead of soap, hitherto in 
 Japan. The Japs are a cleanly folk, and bathing-houses are features of every 
 town. In the bathing-houses the simplicity of sinless times still prevails. One 
 bath suffices for all, and males and females bathe at the same time. By-and- 
 by they will perhaps divide or institute bathing costumes, when they learn that 
 such is European fashion. Yery strange dishes came upon the board at our 
 New Year's dinner. A preliminary pipe of mild tobacco was handed around. 
 The tobacco was too mild an affair altogether to take the edge off one's appetite 
 — if intended for that purpose. The first course consisted of sweetmeats, 
 served upon lacquered plates. The whole meal was of a P"renchified character. 
 Balls of golden, scarlet, and green jellies were among the things in this dish ; 
 rice, flour, and sugar made up the constituents of the other parts of it. Saki 
 or rice spirit and the ever-present tea were then served round. The second 
 course consisted of soup, into which were shredded hard-boiled eggs. This 
 was served in bowls, but without spoons. I had, however, my |)urchased 
 spoon, fork, and knife, always upon me, and so escaped trouble. Then came 
 a very strange dish. It was a collop cut from a living fish wriggling on the 
 sideboard. The Japs are a great fish-eating folk, and this raw fish-eating is 
 quite common. The steak cut for Bruce from the living ox, told of in his 
 Abyssinian travels, occurred to one's memor}\ The live tit-l)it is supposed to 
 be eaten with the Japanese " Soy," a sauce that makes everything palatable, 
 but I let my portion of it pass. It is not possible to comply with all Japanese 
 fashions at once. Time is necessary to the acquirement of taste. Cooked 
 fish was next served, and that in great variety, including shell-fish. A sort of 
 lime or small lemon was used as the flavouring to this dish. Then came boiled 
 beans, with ginger roots, and some fried fish and horseradish. To follow that 
 came boiled fish and clams, the latter cut up and served with pears. Rice, in tea- 
 cups, followed, and then a salad, and the dishes were ended. The hot saki 
 and tea in cups were sent round after each course. The health of our landlord 
 was proposed in Japanese, and drunk in saki. He then rose to reply. I 
 thought that he would never have done bowing before he began to speak. He 
 appeared to speak very well, and elicited the approbation of those who under- 
 stood Japanese. I could differ from him, of course, in nothing that he said. 
 
 The climate of Japan is in heat and cold something like to that of Great 
 Britain, but knows less of fogs and frost and nothing of the east wind. The 
 ground was covered with snow for several days at a time during my stay. The 
 islands that make up Japan are nearly of the size and shape of those of Great 
 Britain, and the population very little larger. Religious difierences do not 
 
34 The Main Routes Rotind the World. 
 
 seem to have caused so much bitter misery and hatred and trouble, as is the 
 case elsewhere. The Japanee is noc a religious fanatic. There is nothing of 
 the Hindoo or Mahometan in his nature. He will, unlike the Hindoo, eat 
 and drink with any one, and not smash his plate after meals, nor drink 
 out of his hands to save defiling his lips with any vessel that may have 
 been touched by infidel fingers. He does not scowl at one of another faith 
 with looks of hate, as does the Mahometan, nor believe that sending you 
 quickly to your heaven will help him in getting to his own. Japanee is again 
 like to the Frenchman in religious matters — they do not much trouble him. 
 Neither do they trouble his wife. 
 
 " A light heart and a thin pair of — pants" have been mentioned as ingre- 
 dients of an Irishman's jollity. They are exactly those of the Japanee. When 
 he wears anything on his legs beyond the blue cotton napkin that he mostly 
 prefers to wrap them in, it is, as before observed, a closely-fitting pair of 
 pantaloons or stage " tights " of the thinnest blue cotton. His legs are not 
 particularly adapted to this fashion, as they are but seldom seen straight and 
 well cut. In the case of the drayman, however, it is different, and one "sees 
 then the outline of legs that nothing could upset the owner of. It is so with 
 the trained wrestlers here, who are wonders of muscular development. 
 Japanee is, however, not particular about much clothing, and makes a little 
 of it go a long way, and answer many purposes. Blue is the favourite colour 
 with him. His blouse or sack is of blue cotton, enlivened on the back and 
 sides with curious white circles and stripes, that give him a pie-bald appearance. 
 His head-gear, when it is raining, is anything that comes handy. He prefers, 
 however, to wear none, that he may show the elegant appearance of his half- 
 shaved and sectioned scalp. A rudimentary tail is made out of the back hair 
 and brought to the crown, and there tied and waxed and fastened down, 
 pointing at you across the bald head like to a small revolver. All this is not 
 done to be covered up and hidden. The European fashion of wearing the hair 
 has, however, been lately decreed, and in time will prevail with all, as it does 
 now with many, and then hats and head-coverings will follow. In the way of 
 hats, the Mikako has decreed in favour of the English chimney-pot, which, 
 with English evening dress, is the costume only permitted at his levees and 
 receptions. That will be the fashion that Japanee will run after, and, like to 
 the stage Irishman, he will be seen in the next generation in a claw-hammer 
 coat and a tall hat. He has already got the tight continuations. 
 
 About his foot-covering Japanee is very undecided and easily satisfied. It 
 does not distress him to go barefoot, though he usually has something of a 
 sock or sandal. A dark-blue cotton sock is the most usual wear. The sole is 
 made of thick blue canvas or thick paper, and looks made to last about a week 
 or two, but really lasts a month. These things fasten with hooks and eyes at 
 back, and are divided at the toes into two parts. One is for the great toe, and 
 the other for what remains. So covered, the foot of Japanee appears like to a 
 cloven hoof. His sock is one that would become well a stage Mephistophiles, 
 and should be imported for those who at fancy dress balls are so fond of 
 assuming that character. Was there ever a F.D.B. that had not two or three 
 Mephistos? This sock is varied in colour to red for children, and white for 
 those who can afford extra outlay. The sock alone with its canvas sole is con- 
 sidered quite enough foot-covering by many, and even the hard-running 
 centaurs often wear nothing else. Sandals are, however, very common. The 
 first to ])e noticed as most common is of plaited straw, a mere sole-piece, with 
 a triangular-shaped loop that goes over the foot below the instep, and between 
 the opening in the toe-part. In nine cases out of ten this sandal is too short 
 for the foot, and the wearer's heel hangs over it. Another sandal is of thick 
 wood, like to the sole of English clogs, secured over the toes in a similar way 
 
Japa7iese FasJiions. 
 
 35 
 
 to the other. The third style is for snowy or sloppy weather, and is a patten 
 sole mounted upon two pieces of thin wood of four inches high and standing 
 -six inches apart. This very queer-looking patten is secured in the same way 
 as the others. Some clog soles are to be had with leather toe-pieces, but I 
 never noticed them in use. The sock seemed to be considered sufficient cover- 
 ing for the upper part of the foot. I speak, of course, of the population as I 
 had opportunity of noticing it out of doors. The four-inch patten support is 
 of great advantage to the Jaj^anee and his wife and daughters, as to European 
 eyes the Japanee is altogether too short, and his wife and daughters 
 particularly so. 
 
 JAPANESE LADY. 
 
 The female Japanee behaves in no way like to the females of other 
 Eastern countries. No "yashmak"' hides her face, nor does she hide within 
 doors from her bridal to her burial. She does not beautify herself with henna 
 on the finger-nails and lamp-black to the eyebrows. She looks like the chubby 
 daughter of an English country farmer, and is a buxom little round lump of a 
 thing that one mistakes for twelve years old until told that vshe is eighteen or 
 twenty. The round full faces of these girls would become women of 5ft. 8in., 
 and they look out of place on little beings of 4ft. 6in. Figure, to speak of, the 
 female Japanee does not possess. She could not easily wear a corset, and her 
 dress seems to be altogether planned to make her look as broad as she is long. 
 A thing like to a little knapsack is worn on the small of the l)ack outside of 
 the sack jacket. It gives the appearance of almost a deformity, and is a strange 
 idea of producing a hump for and in place of a Grecian bend — if such be the 
 intention of the wearer. This excrescence is made of folded cotton, or cotton- 
 padded silk. The "kodomo," as the l)aby Japanee is called, is carried in a 
 
36 
 
 The Maiii Routes Round the JFor/d. 
 
 sort of hood, on the l)ack of its mother or sister— sister I generally thought, 
 from the small size of the being carrying the baby — but I am not sure that in 
 many of these cases I did not make mistakes. Very neatly indeed does the 
 female Japanee dress her hair. It always goes uncovered, and therefore the 
 skill bestowed upon it is not hidden. There are no Japanee blondes. Jet 
 l)lack hair is the rule, and I saw no exception. Rosy cheeks, laughing eyes of 
 dark-brown colour, pearly teeth, and dumpling forms make up the unmarried 
 female Japanee. When engaged to be married, she proceeds to make herself 
 hideous — that no other man may fancy her. She succeeds beyond belief. Her 
 white teeth are dyed a hideous black, and her pretty arched eyebrows are all 
 plucked out with tweezers. The effect is horrible. If her intended husband 
 was now to alter his mind, as he might reasonably do, what would become of 
 the bride expectant ? No other suitor would be found to fancy the now ugly 
 little Topsy. Such trouble must happen sometimes, and yet the disfigurement 
 is not postponed until after the marriage, as one would think would be best 
 and prudent. 
 
 LADIES OUT-DOOR DRESS. 
 
 In shopkeeping, the female Japanee, when a wife, takes a Frenchwoman's 
 part in the business, and does all the work. With her hideously black mouth 
 and fringeless brow she is on the shopboard all day, and her husband, when 
 about, generally appeals to her as to the prices of everything, and the policy of 
 accepting half the price that has been asked. The half price is generally taken 
 but not until the " soroban " has been consulted — that is the calculating board, 
 without which no Japanee seems to be able to tell the price of anything that he 
 has to sell, or to say what six pictures of three cents each amount to in the 
 gross. He learns no multiplication table. This board, with its twenty-one 
 , bars, on each of which slide six perforated marbles, does all his cyphering. 
 The topmost row of the marbles is cut off from the other five rows by a bar 
 running the whole length of the soroban. Each of the marbles in that row 
 counts as five of the others. Calculations up to millions can be made on this 
 wooden ready reckoner. It is made of all sizes, from that of a sideboard to 
 
Japanese Customs. 37 
 
 that of 3in. by lin., and is alike used 1)y l)Oth the Chinee and the Japanee. A 
 long schooling is necessary, however, to the working of this oracle liy a 
 foreigner. An adult white has never been known to adopt it. 
 
 The Japanee is careful never to soil with his feet the fine rush-made matting 
 that he spreads for a carpet to his house and a shop-board for his goods. He 
 requests me to take my boots off before entering his shop. At his tea restau- 
 rants he profiFers the same absurd request; but that is not to be complied with. 
 I am there to purchase as a customer, and if he will not take me as I am, I 
 threaten to go elsewhere. It is winter weather, and I cannot stand about with 
 cold, unbooted feet. He gives way, and I enter his tea-house. My first visit 
 to such is memorable. There is nothing but the floor, rush-matted, for me to sit 
 upon. I must squat like to a tailor, or a Turk, if I sit, and sit I must to have tea, 
 and to take the other strange things that are given to one in these restaurants. 
 vSo I sit on the matting, cross-legged at first, and then with legs to the left and 
 then to the right, and then with straightened knees, on which I rest the cup. 
 It is all very uncomfortable. One of the fire boxes is brought to me by one of 
 the stumpy girls, who then proceeds, under my nose, to put a small frying-pan 
 
 
 DOMESTIC LIFE (jAPAX). 
 
 on it, into which she tuml)les a mass of meat cut up to the size of dice. Some 
 similarly cut-up vegetables are then added, and the affair is set to stew on the 
 sticks of charcoal. While that is going on I am handed a" teacupful of saki, 
 that tastes much like to warm and weak sherry, with a pinch of salt in it. The 
 meat is soon after turned out into a small basin, which is handed to me, 
 together with a pair of skewers. These things are " chopsticks," and I am to 
 feed myself with them alone. No knife, fork, or spoon is provided. I had 
 noticed that the meat was already cut up into mouthfuls. Two other chubby- 
 faced, stumpy girls had now come into the room, which was destitute, like to 
 all Japanese rooms, of any article of furniture. I had to make a maiden eftbrt 
 to eat with chopsticks in the presence of these three girls. It was dreadfully 
 uncomfortable. The P^-ench philosopher said that " Men have mercy, but 
 
38 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 women have none," the remembrance of which gave me very little courage in 
 my efforts to eat with those six eyes upon me. The sticks would divide widely 
 instead of coming together. Nohow could I grab a mouthful with them out of 
 the basin until five or six failures had been made. The maidens were waiting 
 to change dishes and bring in a second course. Of these courses there were half 
 a dozen to come. Had there been a napkin handy, I might have remembered 
 that fingers were made before forks or chopsticks, but napkin there was none ; 
 so I had to take a stick in each hand, and then had a little better success. It 
 was of course a dreadful l:)reach of etiquette, but necessity knows no manners. 
 What did I care for the moon-facetl maidens that looked on me as a clumsy 
 clown ? They would never, probably, see me more, and I this way got my 
 "tiffin." This Indian word has been brought into use in Japan. Rice 
 followed the meat, but that I passed. Catch me trying to pick up grains of 
 rice with two rounded skewers before three laughing girls ! A lot of other 
 messes followed, that I more or less failed with, and then came sweet preserves 
 and the everlasting Japanee warm-water tea. My legs fairly began to ache by 
 this time, and I stumbled about somewhat with stifthess on getting up. For 
 all this entertainment only is. 2d., or its equivalent, had to be paid. On the 
 first opportunity I had, as I said before, I bought a knife, fork, and spoon, and 
 henceforth carried them, wrapped in paper, in a side pocket, and was done 
 with chopsticks. Had my stay in Japan been long, I should have had a 
 folding-chair made, with a "practicable" table top to it. To do at Rome as 
 Rome does is very well to talk about, but does not apply to Japan. The 
 Romans did not require me to eat with skewers. 
 
 There are no doors to Japanese houses. Sliding sashes, glazed, so to speak, 
 with paper, serve for doors and windows. When I had to sleep in one of these 
 houses up the country, I found that my bed was the rush-matting of the floor, 
 my bedclothes a quilt only, and my pillow a piece of wood — the aforesaid 
 stereoscopic case. That extraordinary " pillow " quite bewildered me. I took 
 it at first for a joke, to ask me to rest my neck on a wooden block eight inches 
 high, and about two inches broad. To accomodate me, the top was covered 
 with a padded roll of paper that was tied upon the block. It looked then like to a 
 tailor's large iron goose held by a big padded holder. A stiff neck could be pro- 
 duced by this instrument after one application, supposing it possible in sleep to 
 keep it balanced. I at last rolled an overcoat round it, and that somewhat 
 accommodated matters. 
 
 Japanee is not luxurious about his bed or his bedchamber. He withstands 
 the cold of winter much better than the European. His house is full of 
 draughts and emptiness, and is wholly destitute of fireside comforts. Yet he is 
 happy. It is the privilege of the Japanee not to grumble — a privilege that he 
 rather abuses than otherwise. 
 
 How careful, too, is the Japanee in sanitary matters ! His rivers and 
 canals are all unpolluted by sewage. His land — best manured of all lands — is 
 rich in verdure. The drainage matter is carefully collected, and daily 
 removed for manuring purposes. Not a stench from sewage matter can be 
 found in Japan save at the sewage depots. The smell of some of the cookery 
 is not nice to European noses, but there is nothing worse than sourkrout 
 amongst it all. What clothes Japanee does wear he is careful to keep washed 
 and clean, and now that he is going to wear all his hair, he ties a handker- 
 chief round it on windy days to keep it in order. He is as careful as a 
 Hindoo to wear a sash twisted round his loins, but it is always a plain and 
 useful one, and not a gay shawl -like thing such as the Hindoostanee folks 
 adopt. 
 
 Yokohama, having been slow in building, is numbered by its houses only, 
 in the European quarter. It streets are not named in any address given. 
 
Yokohama Stj^hts. 39 
 
 'No. ?>^, Yokohama," is a proper address, though it reads as strangely as 
 *' No. I, London." The new settlement can count three foreign and one 
 native newspapers. A fortnightly mail from England, via China, and another 
 from France, and a monthly one from America, keep its folks well acquainted 
 with news. One street in the town is nicknamed as "Curio vStreet." In 
 that the Japanese do a thriving business with the foreigner. In looking at the 
 contents of the shop, he is, however, liable to run against the wooden-walled 
 wells which are here sunk in the centre of the footpath, with long bamboo- 
 handled dippers floating cwenty feet l)elow. In Curio Street the traveller will 
 tind the wonders of native art in which the Japanese have hitherto delighted. 
 To produce the fanciful, and not the useful, appears to have been the aim of 
 the artist. He has succeeded to a marvel. Here are wonders in metal-work 
 that fifty and eighty guineas are necessary to purchase — for chimney-piece and 
 sideboard ornaments. Vases of porcelain, exquisitely painted ; vases of 
 porcelain and metal intermixed ; vases of copper, inlaid with groundworks 
 of flowers, and filled up with hardened coloured cements ; vases of all shapes, 
 sizes, and designs, and of all metals and materials, here delight the eye and 
 confuse the mind of the visitor. He is shown teacups thin as egg-shell, and 
 nearly transparent — -teacups with bas-reliefs upon them — teacups with figures 
 enclosed with doors — teacups with a tortoise at the bottom, that floats at the 
 top when the tea is poured in, and yet cannot be fillipped out with a spoon. 
 China and pottery in all shapes and forms, in bewildering variety, are here on 
 hand, and lacepiered ware that one can hang over and admire for a day or a 
 week. This is the place to buy wedding presents for one's friends — the sort of 
 things that are shown in the ante-room after the bride and bridegroom have 
 gone forth on their tour— the sort of things to send to a maiden aunt from 
 whom one has great expectations. Here are boxes of flowers, too, that look 
 like to pipelights, but expand into leaves and blossoms when thrown into 
 basins of water. Here, also, are carved ivory and metallic monsters for 
 all the mantel-pieces of the lovers of the grotescpie, and all old maids 
 that love pugs and monkeys. Curio Street, Yokohama, is one of the streets 
 of the world, and a day may be as well spent in it as in Regent Street or 
 Broadway, if one d )es but take care not to take much money along. 
 
 Japan is get tin ; lines of railway now, and steam-vessels, and has been 
 buying cannon and rifles and revolvers. Japanee will turn his artistic labours 
 in a practical direction for the future, and, sad to think, will produce the 
 useful and neglect the fanciful. England is starting schools of design for the 
 teaching of all that Japanee has known and delighted in for all the ages, and 
 which, in the "regeneration" Japan is now so strangely undergoing, he will 
 for the futui'e neglect for those arts which have advanced Europe and America, 
 if advanced they are, while he has been dozing and dreaming — learning only 
 how to be contented and happy. 
 
 There is but little doubt, comparing the millions of Great Britain and those 
 of the Japanese isles, that the greatest happiness of the greatest number — • 
 which has been defined to be the end and aim of civilisation and legislation — 
 is by no means certain to be found in Queen Victoria's kingdom as against that 
 of the Mikado. There are those who will make it a question, but there are 
 those again in ]-)lenty who, having seen both territories, will make no question 
 about it. 
 
 "The sin of great cities," as some one has phrased it, is to be found in 
 Japanese towns, but not in the streets. The Government, finding it irre- 
 pressible, have regulated it, and reduced it — as they have done ever}-thing 
 else — to system and order. No one is tempted to vice by the sight of it in the 
 busy thoroughfares. No pestilence walks at noonday in Japan. It must be 
 sought in the (juarter reserved for it in every city of the empire, and it is not 
 
40 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 allowed to go forth in brazen bravery to oftend the modest and allure the 
 unwary. In the quarter to which it is relegated it is caged within doors, and 
 visitors there walk the streets as they would the grounds of a zoological 
 garden, and are fully made to feel that they tread upon dangerous ground 
 when in the " Yoshawarroh" quarters. 
 
 I have written thus of what I observed of the fashions of Japan. The 
 subject might be extended to any length, and made quite tiresome. I may 
 notice, as a fit conclusion to the matter, that the favourite mode of suicide — 
 the "harikari," or disembowelling — is performed mostly by those who con- 
 ceive that they have suffered an injury, and think by their death in this form 
 to cause remorse to the one who has injured them. Goldsmith, in one of his 
 poems, expresses a similar notion of revenge when he tells the deserted maid 
 that— 
 
 " The only art her guilt to cover, 
 
 To hide her shame from every eye, 
 To give repentance to her lover, 
 And wring his bosom — is to die." 
 
 Note.— The following details as to the hairdressins of Japanese ladies may help explain 
 the meaning of styles of wearing the hair, as seen in pictures :— A Japanese girl under ten 
 years of age has her hair tied up at the back of her head in a red scarf, the forehead being 
 bared all but a lock left hanging on either side. Arrived at marriageable age, her hair is 
 combed forward into shapes of fan or butterfly, and decorated with silver and gold cords 
 and pins— the latter having balls at one end. A widow intending to marry aciain wears a 
 tortoiseshell pin horizontally placed at back of the head, and around this twists her hair. A 
 widow not intending to marry again cuts her hair quite short, and dispenses with all head 
 adornments. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE INLAND SEA OF JAPAN. 
 
 The Inland Sea of Japan! Who has not heard of its beauty? Nothing in 
 the way of sea-coast scenery that I ever expatiated upon with enthusiasm but 
 was wet-blanketed by " Oh ! you should see the Inland Sea of Japan." 
 Sydney harbour and its beauties had brought forth my loud admiration, as 
 they bring forth that of every one who first sees them ; but the ship's captain, 
 anxious to show his superiority to such weakness, said, "Nothing to the 
 Inland Sea of Japan !" In the pretty harbour of Madeira I heard the same 
 exclamation from a ;/// adiiiirari fellow-passenger, whose life seemed to lie all 
 in the past or the future. With such it is always yesterday or to-morrow, and 
 never to-day. For the study of those is the wisdom of the proverb, "Take 
 the good the gods provide you." 
 
 It was upon this Inland Sea that I now embarked, upon leaving Hiogo and 
 its seaport Kobe, to go to Nagasaki, a southern port of Japan. It was there 
 that the first settlement of foreigners had taken place, the Dutch getting a 
 footing there two centuries ago. It was scarcely a footing, however, for they 
 were restricted to a small island joined to the mainland by a well-guarded 
 bridge. Too much of interest attached to such a place to leave it unvisited, 
 especially as the attraction of a voyage for two days down the Inland Sea was 
 added to it. 
 
 The " Tokio Maru" was the .steamer on which I embarked, without about 
 200 others, mostly Japanese. It was a side-wheeled vessel of 3000 tons 
 
The Inlaiid Sea. 41 
 
 helonging to the Mitsu liishi (three diamonds) Company, subsidized by the 
 Government of Japan. It was Japanese midwinter, windy and freezing, with 
 occasional gusts of sleet and snow. The captain's seat at the table was always 
 vacant. The intricacies of the passage demanded all his care, and the taking 
 of his meals in his deck-house. The land was visible, and sometimes almost 
 touchable, as islands studded the way down this sea for the whole length of it. 
 There were too many of these altogether, and they were sometimes destitute of 
 trees and bushes. The shore-line showed hills and valleys, and then valleys 
 and hills again. The valleys were very small, but always fully populated l>y 
 those who grew rice round the foot of the hills and caught fish in the waters 
 of this sea. The fishing-boats about everywhere along shore made a prominent 
 feature in the beauty of the scene. A great sameness about it was, soon how- 
 ever, observable, producing even the usual effect of monotony — wearisomeness. 
 There was too much of it altogether. Sydney harbour is cpiite large enough. 
 Just sufficient is seen there to please to the limit of pleasure, and leave no 
 sense of satiation. It is so also with the harbours of Rio and Cork. Every 
 one is delighted with the drives around Galle and the delightful Ceylon 
 scenery there to be met with — cocoa-nut and banana-trees alternating with 
 pineapple and palm. If led on to take the journey from Galle to Colombo, 
 for seventy miles, through a road full of such delightful scenery, the delight is 
 found to get less with every mile after the first ten. At the twentieth mile the 
 traveller yawns, and at the thirtieth he sleeps. " This is the end of every man's 
 desire." 
 
 It was something, of course, against the enjoyment of the scene that the 
 wind was bitterly cold, though the air was clear, and the sun generally to be 
 seen. The wind disturbed the waters too much for one's enjoyment of sea life. 
 That state of things got worse, and on the evening of the second day the plate 
 and dish-washers had a holiday of it. No one came to dinner save the ship's 
 officers. Others had no appetite, and at 7 p.m. the cold saloon was deserted, 
 and miserable landsmen went to their beds as early as do naughty children. 
 A horizontal position is best for qualmish stomachs, and warmth can be got 
 from blankets and rugs. 
 
 Those destined to misery dream of delights. It is said that the condemned 
 criminal, whose dance upon nothing is to take place at eight o'clock the next 
 morning, sleeps peacefully through his last night, and dreams of happy picnics 
 and dances upon sunny slopes. I know that I dreamt of the Inland Sea, and 
 of beauties thereon and thereabout that I had missed seeing by daylight. Just 
 awakened from the long sleep that attends a cold night and an empty stomach, 
 I was collecting the facts of my position from the fictions of dreams, when 
 there came, in the horror of utter darkness, a grating and scrunching sound 
 beneath one's bunk that suspended all thought, movement, and even breathing 
 for the instant. Another scrunch, and then another, and the sound of the 
 ever-going paddles ceased altogether. There was no need to inquire what had 
 happened. That inner consciousness, from which it has been said that the 
 German developed the appearance of the camel that he had never seen, told 
 me what the strange sounds meant. The " Tokio" had run upon rocks I I 
 have omitted the " Maru'' in thus naming her, as that word is placed after each 
 ship's name by the Japanese, and merely means "ship." The feeling that I 
 experienced was as appalling as that of an earthquake which had once shaken 
 me out of a sleep when up country in Java. 
 
 It was not yet five o'clock, and nearly two hours to daylight. The lamps 
 had been taken from the cabins at eleven at night, but I struck a match and 
 looked at my watch, sitting up in the bunk to do so. As the match expired I 
 felt my head Inmiped against the l)Ottom of the l)unk above me, and lay down 
 again instead of turning out. No one else occupied the cabin. The one next 
 
42 The Main Routes Round iJie World. 
 
 to me was also empty, the season of the year being that in which much 
 travelUng is avoided by those not on business. I lay endeavouring to think 
 what to do, but the remembrances of similar cases of running upon rocks and 
 the dread results came uppermost, and crowded out all thoughts of action.^ 
 The vessel now bumped with each wave. The waves seemed to try and lift 
 her over the rock, and, failing in the attempt, to let the burden fall again. 
 This bumping and thumping Ijecame soon a sickening sensation, and also 
 rendered movement awkward, troublesome, and dangerous. I found that much 
 as I now tried to turn out and dress. 
 
 Ten months before this, when at Ceylon, I had met the survivors of the 
 wrecked ship " Strathmore," who had been landed there after seven months of 
 suffering upon the Crozet Islands, and were returning to their friends as from 
 the grave. Their description of the shipwreck and their survival I had taken 
 down and transmitted to the journals. Our disaster had occurred at a similar 
 hour in the morning, and had been accompanied with similar sounds and 
 movements of the ship. Thinking of that, and feeling in the darkness for 
 articles of dress with one hand, holding on to the bunk-side with the other to 
 steady myself, I heard footsteps coming down towards the cabin-door, and the 
 voice of Allen — a fellow-passenger, a shipwright going to the Chinese port of 
 Foochow — "Get up at once, and save what light things you can, and dress 
 and come on deck. We have run on the rocks at the mouth of the Inland Sea, 
 thirty miles from Nagasaki." The voice from out of the darkness then ceased, 
 and the footsteps hurried away. Curses were that morning heaped upon those 
 who take lamps and candles out of cabins and leave folks to darkness and death 
 in such cases as ours. The cabin steward had taken away my boots, and as I 
 trod about on the icy cold oilcloth, my feet were freezing. I found somehow 
 waistcoat and trousers, and got on deck, where I at once fell at full length. 
 The sleet had frozen during the night, and rendered the boards too slippery to- 
 walk upon had the ship been even level and quiet. 
 
 As she lay there on the rocks, she was all on a slope of many feet from stem 
 to stern. The stern was rising upon every wave, and thumping down again 
 into the water. In the darkness I could at first discern nothing, Ixit gradually 
 came to perceive two sugarloaf-shaped rocks between which the " Tokio" had 
 run, instead of going into the clear sea-room on either side. A ledge that 
 connected the two rocks ran beneath the water, and it was upon this that the 
 forepart of the vessel had gone, and where she stuck fast, canting over to one- 
 side in an unpleasantly perceptible manner. 
 
 Scrambling down below again, I got from one of the stewards a small lantern 
 that showed more of darkness than light, and managed to find coat and boots 
 and head-covering. The only things that I thought of securing from the 
 travelling-bag were thick socks and buckskin gloves that seemed now likely to 
 be of great value. If we had to get upon the precipitous rocks on either side 
 of the ship, it seemed to be almost a necessity to hold on to their craggy sides. 
 to keep a footing. As I looked at the other things in the bag, and saw the 
 collection of curios from Japan, and thought of the trunkful there behind from 
 other countries, the present state of things seemed a sorry ending indeed. 
 Even the Mexican dollars, that in this part of the world were the only coins 
 valued, were of no use now. They must be left behind as too weighty for the 
 pockets of one who expected to have to jump on to rocks, or into water, before- 
 trouble was all over. Standing, or rather staggering, over that bag on that 
 dark morning, with the dim lantern in one's hand, was the most miseralile five 
 minutes of life that I can now recall. If the passengers should save themselves 
 only, their bag and l)aggage would then be either lost altogether or rifled by 
 those who might succeed in getting them. A ship upon the rocks is fair game 
 for wreckers. Had we been upon the coast of China, or of Cornwall for the: 
 
A Terrible Trouble. 43 
 
 matter of that, the Philistines of the sea would have been upon us shortly. 
 Meantime through all the trouble, thump, bump, bump, thump, went the 
 "Tokio" upon the rock's edge. How long she would thump about like that 
 and not go to pieces was the (juestion. The " Stralhmure" had broken up in 
 half-an-hour's time. 
 
 The "Tokio" was a wooden vessel, well-coppered, and stood the trouble 
 she was now in better than an iron ship would have done. The grim figure 
 of the carpenter came, lantern in hand, every three minutes to the saloon 
 where, through a hole in the floor, he measured with foot-rule-shaped measure 
 the depth of the water in the hold. It was good to hear of only a few inches 
 increase at each measurement. 
 
 The saloon passengers did not number more than twenty. The Japanese 
 and Chinese, forward, made up the bulk of our number. These were, with 
 difficulty, kept out of the saloon, into which they wished to crowd, as if more 
 safety lay there than forward. Knots of passengers collected round any one 
 who had a lantern, and discussed what in French phrase is called "the 
 situation." One of them showed me a small bottle labelled "poison" that 
 he had taken from his trunk. He had kept it, he said, for years to avoid a 
 lingering death when hope might have gone. There seemed now a proba- 
 bility of his wanting it. He quietly said to me that there was enough for two ! 
 I don't recall whether I had the good manners to thank him for such courtesy. 
 A bluff, burly-looking Irishman from the States had another drink that he 
 dragged me to his cabin to partake of. He seemed already to have largely 
 taken of it himself. " Sure, man," he said, " take a glass or two of it, 'twill 
 put spirits into you." There was no denying that two glasses of Irish whisky 
 would put spirits into any one who drank them, but I had a stomach empty 
 for twenty hours, and sense enough left to know that the warmth that 
 spirits give is followed by the greater cold and prostration. I pleaded that I 
 had had a drink already offered me, and would go back to it, and come to my 
 hospitaljle present friend for the next one. 
 
 The captain had ordered the forward cargo overboard to lighten that part of 
 the ship. That work was going on promptly, and the paddles resumed their 
 work in reversed order to drag the ship backwards. Crates, barrels, and 
 boxes were flying over on both sides, and being gulped down by the tossing 
 waters. The coals were going out also in bags, buckets, and shovelfuls. The 
 cannon — a 24-pounder — went overboard with a huge splash and a thundering 
 noise that seemed to protest against such a sacrifice. Ten boxes of treasure 
 were got out, and placed on the middle deck, to be the first thing cared for 
 after the lives of the passengers. The grim phantom with the lantern and the 
 measuring-rod came upon us oftener now, but the ship's officers and stewards 
 surrounded him, and he departed in silence to report to the captain the pro- 
 gress of the rising water below. We were not to hear the bad news he had 
 to tell. 
 
 Daylight dawned at last. It had never seemed so long in coming, and, per- 
 haps, never will again, to those who were on board the "Tokio" that morning. 
 A boat was put off from the side of the ship and despatched with six rowers 
 and a steersman to Nagasaki for help. It was a five hours' journey for them. 
 As the provisions and bottles of water were given out, we looked on with a 
 sort of personal interest. The same thing might be doing with ourselves in a 
 short time if the vessel showed signs of not holding together. The state of 
 things around could be now discerned. No landing place was apparent upon 
 the two rocks near to us, about 200ft. only from the sides of the ship. If any 
 existed, it must be upon the outer sides of these most inhospitable-looking 
 crags. How the ship could have got into such a narrow place, with rocks 
 ahead to warn the ship's look-out man, it seemed difficult to guess at. The 
 
44 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 watch had been that of the second mate, and the blame lay between him and 
 the Japanese pilot, who pleaded that he had set all things right and gone 
 below to get a drink of tea. Japanese, men and women, drink tea at all 
 hours ; they have the strange ability, too, of taking it scalding hot. 
 
 The lightening of the ship still went on. Not a sail came in sight any- 
 where, though for the two preceding days we had seen the native sampans 
 about in scores. The captain, who was now approachable, seemed quite calm 
 about the state of things. " If I cannot get her oft in an hour or so, you can 
 be landed on that rock. There is standing-room on the other side." That to 
 us — who were freezing, and wanting warmth and a breakfast ! The prospect 
 of a bleak rock with a bitingly cold wind and sea spray for long hours, until a 
 tug could come from Nagasaki — some time in the next night ! The Irishman, 
 on hearing that news, went back to his whisky bottle, button-holing me on the 
 way. "Look here, man, we must be friends now. Here's my card, and 
 these boxes and bags have my name on them. If I don't get out of this and 
 you do, I have written a name on the back of that card that you will write to, 
 and tell all about it. Take a drink now. Sure I'll do the same for you if you 
 like. Drink, me boy !" 
 
 It was a strange time to be taking duties upon one when the grasshopper 
 would be a burden added to one's load of present trouble, but there was no 
 resisting my friend and his required promise. His bottle I could stave oft'. I 
 took my share of it in a couple of phials that some preceding passenger had 
 left in the rack of the cabin. A sort of idea crept upon me, that had I 
 finished my friend's bottle, it had been better for him, however it might have 
 been for me. He began to get demonstrative, and to look very moist about 
 the eyes. He said, " I niver thought, me boy, to get a watery death : shure 
 I always hated it ! " This anti-teetotal remark was quite needless, and, in 
 other circumstances, might have been humorous. Things were too unsettled 
 now for smiling at anything. 
 
 After four hours of work at lightening the "Tokio," the captain resolved 
 upon a movement that had its intended eftect. The forward passengers and 
 the crew were all to be rushed aft in a body, and extra power applied to the 
 paddles. The move was successful. We now, with gladness for which joy is 
 no name, heard a scrunch, and then another, and then a third ! And the 
 "Tokio" floated backwards, and was free of the rocks! I might put a 
 hundred or two of notes of exclamation to signify what our feelings and 
 exclamations were upon that event. It was necessary only to keep the pumps 
 going to get safely along. The Irishman now brought out another bottle, and 
 insisted upon drinks around. He had "Niver, me boys," had a doubt 
 about all being right. The peaceful way in which he soon afterwards slept 
 was, perhaps, due — not wholly due — to reaction of the nervous system. 
 
 A new lease of life seemed to be given to each of us. Those used to sea 
 troubles, perhaps think Init little of such escapes. To the landsman, how- 
 ever, the past four hours — two of them in the darkness — had been an interview 
 with Death after the manner in which Farmer Dobson, in the old story, had 
 seen him on his wedding-day, and got a similar reprieve. 
 
 The Inland Sea of Japan, and especially the entrance to it, is likely to be 
 well remembered by the passengers of the "Tokio" on that trip. Towards 
 the afternoon we got into the harbour of Nagasaki, and found ourselves safe 
 ujwn shore. The foot-plate of the vessel had been torn off, and it was 
 necessary to keep the pumps going to keep the water down before the vessel 
 went on the slip for repairs, and that convenience existed fortunately at this 
 port. 
 
 Nagasaki had an especial interest for us of the "Tokio." Had it 1)een a 
 cinder-heap, it would have been pleasant to those who little expected a few 
 
Nagasaki. 45 
 
 hours before to have seen it so soon — perhaps ever to have seen it. It was the 
 land of Beulah to which we had got after passing the \'alley of the Shadow of 
 Death. Of all the settlements— native and foreign — that I had seen in Japan, 
 this one was in reality the least pleasing. It is not large and clean, like to 
 Yokohama ; nor small and well built, like to Kobe. It has a sort of common 
 shipping-port look about it, and is troubled with many of the drawbacks of 
 shipping ports— pot-houses and mean streets. In position it is grandlly 
 situated in a bay surrounded on three points of the compass with fine hills, on 
 the sides of which trees and rice-fields are seen, with other signs of cultivation 
 and industry. 
 
 That part of Nagaski most attractive to the foreigner is the old Dutch settle- 
 ment of Decima that is here to be seen. It is now an overcrowded and very 
 dirty quarter, separated from the mainland by a long bridge that formerly was. 
 well guarded. The native element appears to have taken possession of this place 
 now, and made a sort of Wapping of it. This was, then, the small l)eginning 
 of the wonders that foreigners had wrought in Japan ! The I )utchman had not 
 to be thanked for anything, however. He would have muddled on here for 
 another 200 years very likely, content to do as his fathers had done— make a 
 little money by merchandise and take all the snubbing that the brief authorities 
 for the time being liked to give to him. It was to Englishmen, as represented by 
 their eldest son in America, that the opening of Japan trade and travel was due. 
 Had Commodore Perry not gone to Yeddo in i860, with his letter of intro- 
 duction from President Fillmore, and his man-of-war to back up the letter, it is 
 quite certain that the Dutch would not have gone in his place. The evil would 
 have resulted that mere travellers for health or pleasure would have seen nothing 
 of all the beauties of Japan and all the surprises that it has in store for the 
 traveller from the Western world. That Western world, and the world generally, 
 would have been deprived, also, of all benefit and delight that the curious 
 merchandise and manufactures of Japan have given to them ; also the amuse- 
 ment that its native actors, conjurers and acrobats have created wherever they 
 have been seen. One walks about at Nagasaki with disgust, to think how long 
 the Dutchman had the partial entry of this place, and never got himself better 
 established in the land. 
 
 The specialty of Nagasaki, apart from its shipwrights' and wharfside business, 
 seemed, with the Japanese, to be the manufacture of tortoiseshell into articles 
 of utility and ornament. Every visitor takes such things away from the 
 place as some souvenir of a visit to this first or last port of Japan. 
 
 Another port between Nagasaki and Kobe is to be shortly opened to foreign 
 trade. It is known as Simoneseki. From the open roadstead, whence we saw 
 it the day before entering Nagasaki, it looked a populous seaside place, with a 
 large crowding about it of native l)oats. None, however, came near to the 
 ship. The " Tokio " had merchandise to land there, and anchored for that 
 purpose. The weather proved to be too rough for doing so. One of the 
 anchors was lost and the other taken up, and the merchandise taken on to be 
 lost about the rocks oft the island of Otata — for that was the , locality of our 
 shipwreck troubles — in the manner I have told. 
 
 There will be fine fishing for native boats about those rocks for many a day 
 to come. Barrels, l)o\es, and chests will be fished up yet. Some fine day the 
 cannon may be got up also. It is pleasant to think that of the " Tokio's" 
 cargo that is all that the fishers may get. The sea thereabout has not in our 
 case to give up its dead. 
 
46 
 
 The Main Routes Round ^/le Jlor/d. 
 
 CHArXER VIII. 
 
 A LAST LOOK AT JAPAN, 
 
 *' The land of the rising sun" fades from view as I leave Nagasaki, but its 
 memory is indelible ; its almost perfection of a climate and varied scenery of 
 hill and dale, mountain and lake, woodland and plain ; its rich foliage and fair 
 flowers, its hill-sides clothed with firs and pines ; all its novelties of nature 
 
 
 , ,iKr?;3;S— 5.11 
 
 
 JAPANESE ALMANAC. 
 
 and art, and its peculiarities, political and personal ; its cheerful, pleasant, and 
 frugal people ; their cleverness of hand and simplicity of niind ; that patience 
 and politeness which makes them more than the Frenchmen of the Eastern 
 world in all that is pleasant in PVench character I 
 
Japanese Climate. 47 
 
 Imperilled as Japan now is by ihe financial troubles consequent on her many 
 reforms, nothing but what is pleasing in prospect seems to lie before her. It 
 seems impossible that a peo])le who have given themselves so seriously to 
 education and improvement can now sink among the nations of the world. 
 They have proved themselves so easy to lead and to govern in their ignorant 
 state, that in their new state of knowledge they must needs be difficult to 
 drive, and impossible to enslave. Not much troubled as yet by religious 
 dissensions, and not trammelled, as is India, by the ine.\oral)le laws of caste, 
 it is not to be imagined that any other nation can subdue them, and retain 
 over them a supremacy such as the Hindoos endure. 
 
 The language of Japan, hitherto expressed in character similar to the 
 Chinese, is quite a distinct tongue. Efforts are now in progress to express the 
 sounds of its forty-seven syllables in Roman characters, avoiding the many 
 hundreds of semi-Chinese characters that have hitherto been required to 
 express them. 
 
 The laws of the Japanese are now in process of codification, by French 
 assistance. The common practice of torture to enforce confession is to be 
 forthwith abolished. The practice of the "hari kari " mode of suicide is 
 also passing out of fashion. Disappointed politicians will no longer disem- 
 bowel themselves. Everywhere progress is making towards European 
 customs. If such progress should prove to be slow, it is still in the right 
 direction. 
 
 Though my visit to Japan had been made in its winter, I had seen little but bkie 
 skies and bright sunny w- eather. The snowstorm that I had experienced on the 
 journey to Kama Kura, and the rough weather on the second day of the Inland 
 Sea journey, had been the only exceptions to the bright and beautiful days. In 
 such a climate, walking became a pleasure, and exercise of any kind delightful. 
 Pleasant weather had been supplemented by cheerful companions. I had gone 
 on all my journeys with Japanese company, of whose language I was ignorant, 
 but whose courtesy and sympathy made me feeJ quite easy and confident. 
 Their cheerfulness was contagious, I believe. Long journeys seemed to lose 
 all tedium in such companionship. 
 
 In native tea-houses, far away from English settlements, I had eaten, and 
 drunk, and slept in novel ways that gave a zest to the appetite and soundness 
 to repose. Cleanliness of the greatest and attention the most assiduous were 
 to be found everywhere. The bowing politeness was not marred by extortionate 
 after-charges. I never found it charged for in any of the ridiculously small 
 accounts that I was called upon to discharge. If I had not found it easy at 
 first to eat with chopsticks the French-like tit-bits that made up the meal, I 
 had afterwards carried a pocket knife and fork that, bought long years before 
 in a far-off land, now became of the greatest utility. 
 
 Wrapped in an overcoat and rug, I had found journeying in the cold but 
 sunny days to be not unpleasant. At first it did not seem a manly thing to go 
 into a perambulator, of larger size, and be run about with, dragged by a man 
 as children are ; but the fashion of the country in that way soon subdues all 
 feeling against it, and one realizes without difficulty Cowper's description of his 
 youthful journeys in a similar manner: — 
 
 " And where the gardener Robin, day by day, 
 Drew me to school along the public way ; 
 Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd 
 In scarlet niantle warm and velvet capp'd." 
 
 There is no choice but so to travel, or to take to the lumbering palanquin, and 
 its two bearers. In such travel in Japan, variety is fully enjoyed and all sense 
 of danger is lost. A word ("Matti") stays the progress of the vehicle, and 
 one gets out to notice any matter of interest, to make any purchase, or to stretch 
 
48 The Main Routes Round tJie World. 
 
 oneself by half an hour's walking. As the floor of the jinrickishaw is only a 
 foot and a half from the ground, the danger of an upset is out of the question. 
 One's sense of humanity is soon satisfied by finding that one wearies sooner 
 than do those who run with us, and we call upon them to stay that zue may 
 rest. They never seem to tire. 
 
 Travel is made pleasant in Japan also by its good roads and its numerous 
 towns and villages. At all of these the traveller finds tea-houses, in which 
 rush-matted rooms await his coming. These matting floors are so clean that 
 he is expected not to tread them with boots on. Mats are brought for his 
 seat, his feet are placed in a square hole in the floor made to accommodate 
 them, jointly with a pot of charcoal ; a large rug is placed over both, and 
 warmth is at once obtained by the traveller, who waits for his meal while 
 cooking is going on. Two rugs padded with cotton make the softest of beds, 
 and two more the warmest of covering ; another one, folded up, serves for 
 pillow. A Sybarite might sleep in such a bed. A bath-house is ready in the 
 morning, with the option of warm or cold water. There is no boot cleaning 
 certainly, and no soap, but then there is no soap to be found in French or 
 Italian bedrooms. The traveller learns to carry that little necessary in the 
 France of the East as he does in that of the West. 
 
 In Japan, one's native company never get drunk. The peril of having a 
 drunken driver is out of the reckoning. The ten houses, at which a stoppage is 
 made for drinking every two hours or so, are things for which the traveller is 
 thankful. He joins in the drink also. It is warm and wet, and costs next to 
 nothing. After a day or two he begins to like Japanese tea, which is as mild 
 as French soup or English small beer — mere yellowish water. Destitute of 
 milk or sugar, it is rather insipid at first, but the taste for it is soon acquired. 
 It is evidently invigorating by the work that one's sees done upon it. It is 
 cheering also by the mirthfulness it evolves from one's friends in the shafts. 
 It leaves no sense of thirst or prostration afterwards, and is evidently, and very 
 soon evidently too, a better drink to travel upon than beer, or wine, or 
 spirits. For the first week or so of travel the foreigner will take a flask with 
 him. He gradually gives that up, and finds that the natives will not share its 
 contents with him. At last he astonishes himself by drinking tea when they 
 do, and takes his flask home as full as he brought it out. Henceforth he leaves 
 it behind him, but can never understand how Japanee can drink the tea in such 
 a scalding state. 
 
 There is no real trouble of any sort for the traveller in Japan. A little 
 money goes a long way in living expenses, and in travelling and in purchasing 
 power. The currency is so small that one soon forgets such monstrous sums 
 as sovereigns and half-sovereigns. A dollar is 4s., and in Japan is looked 
 upon much as a pound is in the Western world. It is of no use to go out with 
 dollars in one's pocket. Change would not always be obtained. Half- 
 dollars, quarters, and eights are the coins to be carried in silver, and then the 
 smaller sub-divisions, the cents, in copper. Stoppage is not made at the half- 
 penny, however. There is another coinage smaller than the cent or the 
 farthing, the half-cent. That coinage is a metallic disc with a rim to it, and a 
 square hole in the centre. It is l)etween a half-penny and a farthing in size. 
 Ten pieces of this "cash," as it is called, make one cent. Cash is the old 
 originally currency of this cheap and pleasant land. 
 
 When cleaned up, this cash of Japan has a neat appearance. Pretty Japanese 
 letters and figures appear between the rim and the centre hole. This coinage 
 is carried in strings of a hundred or two hundred and odd. The larger quantity 
 would be a shilling's worth. One sees then the use of the central hole. The 
 string that keeps this bank of money together goes through that. One's native 
 guide takes care of this native money, and tells you when it is all expended. 
 
Happy Land a?id Life. 49 
 
 It is wonderful what a way it goes, this Japanese cash. There are no beggars 
 in Japan — at least I saw none. Had there been such, charity might have 
 revelled in distril)uting happiness by the handful — of cash. To those of a 
 benevolent disposition, who feel the blessing that is promised to the liberal, 
 Japan would be a most satisfactory country. Plenty, in the shape of cash, 
 might be scattered over the smiling land with a prodigal hand, and no fear of 
 a prodigal's fate await the happy doer. 
 
 The pretty paper coinage lately introduced in Japan, and called " yen," is 
 eclipsing the attraction of the hitherto potent Mexican dollar. The 
 mint established at Osaca has been bought from the authorities at Hong 
 Kong, who appear to have found the making of money for the Chinese and the 
 foreign visitors to Hong Kong not a profitable thing. It may be found yet 
 that the mints established in other English colonies besides that of Hong Kong 
 will not yield a profit — may, perhaps, cause a loss. At all events, the Hong 
 Kong people tired of money-making in that shape, and Japan has taken over 
 the business as a national undertaking, and the Mexican dollar is now doomed 
 in that country. The great, clumsy thing is cursed by the traveller, who has 
 to exchange the light moneys of other countries for such cart-wheel currency, 
 cumbersome to the pocket and to the baggage, and only to be bought by a 
 sacrifice of better money. 
 
 The Japanese "yen " is an improvement on the United States' greenbacks. 
 The paper is thicker, and the notes well printed in good colours, and of the 
 size of small playing-cards, such as the Spaniards use. The notes go down as 
 low as five cents. A pocketful of this currency is of no weight. The same 
 amount in silver and copper would require a hand-basket or the services of a 
 coolie. 
 
 Japan has not yet got the blessing or the burden of a national debt. It is a 
 million, perhaps two millions, in debt, to some of the foreign banks there, and 
 will have to become further indebted l^efore its financial affairs are put straight. 
 Its last budget shows a big balance of expenditure as against income. The 
 country has, however, immense borrowing power, and is worth a hundred 
 Turkeys or Egypts to those who expect principal and interest from national 
 loans. No money is wilfully fooled away in Japan, as in Egypt, on the 
 building of splendid palaces for ladies of the seraglio. The Mikado dwells in 
 the plainest of dwellings. That which is expended in Japan will be, as it has 
 been, on the most useful and reproductive of works. The Japanee is honest 
 and staunch and true in his nature, and not a mixture of a gipsy and a Macn-i, 
 as is the lazy, designing, and brutal Turk. In dealing with a Japanee you are 
 dealing with one of nature's gentlemen. 
 
 Eor nature's gentlemen are the Japanese, made in the older fashion of the 
 world before money-grul)bing had soiled the souls of men, cankered their 
 hearts, and driven chivalry and enjoyment of life out of their nature ! If one 
 would know how the people of Britain lived in the days of old, when there 
 were maypoles and morris-dancers, and caps with bells to them ; when the 
 theatres were open to the sky, and when there were tiltings and jousts and 
 tournaments ; when folks were educated to excel in sports and ma nliness, to 
 play at quarterstaft", to wrestle, play at singlestick and fence, to tilt at the 
 quintain, and go hawking and hunting and fishing, as the chief occupation of 
 a Joyous Life, we may go to Japan, look at the Japanese, and learn all. 
 
 Frugal in his habits, the Japanee has but few wants and makes no waste. 
 He toils a little, and his wife spins for a time — sufficient work to make 
 pleasure piquant. He never saves money, takes but little thought for the 
 morrow, and none for the day after. He seems to know nothing of care. A 
 few yards of blue cloth make his covering, a little rice and fish are his " chow 
 chow," taken but twice a day. The drink that " cheers but not inebriates "— 
 
50 The Main Routes Roimd the ]Vorld. 
 
 the everlasting tea — is always at hand. Sorrow and sin seem never to trouble 
 him. Since he kicked out the Jesuits, 200 years ago, the religion of fear has 
 not yet got at him, and made him a fanatic or a misanthrope. His religious 
 duties are duly and lightly observed, and he is content to let others observe 
 theirs also. His religious offerings are made in coin. He thinks that such 
 contributions to the gods is the true basis of all other religions as it is of his. 
 He is travelling now, and will write and tell us his knowledge of the world, 
 when he gets it, and whether his ideas on religion have altered. All remorse 
 is foreign to his nature, so that regret for the ejection of the Jesuits is not 
 likely to be acknowledged by him — should he ever feel it. 
 
 The Japanese may not have been willing that their happy life — shut in from 
 the world and its worldly trouble — should have been disturbed ; that they 
 should have been compelled to open their sea-doors, receive and make visits, 
 and do business with the rest of the nations. As war, and threats of further 
 war, made such necessary, they are trying to make improvement result from 
 innovation. They resisted improvement because it was innovation ; but, 
 having been forced to that, they wisely endeavoured to get the best return for 
 it. As a change had to be made, this hitherto steady-going, never-changing 
 nation has resolved to have radical changes, "to reform it altogether." In 
 eminine language, the house of the Japanee has been turned out of windows 
 ather than set in order. The governmental system of many hundreds or 
 housands of years was upset at once to begin with. The Mikado was, as the 
 real king, brought down from his contemplative position at Kioto and set up 
 in Yeddo, which was then rechristened Tokio, an act equivalent to calling 
 London or New York by a new name. The Tycoon who had reigned there 
 as working king was set adrift altogether, and sent to pursue country amuse- 
 ments for the future. A rei)resentative House of Parliament was started, and 
 the feudal system abolished. From Oriental Government to this sort of thing 
 in a year or so was like the transformation scene in a pantomime. Change, 
 having begun thus precipitately, goes on with a like rapidity in this new 
 constitutional empire. Every visitor will pat the lively Japanee on the back, 
 and wish him and his pleasant country good speed. 
 
 It is certain that the visitor to Japan, especially if the visit has l:)een made in 
 winter-time, will desire to renew the call upon this new member of the family 
 of nations, and see it in its pleasant spring, summer, or autumn appearance — 
 also to send his friends on the visit. The visit to Japan has been made an 
 easy one to the dweller in Great Britain since the opening of the Pacific 
 Railway across the continent of America. A ten-day sea passage from 
 Plymouth, or Liverpool, or Cork, lands the traveller at New York. Seven 
 days of further travel, in sleeping cars, across the continent takes him to San 
 Francisco. Fifteen days of steaming across the smoothest of oceans brings 
 him to Japan. The journey across America may, and no doubt will, be pro- 
 tracted by visits to its cities and places of interest. No journey could well be 
 less monotonous than such a one to Japan. Its summer and winter months 
 are those of Great Britain, Leaving London in July or August, a month's 
 pleasant excursion will land the traveller in Japan in the beginning of its 
 autumn. Leaving London in the beginning of English winter would not 
 be so pleasant for travelling. It would necessitate crossing America in the 
 time that snow is apt to encumber the railway, and cold weather to make the 
 journey an irksome one. 
 
 Mercantile travellers will find a good account in a visit to Japan. No one 
 who goes thither will quit it empty-handed. The purchasers are likely to 
 cause more anxiety for space in one's luggage than about the call made on the 
 purse by them. The handsome Japanese screens and tasty cabinet work will 
 tempt all visitors. So will the lacquer ware of Kioto and Osaca and the 
 
Japanese Curios. 51 
 
 copper and bronze work to be found in other places. The vases alone, by 
 their beauty and cheapness, will necessitate the purchase of an extra packing- 
 case or two. Much may, however, in the way of Satsuma china and other 
 porcelain rarities, be stored within these vases. The Japanese are excellent 
 packers. Their maps and picture-books will not escape notice. The thinness 
 of the paper and binding renders their carriage easy and inexpensive. 
 
 y ;^ DEALER IN g^ \} 
 
 Q f TOYS, DOLLS, BAMBOO WARES |[a\^ % 
 
 A. It^Vft AND JLm /: 
 
 
 % 
 
 AND 
 
 PICTURES. 
 
 TOMINOK JI, SH IJO, 
 BAGARU CHO, 
 
 KIOTO. JAPAN. 
 
 .sotopj-— ^^00^^— <^^90_<— ^jooec«- — TrjaoeO- 
 5^^>^aor» ^s^,*>^Ooo'> 5»_^*'OoooB >^i. >Ge>oo» --^ -^ 
 
 ^^ - 
 
 ■\VO SIDES OF A MERCHANT S CARD. 
 
 But not only to the mercantile traveller will Japan be a land of profit. All 
 who travel will similarly benefit by it. The artist will find in it scenes of rare 
 natural beauty. In its scenery of mountain, lake, and glen, the pencil will 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 find its finest field. It is the land of the picturesque. Those who seek health 
 will find it their best resource. Japan is the land of health — of all climates, 
 the nearest to perfection. Those who travel for the pleasure of seeing the 
 world will here find a new one recently opened out. The seeker after new 
 ideas, manners, and customs will find them all here. The lover of sport and 
 the seeker for pleasure will find Japan the country for both. Those who wish 
 to save money or to spend it can satisfy, in Japan, either wish. Its roads 
 afford equally good travelling to all. On foot, with knapsack and native 
 companion, no land could afford more delight. To those who wish to travel 
 otherwise, the means are varied, and all equally inexpensive and satisfactory. 
 Any one who wishes to get away from himself for a time — to see "fresh 
 scenes and pastures new " — will find the newest and freshest in the land of the 
 Rising Sun. 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THREE DAYS AT SHANGHAI. 
 
 On his return journey to Australia, via America and Japan, the next port that 
 the traveller touches at after leaving Nagasaki is Shanghai. "Far Cathay," 
 China itself, bursts suddenly ui')on the stranger's eyes at this port. As regards 
 general characteristics, Shanghai is but a smaller Calcutta. It is similar to the 
 Indian city in the situations of its foreign and native settlements, save that in 
 Calcutta the native town is not a walled and gated affair as at Shanghai. 
 
 A fine bay into which my Japanese steamer ran, two and a half days after 
 leaving Nagasaki, introduces a full view of the large semi-circular Bund, or 
 water-side street of Shanghai, and affords also a fine show of the many 
 varieties and strange looks of the numerous Chinese sailing-craft — the sort 
 most usually seen having one tall mat-made sail of towering height and most 
 awkward appearance to European eyes. The first sight of these queerly- 
 rigged boats is as impressive as is the first view of the many-decked, piled-up 
 steamers that greet one's wondering eyes in the harbour of New York. 
 
 Shanghai, as far as its foreign settlement is concerned, is but the growth of 
 about seventeen years. It numbers only 2000 or so Europeans. Looking at 
 the large number of substantially-built stone houses filling many streets and 
 long sulnirban roads, the visitor will be apt to estimate the white folks there at 
 a large number. Every such inhabitant would certainly seem to have one to 
 himself. I say himself, because the white female population did not count up 
 to more than 300 at time of my visit. I fear that I thus point out a marriage 
 market that may yet rob other places. I can remember, too, what a matri- 
 monial mart Calcutta once was. The native ladies will excite no jealousy. 
 Competition by them is out of the question. I see no pretty Chinese women here. 
 Here, in Shanghai, I first saw the famous Chinese compressed female foot. 
 Those so disfigured are recognised by their wretched hobbling attempts at 
 walking. The impression on the s, ranger is exactly that made l)y one trying 
 to walk on one's heels only. It is most unpleasant. The foot appears to have 
 been squeezed up, heels and all, into the ankle, and the toes only left on which 
 to tread. These small feet, or hooves, as they really are, are luckily not com- 
 mon sights. The fashion never became general, like to the growing of pigtails, 
 
Wheelba7'ro7U- Carriage. 5 3 
 
 by the men. Every Chinaman shaves nearly all his head to give strength to 
 the back hair, which is twisted about to form the tail. To make this ex- 
 crescence longer and thicker, silk is intertwisted with it. The longer the tail 
 the more admirable. When not hanging behind, a proper pigtail should twist 
 three times round the neck. It is finished off with a silken tassel. A China- 
 man would as soon lose his life as part with this useless but, to him, highly 
 ornamental article. You touch his honour and dignity if you touch his pigtail. 
 
 A new national conveyance is soon perceptible hereabout. To every one 
 palanquin that one sees about vShanghai there are a dozen wheelbarrows used 
 as conveyances. To make one of these, the wheel of a common barrow should 
 be made twice the usual size, and the seats placed on each side of it in 
 Irish jaunting-car fashion. The vehicle has the appearance of a veritable 
 wheell)arrow, and is wheeled in the same way. It is, of course, springless. 
 When one passenger only is carried, it tilts to one side to preserve the equi- 
 librium. So mean a conveyance does it look, that some courage is required 
 with Europeans to make use of it. The palanquins are more in favour with 
 the foreign population, who leave the barrows to the natives. Of all the 
 vehicles I had seen in the world, these appeared to be the meanest. To think 
 of being carried on a wheelbarrow ! 
 
 The settlers in this seventeen-years' old Shanghai have their history. They 
 tell of the past, even at so short a date, and speak of it as better than the present. 
 The halcyon days, when wealth was widely distributed, and easy to be had I 
 "When a hundred dollars were as easily to be got as one is now ! " "When 
 Lewis came from Australia here with a circus company, and set up a tent 
 there, opposite where Jannsen's Hotel stands, and made a fortune of 20,000/. 
 in a few weeks I" " When Lorara was a great man here, and made nothing of 
 thousands ! Poor fellow, he went to poverty and Lisbon at last, and died in 
 an asylum there ! " Such are the little recollections that crop up and come 
 out when Shanghai folks talk. With every community it seems to be thus — 
 always yesterday or to-morrow, and never to-day, as the day of prosperity. 
 
 To get to Shanghai I had passed some little distance up the Yangtze-Kiang 
 river, and became acquainted with one cause to the greatness of China and the 
 prosperity of its hundreds of millions. It is another America for majestic rivers. 
 With such natural facilities for water traffic, supplemented by numberless canals, the 
 favoured land of China grew naturally to greatness, and prospered until outside 
 interference by England shook its stability, and has now left it, like to a great 
 whale, floundering in shallow water, nearly helpless. This river with the long 
 name is navigable for a thousand miles from the Yellow Sea, from which I 
 entered it, up to Nanking, 
 
 From the great river a divergence is made into the lesser Wangpo, on the 
 passage to Shanghai, and the walled town of Woosung has to be passed on the 
 way. From Woosung to Shanghai a railway had recently been opened — the 
 first that was made in China, The Chinese do not favour these innovations. 
 They are not like to the Japanese in that respect. A Chinaman's conceit is 
 something enormous ; all that does not originate with his nation is to him 
 worthless. Since I was at Shanghai last year, this railway has been bought by 
 the Chinese and destroyed. 
 
 There are many pleasant characteristics about Shanghai in addition to its 
 noble bay, filled with shipping and picturesque craft of all kinds. On the 
 crescent-shaped sand round this bay are to be seen the different divisions of 
 the town — the English quarter, the French, and the native. The range of 
 the buildings so distributed around this bay frontage must be some three miles 
 in extent. The population of the foreign kind is mixed up of all nations 
 similarly to that of the Japanese ports. The winter weather, at the time of 
 the year I was there— the beginning of February — was cold, but no snow was 
 
54 The Afaifi Routes Round the JVorld. 
 
 visible, as at Japan. An overcoat was, however, a desirable addition to one's 
 clothing. The walks and drives around Shanghai are numerous and pleasant, 
 the Bubbling Well road particularly so. The race-course is passed on this 
 road. It is on well-selected ground, and has a tolerable grandstand, that is 
 not likely, however, from the good views to be had of the racing all round, to 
 be much patronized. 
 
 The Bubbling Well is a curious wayside well of 5 ft. diameter. The water 
 upon which one looks therein is ever bubbling — in a single bubble at a time. 
 The cause of this phenomenon is not agreed upon. Here a fine opportunity 
 is afforded for the exercise of fancy, and the display of learning, in defining 
 this inexhaustible and most definite of the bubbles of the day. It is of 
 Nature's concoction. There is no humbug about it. As enduring and reliable 
 as Niagara, this little one of Nature's water-wonders bubbles ever on and on, 
 welling its single bubble as regularly as the beatings of the human heart or the 
 ebb and flow of the tide. In any other country but that of Confucius, a temple 
 would have been erected over this well, a sacred legend have been attached to 
 it, and a large income derived from devotees ! Here, at Shanghai, the Bubble 
 Well is a miracle wasted — blushing, not unseen but wasting its sweetness in 
 producing no profit. At Benares it would bring in a'large revenue. With a 
 good legend attached to it, fame may yet draw the world to see it. It goes to 
 look at far more trumpery things than the curious Bubbling Well of Shanghai. 
 
 The native town is walled to the height of about 20 ft. The wall is sur- 
 rounded by a moat. If the walls were 10 ft. higher, the town would have 
 much of the exterior appearance of Jerusalem. The gate by which I entered 
 is very like to the Joppa gate of Solomon's city. Inside, also, the resemblance 
 to Jerusalem is kept up by the narrowness and filthiness of the streets. How 
 difterent to the wide streets and clean ones of tidy Japan J The gaudily- 
 painted signs that are protruding everywhere, showing Chinese characters and 
 hieroglyphics, soon tell me, however, that I am not in Palestine. The city is 
 busier than is Jerusalem, and is far more densely populated. Busy bees are all 
 around me, and I take leave to watch their movements. Time is too precious 
 for them to suspend their work because that a stranger is looking at them. 
 
 Here are all the characteristics of a Chinese town, in this old city of 
 Shanghai, to be seen in every particular. Some of these particulars are not 
 very pleasant. There is, to begin with, a very oppressive sense of overcrowd- 
 ing. One feels that at once in endeavouring to walk about the 10 ft. wide 
 streets. The stones that pave them have been worn to a slippery condition by 
 the bare feet of the million that jostle each other in their ceaseless traffic, 
 " Million" is, by the way, a fitting term indeed when speaking of a Chinese 
 population, they are so plentiful and so prolific. Scarcely one of the little 
 squeezed-up shops in these crowded alleys but appears to have as much of 
 family as of goods in it. All work seems to be done in full view of the public; 
 the wood-carver in his huge spectacles is busy at his minute labour at his open 
 stall, with the noise of the multitude that pass his door, or jostle each other in 
 front of it, ever in his ears. Privacy does not appear to be valued. The dyer, 
 the silkworker, the weaver, and the miller, are all to be seen at their avoca- 
 tions, carried on in places in which there scarcely appears space enough to 
 swing around their arms. The habit that we see the Chinese have in American 
 and Australian settlements of overcrowding themselves has been learnt in their 
 crowded and overcrowded native towns, and habit, we know, is stronger than 
 nature — bad habits especially so. 
 
 That no time may be wasted, or money either, in going to temple- worship, a 
 little shrine, holding the figure of Buddha or some other deity, is placed in a 
 corner of most of these little hives of industry. The sticks of incense, at a 
 penny a dozen, are lighted up before the image when evening comes on, so 
 
Chi7iese Town Life. 55 
 
 that worship goes on with business — as it ought to do, all good Christians 
 will say. Cleanliness and godliness do not go hand-in-hand in this case, 
 however. There is reason for their not doing so. The struggle for bare 
 existence is so hard with these people that time cannot be wasted in fetching 
 water and much washing. What few hours can be spared from labour is too 
 often wanted for sleep. 
 
 Do I not see the sleep of the tired ones all around me ? The Chinese are 
 not particular where they rest when nature can no longer hold out. Like 
 dogs, they lie about on doorsteps and under any shady place— any out-of-the- 
 way corner that gives them six feet by two of space. As no vehicles run about 
 in these narrow alleys and crowded lanes, there is no danger from passing 
 wheels. All travelling not done on foot is performed by two bare-backed men 
 carrying a sedan chair, slung upon two bamboos, in which chair sits the 
 traveller, carried along at a "Chinaman's trot" of between four and five miles 
 an hour. Though these carriers have but little breath to spare from this 
 intolerably hard labour, they have to spare some of it in shouting loudly to 
 warn the crowd of their coming, that space may be made to let them pass with 
 their burden. Only long practice can have given their bare feet the foothold 
 which they unfailingly seem to have. Booted, as I was, I slipped about 
 everywhere on the greasy and polished stones, but never was a slip made l)y 
 these chair-bearers, all naked as their feet were. 
 
 The native city of Shanghai must be an ancient place. It bears every mark 
 of time about it . Its temples are black with age and decay. The smoke of 
 the incense sticks has had something to do with the blackening perhaps, but, 
 allowing for that, it is still an antiquated town. It is probable that nearly all 
 of it has Deen rebuilt many times. Fire is so active in these crowded Chinese cities 
 that building is always going on to replace that which the fire has destroyed. 
 For that purpose only is the builder seemingly required. In these crowded 
 walled towns there has been no spare ground left fcjr building upon. It would 
 be difficult to find space enough to put up a pump. }vIost of the buildings are 
 of brick. 
 
 Wandering about with that prime necessity, a guide, in this crowded, mazy 
 place, I pass into its temples and through its markets, and along its streets, 
 and into this shop and that, until I come to near about the centre of the city. 
 In Jerusalem I should have now arrived at Solomon's Temple, or the Mosque 
 of Omar, that at present stands on its site ; but here, at Shanghai, was 
 "something more exquisite still," something worth Solomon's Temple twice 
 over. It was a tea-house, in the centre of a large pool, with zigzag wooden 
 roadways leading from the land across the water under the overhanging trees. 
 " Only that and nothing more." 
 
 What is it, then, that makes one stop and rub one's eyes and open one's 
 mouth ? Why am I silent and standing stock-still looking at that tea-house ? 
 The guide says nothing, and moves not. He has seen the same state of things 
 with other travellers, and has come to understand it — so far as a Chinaman 
 can understand emotion and sentiment. Will one's eyes never "cease staring? 
 It is to be feared not, for they are looking at the original of the earliest thing 
 that British human eyes can remember seeing, at what they looked at three 
 times a day or so, and at the time when the brain best receives lasting im- 
 pressions. They have seen the scene now before them until it has been 
 foremost of all things in the memory of the eye. It can be recalled at any time 
 to the mind's eye by closing the outer vision, and will remain a vivid picture 
 when memory of all other pictures and paintings, seen but now and then, have 
 faded — for I am gazing now at the original of that well-known view in the 
 willow-pattern plate. All the rest of native Shanghai is as nothing to this. 
 Towers and palaces and gorgeous temples it has none. Its temples are rough 
 
56 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 and ugly, and dirt-begrimed ; Init here, in this water and willow tea-house, 
 vShanghai holds a shrine that makes a pilgrimage to it as excusable as any 
 pilgrimage ever made. No traveller has ever told of it. None have l)rought 
 home the slightest news about it. The source of the Nile and the locality of 
 the North Pole have had too much of attention altogether. In point of ad- 
 vantage and value to the world they will confer no greater benefit when, if 
 
 A CHINESE TEA-HOUSE. 
 
 ever, found, than will the knowledge of the whereabouts of the famous Tea 
 Temple among the water and willows of Shanghai, with its winding, wooden 
 approaches. 
 
 To me no more a fiction, but a pleasant reality, foremost among the sights of 
 the world, is that tea-house temple. I had thought it, as others have no doubt 
 done, as but the mere fancy of the artist, and yet the enduring nature of that 
 million-multiplied picture might have told me that its stronghold was in the 
 foundation of fact. The countless millions of copies of it that have circulated 
 through the world have made it the best-known of pictures. How many of 
 them have we not broken and been beaten for l)reaking ? Nothing approaching 
 to it in the way of pictures has been so multiplied and distributed. At 
 Damascus, early in 1876, I was served at dinner in Dhemetri's Hotel off a 
 willow-pattern plate. There, in the oldest city of this world, as in the mush- 
 room town of yesterday's growth, has this nursery story of a picture found its 
 place. It will have another place now. I do not remember that I ever saw 
 this picture framed and glazed. That shall now be done. In circular rose- 
 wood frame it will look well. The word "Shanghai" beneath it will be all 
 that will be necessary to recall the scene as one of the greatest surprises that 
 awaits the traveller who seeks astonishments. 
 
 I enter upon the crooked water-walk, and cross to the tea-house. Before I 
 enter it I look around. I am in the centre of an oblong reserve of which the 
 tea island forms the middle part. There is a piece of fenced-in grass at one 
 end, in which a deer is Ijrowsing. The place has evidently seen Ijetter days. 
 
Burial Customs. 57 
 
 The water was not always of the clayey colour it is now, and the tea-house and 
 its approaches had a gayer appearance in the days that were, and when its 
 picture was painted for our dinner-plates. 
 
 Entering this house of houses, I take a seat with the Chinamen who are 
 drinking tea there, and eating curry with chop-sticks, I get some tea, and 
 wait until its scalding-hot state has abated. It is sugarless, of course, and 
 without milk, but what of that ? Its surroundings will make it taste like unto 
 nectar, served as it is in that wondrous tea-house — a place that my young eyes 
 had looked upon as a paradise, and my infant fancy pictured as the great 
 pleasure-spot of the world. I had now come to it, and, like to all the other 
 fine things of this world that the traveller seeks, it did not improve on 
 acquaintance. Venice looks much better in pictures than it does to the 
 traveller's eyes. Calcutta is not a city of palaces, and very far from being so 
 Vou do not want to die after seeing Naples. The Blarney-stone is a swindle,, 
 and so is the Logan Rock. No disappointment can be greater than that one 
 experiences in looking at the .Sphinx and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 The "splendid city of Benares"' that the traveller expects to see, from what 
 he has read, does not exist. A decaying and dilapidated town is what he 
 does see, walking and stumbling about as he does over that part of it here and 
 there which has fallen, and lies as it fell. Nothing — not even Niagara — equals 
 expectation. Why, therefore, should the willow-pattern plate tea-house be an 
 exception ? 
 
 Shanghai city closes its ancient gates sternly at 8 p.m. After that none can 
 enter it. The native element has outgrown its protection, however, and is 
 largely distributed around it and through the settlement generally. The 
 Tazmaylew, or big road, is a highly picturesque street in the English part of 
 Shanghai. It has the advantage of good width, so that the Chinese signs with 
 which it is hung from end to end on each side show to advantage. This street 
 leads out to the pleasant Bubbling Well road, all along which fine views are 
 obtained of the surrounding country. vShanghai is built on the edge of the 
 great plain of Kaing See — the largest of the plains of China. It is said to be 
 in extent 300 miles by 1200 miles, and to be the very garden of the land 
 of China. 
 
 This garden of China is much bedotted with mounds of earth that are 
 untouched and uncultivated. In many cases these mounds make up as much 
 as a fourth of the field in which they stand. They are the graves of former 
 proprietors, and are held as sacred and untouchable by the present owners. 
 
 •' These graves take up much of the land," I said to the kindly friend who 
 was driving me around the country. 
 
 "Oh, yes, they do indeed. Cremation would be the salvation of China — 
 would place so much more land in cultivation. These large graves about the 
 fields are great drawbacks to the profits of the cultivator of the land." 
 
 " Vet I suppose he would rather perish than level the ground and cultivate 
 the spot." 
 
 "He holds the grave of his ancestors as sacred as his own pigtail, and so 
 helps to starve himself by his superstition." 
 
 The settlement of Shanghai appears to have a pleasant future before it. It 
 is an increasing and prosperous place. The Chinese are not to be feared. As 
 a nation they are the weakest of warriors, and incapable alike of aggression 
 and defence. They need the protection of a strong power like England. It 
 is well that a company, like to the aggressive East India Company, have not 
 found a footing among them. The fate of India would have been that of 
 China ere now. Its wonderful system of civilization and government held it 
 together, as a nation, until its constitution was l:)roken l)y the rude shocks of 
 war made by the British in 1842, 1869, and 1S72. The power of China was, 
 
58 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 by the first of these shocks, so injured that the Taeping rebelHon gradually 
 gained strength thereafter, and grew to formidable results that have desolated 
 many populous parts of the empire, and threatened it with dissolution until 
 Gordon put it down. China, as a nation, is as weak and defenceless now as 
 a milch cow. To keep the nation together should be the aim of the rest of 
 the world ; for, if it falls to pieces, its millions will take to emigration, and 
 flood the labour-markets of the world. There is no such cheap labourer as a 
 Chinaman, and none so dangerous as a competitor with Western workfolk. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CHINESE PORTS. 
 
 PASSiNC'down to Foochow, a great tea-shipping place, and Amoy, a similar 
 one, in one of the boats of Holt's line, I am taken thence to Hong Kong and 
 landed at the smallest colony that Cireat Britain possesses. It is, I was told 
 
 AMOY HARi;OUR. 
 
 but thirty-six miles round. The extravagant salary of 5000/. a year is paid to 
 its lucky governor. Time was when Melbourne was the golden thing in 
 governorships. Looking at the thing all round, the " plum" would appear now 
 to be Hong Kong — one-twentieth the size of little Tasmania, and no bother of 
 responsible government and playing at Parliament. 
 
 Hong Kong is like to Madeira in the first look which the traveller gets of it 
 — a white town at the foot of a mountain. Seen at night, lighted up, it has a 
 pretty appearance indeed to those who then approach it by its land-locked and 
 winding harbour. To go into Hong Kong in foggy weather must be impossible 
 
A Living VoIca?io. 59 
 
 Winding about among the rocks and their narrow passages, this Gibrahar-like 
 place is reached at last, long after the traveller has seen the flag that waves at 
 the look-out station on the top of the o'erhanging mountain. 
 
 There is no separate native town at Hong Kong, as at Shanghai. There is 
 advantage in this to those who like to see the Chinese l)rought to comply with 
 European customs, and to live in wide and clean streets. Except around the 
 water's edge, wheeled vehicles are not much used in Hong Kong. The sedan 
 chair, carried on the bamboo, is the favourite form of moving about. The cold 
 winter weather of vShanghai had been now quite left behind. At the end of 
 January, Hong Kong was too warm for one's liking. The mosquitoes were 
 troublesome, and all walking about out of the question. 
 
 Having taken a drive out to Happy Valley to see the racecourse, and 
 declined the fatiguing journey to the Flagstaff-house, the sights of Hong Kong 
 proved to be exhausted. I walked through its native market in the early 
 morning, and left its fine white stone houses and the green waters of its pretty 
 bay to go by steamer, " Kui Kiang," down to Canton, by way of the wide 
 river of the same name, called also the Pearl River. On board this boat I met 
 with one who had made a name as an Australian vocalist and ballad-writer. 
 For years T had missed all mention of him. In his present avocation of a 
 " curio" collector and exporter he is well and profitably employed. Another 
 acquaintance turned up in the tall figure of Chang, the Chinese giant, whom I 
 had met when exhibiting himself around the world many years back. He was- 
 now seeking to establish himself in business at one of the Chinese ports, if he 
 could resist some tempting terms to again travel in company with another 
 Chinese giant lately found, and who is even taller than himself. I endeavoured, 
 for the benefit of the world, to turn the scale in favour of the tour of the 
 Celestial giants. Traders are plenty in China — "too plenty," as they express it 
 in their attempts at English — but giants of 8ft. are scarce, and the world likes 
 wonders. 
 
 The Chinese, when they learn any French or German, speak it correctl)'.. 
 Not so with the English language. They mess it about in a comical manner, 
 and make of it new words and phrases. The trouble with a Chinaman is to 
 pronounce the letter R. With the Japanese the same trouble exists with the 
 letter L, "American" is by the Chinese pronounced as "Melican." 
 " Askee Melican man topside" was said to me by a Chinaman. It meant 
 that he would ask an American on deck some question as to the value of a 
 United States dollar that I was paying to him. Anything that implies a 
 higher situation is "topside" in this " pidgin English." 
 
 " Pidgeon (or pidgin) English," as this cackle is called, really means 
 "business" English, the word "pidgin" being as near as a Chinaman can 
 bring his tongue to the sound of the word "business." As the Chinese can 
 get no nearer to English language than this childish half-and-half talk, the 
 British trader has to adopt it also, and the result is very whimsical. Grown- 
 up men with grey beards are heard talking to a Chinaman as a child might use 
 broken English at three years of age. 
 
 On board this steamer that was taking me to Canton I noticed that all 
 approaches to between decks were guarded with iron doors, in front of which 
 one of the crew walked with a loaded gun. On the upper deck plenty of 
 Chinese of a better class were left at their ease, but those taking second-class 
 passage, and they were legion, were placed thus under guard, and within iron 
 gates. I asked of the captain as to this state of things. 
 
 " You are walking on a volcano — that's all," was his reply. 
 
 "See," he said, drawing a revolver from his breast-pocket, "I am never 
 without this on me." 
 
 An alarming state of things certainly, which I heard this explanation of : — 
 
6o The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 " Only two years ago, between here and Canton, a similar lot to what I now 
 carry raised ia quarrel among themselves, and brought it upon deck, and ended 
 it by killing the captain, my predecessor, and the crew, and taking the vessel ! " 
 
 The iron gates at the foot of the stairs were now explained, and so were the 
 men with the guns, and he that walked the quarter-deck with the drawn sword 
 in his hand. " The Volcano " consisted of about a thousand Chinamen lolling 
 about in all attitudes, smoking opium or tobacco, playing cards or dominoes, 
 scraping at stringed instruments, singing ballads in voices like that of a cat, 
 telling stories to a listening crowd, or sleeping in every conceivable attitude in 
 which humanity can get sleep. I got the iron gate opened, and walked among 
 this crowd of possible pirates, and saw a different scene to that which I had 
 looked upon in the work-a-day city of Shanghai. There all was industry and 
 plodding labour. Here it was the improvement of the leisure hours in that 
 manner most to the taste of each. 
 
 Opium-smoking takes first place in the number of Chinese amusements. It 
 is far more general than I had imagined, quite as common as was the chewing 
 of tobacco amongst the folks of Great Britain fifty years ago, and more 
 common than snuff-taking is with Europeans at present. A veritable little 
 cabinet of articles has to be carried about by the opium-smoker. It is as large 
 and as full of instruments as a lady's work-box. No. I is the buffalo horn box 
 that holds the treacley-looking stuff that is the opium about to be smoked. 
 No. 2 is the steel skewer, with which sufficient of the opium is taken up and 
 wound about the skewer's point. No. 3 is the little lamp now to be lighted, 
 at which the opium will be heated. No. 4 is the bowl of the pipe, covered 
 over all but a small hole in the centre, into which the heated opium is squeezed 
 by the point of the skewer. No. 5 is the pipe-stem, now fixed on to the bowl. 
 All this bother being finished, he that has taken it lies down at half-length, 
 puts the pipe mouth-piece between his lips, and the light to the small hole in 
 the bowl. That ignites the opium within. The smoke is drawn from the 
 bowl and passed into the mouth, and thence into the lungs, whence it is, after 
 a second or two, expelled through the nostrils. After four or five long whiffs 
 the opium is exhausted. The smoker will then lie quietly to enjoy the effects, 
 or, if the dose has not been strong enough to produce them, he will prepare 
 another one. It looks like to taking of too much trouble, but " the labour we 
 delight in physics pain." 
 
 Usually one pipe suffices, and the smoker passes into half an hour's doze. 
 As I look at him I would give something handsome for his pleasant sensations, 
 and the gorgeous visions that he is now enjoying, but cannot bring myself to 
 buy them at the cost he pays. In a neuralgic attack I once had to take a mild 
 preparation of opium in the shape of a morphia pill, and I recall all the 
 pleasant dreams of that painless night ; also the light head and the sick 
 stomach of all the next day. Like other pleasures, it is very nice, but the day 
 after, and its sufferings, counterbalance all the pleasure — counterbalance it 
 until the pleasure in its lightness kicks the beam against the heavy weight of 
 the suffering on the other side. 
 
 Beyond the opium-smoking vice, at a long distance, comes the gambling 
 one. Of three average Chinamen caught at a street corner, one will smoke 
 opium for amusement, the second will gamble, and the third will sleep. Cards 
 and dominoes are seen everywhere among the strewn battlefield-like scene that 
 I am here between decks picking my way through. I have to tread on tiptoe 
 between the arms and legs of the sleepers, and am like to a camp-follower that 
 looks for the prize of a dead officer among the mass of dead and dying of the 
 rank and file. The musical instruments and the singing scare me out of the place 
 at last, and I pass through the iron gate and by its guardian, and on to the upper 
 deck ap-ain, having seen the possible pirates at all their leisurely amusements. 
 
A Female Guide. 6i 
 
 The scenery of the tine river on which I am steaming down to Canton 
 affords equal interest to the scenes l)etween decks. To some it would be more 
 interesting, but Pope was of opinion that the study of mankind is of first 
 moment. Dr. Johnson believed also in what Fleet-street could show him 
 against all other scenes. On either side of the Kui Kiang, and on the islands 
 in its midst, are forts that English guns have destroyed, now lying dismantled 
 and deserted. Stone walls that cross hill and dale at their rear and side still 
 stand. The useless laliour and wasted work over these Chinese fortifications 
 is a painful sight, except perhaps to the philosopher, who may regard all the 
 works of men as coming to much the same thing at the end. 
 
 Here, too, on the left side of the broad river stands Whampoa, or what 
 remains of that once populous town. It is now a deserted water-side village, 
 with a towering pagoda overhanging it. This building is over 20oft, high, 
 and has a tree growing from the summit of its tower. It is of the shape of 
 one of the round towers of Ireland, and not of the ornamental style that is 
 brought to mind by the word pagoda. Vegetation is growing also on its 
 window-sills and wherever a creeper can get foothold or a seed dropped by a 
 bird find mortar and moisture to aid its growth. Whampoa's good time was 
 when no foreign vessels were allowed to pass further onwards to Canton. 
 That state of things is done away with, and the formerly busy port may now 
 write "Ichabod" on its landing-stage, in its deserted streets, on its empty 
 and trembling houses, and its decaying temples and pagodas. 
 
 The busy life of the Kui Kiang River begins after Whampoa is passed. 
 Dozens of the native boats (sampans) appear on either side. These increase 
 in number to hundreds. By the time that the anchor is dropped at Canton, 
 the boat-life of the big river is in full view. The surface seems to be covered 
 with water-craft of all sizes, but varying little in shape. From 500 tons down 
 to five, and to half a ton only, these boats are seen everywhere. Those from 
 two tons upwards constitute the dwellings of their owners. In these floating 
 habitations they are born, and in these they marry and live, rear a family, pass 
 on to old age, and sit as grandfathers steering the boats that they sculled as boys. 
 The Chinese boat-women do all the business work that comes in the way 
 of boat life. The husband's duties ajDpear to be amidships, keeping the boat 
 clear from other craft, and taking carders from his busy and barefooted better half. 
 She picks up the pidgin English more ([uickly than her dull mate, and for that reason 
 generally gets the boat licensed to herself as the owner. Preference is given 
 to the best educated in China, even down to the boat-folk. I am sitting on 
 board the steamer, getting a friendly Chinese scholar to write me several cards 
 showing my name and address in Chinese characters, when my shoulder is 
 tapped, and looking up I find a smart-mannered, bright-looking woman at my 
 side. Two or three others are also around, all desirous to assist me on shore. 
 Says my lady, — 
 
 " Come, master, you go shore, you come hotel, my boat." 
 "What hotel are you going to?" I ask. 
 
 " Rosario Hotel. Only one hotel. International Hotel fall down." 
 Finding from the captain that this is truth, and that there is but one hotel, 
 I take Hobson's choice in the matter, and go with my neat-looking guide. 
 She looks to be about thirty. It is true that she is shoeless, and has on but a 
 blue blouse ; but then her fine black hair is elegantly put up and neatly 
 ornamented. That so assists her that she is almost good-looking. She wants 
 to take my heavy travelling-bag, but I have not the conscience to let her do 
 such drudgery. I gallantly take it from her hand, at which the captain laughs. 
 He says, — 
 
 "She can carry it better than you can. She will think now that you are 
 afraid to entrust it to her, and take her for a thief." 
 
62 The Alain Routes Round the World. 
 
 It was, of course, possible that my politeness might be so misconstrued ; 
 but I let her lead the way to her family boat, which she at once pushes out 
 from the landing, and begins to scull across the stream. How herself and her 
 husband ever get through the mass of boats that cover that teeming river is 
 best known to themselves. I sit down under a circular covering of bamboo, 
 roofed with rush-made matting, and find there two little children, sitting quiet 
 as mice, and good as gold. They have but small room for play or mischief, 
 and are never away from the eyes of their fond papa in the rear, and mamma 
 in the front. At night-time this covered space of 6ft. long by 3ft. broad serves, 
 I suppose, for family bedroom. There is more wretchedness and misery to be 
 seen among the Irish cotters and the peasantry of wretched Turk-governed 
 Syria than I have seen in the boat-life of the Chinese rivers. 
 
 Susan, for so she called herself, took me to an hotel, the steps of which went 
 down below the water. It had an overhanging balcony of wood, and was 
 wood-built all through. There was ready escape, however, into the river in 
 case of fire. Rosario's Hotel would not suit fastidious folk, but I was well 
 .satisfied with it for the time I stayed. 
 
 On the river that I look at right and left from the balcony of the hotel, its 
 owner tells me, 50,000 people are living, having their boats for sole residence. 
 
 I find that I am now at Honam, and that Canton is on the opposite shore. 
 There, at the left, is Shameen, the foreign settlement, in which neither hotel 
 nor coolie is allowed. The bridges to it are guarded, that the English, French, 
 .and German residents may live in a strictly select manner. Shameen is certainly 
 a well-laid-out and nicely-planted place, but a first-class hotel ought certainly 
 to be built there for the convenience of foreign visitors. All travellers have 
 not friends there in whose houses to find a welcome. Rosario is a Portugese 
 who speaks broken English. At present he enjoys a monopoly which is not to 
 the advantage of travellers. 
 
 I engage a guide for the proper exploration of Canton on the following two 
 •days. In the evening Susan comes to me of her own free will and wit — as 
 knowing the wants of the friendless traveller. 
 
 "You want to see river, master. I come at eight. Take you to boat. 
 Show you wedding party. Take you to tea-boats, and show you lots of 
 things." 
 
 "You are a jewel. You come at eight, and I'll go.' 
 
 Her English was not so plain as I have put it down. In fact, she had to 
 repeat twice or thrice everything that she said, but the truth generally dawned 
 upon me at last, as it does to all of us. 
 
 So that evening I am taken on board the family boat, which now in the 
 moonlight, with a pretty paper lantern at stem and stern, looks like to a gay 
 gondola. Susan sculls and talks, and her husband sculls and is silent. His 
 mother, at the helm, steers and looks after her grandchildren. It all looks 
 very novel and pleasing. 
 
 In and out among the endless boats, I make way for a mile or two ; sitting 
 down under cover is now not to be thought of. The paper lanterns give a gay 
 and carnival look to the river scene that forces one's attention and admiration. 
 It was so very different to anything that I had hitherto seen anywhere — this 
 scene on the Canton river by moonlight. The boat is drawn at last alongside 
 a large one of similar build, into which I am bid to step. 
 
 It is a tea or pleasure boat that I am now upon. Music is on hand, and tea 
 and cakes and sweetmeats. Folks tired of the day's tussle on shore come to 
 these boats in the evening to enjoy the river and the breeze, the feast of Chinese 
 raisins, and the flow of the tea-bowl. Of that warm, insipid beverage Susan 
 brings me a basin and a plate of sweetmeats. I endeavour to do as others do, 
 but find that I am not happy at the tea and sweets. The latter make the 
 
A IVc'ddin!:!; Party. 
 
 63 
 
 sugarless tea taste positively bitter. I try to sweeten it with them, but it by no 
 means improves the flavour, 
 
 " No saki to be got, Susan?" I said. 
 
 She asks for the rice spirit, and gets it. It is but little better than the tea ; 
 but it is better, and Susan brings a cigar with it in her happy way of spreading 
 bliss around. 
 
 From the pleasure-boat I progress in another direction for a mile or so, until 
 sounds of revelry come upon me in the night and the moonlight. I am drawn 
 up alongside a still larger boat than the last one, and l)id step into it. 
 
 CHINESE WOMEN AT HOME. 
 
 It is a wedding celebration that I have now got among. The bride is 
 resplendent in dress and hair-dressing, but keeps her face closely covered. 
 One of Susan's sisters is a bridesmaid, I suppose, for she looks almost as fine 
 as the bride. I fear almost to shake hands with her until Susan tells me that 
 T will be allowed that liberty with her, and also with the bride. Thanks to 
 the saki, I suppose, I gather courage to do so. Hat in hand, I return the 
 bows that welcome me under the large awning, and take my seat among sixty 
 or so of wedding guests. Prompted by Susan, my good genius of that evening, 
 the bride uncovers her face, and l)rings me a tray with tea. The courtesy with 
 
64 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 which she tendered that tray quite overpowered me. My good breeding was 
 hardly equal to returning it, and, taking the tea and getting upright again, and 
 spilling none of it. The bride looked very nice — but I scarcely ever saw a 
 bride who did not. The tea really tasted better than other tea, because herself 
 had brought it to me. Call it not vain — I do not err in so saying. Longfellow 
 says that Nuremberg looked better, and its sunshine brighter, because Albert 
 Durer, the artist, had trodden its streets. Said Susan, now again at my 
 side. — 
 
 " You thank the bride. You wish them both happy life. You give bride 
 present." 
 
 The last suggestion of this good woman was easily complied with ; but how 
 to thank the bride and wish happiness to the married pair was a teazer. Not 
 one of them but Susan probably would understand a word I said, however 
 much I might try to "pidgin" my English. 
 
 It was really distressing — so much so that Susan, seeing my hesitation, 
 increased it by getting the bride to bring me a cup of hot saki and water. I 
 gained time by asking Susan to put sugar in it, waited until it melted, and then 
 got the bride to stir it round with her fair finger. It did, indeed, taste sweet 
 after that. 
 
 I gave Susan the dollars to distribute ; but she brought the recipients to me 
 that I might place them in their hands, which I did, Susan dictating what 
 should be given, and managing the whole matter in first-rate diplomatic style — 
 a born politician. 
 
 I hoped to sneak out of the speech-making, but that was not for Susan. Oh, 
 dear, no ! I was not to be thus let off. She now spoke decisively about it. 
 The power and influence of women on such occasions is wonderful. They 
 seem to shine then as at no other time. There is amongst them the joy over 
 the captured husband similar to what there must be, I think, among the angels 
 in Heaven over the sinner that repenteth. 
 
 Said Susan, " You wish them good luck. You stand up and tell them so. 
 Don't be humbug." 
 
 This was not "pidgin," but plain English. The last word was scarcely 
 applicable. If anything, I was the soft party in the business of that strange 
 evening. Susan must have meant "fool," I think, but it mattered not. There 
 was no help for it. Nobody there to understand me but Susan, and none to 
 report the speech. Every speech-maker has had occasion to wish he could 
 get off on as easy terms. 
 
 I made the speech in the usual wise way of such addresses, and Susan led 
 oft a round of hand-clapping, and got others to follow it. I then got bride 
 and bridegroom to write me their names in pencil on a card, and got Susan to 
 give me the English equivalent sounds, and then she insisted on my shaking 
 hands all round. 
 
 I never had so good a guide anywhere in all my travels as that bare-footed 
 boat-woman. She was made for the office of guitle, antl perhaps j^hilosopher 
 and friend as well. She took an interest in her "pidgin," and anticipated my 
 wants, and not, like to others, left everything to be suggested and asked for. 
 She volunteered her services, and as a volunteer was worth a dozen hirelings. 
 
Canton. 65 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A LOOK AT CANTON. 
 I 
 
 Canton proved to be a city well worth any trouble taken to see it. The 
 nativeguide, Ah Kum, who steered me through its network intricacies, was 
 a professional, and none the better as a guide for that reason. It was Hob- 
 son's choice, however, as my better boat-woman help did not undertake land 
 labour. Her domain was the water only. All the zeal that she had voluntarily 
 showed for one's benefit was not to be bought of others, pay how one might for 
 it. The hireling substitute cared not for the sheep, except for fleecing him. Ah 
 Kum was a heathen Chinee in every sense — too much so altogether for the good 
 of any one but himself. Canton was to him a certain number of show-places, to 
 be visited and got through with as quickly as possible, and be done with and 
 paid for. A certain number of shops and stores, at which he had credit, and 
 from which he drew commission, were there to be visited, and purchases there 
 recommended, and there only. To fight against all that sort of thing involved 
 a continual assertion of a freeman's right, and constant squabbles with a guide 
 v.ho was neither philosopher nor friend, as was the zealous boat-woman of the 
 day before. 
 
 He would not walk, this guide of mine. His ankle was bad for the same 
 reason that Talleyrand suggested that a certain diplomatist had the gout. 
 Palanquins had, perforce, to be taken, and Canton to be viewed over the naked 
 shoulder of a perspiring Chinaman in front, and out of two small window 
 openings at the sides. These views around were at an elevation of six feet 
 from the ground — not a height to make one giddy, but still higher than one 
 had usually looked at things from, and therefore unnatural. The motion of 
 the palanquin had some resemblance to that of a boat at sea, and made one s 
 stomach feel sickish. As there was nothing but Chinese food to be had at the 
 Canton tea-houses, the latter trouble did not much matter. Appetite was 
 wanting for that day, had even the most tempting dishes offered. 
 
 How we pushed and squeezed our way through those ten-feet-wide streets, 
 crowded with the millions of China ! Jostling here and there, and sometimes 
 coming to a dead-lock altogether, we made our way somehow, but it was all 
 struggling and trouble. The stones of these mercantile alleys were worn 
 smooth and slippery by the ceaseless traffic of the surging crowd, but the bare- 
 footed bearers who carried me through it all never slipped or tripped. It 
 would have been delightful to have walked and elbowed one's way on one's own 
 account, as a man should do. Then upward glances might have been given to the 
 countless thousands of flags of oblong shape that served as signs for shops over 
 which they hung. Then I could have stopped to examine this or that novelty 
 that fixed one's attention, and looked after the curiosities in the way of 
 humanity, past which one was now hurried. A city can only be seen satis- 
 factorily by the pedestrian. The novel industries that here and there cropped 
 up. the singing beggars, and the awful lepers might have had one's full attention, 
 and not been scurried past as they had to be. 
 
 Having found out the word for calling the halt when wanted, the first use I 
 made of it was at a shop in which, in a most limited space, three small 
 
66 
 
 The Main Routes Ronnd the World. 
 
 bullocks v/ere blindfolded, revolving round millstones. This was the process 
 of grinding grain that I saw often repeated elsewhere during the day — a 
 primitive method that had probably been in use some thousands of years. A 
 most extraordinary industry next called one's attention. It was a dyer's work- 
 shop, in which a man, supported by his hands between two horizontal bars, 
 such as are seen at a gymnasium, oscillated by his feet an enormous stone of 
 triangular shape. The obtuse apex rested on a roller that was rolling and 
 pressing some silk fabric thathadbeennewlydyed. Withhisfeetontheupturned 
 base, first pressing one end and then the other, he kept the roller in rapid 
 motion — his own motions being equally rapid. Only long practice could have 
 given him the knack of guiding the heavy stone so as to go within hairbreadth 
 of slipping off the roller and never doing so. The roller slipped not from 
 under that foot-and-a-half of stone surface that kept it going, and pressed with 
 
 .-'P'-^ 
 
 
 CHINESE PALANQUIN. 
 
 five hundredweight upon it. At the end of a quarter of an hour this dancing 
 workman could, v/ith a single movement of his foot, cant the stone on one end, 
 and, descending upon the floor, place a further portion of the silk in position to 
 be similarly treated to that now removed. And yet these Chinamen believe 
 that they do everything more cleverly than the rest of the world ! The con- 
 ceit is of a most self-satisfactory sort. A rolling-mill of the most simple kind 
 would do the work infinitely quicker and better than this most rudimentary 
 method of doing it. They are, however, satisfied with their way. It suited 
 their forefathers in countless ages past, and must therefore be the proper thing. 
 The Chinese reverence antiquity — its traditions and usages. They are the most 
 conservative of all nations of the world. 
 
 Little mobs that were assembled where any space offered for their doing so 
 proved, on inspection, to be around gambling tables. Nothing but copper 
 "cash" appeared to l^e staked. I suggested to Ah Kum that he should try 
 
Street Sights. 
 
 67 
 
 his fortune with a silver coin — that was the smallest currency I had with me. 
 He placed it on the board, but the table-keeper rejected it. He would not 
 take so large a stake. 
 
 The crowds of hurrying human beings, all on industry bent, that are to be 
 seen in Canton give one a good idea of the dense population of this over- 
 populated China. Canton is one of its large cities — seemingly as large as 
 Yeddo in Japan, but not covering so much ground. It is a walled city, and 
 space is consequently economized to the utmost. A dozen people are to be 
 seen in Canton in the same space that only one would be visible in at New 
 York. The struggle for existence seems to be very desperate indeed in these 
 Chinese cities. My thoughts about it were interrupted by a blow on the roof 
 of the palanquin that nearly sent it off the bearers' shoulders, and caused me 
 to clutch at its sides. The palanquin-carriers had jostled a stalwart, blind 
 beggar, who, in a frenzied manner, lashed out right and left with a bamboo 
 staff that he carried. He was evidently a semi-lunatic, who elsewhere would 
 have been in confinement. Looking back towards him out of the rear window 
 
 A CHINESE HOUSE. 
 
 of my swinging-cage, I perceived a crowd round him, and the bamboo still at 
 work. Save for his blindness and half-nude condition, he might have repre- 
 sented one of the sturdy quarterstaff-carrying beggars of England's bygone 
 days. Police of any sort do not appear to be about in Canton. The preserva- 
 tion of the peace seems to be left to the co-operation of the public. At one 
 place the street was l:)locked up for five minutes by a mob that listened to the 
 abuse that a furious coolie was hurling at a shop-keeper. The cause of the 
 trouble was that copper cash, equivalent to a penny, but about a handful, 
 nevertheless, had been paid to liim for some small service that he considered 
 worth tv/ice that amount. It was not until his indignation and his lungs 
 became exhausted that the stream of traffic could move on. It was rare 
 
 F 2 
 
68 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 strong abuse ihat he vented forth. His features and the hoarse tone of his 
 deep bass voice told that. I saw no street fights. 
 
 While listening to and watching that scene, a skinny arm was thrust within 
 the window of my cage. In place of a hand at the end of it, an earthenware 
 cup was strapped thereon. It was the arm of a leper, whose hand had been 
 eaten off by disease — a horrible sight. These poor creatures are not, as in 
 some places, placed in hospitals, but wander about Canton begging — rubbing 
 shoulders, meanwhile, with the jostling crowds. 
 
 The heart of the crowded city is now reached. I feel that if left in it I 
 should remain there for all ability of getting out that I possessed. Not a soul 
 had I met that showed a sign of speaking English — not one that I could even 
 think of addressing in the faint hope of his doing so. Not a European 
 costume had met my eyes. All pigtails and shaved polls, and smocks of white 
 or blue, for the richer, and bare shoulders for the poorer class. To get into 
 the city I had progressed for some time through outskirts as crowded as was 
 that part within the walls. That I had reached the walls became known to 
 me by my cage -bearers asking me to get out and scramble up some hundred 
 rugged steps that led to their top. This wall looked very old indeed. It had 
 not kept out the cannon-balls of the English, however — fired into Canton in 
 1859. Marks of these troublesome things were visible in many places — 
 notably so in one of the temples, in which swings a fine bronze bell of many 
 hundreds — I was told thousands — of tons weight. Out of the side of this bell 
 a ball had knocked a piece 2ft. wide, and left the ugly ragged gap as evidence 
 of it. The grand bell is thereby quite spoilt. A legend attaches to this bell 
 that, if it ever rang, the city would be lost. The cannon-ball that caused it to 
 ring on that occasion was a wonderful fulfilment of prophecy. Canton did not 
 long stand that bombardment, which was something like throwing hot coals 
 into a beehive. 
 
 Brick, of a slaty colour, is the prevailing building material used in Canton,, 
 but some walls are visible that are wholly made up of oyster-shells — a novel 
 and not a bad material, as it seemed to me. The city wall is built of a bluish 
 stone, much honeycombed in course of its volcanic manufacture. 
 
 A halt is called by Ah Kum at the temple of the Five-hundred Genii. It 
 is an unpretending building of one story only, but contains many halls, filled 
 with 500 sitting figures, all gilded. The gilding of the sitting figure of Prince 
 Albert in Hyde Park was probably suggested by this show of 500 such gaudy 
 things. These effigies represent different half-length figures, on whose forms 
 and faces the sculptor appears to have exhausted ingenuity to produce variety. 
 No two are alike. In several cases an arm of the figure is upraised and 
 stretched out to 5ft. in length. None of them, however, look any worse than 
 the Albert Memorial figure. After looking at about two or three hundred of 
 these life-size figures, curiosity about them is satisfied, and the rest postponed. 
 A priest of the temple, who has watched in the distance, then approaches, 
 and I pay him as I should do for visiting a wax-work show. The 500 are 
 carved in wood. They are all supposed to have special influences with the 
 deity. A devotee can take his choice as to which is likely to do best for him. 
 A laughing one, with three children in his lap, and one on each shoulder, 
 looked most domestic of the number. From the temple of the Five Hundred 
 I pass to the gaol of Canton. This place is like, I suppose, what gaols were 
 in Eui-ope before the efforts of Howard had called attention to their disgrace- 
 ful state. Anything more disgusting than the gaol at Canton cannot be 
 imagined. My squeamish guide refused to go into it. The nasty smells that 
 came betwixt the wind and his gentility made him sick, he said. I might go 
 in if I liked but was likely to catch gaol fever if I did. As no prophecy was ever 
 fulfilled in me, I regard it not, and passed through a rotten old gate into a 
 
Torturing Criminals, 69 
 
 dirty courtyard. In this place men were standing about with heavy stones 
 chained to their feet. That, with the greater misery of utter idleness, is one 
 of the punishments. Passing through a narrow filthy passage, I look into 
 what appears to be an old stable, but is an apartment of about 25ft. square. 
 Through some holes in the wall that admit light, and some iron bars that help 
 to keep it out, I look upon a sight that cannot be forgotton. The smell of the 
 dungeon was very foul, and the sight more so. About fifteen men were here 
 cooped up, each with his head thrust through a heavy wooden collar, made of 
 several pieces of planking nailed on each other. This strange instrument of 
 torture was about 3ft. square, projecting over the shoulders on each side. 
 With that on, there is no lying down for the wearer, and no rest to be had in 
 any position. Its weight must be considerable, and its torture also. It is 
 worn for a fortnight and three weeks at a time, and is equivalent to British 
 punishment of "hard labour" added to short sentences. Hard labour 
 would be no punishment to add to a Chinaman's sentence, if of the lower 
 orders. His whole life is made up of that. The poorer wretches crowded to 
 the bars of this pen with outstretched hands. What good money could do 
 them in that place I could not imagine, but they had what change I possessed. 
 If it made them less miserable for a moment only, it was well given. 
 
 In another part of the prison I found other punishments in progress. Cul- 
 prits were receieving heavy blows on the face, with leathern things made like 
 to the sole of a shoe. The jaws were frequently broken by this punishment ; 
 but that matters not. It is left in a broken state. Others were tied in a 
 kneelmg position, and one with outstretched arms tightly bound by cords to 
 bars of wood. I did not see the thumbscrew, or the scavenger's daughter, or 
 the iron boot anywhere in use. The Chinaman is too conservative to adopt 
 European customs. 
 
 A gaoler sat at a door, which I asked him to open. He did so, and I 
 walked into a quadrangle, in which about twenty men were walking or sitting 
 and lying about. Their cells were all around. They were not bound or 
 ironed in any way. I thought that it might be the hospital or lunatic ward 
 that I had got into, and went out to inquire from the guide, who was playing 
 with his toothpick outside. I learned that this was the condemned cell. He 
 said, " Those men you see there are not punished beyond imprisonment. They 
 are to have their heads cut off next week ; you stop and see it. I take you 
 to the execution ground this afternoon ! " 
 
 These men were then condemmed to die — as we all are — but these knew 
 when 'twas to happen. I went back to see them and took them some 
 tobacco, which Ah Kum suggested as the most likely thing wanted. Though 
 knowing when their lives were to be ended, they all seemed quite careless 
 about the matter. Life is not a very dear thing to a 'Chinaman — in poor 
 condition. The waiting a week for death was, I think, their chief misery. 
 The tobacco was a rare gift for them. They all seemed ready to die then and 
 there to get a share of it. Walking about among twenty condemned criminals 
 is not an every-day occurrence. Their hands were not, however, stained with 
 murder. People are hanged in China for things which the Insolvent Court 
 clears them from in the Western world. I had no doubt that among these 
 twenty were men as good as any other twenty that I had passed among any- 
 where. 
 
 From the gaol to the temple of horrors was an appropriate progression. It 
 is a temple fitted up to represent the punishments of the wicked — whether here 
 or hereafter I could not well make out. There cannot, however, be much 
 difference. A man was represented as sandwiched between two planks, and 
 being sawn through down the middle. That is a death still in fashion in 
 China. Others were being mangled in this way and that, too horrible to look 
 
70 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 upon. Yet this temple is more crowded with visitors than are any others. It is 
 to be hoped that the moral lesson intended is not lost. Outside this temple a 
 sort of fair is holden. Dentists are there drawing teeth in the open air, and 
 quacks selling their nostrums. Something of that sort is required, no doubt, 
 after the sights within the temple. They are enough to make any one feel 
 unwell. One stall particularly attracted my attention. It was that of an 
 astrologer, who drew horoscopes for a shilling. Ah Kum seemed to sneer at 
 this man and his profession, but then what could a heathen Chinee know about 
 spiritualism ? I paid my money, and got the mysterious paper from the mystic 
 man. It looks all the more wonderful and weird from being in Chinese 
 characters. I was offered a translation of it for five shillings — four times its 
 cost, but it is as well not to know one's fate. I shall keep that horoscope. 
 Framed and glazed, it will look like one of the old needlework pieces that used 
 to be so honoured and hung up in every house in our grandfathers' days. 
 
 The ten-storied pagoda now came into sight, and its summit afforded a fine 
 sight of the city from a downward point of view. The streets looked at from 
 thence seemed like to cracks in a pavement. Had I not known by rude 
 experience that they were streets, one would not have so thought on seeing, for 
 the first time, Canton from this point of view. It was like to a city all roofed 
 in ; the street openings might have been mistaken for roof guttering. Near to 
 this ten-storied pagoda, I passed a tall, old Mahomedan round tower, which 
 has no access to the top. On the summit grows a large tree that has sent its roots 
 adown the brick sides of the tower in search of nourishment. A similar thing 
 I had seen at Whampoa. The Temple of the Five Genii differs from that of 
 the Five Hundred in this, that the five goats are shown, on which the genii 
 flew through the air into Canton, there to remain for its good. The goats, I 
 suppose, had wings ; but when their mission was ended, they were turned into 
 five lumps of rough stone that are now deposited in front of the genii. I asked 
 Ah Kum if he believed the legend. He answered, " Not much." He gave no 
 reason for doubting it, and seemed to take the presence of the five stones as no 
 evidence. He seemed to believe only in his dandy British gold watch and 
 pencil-case. A dozen times an hour he would pull out the one or the other, 
 and seemed surprised that I took no notice of them. At last he broke forth, 
 " Best watch in Canton — cost forty guineas. Chinamen can make anything 
 but watches." 
 
 It was not true, but still it was something to hear a Chinaman admit that 
 there was something his countrymen could not do. I asked, " How did you 
 keep time in China before you got timekeepers from other countries?" "To 
 morrow I take you to tower, and show you the great water-clock of Canton — 
 then you see !" 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A LOOK AT CANTON. 
 II. 
 
 Ah Kum's determination to do no walking about Canton was very vexing. I 
 specially thought so when he brought up two palanquins next day, seemingly as 
 a matter of course. 
 
 " Is your ankle no better?" I queried. 
 
Water Clock. 71 
 
 " No ! cannot walk !" He said this with an immediate reference to his gold 
 watch. It was evident that the possession of that article had much to do w ith his 
 general ideas. He looked at it, not to know the time, but to settle all questions 
 generally. He walk with property like that in his possession — no, indeed ! 
 
 Ah Kum wore his tinger-nails very long — over an inch. In China that is 
 done to indicate that the possessor of the fingers does no work with his hands, 
 as the small foot indicates that the owner does no walking. When Ah Kum 
 exhibi4;ed his watch, he took care also to show his finger-nails to the best 
 advantage. Of this hideous deformity he was most unwarrantably proud. I 
 doubt if any European could get so elevated in mind on uncut finger-nails. 
 They were always, too, a nuisance to him. interfering with all the movements 
 of his hands. He endured it, however, for fashion's sake, as our folks do the 
 modern torture of high boot heels. 
 
 " Very well, then — you will ride and I shall walk. I can see nothing when 
 shut up in those palanquins. Send away the one you mean for my use I" 
 
 This satire on his vanity did not seem to suit his feelings, but I was strong 
 on the subject, and the second palanquin was sent away. Being on foot, I 
 was master of the situation for the day. and could stay where I pleased, and 
 for long or short time — using Ah Kum in his cupboard merely for reference 
 now and then. In this style we went to see the great water-clock of Canton. 
 It is not relied upon now. as formerly, for time-telling purposes, but it keeps 
 its count of the minutes and the hours as accurately as ever. It differed with 
 my time only two minutes. Ah Kum had his watch out at once, and held it 
 now altogether exposed. Such an opportunity of exhibition was not to be lost. 
 With that watch the clock dittered nothing. It was no doubt keeping correct 
 Canton time. Its construction seemed simplicity itself. Three large barrels 
 were set on end — two of them at a height of 3 ft. each from the other. From 
 bamboos inserted in the bung-holes, the water from the highest barrel dribbled 
 to the next, an;i from that to the lower one. The head of that one was 
 removed. In ii.-. vvater floated, uprightly, a graduated metallic scale like to 
 the face of a thermometer on which the twenty-fours were marked. As the 
 water increased, this indicator marked its progress and the hour next to be 
 reached and covered over. The upper barrel of the three held the exact 
 quantity of water that would dribble out and into the lower one in twenty-four 
 hours. At the expiration the water would cease to run, and the indicator be 
 covered with water. The lower Ijarrel would then be emptied into the upper 
 one, and l)usiness begin again. Three patient Chinamen superintend this 
 timekeeper and watch their hours thus dribbling away. In former times it was 
 death to any one of them that was found to be sleeping out of his turn. A 
 graduated sand-glass would have been a much better article than this water- 
 clock, but the hour-glass was not a Chinaman's idea. 
 
 Of glass the Chinaman makes much. It appeal's to be blown in egg-shaped 
 pieces of very large size and very thin quality. At none of the places where 
 I saw glass-working going on were any flat sheets of it to be seen. Out of 
 these large glass bubbles, as they appeared to be, the artisans were cutting 
 pieces of difterent sizes for purposes, I think, of fan ornamentation and toy 
 mirror making, when the glass should be silvered. 
 
 The temple of the laughing Buddha is one of the curios of Canton. I was, 
 however, quite full of this figure, whether with laughing face or not. I had 
 seen Buddhas all through the East everywhere, and could draw the figure on 
 a wooden wall with a red-hot poker with my eyes shut. After the grand 
 Buddha figure seen at Kamakura, in Japan, in its 50 ft. high suljlimity, all other 
 Buddhist figures were insipid. 
 
 No gokl or silver smiths' shops were seen Ijv n\e anywhere in Canton. 
 They exist, no doubt, somewhere about the city, in places v\-here no wares are 
 
72 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 shown to the public eye, but kept, as in most Eastern cities, locked up in boxes 
 and drawers, and exhibited only at visitors' request. The Jade market was the 
 personal-ornament mart of Canton. Business is over there at lo o'clock a.m. 
 I reached it at its busiest time, shortly before its close for the day, and before 
 the beginning of the festival of the Chinese New Year, when everyone must 
 look gay, or as near to it as coloured clothes and ornaments will help. Jade is 
 a greeny-white stone of watery appearance, a sort of agate malachite or 
 malachite agate. The Chinese set great value on this stone ; all sorts of 
 ornaments are made of it — -comb-backs, rings, and earrings. A Chinese 
 woman must be very poor indeed who has not jade earrings. Where want has 
 really reached to that low depth, imitation glass-jade work has to be substituted. 
 The wearer is, however, unhappy with this sul)stitute, which to a Chinese eye 
 is seen at once to be but imitation. A foreigner's eyes do not so soon detect 
 it. Hundreds of shops and stalls were open in this Canton Jade market, and 
 trade seemed to be brisk. The articles were, however, in European ideas, all 
 much too expensive. Jade is not by any means so pleasant-looking a stone as 
 the greenstone of New Zealand. It looks a commoner thing altogether. Yet 
 double the price asked for greenstone in New Zealand is asked in Canton for 
 this jade stuff. When Canton was taken by the English in 1869, much of this 
 jade was taken away as loot by the soldiers, but it failed to find favour in any 
 but Chinese eyes, and brought no fortune — sold, I think, for farthings 
 elsewhere. 
 
 In Canton, as throughout India and the East generally, are stalls for the 
 sale of the betel-nut-chewing preparation. It is a compound of nut, green 
 leaf, and a stuff called gambler, with a little lime and tobacco added. This 
 abomination, rolled in the green leaf, is sold in balls at four for a penny, or its 
 equivalent. It makes a red mixture when chewed, and gives to all the men 
 and women who use it — about half the people — the appearance of having a 
 bleeding mouth. It blackens and destroys the teeth. The chewing of this 
 stuff and the smoking of opium are sad vices of the Chinese. Tobacco- 
 chewing, like to snuff-taking, is disappearing in Great Britain, but the Chinaman 
 is not open to reform. He is by religion a fatalist, and would answer " che 
 sara sara" to all arguments intended for his good. If he did not, he would 
 probably ask for the loan of five dollars as a test of one's interest in his welfare. 
 
 At the further side of the city from the river is to be found the five-storied 
 pagoda. It stands on the ramparts, and on the highest ground within Canton. 
 It is a stift" walk to reach it, but the view from the summit, o'er city and 
 suburb, repays the toil. Looking outwards i''rom the city side is to be seen a 
 stretch of green country for miles — all filled with graves. I am looking here 
 at the cemetery of Canton. Ah Kum, with finger and long claw of a nail 
 extended, points out to me the grave of his father— referring to his watch to be 
 quite accurate as to the locality. It cost him, this grave, he said, seventy 
 pounds. These ancestral tombs are often visited by deceased's kith and kin. 
 Hereabout they are shaped like three large horseshoes laid on a slope. In the 
 middle of the second one is the door within which the coffin has been placed. 
 A semi -circular courtyard of four feet or so across is thus left in front and 
 below, and also above, and at the rear of the entrance. Tasty stone-work in 
 many instances makes these graves of a very neat appearance. They satisfy 
 one's ideas about tombs. Chinese civilisation looks well in all matters 
 connected with death and the tomb, respect to parents, and veneration of 
 ancestry. They are ahead in those matters of all mankind. They are fond 
 of their children, and cling to them until poverty forces them to sell their 
 clothing. The children are not sold until all else is gone. With Ah Kum I 
 go to a Chinese tea-house to have a mid-day meal. He tells me I shall not 
 like it ; but I have taken many meals of that sort, and more than of any other. 
 
Execution Ground. 73 
 
 It is tiffin time in Canton. The tea-house I go to is three-stories high, and 
 each floor is used as a restaurant. The staircase and walls are in well-carved 
 woods of dark colour. The house evidently has been a costly one. I am, in 
 the second floor, bid to sit at a little table for two in a room in which_ thirty or 
 forty are similarly seated. A cup aud saucer are brought to me. Tea is thrown 
 into the cup, and hot water poured upon it. The saucer is then placed over 
 it, and the tea left to " draw." A tray full of confectionery and sweetmeats 
 is next brought, and I am left to choose from a dozen plates that are thus set 
 before me. One of them proves to be eatable. "Try all things, and hold 
 fast to that which is good," occurs to me, and I get the plate replenished. The 
 teacup I now find to be half-full of tea-leaves. The Chinese can drink their 
 tea scalding hot. but I have to saucer mine, for the weather is too hot to let me 
 hope of its speedy cooling in the cup. No milk or sugar is supplied, but I had 
 learnt in Japan to take tea neat. I had that teacup refilled five times. _ Canton 
 investigation is thirsty work with the thermometer at 88 of a _ moist heat. 
 Everybody in the room seemed to be tobacco-smoking with pipe or cigar, 
 eating and drinking at the same time. The repast was a light one, rice cakes 
 and tea. I did a long afternoon's walk upon it, which testified its suitability 
 to the climate. 
 
 In these tea-houses, and in the steamboats, pleasure-boats, hotels, and else- 
 where, fire-sticks are always to be found with a smouldering end to them, 
 they are made in walking-stick lengths of some pithy matter, and look and 
 feel like to sticks of compressed brown paper. A walking-stick length, 
 broken up into six pieces, provides for a week's want of matches. All cigars 
 and pipes are lighted at these sticks. Rimmel would, of course, add perfume 
 to them, and then incense would seem to burn in all houses. As congreve 
 matches are gradually being introduced in China, these fire-sticks may go out of 
 use. In the flint-and-steel days of Great Britain such sticks, always burning 
 their slow length along, would have been welcome — would have saved much 
 knuckle-knocking and probable profanity. 
 
 All day has Ah Kum been anxious to take me to the executitm ground, 
 which he evidently regards as something good in the way of sights. I have 
 asked him if any one is to be decapitated there, and he has said, "' Not till 
 next week — then twenty — you stop." I have explained to him that the 
 attraction is not good enough ; also that an empty execution ground is only a 
 vacant piece of ground, and to me nothing to look at. I explain to him also 
 that I am ignorant of the great and good who may have suffered there with the 
 vile and the bad. and that there are no associations connected with the execution 
 ground that will people it with ghosts and make it enchanted ground to me. 
 He listens and looks at his watch, he tickles his ear with one finger-claw,and says: 
 
 •' Come and see the heap of skulls and bones ; all the hair sticking to some 
 of the skulls yet !" 
 
 After that answer, further remarks were unnecessary. It closed the matter. 
 I dropped sentimentalizing, and told Ah Kum to walk on, askine, by the way, 
 what was the time. It so pleased him to pull out that watch that he walked 
 on to do it, and forgot his palanquin. By constantly keeping him pulling out 
 and pocketing the watch I kept him always now at my side. In that glow of 
 happiness he forgot his ankle, or rather what he said had ailed it. He ex- 
 plained that he had been saving up for years to buy that watch and the pencil- 
 case. • It was one of the strange instances in which the possession seemed to 
 give the happiness that generally only attends the pursuit. He worshipped 
 his baubles more than his Buddha, for he told me that he never went to 
 worship. '-Send my wife and the children instead, and give them the 
 money." After all he perhaps attended substantially to what the priests might 
 have said was the principal j^art of the business. 
 
74 The Maiii Routes Roimd the JVorld. 
 
 We had by this time reached the execution ground, and lo ! it was a 
 potters' yard. wSpace is too vakiable to be wasted in Canton. Busy artisans 
 were here working at their wheels and moukling pitchers, jugs, and basins 
 over the blood-stained ground. The skulls and bones of which Ah Kum had 
 spoken were piled against the side wall. The sight of the hair attachments 
 was wanting. The dogs and rats had no doubt accounted for that. "You 
 can take any of the skulls that you fancy," said Ah Kum, for which sarcasm I 
 retorted by asking again how the time went ? I wanted to see the headsman's 
 block, but was told that the decapitation was done without it, one cut 
 generally sufficing if the kneeling criminal held his neck steady. "They 
 always do that for their own sake," said Ah Kum. 
 
 " Have you seen executions here lately?" I asked. 
 
 '•No,never come to them now. There were thirty executed here a month ago." 
 
 It seemed a great sacrifice until one looked at the superabundance of 
 humanity that exists in crowded China, and thought of the millions that might 
 be well parted with for the benefit of the others. Looked at in that cynical 
 light, this clearing away of the people in batches of thirty seemed almost one 
 of the ways of Providence. 
 
 As Chinamen and women advance in years, they become shrivelled and 
 hideous beyond other humanity. Death must, I thought, be afraid to approach 
 some of the ancient beings that I sa.v, who had for years been plainly flying 
 the blue peter at the fore. 
 
 " We will go now to the dog and rat market — -English people want to see 
 that," said Ah Kum. 
 
 This sneer at the select tastes of the English was not bad, but could not be 
 overlooked. " What time will it take ?" I asked, so forcing that watch to come 
 out again. Ah Kum could not think of time, I knew, without consulting that 
 oracle. 
 
 "Take a quarter of an hour ; I show you some good things by the way.'^ 
 The good things consisted of some ornaments made of blue feathers, or the 
 down of some bird of blue plumage. Some shirt-studs, so covered, were neat 
 curios, looking as if made of blue enamel. It was of the delicate filagree work 
 in which the Chinese excel, as also were the inlaying and tracery work on wood 
 that I was next introduced to. The plan is worked out by perforations on 
 paper, which is then laid upon the wood, and the paper sprinkled with a white 
 powder well shaken over it. On the removal of the paper, the white outline 
 of the design is seen, and the wood is then handed over to the workman to be 
 painted in thin but strongly-sticking varnish, over which powdered colours are 
 shaken. To decorate a tray in that style takes a workman days, and yet it 
 sells for about a shilling, wholesale price. Labour counts for nothing in China. 
 The material seems to be that which is only counted in reckoning cost. 
 
 I resisted all Ah Kum's attempts to get me into shabby old buildings, that 
 had been only tolerable at their best, where the grandees of the city lived. 
 The vice-regal residence, or what was equivalent to it, looked a very tawdry 
 affair, not to say somewhat dirty. Like to the Japanese, the Chinese do not 
 excel in palaces or temples. One must go to India to see what the Eastern 
 world can do in that way. 
 
 A trouble had weighed upon Ah Kum's mind all day since the hour that he 
 had seen me purchase some Chinese books. It was the common leathern 
 purse, of English make, out of which I took the necessary cash, that fixed my 
 Chinaman's fancy. His soul thirsted for that purse. It would match the 
 pencil-case and the watch, and his happiness would be then trebled. He had 
 a small, mean-looking English one that he had thought something of before. 
 It had probably cost 6d. when made, while mine might have cost four times 
 that amount. 
 
Dog ajid Rat Alarket. 75 
 
 " I will change purses with you. Ah Kum" — here his face lighted up — "if 
 you will let me cut your nails down as short as mine are." Here it darkened. 
 
 " I am a gentleman," he said, "and must look like one." 
 
 " But you look like to a bird of prey, or a madman, with those finger-nails. 
 They cton't become a man who carries an English watch like yours. Besides, 
 I want your nail-tops to take away in a lozenge-box as curios." 
 
 " I could see the mental struggle that was going on until we reached the dog 
 and rat market ; but it finished in favour of the finger-nails. He looked at 
 them several times, and decided to keep them. 
 
 "You can grow a new lot at any time," I suggested in Mephistophelian 
 manner. 
 
 " I have not cut my finger-nails for years. They would take years to grow 
 to this length again. " 
 
 That was so self-evident that I could not dispute it. There was no chance 
 of doing so, as we w^ere now with the skinned dogs, and the skinned and split 
 rats. 
 
 Shakspeare is authority for calling rats and mice " small deer" and articles- 
 of food. Here this miniature venison was in plenty. Shops after shops showed 
 tiny carcases hanging up for sale, looking scarcely as nice as chickens and 
 ortolans, but about the same size. The dogs looked lean, but then all the dogs 
 of the East look so. It is very short commons with them all their miserable 
 life long. An Eastern dog is so sharp set at all times that he will devour any- 
 thing. One of them left the mark of his teeth on my fingers in Shanghai in 
 his eagerness to snap up a crust of bread. The loss of life is but little loss to 
 such, and they revenge it by the poor picking that their bones must furnish to 
 those who starved them thus in their Hfetime. The rats are plumper and are 
 classed as barn or vegetable-fed rats, and drain or carrion-fed ditto. The 
 latter have a gamey flavor, I was told, but the former fetch the higher price. 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 IN CHINA. 
 
 I TAKE ship at Canton for Macao, and find myself among some 600 passengers 
 of many nationalties, but 580 decidedly Chinese. That large majority, with 
 the exception of about fifty, were kept between decks, as I had seen done on 
 the voyage from Hong Kong to Canton, and locked out with iron-barred gates 
 from any nearer approach to the upper deck. That upper deck held, besides 
 the fifty Chinese allowed to be there, about twenty men whose native places 
 were widely apart. Twoof them were Armenians, three were Greeks, one was 
 from Portugal, and two from the Manillas. These with Germans, Dutchmen, 
 and Americans, made up the number that were not Mongolians. On board 
 that boat I was the only Englishman. The most agreeable of our-Tiumber 
 were the two Armenians, polite and intelligent men. who talked English as if 
 born to it. The great attraction of the steamer's company w^as, however, to be 
 found between decks. 
 
 In "Lower Canton," as that portion of the ship was termed, were some very 
 strange sights. Three large vats of some nine feet in diameter and six feet 
 deep were here to be seen, filled with water and large fresh-water fish. I am 
 
76 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 sure that there was as much of fish as of water in those vats. The fish were to 
 be sold alive at the end of the voyage. The method of keeping them in that 
 state was ingenious for Chinamen, though a European would have perhaps 
 called it clumsy. The water was continually dipped up from the vat in a 
 bucket which was then emptied into a barrel fixed on the vat's edge. From 
 this barrel came a bamboo, of two inches diameter, sloping towards the water 
 in the vat, but stopped up at that end. Two notches, of the size of a florin, 
 cut in the bamboo within three inches of the end, sent the water that came 
 rushing down it into the air for two feet or so. A rude fountain was thus 
 made, and the water kept sufficiently charged with air by that means. Each 
 vat must have held a thousand fish, some of them of ordinary cod and salmon 
 size, and few of them smaller than herrings. Chinese labour is cheap, or three 
 men could not have been allotted to each vat to keep this fish-fountain con- 
 tinually going, which they had to do. The fish were now and then gently 
 stirred up with a long bamboo to bring the overlaid ones below up for a mouth- 
 ful of fresh air. 
 
 W^j 
 
 MTCAO, FROM THE BAY. 
 
 It was evidently market morning next day at Macao, for "Lower Canton" 
 was filled with kitchen produce, all very anxiously kept in best order and 
 freshest state. The market gardener had planted the cut celery and lettuces 
 in moist sand, and so with the bundle of asparagus. Plenty of finery and 
 fancy work for the Chinese New Year was hung all around and above. The 
 whole place looked fair-like and gay, and more like to a stage operatic mar- 
 ket-scene than anything in common work-a day life. Had the men at tne vats 
 struck work and broken into a fisherman's chorus, a la Masaniello, I should 
 not have been astonished. I walked about expecting something of the sort, 
 but found that those not obliged to be working or watchful were opium-smok- 
 ing or sleeping. 
 
 Looking at the gambling going on upon deck among the superior sort of 
 Chinese, I wondered if the governing powers there had withheld a currency 
 from the country to help stop it. The want of any circulating medium of a 
 
Life Between Decks. 77 
 
 reasonable sort is one of the wonders of China. The copper "cash," of which 
 about 100 pieces make a shilling's value, is a great drawback to business as well 
 as to gaming. It is necessary to have a coolie with you to carry the large 
 strings loaded with this currency. About a sovereign's worth is a good heavy 
 weight.- Except for the hole made in the middle of this coin, and through 
 which the string is passed, a large bag would be required, or a good sack, to 
 carry many pounds' worth. I went into this gaming for an hour or two to 
 pass away ship time, and was nervous at the sight of the pile of money — about 
 sixpennyworth — that I from time to time recklessly staked. It looked like 
 tempting of fortune so to stake such a heap on the hazard of the die. When I 
 did not win I doubled the stake on the number, and then the shilling's worth 
 put down seemed quite a fortune in its size, and fairly frightened me. No 
 luck fovouring me, I doubled again, and the overflowing pile of eight hundred 
 and odd coins brought a good result — it looked so comical that all fright fled, 
 and I could but laugh at it. The luck turned with the odd number. On that 
 third stake I had to take up upwards of 1700 coins. I felt that a competence 
 was made, and that I might then and there retire for a year or two and live at 
 ease. It was impossible, however, to get away from the fascination of such 
 gaming and the new delight of handlingsuch masses of money. Asa Rothschild 
 might feel at Monaco, staking his hundreds at roulette, I felt at this Chinese 
 gaming. I gave up such deep " plunging," however, as racing men phrase it, and 
 took to smaller stakes. The money then dribbled away in bad luck, and the 
 banker came off the winner in the end. I must have lost as much as 5s. or 6s. 
 value before three hours had quite slipped away. One satisfaction remained. 
 Had I been a winner to that amount, I must have invested in a pormanteau 
 ro carry the coin, and paid porterage at the landing-place. My travelling-bag 
 would not have held a tenth of it. Wealth of that sort brings trouble. 
 
 The Hong Kong colony, as before mentioned, started a mint and coined 
 silver and copper currency in value like to the English coins. The Chinese, I 
 suppose, did not take to it. They object, in their conservative nature, to all 
 innovations, whether improvements or not, so the Hong Kong mint was sold 
 to the Japanese Government, who have done what China would not do, coined 
 a national currency for the empire. When the Hong Kong currency now afloat 
 shall be exhausted, travellers in China will find trouble. To carry about the 
 small shoe-shaped lumps of silver, weighing a pound or two, or the copper 
 cash of the country-, will be a bother that I had not to endure. The Hong 
 Kong coinage is at present taken at all the ports, and so is the Mexican dollar. 
 Previously to the starting of the mint, the latter coin was the circulating 
 medium that the traveller used in the ports, but I was told that in the interior 
 it did not always find favour. The other moneys of the world are rejected 
 altogether. Folks with nothing particular to do and a taste for excitement 
 would find trips in these Chinese port-steamers a pleasant variety — especially 
 in the cheap gaming. 
 
 Macao is an old Portuguese settlement, about ten hours' steam from Canton, 
 and something less from Hong Kong. It is an ancient-looking place, and 
 picturesque in appearance. Its day has, however, gone. Trade is for some 
 reason dying out, and decay everywhere appearing. The ruins of a fine old 
 cathedral stand well-exposed upon an eminence in the rear of the town. 
 Macao has, however, one matter of interest to some travellers. It contains 
 the house of Camoens, the Portuguese poet — that will keep the old town green 
 in the world's memory when all its other claims on recollection shall be 
 forgotten. 
 
 At Macao I was bid wait aboard the steamer to see the landing of the live 
 fish that we had brought down from Canton. Boats half-filled with fresh water 
 came out to us. The ports of our steamer were then opened, and large funnel 
 
78 
 
 The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 shaped nets extended from these to the boats below. The fish were then 
 ladled out from their vats in net-made scoops that held about fifty of the 
 silvery-looking strugglers. These were turned out into the funnel net, and 
 went helter-skelter down into it, and into the water of the boat, A few would 
 stick fast by the fins or gills in the net-work on their way down, and remain 
 struggling until the next flood of fifty other fish drove them along. One of 
 the fish fell overboard from the net opening, but had scarcely reached the 
 water ere an amphibious boat-boy plunged in and captured it. It had, I 
 suppose, become too dazed and stunned by its late treatment to know exactly 
 what it was about in the changed element of salt-water. Its troubles are, 
 however, over by now. 
 
 In the market-place I found that fish was the prevailing article for sale — that 
 and vegetables. The big waters of China plentifully supply the fish food of 
 the Chinese nation. It gives them to collect it not a tenth part of the trouble 
 that growing their rice does. Rice may be called semi-acquatic wheat. It is 
 grown in patches of ground that are six inches or more covered with water. 
 To keep this water on the land the fields are divided into sections of all sizes, 
 but generally not less than about the eighth of an acre. Each patch is banked 
 all around with earth or clay a foot and a half high and of the same breadth. 
 That retains the water within its wall. All these rice patches are graded with 
 great care, sloping almost imperceptibly downwards, so that if water drains 
 away from one enclosure it passes into the next one below it. A field of forty 
 acres will contain a hundred or more of these enclosed sloping patches. The 
 rice, when growing, looks like to blades of grass coming up above the water 
 of a pond. It is wet and dirty work indeed for the cultivators. They work in 
 the water and mud all day. Before the rice is sown, the ground is dug up with 
 a spade, shaped and used like an adze. At each chop at the ground made with 
 this instrument, a splash of water occurs that bespatters the labourer with mud 
 from head to foot. He weeds the land also with his hands, and altogether 
 does about the dirtiest agricultural work that a labourer can do. Rice is a 
 delicate plant. It is not every field sown that yields a harvest. Three crops 
 can be grown in a year, but not from the same land. Generally only one crop a 
 year can be got from it. When it is no longer rice-producing, the water is 
 •drained off, and other crops sown on the dried land. 
 
 It gives more trouble than wheat-growing, does this rice cultivation. One 
 field that is sown with the grain brings up enough to transplant into, and fill, 
 four fields. Grown from the grain, it comes up too thickly to thrive, and so is 
 pulled up when a foot high, and tied in little sheaves. The labourers, mostly 
 women, take these sheaves into other fields, and there, standing all day half- 
 leg high in water and mud, they plant the rice, stalk by stalk, at a distance of 
 four inches apart. This rice-planting looks very tedious work indeed, and the 
 stooping attitude in which it is all done must make it irksome. The root of 
 the young rice-plant is stuck down into the muddy bottom of the field beneath 
 the water, and is there left to find holding-ground and flourish, or to droop and 
 die. 
 
 Trouble is not over with rice when grown and cut and garnered. It gives 
 about twice the trouble that wheat does to unhusk it. No cereal clings with 
 such tenacity to its shell. I carried several ears of rice about with me, for- 
 gotten, in a pocket corner for some weeks, and not one grain had left its 
 covering. The modes of threshing it, so to speak, are many. The flail is not 
 in fashion, but instead is generally used a short pole or club, fixed at a right 
 angle to one end of a lever. That is made to stamp away at a small vat full 
 of grain. The motive power for this machine is a man, who jumps on and oft' 
 the short end of the lever, and so raises it and lets it fall again. The rice 
 looks very poor, dirty stuff indeed, when this workman has done with it, I 
 
Chinese Mosquitoes. 79 
 
 could scarcely believe the dirty grey-looking grains to be the rice to which we 
 attach whiteness as a chief characteristic. Many are the processes that it has 
 to undergo before it gets to the colour by which the general public know it — 
 perhaps as many processes from its beginning to its finish as are undergone by 
 sugar. 
 
 The labourers, male and female, returning of an evening from labour along 
 the foot-and-a-half wide walks that divide the rice patches, area sight that 
 arrests attention. In Indian file procession, a hundred or two of them walk 
 two or three feet apart, their dark forms looking darker against the setting sun. 
 They generally work unclothed, their scanty attire being carefully stacked on 
 sticks set up on the dividing ridges. The first creek or watercourse affords 
 them the necessary washing after their day's work. The matter of washing is 
 so urgent that necessity really knows no law and no decency. All bathe 
 together, and no attention is paid to the hundreds of passers-by. The hundreds 
 of passers-by pay no attention either. The rude traveller may look once or 
 twice at such a sight, Imt naked Chinese soon become no more of interest than 
 naked flies, and are regarded much less than the audacious mosquito. 
 
 This daring and bloodthirsty thing will in China take no denial. Harried 
 by the heat of the day — the moist heat that so enervates one — a tired traveller 
 will seek mid-day rest, but finds it not. With a flourish of their shrill trumpets, 
 the mosquitoes are upon him by day as by night. Samson disposed of the 
 Philistines that were upon him with ease. He w^ould not have done so with 
 the Chinese mosquitoes. It is strange that Scripture says nothing about these 
 torments of Eastern lands ! — this thorn in the flesh and messenger from Satan 
 that buffets one by day and night. They must have plagued the prophets, and 
 added another to Job's many troubles that his potsherd was powerless against. 
 They would care as little for that as they do for mosquito curtains. At these 
 they fairly laugh. After brushing round and round the whole bed enclosure 
 with a long feather w^hisk, the simple traveller thinks that he has secured a 
 bed to himself. He tucks the curtain in all round and turns down the lamp. 
 Then he performs the acrobatic feat of jumping harlequin fashion through a 
 small opening that he makes between the curtains. The mosquitoes jump 
 after him, however, or lie in wait for him out of the way of the whisk that he 
 has flourished around. Their shrill song of triumph soon sounds loud in the 
 darkness, and slaps, instead of sleep, occupy the sleepless one until morning. 
 Slaps are suspended only for scratchings. The mosquito always raises a mound 
 to its memory. If all that is in this world be for our good, if whatever is, is 
 right, it then requires a great understanding of the ways of Providence to work 
 the mosquito into his proper place in nature. That he was created to keep 
 the tired traveller and weary worker from his necessary sleep is not right and 
 not good — as I at present understand things. Those who would argue the 
 matter must please first experience the ways of the Eastern mosquito. A little 
 of such experience will go a long way. 
 
 Hotel charges in China are not too economical, but the traveller must 
 remember to pay his bill when he leaves any place for a trip that he thinks 
 may be short, but which may exceed his idea of the time required. Happening 
 to be away for four days, I found that the charges for food and bed for a leather 
 bag and a walking-stick which I had left behind were the same as those 
 charged to myself when present in the house. Henceforth, when I went 
 abroad, I took those little things with me, and opened a fresh account on my 
 return. One finds soap and lamp duly charged as extras in all Eastern hotel 
 accounts. 
 
 My little tour round the Chinese ports had taken me to Shanghai, Foo-chow, 
 Amoy, Hong Kong, Whampoa, Canton and Macao. I now took steamer 
 from the last-named port to Cochin China, on my way to Singapore. There 
 
8o The Main Routes Round the World 
 
 was great temptation to go to Manilla and see the Philippine Islands and cigar 
 making, but the steamer had left two hoiu-s before I reached Hong Kong, 
 and there was not another for eight days. That nuisance, a passport, too, was 
 an essential which would have taken a day to obtain, and so kept me from 
 going, had I been even earlier in port. I had, therefore, unwillingly now to 
 pass by the Philipines. 
 
 Their cigars are, however, a prominent feature of this part of the world. 
 Manilla cigars and cheroots are everywhere in Japan and China, and are to be 
 had for a shilling a dozen retail. The consequence of that cheapness seems to 
 be that everybody smokes cigars from morning till night. The bank manager 
 sits smoking in his inner room. He rings the bell, or sends his native boy for 
 the accountant, who comes in also smoking. The ledger-keeper will then 
 appear, book on shoulder, pen in hand, and cigar in mouth. The " shroft"" 
 and the " comprador" are the names of the native officials who appear to do 
 all money-handling work of Eastern banks. What one has to receive is from 
 their hands. The "abacus," or counting-board, is always before them, and 
 so is the fire-stick that lights their cigars. An abstract of what is to be paid to 
 me is handed to one of these officials, and I get what I am told is the current 
 value of the day for my English bank circular note. That value varies daily 
 and papers and telegrams have to be consulted each morning before it can be 
 determined what I am to have here for twenty English pounds paid to a banker 
 by me in London, or Melbourne, or San P^-ancisco. 
 
 It was always with lue less than the value, and never more. Only in India 
 and Italy did I find English money at a premium. How such a valuable thing 
 as an English 5/. bank-note should be worth only 4/, 14^'. to-day, and \s. more 
 or less to-morrow, is, next to the fluctuations in the price of wool, one of the 
 things that the traveller has got to understand. 
 
 No one will regret a visit, short as mine had been, to China, if even only 
 what part of it I saw be visited. Canton is a great city, and easy of access 
 from either side of the world. The mail steamers of the Peninsular and 
 Oriental Company run to Hong Kong fortnightly. Alternately with them run 
 the superior French Maritime Messageries vessels. Little Hong Kc-ng has by 
 these means got a weekly mail from Europe. The British India Steam 
 Navigation Company also have a fleet of steamers running in China and India, 
 calling at twenty or so of intermediate ports each trip. From London to Hong 
 Kong is not more than a five weeks' voyage, and from the latter port to Canton 
 it is a pleasant five hours or so up the fine Pearl River to Canton — a city of 
 exceeding interest to European eyes. 
 
 It is not for a mere visitor to vaticinate ; yet it is said that the close observer 
 may prophesy of things not come to pass. A mere traveller on his way 
 through the world must see much, and, by practice alone, become ready in 
 discernment. Let me, from what I saw of the busy Chinese, venture on 
 prediction. I had seen their patient industry and great oru-anizing power in 
 Australia. In America I had seen it also, and travelled on that Great Pacific 
 Railway which Americans frankly avow could not have been made but for the 
 cheap and efficient work of the Chinamen, who mainly constructed it. At 
 Foo-chow I had noticed that they have long ago forestalled the Frenchman in 
 oyster cultivation. The bamboo beds there constructed for oyster spat catching 
 and growing are things that Great Britain might advantageously imitate. In 
 industry and patient labour the Chinaman is king, and we know what levers 
 these qualities are in moving men upwards and onwards. What is to keep the 
 Chinaman down, now that the flood-gates of his migration have opened ? He 
 is all over the East! In Java he is what the Jew is in all the Western world — 
 the trader and trafficker and money-changer — not the labourer. He is a 
 practical man, the most practical of men — a mud-fish that rises to no fancy 
 
Chinese Migration. 8i 
 
 flies. The Mormon evangelists utterly failed to make a single convert from 
 among the~Chinese. They similarly failed with Jews. The Chinamen tell the 
 Mormon missionaries that they have no time to spare to " talkee religion. " This 
 is perhaps good for them. It would be equally good also for some others that 
 w^e all know of to imitate them in that matter. 
 
 The Chinaman is spreading over the world. He is the laundress and navvy 
 labourer of America, and in both he is the best of workmen. The white 
 laundress who there takes your washing from the hotels, and charges you four 
 shillings a dozen for washing handkerchiefs, gets the Chinaman to do the work 
 for her for sixpence. Those folk who prefer so to encourage white labour are 
 quite satisfied with the fraud. \{& is the best of domestic servants — the finest 
 of all cooks. He will, by the simple laws of demand and supply, spread over 
 the world, and compete with all white labour. In Australia he is the market 
 gardener, the fisherman and fishmonger combined. He is the great peddler 
 of the country, and is becoming its general cabinet-maker. There he is 
 merchant, banker, and gaming-house keeper. His superior civilization gives 
 him powers of combination unknown in men of other nations. One hundred 
 work as one. He is consequently most successful of all gold-diggers and 
 miners. 
 
 What is to stop his progress and his dispersal over the world, now that the 
 Chinese Empire, mainly through the shakings of English assaults, is tumbling 
 to pieces ? As the Goths and Huns overran the Old World, so it seems 
 probable that the hundreds of millions of Chinese will flood the present one, 
 and that at no very distant date. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IX COCHIN CHINA. 
 
 By French Messageries steamer " Meikong" I went away from Hong Kong, 
 and, after two days at sea, passed into that great river of Cochin after which 
 the steamer was named. Two hours and a half of progress up its winding 
 waters, between low banks overgrown with jungle, brought me to anchorage at 
 Saigon. 
 
 The proper name of Cochin China appears by the map to be Annam. It is 
 the adjoining land to Siam, but in the division has got the lesser-sized share of 
 territory. The natives are called " Klings." All the lands about here are 
 peopled by the Malays. The generic name for this quarter is Malasia. I am 
 now passed from among the Japanese and Chinese and meet with a new people, 
 see new characteristics, and pay in different coinage. 
 
 This vSaigon is a French settlement. It is about twenty-six years old. Louis 
 Napoleon, in 1859-60, wanted to turn the attention of the French from things 
 in France, and to make some stir in the world. That pleases French people. 
 When they brood too long upon their own affairs, they get troublesome and 
 revolutionary, and kick out their ruler as they did peaceful Louis Philippe. 
 Making a raid upon Cochin China and a settlement on its shore w^ere then 
 decided upon. Later on, in his feverish rule, it became necessary to do some- 
 thing else, and then the Emperor came down upon Mexico, and set up Maxi- 
 milian as deputy emperor there. The Americans were just too busy then. 
 
82 The Mai?i Routes Rou7id the World. 
 
 fighting among themselves, to interfere with this French madcap movement. 
 The principle of such doings seems to have been anything to occupy the public 
 mind, and no matter at what cost then or thereafter. That the project would 
 be profitable formed no part of the calculation. 
 
 Well, here is the twenty-six-years-settled Saigon — the result of the French 
 Cochin China movement. What it is is very soon to be seen. A Frenchified 
 town laid out on a low, dead level flat, formed by a bend of the Meikong 
 River. What benefit the French get by living here in the tropics, instead of 
 in France, is not so apparent. Taking climate for climate, and balancing the 
 loss of all society, and the living here out of the ways of the world, in an un- 
 healthy place, the profits ought to be commensurately large. Here is to be 
 endured a moist heat that is furiously strong at mid-day, and strong enough at 
 all times. The low site on which the town is formed brings to it a greater 
 share of the hot trouble from which it suffers — the confined stifling air of a 
 valley. That compressed, dull, heavy heat which weighs upon the spirits, 
 makes life languid and lazy, takes the backbone and stiffening out of a body, 
 and leaves folks limp and flabby. 
 
 The produce of this French possession, near to the line, appears to be tigers, 
 rice, peacocks, and monkeys. The peacocks are just the finest in the world. 
 The climate seems to favor the growth of feathers, as witness the legs of the 
 well-known fowls of the country. Peacock's feathers — even at five feet long — 
 are not so marketable a thing as ostrich feathers. Cut up, they make pretty fans 
 and whisks, but the industry does not appear to be profitably worked. Tiger- 
 skins and claws are made marketable articles. The tiger-skin rug and carriage- 
 mat are well known, but the claws were a novelty. They are here set in gold 
 for earrings. I mistook them then for the semi-transparent eye-teeth of the 
 tiger. Two claws, joined by a gold band in the centre, make a brooch. 
 These ornaments are pretty-looking as novelties, and, while the novelty lasts, 
 may be admired. No great exportation of them, however, seems to be made. 
 Whether the monkeys can be skinned to profit I could not learn. They are 
 plentiful enough and lively in their ways — these undeveloped Darwinian men. 
 
 As it is hot all the year round here, the pleasures of wild animal hunting do 
 not look promising. It is impossible to wear more than a smock and trousers 
 of thinnest material, and it is death to go abroad uncovered by an umbrella. 
 No country would be very likely to want Saigon save for looting it. The 
 French are pretty safe there, and likely to keep their possession, and for ever 
 foregather with the Malays. Of the two, I incline to the idea that the latter 
 get the best of the alliance. As for any honour and glory got by a descent upon 
 Cochin China, and the killing of some hundreds of its semi-nude natives, to 
 make a settlement in one corner of the land, all that can be seen only from a 
 distance, say, as far off as France. It must be focussed from afar off, as all glor>' 
 generally is. Hereabout it is not so apparent. The Malays can scarcely 
 understand this French inroad yet. They took it that they were to be killed, 
 and perhaps eaten, as, by other warriors of darker skins, had been their pre- 
 vious experience. Idea they could have none that their new visitors had taken 
 a fancy to their unlovely and malarious grilling and stewing land, and meant 
 to come and build a town and live there, bringing stores, and provisions, and 
 money into the country. The worst that any one could wish to any European 
 would be to send him to Saigon, there to pemianently live and to toil for a 
 living. Nature has plainly made the place for penal — almost purgatorial — 
 purposes. 
 
 Hotels and cafes in the French style are to be seen in plenty, mostly on the 
 tree-planted and shaded esplanade on the river side. Sitting outside of these, 
 under the shade of the trees, sipping lemonade and smoking halfpenny manillas, 
 seems to be all that can be reasonably expected from any one in Saigon — of 
 
Saigon Troubles. 83 
 
 any European, at all events. I observed none that were doing anything but 
 that. It was quite hard work enough. It is about enough of labor there to 
 live and breathe, rise up and sit down, smoke, and talk, and sleep, or rather 
 to doze, for sleep is a thing impossible. All these operations are accompanied 
 by constant use of the handkerchief to mop up the perspiration that exudes, 
 whether you do anything or nothing. 
 
 The conveyances are covered carriages, like to small broughams, called 
 "gharries" in Hindostan. No palanquins or chairs are carried about by the 
 Malays, as is done by their neighbours, the Japanese and Chinese. I incline 
 to think that the Malay is not willing animal enough for such very hard work. 
 One of these carriages carried me round the flat town and the enclosures of 
 Government House and the Botanical Garden — anything but a pleasant drive, 
 as it proved to be too warm to get out of the vehicle to look even at the rarest 
 flower — a great drawback to collecting specimens of the plentiful flora of this 
 tropical place. The sensitive plant grows well here, I picked off" a stem with 
 five leaves on it, that shrivelled to nothing in an instant, and nearly disappeared 
 in my fingers. Also a pommelo — a large shaddock-shaped fruit with inside 
 like to an orange, but bitterish^my first and last pommelo. 
 
 The ship was to stay two days at Saigon. It looked a wearisome time, as 
 the place itself could be seen in a few hours, and then nothing for it but to sit 
 about, wiping off the perspiration, and fighting the flies and mosquitoes. For 
 the latter purpose I bought a fan, and soon began to understand why all China- 
 men carried this article, as they do, stuck in the back of their necks. I had 
 found how powerful the mosquitoes were in China. In this low-lying Saigon 
 they had improved upon their Chinese form, and were as near as possible to 
 mosquito perfection. American mosquitoes are pretty good in their way, and 
 much stronger in the trumpet, on the wing, and more vicious in their bite than 
 the Australian sort ; but these Cochin China ones were as strong in comparison 
 as are the native breed of fowls, and were, I believe, also feathered about the 
 legs. I judged that by their weight. But sitting under a mango-tree, in 
 swampy Saigon, fanning the mosquitoes was no work for a traveller to do. I 
 was not orientalized enough to lounge about the whole day doing nothing, and 
 dozing half the time, and then doing the same thing for the whole night. I 
 found what I wanted at last. I could explore further up country. 
 
 A steamer was starting that afternoon to Cambodia, the capital of French 
 Cochin, to return to Saigon the next evening. It is only sixty miles up the 
 Meikong to this city, where lives, under French inspection, a native rajah, 
 prince, or king. A Malay city would be more novel-looking than a low-lying 
 waterside settlement of Frenchmen, Malays, and mosquitoes. Of my fellow- 
 passengers on that journey there was not one who could speak English. That 
 mattered little. It was too hot to talk. 
 
 At Cambodia all the elements of a capital city are wanting — save the king's 
 palace. That is a poor affair, and likely to get poorer-looking for lack of 
 repair. The town is not free from French intruders ; but I doubt much if 
 they are happy there. Cambodia is so very unlike Paris — about as much so 
 as it is possible to be — a dirty place of Malay huts and dirty dens, called 
 bazaars, for sale of dirty stuff" of one sort or another. Unswept streets, 
 tropical trees, and a few lean dogs make up all that is to be seen there, save a 
 temple or two. The Malay language, with its alphabet of twenty queer sounds, 
 is difficult to acquire, and there is nothing to stimulate one to take the trouble. 
 I never saw Malay man or woman that I felt the least desire to talk to. A 
 Malay has no gratitude, no energy, no industry, no manners of any good 
 kind. His hand is ever extended for more, even if you pay him three times 
 over. He never thanks you. He is thievish also, and lying is no name for 
 the distance he can go from the truth. He is, or seems to be, naturally 
 
 G 2 
 
84 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 morose. It is his nature to be *' nasty," and he can't help it. His idea of 
 cleaning leathern boots is to rub them over with a rag and steal the laces. He 
 then brings back the boots, and holds out his hand for money. He will swear 
 he knows nothing of the laces, and has no blacking, He has both, but is too 
 lazy to brush the boots, and too much given to appropriation to part with 
 spoil. You acquire a dislike to the Malays more than to any other coloured 
 race, and yoti can't help it. 
 
 I have noticed that the fine-grown mosquitoes at Saigon were a feature of 
 the place. They make features also on the visitor. One had raised a bump 
 on my eyelid that kept the eye nearly closed for two days. It might have 
 been worse, both might have been so served, for we become quite at the mercy 
 of these foes at the last. It is two hot at Cochin altogether to go on for ever 
 fighting the flies. I could understand there how it was that the Spartan boy 
 kept quiet with the concealed beast gnawing at his liver, As energy dies out, 
 the strength of endurance arises. Too suffer patiently is the next best thing to 
 fighting vigorously. " To suffer and be strong." 
 
 As a seeker for artistic novelties, I wandered about the Cambodian places 
 of business, seeking to snap up any unconsidered trifles of that sort. The 
 inlaying of mother-of-pearl upon woods and ivory is the specialty of Cochin. 
 A small dark wood box so inlaid, that would have been thought valueless in 
 artistic Japan, was here priced very high. The dealer ultimately parted with 
 it to me for one-third of what he had asked, though he was ready to swear to 
 each price asked being a fair one. Had I stopped longer about the town I 
 might have got it for even less. Another purchase that I made was a ring of 
 white metal having a tablet on it, on which was engraved nine divided and 
 figured compartments, that might be the ten commandments compressed into 
 nine — the omitted one probably that against stealing. The ring, I was told, is 
 a talismanic one — whatever that means. It looks quaint and queer, but wants 
 much rubbing up to keep it bright. It seems to be constructed of the metal 
 that soup-ladles are commonly made of. Novelties were not plentiful. The 
 cocks and hens of the country could not be so classed. 
 
 The palace and gardens of the king could be seen by any one whose curiosity 
 was superior to no" of the thermometer. Mine fell below it. The name of 
 the monarch was given to me several times ; but, as I could not get it written 
 down, I failed to pronounce it properly. It was something like to " Chromo- 
 Lithro." All further idea of the visit to the palace was finished up by my 
 being told that I must go in full dress. In my innocence I thought this 
 pleasant, as I felt greatly inclined to go about nearly nude, and that was all I 
 could imagine Malay full dress to be. It was explained to me that it was 
 French evening dress that was required. His Majesty wished to be honoured 
 similarly to the dress-circle of the opera. I had to give up all thoughts of it. 
 I could not have done it in this Cambodian climate for a dozen kings. As I 
 thought this, I knew that I should afterwards regret it. We always regret 
 that which we "jib" at. The regret has, however, not come yet. This 
 mania for European dress suits is spreading over the East. The Japanese 
 Court require it also. Travellers who think a Tweed or Balbriggan suit, with 
 an Ulster, sufficient outfit, must not expect to walk about palaces much in 
 their travels. Royalty expects to be waited upon in waiter's costume. 
 
 From Cambodia, the journey up the Meikong River can l)e extended any 
 distance. At the father end of Cochin there is Tonquin (which is the real 
 Annamite capital), but I could not hear of any inducements to go thither, had 
 time and opportunity even allowed such a long exploration. The Tonquin 
 bean is to be had there, but then it is to be had elsewhere, and is used 
 principally for flavouring that old-fashioned form of tobacco called snuff. It 
 wants much temptation, indeed, to go about in Cochin ; and Tonquin and the 
 
Wan?i Quat'ters. 85 
 
 French are a loggerheads, and gunboats. I ought, doubtless, to have read up 
 all about the land previously, and so been prepared to see it with the light of 
 knowledge, and in the halo that history might have cast round it, or any part 
 of it. The baggy-legged birds that have familarized Cochin, to everybody are 
 not enough to satisfy the traveller. Dorking, equally famous for fowls, is more 
 accessible. As to all the rest, that burnt-up cinder, Aden, on the Red Sea, is a 
 very good substitute for Saigon, and much handier to the world generally. 
 Of the two, I think Aden preferable. It stands upon the sea, and is, of a 
 consequence, better placed than Saigon, on the low banks of a river. 
 
 I am not sorry when the steamer starts that takes me again to Saigon. If 
 it went across country, and out of the land at once, I should have been better 
 satisfied. What a delightful thing I now think it must be to feel cool — to live 
 among "the thick-ribbed ice" that Shakspeare talks about ! A touch of the 
 wind from that quarter upon this river just now would be very acceptable. 
 Heat is scarcely the word for what one feels ! The sun burnt through one's 
 coat, and one's skin, and into one's bones. You could feel the marrow of 
 them frizzling. 
 
 Returned to Saigon, I was told to go see there the field in which the French 
 killed the Malays, in 1859-60. I declined the trouble. A monument has been 
 erected on this spot, bearing only a French inscription. In that manner one 
 side is allowed to tell its own tale. An inscription on the other side of it, 
 penned by the Malays, would give the visitor the views of both parties. That 
 would be more satisfactory. I once remarked to one that looked battered 
 about the head that he appeared to have been much beaten. '"Yes," he said, 
 "but you should see the other one — he's got it worse." 
 
 Some Chateau Roux ale attracted my attention at a large cafe in Saigon 
 market j^lace — a light ale that reconciled one to the exertion of getting a 
 perspiring hand into one's pocket, and pulling it inside out in one's efforts to 
 get the money to pay for it. That ale was light and good — not bitter, and I 
 made a memo, to remind me to inquire where Chateau Roux may be. 
 
 As I am not likely to see Cochin China again willingly, let me say a grateful 
 word. Though a French settlement, I was not asked at Saigon for a passport, 
 nor bidden to turn out a travelling-bag by a custom-house otiicer — two things 
 for which I felt grateful. Repacking a bag, with the thermometer at no" 
 would have led to much perspiration, and perhaps profanity. Another 
 blessed remembrance of Cochin is that it is not possible to spend much money 
 there. That is a good thing to remember when the traveller takes a retrospect, 
 and counts up the cost of travel. 
 
 The heat of the climate of Cochin has somewhat soured the milk of French 
 human nature. The famous courtesy of the nation is not conspicuous in 
 Saigon. A sort of churlishness, not to give it a stronger term, seemed 
 prevalent. I could both understand and excuse it. Harried by the heat, and 
 tormented by the insects, who could be polite ? A man scratching a bump 
 that a mosquito has lately raised is apt to mix up his language, and one gets 
 often some of what is only intended for the insect . In the only boat that was 
 in shore at the time for my departure, a Frenchman was going off to my 
 steamer too, but would not let me set foot thereon, though I explained that I 
 would pay the whole of the cost, and that there was no other boat about. 
 '• Wait for one." he said; "I pay for this boat waiting all day. It is my 
 boat." I did not call him a bear, but inwardly pitied him. The climate 
 would no doubt do as much for all of us after a year or two of its liver-drying 
 and spleen-producing eftects. 
 
 On leaving Saigon for Singapore, I have to pass Labuan and Sarawak. 
 Borneo is. I find, almost an unvisited place by the traveller. It is as little 
 favoured in that way as is its neighbour Sumatra. The Dutch have nearly the 
 
86 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 whole of both these large islands, and the Dutch do not seem to make their 
 lands popular. I shall see, perhaps, something of the reason why when I 
 reach Java, of which they have had snug possession for 260 years, save for the 
 little break of six years, from 1810 to 1S16, when England took possession as 
 protector against the French. 
 
 Borneo and Labuan were well-known names to English ears forty years 
 ago, when Brooke endeavoured to get an English colony settled there in the 
 fashion of Saigon. He got knighted for his good intentions ; and it is as well, 
 perhaps, that they were not carried out. Saigon cannot be colonised, nor 
 Labuan, any more than India. Europeans cannot live there. Certainly none 
 of their children could be reared there successfully. As a visitor only for a 
 few years can the emigrant make use of these tropical spots, and even then it 
 is done at the risk of health, and to the certain shortening of life. The Dutch 
 have not been more successful in their attempts to colonize Java and all their 
 other possesions round about here. On board of the steamers hereabout I 
 meet with the clean-shaved English-looking faces of fifty years ago — before the 
 beard and moustache fashion prevailed. These folk are all Dutchmen, and I am 
 coming now down among their Eastern territory. They disappoint me as 
 Englishmen, for whom I am always mistaking them. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SINGAPORE AND THE STRAITS. 
 
 Singapore is reached in two days' steaming from Saigon, and in five from 
 Hong Kong. I am now among the Straits Settlements, made up of this 
 Singapore and of the neighbouring Penang and Malacca. wSingapore is head- 
 quarters and Governor's residence. The Governor, at the time of my visit, 
 was Sir William Jervois, in place of Sir Andrew Clarke, removed to India. 
 His domain is scattered hereabout, and not the snug nutshell of a thing that 
 Hong Kong is. 
 
 The fine Bay of Singapore is mostly filled with shipping, the crafts there 
 being apparently from all parts of the world. The settlement lies all around 
 the shores of this bay, from which a grand view can be obtained, and an 
 equally good view of the bay and shipping is to be got from the strand when 
 one is on shore, if the sun did not nearly burn one's boots off when stopping, 
 even for five minutes, to admire it. 
 
 Singapore is as nearly as possible on the line. It is called an island, and is 
 about twenty-four miles by fourteen in size, and constitutes the point of the 
 Malay peninsula which is sometimes called altogether Malacca. Between it 
 and the neighbouring Sumatra — that large tropical island — run the famous 
 Malacca Straits, about which much was heard at the last election of Britain's 
 Parliament. This Singapore point of Malacca is washed oft from the main- 
 land by a stream of a quarter of a mile or so only in width, just as Ceylon has 
 been washed away from the continent of India. It has been only proclaimed 
 as a British colony since April, 1867. 
 
 At the other end of the Straits of Malacca is a similar point of Sumatra 
 territory, called Acheen, which, with England's consent, was lately — about 
 five years ago — seized upon by the Dutch, who are desirous to make it another 
 Singapore. It is some consolation to the English traveller, who sees good 
 things thus taken by others, and one gate of these important straits — the high- 
 
Singapore. 87 
 
 way from England to China — so seized by another power, that the Dutch have 
 got a hornet's nest in this Acheen. For four years the Acheenese have made 
 it very hot indeed for their would-be owners. They would have submitted 
 quietly to the mild, kindly rule of England, that does not enslave for money- 
 making purposes the population of any country that it rules ; but they will not 
 have the Dutch for their masters if fighting can avail them. The stars in 
 their courses fought against Sisera, and climatic influences fight for the plucky 
 Acheenese. Of every hundred Dutch soldiers taken thither from Java, 
 seventy have to be taken back sick before three months are over. ' Of this 
 seventy, two-thirds die on the voyage. On the steamer that took me away 
 from Singapore they were thrown overboard at the rate of twenty-four a day. 
 Of the remaining thirty soldiers that stay in Acheen, the Acheenese are said 
 to account for fully half in the guerilla warfare that these true patriots carry 
 on. It has lasted now for four years, and cost the Dutch seventy millions of 
 guilders ! The end is as far off as ever. There is no going back, or such 
 course would, perhaps, be adopted, for the Dutch clutch their guilders. 
 They have five-sixths of Sumatra already, and want this Acheen to make a 
 complete thing of it as of Java. [If beaten there, then all prestige would be 
 lost, and the quiet possession of the other part of vSumatra be endangered. A 
 candid Dutch merchant told me that another twenty years might not see the 
 end of it. The Dutch generally are getting to be of the same opinion, but 
 dare not all say so. 
 
 Singapore, though nearer upon the line than Saigon, is an English place, 
 and, therefore, more endurable to the EngHsh traveller in the way of society 
 and matters of interest. If he knows nothing about the place or its history 
 when he lands there, he soon begins to inform himself. He sees how very 
 often the name of " Rafiles" turns up there — as often as the word " lottery " 
 does in a Dutch settlement where these antiquated swindles are still legal. In 
 Singapore are " Raffles-street," "Raffles-road," "Raffles Library. "Raffles" 
 this or that is always meeting the eye. 
 
 Sixty-seven years ago, Sir Stamford Raffles, then and for six previous years 
 Governor of fair Java, handed over that gem of the east, at the bidding of his 
 Government, again to the Dutch. He then came up to Singapore. Having 
 buried Lady Raffles in Java, he contracted a marriage with the daughter of a 
 rajah of Johore, on the nearest mainland. He then set up the colony of 
 Singapore on his own account, on the land that formed his wife's portion. It 
 was to make a settlement that he could not be required, against his opinion 
 and advice, to give up to the Dutch. He declared the place a free port. The 
 dreary little fishing village and tiger jungle soon increased in population under 
 his care, and grew — like to the Lord of Burleigh's village wife — to noble 
 proportions. It has now 100,000 inhabitants, 5000 of whom are Europeans. 
 
 It produces nothing, this Singapore. It owes its trade and prosperity solely 
 to its geographical position at the point of entrance to the Straits of Malacca 
 and the China Sea. In common trade language, it is one of the best " corner 
 stands " in the world — a house of call for the large fleet of steamers and larger 
 number of trading vessels that the busy seas about it abound with. The mail 
 steamers to China and Cochin China of the English and French lines call here. 
 So do the large fleet of steamships of the British India Company, and the 
 thirty-six fine steam-vessels of the rich Netherlands-India Steamship Company. 
 A busy place is Singapore, but a nice one only for salamanders. Human life 
 to Europeans is scarcely endurable in it at any time of the twelve months. 
 
 Pope sings of something that " lives along the line." Nothing of European 
 growth could do so for long. To common sense it would seem that a cooler 
 atmosphere would come on the sun going down, and taking its fierce, fiery 
 glow with it. It is, however, not so; the nights seem to be, perversely, hotter than 
 
88 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the days. About 8 p.m. the heat, which had killed for two hours previously, 
 seems to get " second wind," and returns to stop for the night. Sleep is 
 out of the question. Artificial warmth may encourage sleep in cold climates, 
 but not so in hot ones. It must be possible to get acclimatized here. Some 
 pale, sickly-looking, full-stomached folks that I saw had existed here for years ; 
 so that keeping vitality within one is learnt somehow. Until that is done, how- 
 ever, life becomes a serious matter to a European. The greatest cynic or 
 philosopher would no longer call it a farce. As many handkerchiefs are 
 wanted there a day as are elsewhere required for a bad case of cold in the 
 head. One of them becomes wetted through with perspiration, after about 
 five applications to the forehead, face, hands, and neck. Such applications are 
 made every five minutes. It gets very monotonous work after the first few 
 hours. The novelty wears out more quickly than some others do. The wish 
 of Hamlet that his solid flesh would melt and thaw is here exactly realized. 
 That's just what the said solid flesh does. The climate of Singapore would 
 have brought the Prince of Denmark to his senses in a very short time, if the 
 melting and thawing process would have helped in that way, His soliloquies 
 would have turned on other matters, and had to be spoken sitting, with hand- 
 kerchief in hand. A Malay boy would have had meanwhile to hold Yorick's 
 skull for him. 
 
 No one who has visited Hindoostan but must see that Singapore has taken 
 all its ideas, examples, and way of life from that land. The private houses 
 are bungalows built within spacious compounds. The houses of business are 
 roomy, thickly-built buildings of two stories ; the ground one is set inwards 
 for lo ft., and so shaded by the roof and the pillars in front that support the 
 upper story. Inside the houses also, everything takes Hindoostanee fashions. 
 The bath is a big tub placed in a back building like to a stable, and fed from 
 outside through a bamboo funnel. By the side of the tub stands the little 
 bucket with which the tubber gives to himself douches of water. The large 
 folding-doors to all the rooms have Venetian-blind-like laths, of larger size, 
 throughout their length. The large screen that stands within this door, the 
 bamboo chairs, Indian rush matting, and other niiimtice of Hindoostanee life, 
 are all reproduced here at Singapore. The "gharries," or little broughams, 
 that one sees all over British India, are here the common modes of convey- 
 ance. No carriage chairs or palanquins are, however, visible. The patient 
 beasts of burden and draught that can be made out of Hindoos, Japanese, 
 and Chinese cannot be made out of the Malay. He does not take to 
 this means of transport, and perhaps it is as well. If he did that work as 
 grumblingly and extortionately as he endeavours to do everything else, it 
 would be unpleasant — at least to the traveller. Everything seems to be un- 
 pleasant to the Malay. I suppose it is that the fiery sun that turns his whole- 
 some blood to gall. It strokes his hair the wrong way. 
 
 At tiffin time and at dinner the native servants appear, as in Hindoostan, 
 each covered with his peculiar head-dress, and look all the better for it. The 
 Europeans are then all dressed in white, the men in linen jackets and trousers, 
 and the women in a sort of linen night-dress, with a coloured table-cover 
 wrapped around below it. These white dresses and their pale faces help to 
 give them a ghastly look, especially to the pale-faced women. At these meals 
 the customs of the aboriginals have eaten into the manners of the whites. 
 They take a " chow-chow," made up of rice and fish and hot curry. The 
 first two are the right sort of thing ; but, for the sake of their liver — that 
 torment to them — it were better that they let the last one alone, and also the 
 wines and spirits. In America, where these could with more impunity be 
 taken, only water is drunk at meal-times. In the East— where water only 
 should be taken — the heating wine and the fiery spirits find favour — and victims. 
 
Malay Divers. 89 
 
 In front of the town-hall at Singapore stands the only monument of note in 
 the place. It is of squared freestone, and bears a carved marble elephant. 
 The monument records, in the English and Malay languages, this important 
 fact: — "His Majesty Somdegh Phra Paraminder Mahr Chulaloukorn, the 
 Supreme King of Siam, landed at Singapore i6th March, 1871. The first 
 foreign land visited by a Siamese monarch." Let nothing be said about the 
 folly of Albert memorials after that ! As it was considered worth recording 
 upon stone, I am sufficiently excused for copying the record upon paper. It is 
 really funny when you give thought to it. 
 
 Omission must not be made of the introduction to the Malay population that 
 every traveller has before he sets foot in Singapore. They come around his ship 
 in their little scollops of boats, and clamour to him in their sirange tongue. 
 He wonders what it is all about. They cannot want him to go ashore in their 
 little craft. There is hardly room enough for themselves in it. The truth 
 soon dawns upon one, which means that a ship's servant explains the matter. 
 The mission of these Malays is to dive for voluntary contributions thrown, not 
 to them, but into the sea. Bits of silver are soon going over the ship's side, 
 and the splashes are seen, as also the heels, of half-a-dozen divers that go after 
 each piece. How they settle matters among themselves underneath the waves 
 I could not understand, but one of them always comes up with the sixpence. 
 It never has a chance, I think, to get to the bottom. Throwing silver became 
 too monotonous at last, not to say troublesome ; so I resorted to the expedient 
 of wrapping copper in bits of white paper. The wrapper helped to impede 
 the sinking of the coin, so that it was easier got, but did not to the Malays 
 seem so satisfactory. Nothing is satisfactory, as a rule, that we get easily. 
 Perhaps that was the cause. Or they may have looked upon silver as an 
 honourably understood thing, and thought themselves swindled, and that their 
 dives had been obtained under false pretences. They doubtless had divers 
 reasons for the dissatisfied looks the coppers gave them. They spoke strongly 
 about it, too ; but that went for nothing in an unknown tongue. When I came to 
 know Malay character better, and saw what a thankless unpleasant folk they 
 were, I looked back upon this little diving delusion with complaisance. Diving 
 at Singapore should have required no payment. There was not a hot stewing 
 European that watched their splashes into the cool water but would have 
 gladly gone and done likewise if he could, and been pleased to make a payment 
 for doing it. A Malay always wants more money, and is never satisfied. A 
 Japanese is worth a dozen such, as a good and easily satisfied fellow. 
 
 The vegetation all around is of the tropical sort that one sees in Ceylon and 
 India — the cocoanut, bamboo, banana, betel-nut, and other varieties of palm. 
 In the native part of the town the streets are tenanted by Malays and Chinese. 
 There are quarters for each, all filled with the dirty, hut-like shops which are 
 dignified as "bazaars," the like of which one sees in every Eastern town. In 
 these streets — Ratfles-street, Pekin-street, Calcutta-street, Synagogue-street, 
 Malay-street, Canton-street, Johore-street, and so on — I meet with Parsees in 
 their unmistable hats, by which they are as well known as are Quakers by 
 their head-coverings. Here, also, are Klings, Arabs, Chinese, Hindoos, 
 Siamese, and natives from all the islands of the Indian Archipelago. All are 
 attired according to their peculiar fashions— as little of attire as possible being 
 that which is most observable. One wishes that one could follow the fashion, 
 but a white skin looks like nakedness; while those that wear only "the 
 livery of the burnished sun " seem in some sort clothed by it. I watch the 
 artistic work of the hair-dressers, or rather face and head shavers, who are 
 here plentifully at work. Eastern folks are fanciful about their way of wearing 
 their hair. The Western world have lately taken to that fashion of skin close- 
 cutting that the Chinese introduced some thousands of years ago. Chinamen 
 
po The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 are here seen having their pigtails made up and plaited. In this ornament 
 they are no more honest than a modern Western belle. It is lengthened by- 
 additions from the horses' tails, eked out by threads of silk, and finished off 
 with a silken tassel. The head and tail work of the barber generally concludes 
 with the operation of ear cleaning. For that he has a little case of instruments, 
 and goes artistically to work. As done by him, the work seems to be so 
 necessary a thing, and so much better done than one can do it oneself, that it 
 seems an oversight by other countries not to add this useful branch to a hair- 
 dresser's education. It is at least as much or more needed than the art of the 
 chiropodist. We can all cut our own corns as easily as we can tread upon those 
 of others. 
 
 In t?ie bungalow called an hotel that I stay at in Singapore, the house is 
 surrounded by trees that are covered with either red leaves or red flowers. 
 They look all aflame. Another tree, majestically large in size, has roots that 
 will not stay within the earth. They rise up for a foot or two above it, and 
 twist about in ridge-shaped forms. In that way the tree seems to have a mob 
 of gigantic lizards at its foot. The birds fly from the compound, as the garden 
 is called, into the rooms in the most free and easy manner — perching about 
 anywhere out of reach. They wait for a chance of darting down upon what 
 takes their fancy, and then away through the door with it. Lizards run along 
 the walls of the room, and, at night, moths and winged beetles of all sizes are 
 attracted inwards by the lamp, and not easily frightened away. In the East, 
 man comes closer to nature, or nature comes closer to him — not as he lived in 
 the days of the Golden Age, when all created things are supposed to have 
 waited upon him, but just in a way that reminds him of what must have been 
 the unpleasant side of that state of affairs. Created things must then have 
 come for orders, and have sometimes intruded. In the early dawn, each bed- 
 room is noiselessly entered by a native servant, who removes the nightlight and 
 one's boots, and leaves a cup of coffee and a slimmock of dry toast in their 
 place. These are usually quite cold by the time I awake, as, after struggling 
 with the heat and the mosquitoes all night, I fall asleep when the latter are 
 satisfied. Those accustomed to Singapore life wake up when the coffee-cup 
 comes. After eating and drinking, their thoughts turn to the bath, and its 
 cooling water, so that a habit of early rising is cultivated, the coolness of the 
 morning taken advantage of, and lazy folks got out of bed betimes. 
 
 I learn to get up early, and go and see the markets. There are two large 
 ones in the town: to which the industrious Chinese bring the chief supplies. 
 Strange looking are some of the fish here to be seen. A crab is here to be had 
 shaped like to a long-handled fan. The handle is its tail. The fan-shaped 
 part looks as if carved out of solid bronze-work. It is, however hollow, and 
 filled with green eggs of the size of small peas. The crab itself looks but a 
 small thing in the centre of its elaborately-made shell. Stuffed as curios, these 
 crabs would find Ixiyers among the visitors, but none are to be had in that 
 way; nor of the white bony fish, that is shaped like to an oblong waistcoat 
 pocket snuff-box. Its head and tail protrude at either end of its queer-looking 
 coffin-shaped carcase. Cleaned and polished, it would form a good match-box. 
 
 The " nasty " nature of the Malay culminates sometimes in his " running-a- 
 muck," and stabbing, as a mad dog snaps, at everybody he meets. It is a 
 sort of mental deliruiin tremens that has come upon him, the result, not of 
 drinking, but of unrestrained rage and passion. He seems to be always in a 
 state of ill-nature — I never saw one smile. This running-a-muck fit of theirs is 
 the bursting of the pent-up volcano. It is allowable to shoot them when seen 
 in that state, but Europeans generally prefer to get out of their road. At 
 night, in front of the hotel, walks a Malay with a loaded gun. He mounts 
 guard thus to protect the sleepers and their property, all exposed by the wide- 
 
Tiger Diversions. 91 
 
 •opened doors. There they lie in their pajamas, all other ways uncovered, on 
 the mattrasses. The tread of the Malf y so keeping guard is mixed up with 
 the shrill whirring of the mos(|uitos that are inside the curtain, and the loud 
 flapping wings of the moths and beetles that bump now and again against the 
 outside of it. As I listen to it all, I hope that this particular Malay has 
 nothing on his mind that might cause him to run-a-muck in the night-time. 
 All his sleeping charges, and those trying to sleep, are then at his mercy. 
 What he stabs with is a "creese" — a dagger of irregular shape, about 18 in. 
 long. He carries this in a sheath at his girdle. That a scratch with it may 
 be effective, it is generally kept well poisoned. Streaks of blood are carefully 
 preserved upon it as honourable marks. 
 
 Over the little stream that separates Singapore from the mainland of 
 Malacca, the tigers swim, and wait about in the woodlands of Singapore for 
 the brown-skinned Malays. These are, by the statistics on the subject, found 
 to be thus snapped up at the average of one a day — not a pleasant thought for 
 those who would take their pleasure in the woods. The Malays work there 
 at wood-cutting and collecting of " gambier " for chewing with the betel nut, 
 to produce the black teeth and red saliv-a considered here to be so pretty. A 
 European naturalist was nearly caught in this way lately. He was used to 
 tree-climbing, which helped him much on that occasion. He got safely up in 
 time out of the reach of the tiger's spring, reducing the annoyance to a 
 blockade that lasted over thirty hours. The hope, no doubt, was to starve 
 the besieged into a surrender. It was not, however, to be done, as our 
 naturalist's large pocket-book of specimens — grubs, butterflies, spiders, lizards, 
 and beetles — would have all been eaten up before that could happen. The 
 tiger got hungry and tired first, and, in fox and grape fashion, gave up the 
 game. The besieged had been employing his time in collecting insect 
 specimens from about his roosting-place, and had found healthy exercise in 
 the pursuit. At night, fearful of sleep, he had lashed himself by his braces 
 and neckerchief to a stout branch. In the morning he sucked the heavy dew 
 from the leaves, and could look with complacency on the dry, out-hanging 
 tongue of the tiger. 
 
 Talking of tigers leads one to think of the lion of Singapore, which is 
 unquestionably " Whampoa's Garden." Every visitor is urged to see it, and 
 it is quite worth the visit. Its owner is a rich, retired Chinese merchant, who 
 has a fine taste for botanical collections and their proper display. The many 
 acres he has had tastefully laid out can be walked over by the astonished 
 visitor, and something surprising seen at every turn. Two lakes have their 
 waters covered with lilies, the leaves of which are as large as open umbrellas. 
 With all respect to Derbyshire Chatsworth and its Duke, as also to Paxton, 
 its gardener, or his successor, they are not much, if at all, ahead of Whampoa's 
 place. He needs no conservatory or hot-houses, which is greatly in his favour. It 
 is strange that these hot, dry countries should have the finest vegetation — the 
 fierce sun above being seemingly hot enough to frizzle up every leaf in a few 
 minutes, and boil all the sap out of the branches in an hour or so. This 
 botanical celestial gets good and cheap labour in th^ dozens 6f Chinamen 
 employed about his grounds. The keeping up of such a fine affair in the 
 style he does would otherwise cost a larger sum than most folk would like 
 paying for the support of a hobby. 
 
 At Singapore, is to be found a choice of steamers for nearly everywhere. 
 One can go from here to any of the thousand islands of the Archipelago — pass 
 to the Philipines and Manilla, or to the Celebes and Macassar, or to Borneo 
 and Sarawak, or to the Moluccas, and there and thereabout gather the nutmegs, 
 peppers, and cinnamon of the Spice Islands ; or to Formosa, that island of 
 'George Psalmanazar, who made himself the talk of the time of our great 
 
92 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 grandfathers. All these trips are worth taking by anyone who can stand a 
 tropical life for months, and is not troubled with liver and loss of sleep. For 
 such Singapore is good head-quarters and starting-point for what I have named,, 
 and a long catalogue qf other places of interest— and heat. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IN NETHERLANDS INDIA. 
 
 In haste to get away from stifling Singapore, I went on board the Netherlands 
 India Steam Company's boat fully twelve hours before the anchor was swung. 
 Thereby I gained a clear air and a night's sleep in the sea-breeze, escaping, 
 also, from the attentions of many of the land insects. 
 
 The way now is through the Thousand Islands. Calls are made at Rhio, and 
 also at Muntuk, a town of the island of Banca, after which the straits of that 
 name are passed through — islands lying everywhere handy. These "summer 
 isles of Eden, lying in dark purple spheres of sea," remind one of the two days' 
 passage down the inland sea of Japan — for the time that we are treading our 
 way about them. For a yachtsman it would be a pleasant way of passing a 
 few months to visit a few of these little isles — say a hundred or two of them. 
 There are dozens, our captain tells us, upon which a Robinson Crusoe life, 
 which is the ideal life of our youth, might be passed out of the cares of the 
 world, and its rates and taxes. 
 
 On one of the larger of these islands a Mr. Ross, a Scotchman, is well 
 established, as were also his father and grandfather. Here, monarch of all he 
 surveys, he. with the help of native aid, cultivates sugar and other tropical 
 produce, and hoists the Union Jack among all the red, white, and blue flags 
 of the Netherlands that fly everywhere hereabout. His father wished to hoist 
 some flag for protection, and asked permission to use the Dutch one, but he 
 was looked upon as having, in mining language, "jumped the claim" in 
 taking possession of this island. Though imitation is said to be the sincerest 
 form of flattery, the Hollanders did not approve of this Scotchman thus 
 following their suit. In default of getting the use of the Dutch flag, he ran up 
 the British one. Protests were made by the Dutch against this proceeding, 
 but the flag still fles. 
 
 From Malacca downwards, all the lands here and there and all about are- 
 held by the Dutch, and called " Netherlands India." This large property, 
 including Java, is so farmed and philanthropically used by the Mynheers that 
 it is made to yield a large income of about four millions sterling annually tO' 
 the treasury of Holland. In addition to that, it is made to feed, fat, and enrich 
 six or seven thousand resident Dutch, who, in a semi-missionary way, attend 
 to the natives, and teach them that labour is worship, and that it is not good 
 for them to have too much money for it. 
 
 Netherlands India consists of Sunda, Java, and the neighbouring Madura ; 
 the Celebes group — the capital of which is Macassar ; seven-eighths of the 
 large island of Sumatra, in which a four years' Christianizing fight has been 
 carried on for possession of Acheen, the remaining eighth ; three-fourths of 
 the big land of Borneo, the islands of Rhio, Banca, and Billiton, on the two 
 latter of which are some profitable tin-mines ; the Molucca group or Spice 
 Islands — the chief of which is Amboyne — a large share of the island of Timor ; 
 
Duich Colomzation. 93 
 
 .also the northern part of New Guinea, called Prince Frederick's Land, 
 and many other islands, smaller or larger, about the prolific seas of this 
 quarter. 
 
 None of these lands can the Dutch colonize. The children of Europeans will 
 not thrive here, but must be sent to Europe to be reared. The land cannot 
 be cultivated by white labour. All of Netherlands India is therefore used by 
 the Hollanders for short sojourns and money -making. 
 
 Liver complaints, fevers, and other ailments terribly shorten the stay of 
 many, forcing them to leave before they have done as much good for the 
 native population as they probably intended. 
 
 I had thought the Malays that I met about Singapore and Cochin to be 
 morose, thankless, greedy, and treacherous. This race is largely spread among 
 the other native races of Netherlands India, and requires good examples from 
 the Dutch to improve their character. It is to be hoped that the opposite 
 result v/ill not he obtained. Tennyson has warned one against being " mated 
 with a clown," for " the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee 
 down." The Dutch are, doubtless, beyond danger of contracting such an evil 
 effect from their mixture here with the native races — at least I should hope so 
 — but, to use feminine language, we none of us know. 
 
 The natives, Malays, Javanese. Sundanese and Madurese, have had some 
 bad example, and have imitated it. Some foreigner has been here, having 
 dull, heavy, phlegmatic ways and manners, a greedy and thankless man, and 
 he has been imitated. He has shown an utter disregard for religion, art, and 
 learning, and hence they are not cultivated hereabout. The grand temples 
 which are to be seen in the interior of Java, that, for architectural design, 
 carvings, decorations, and finish, are worthy of Greece itself, testify to a culti- 
 vation of art by the natives in past times that has since been utterly killed. 
 These temples are evidence that religion once held with the natives a large 
 share in their thoughts, yet I never knew when it was the Sabbath in Nether- 
 lands India, save by reference to the almanack. Business seemed to proceed 
 on that day just as on the other six. Laborare est orare is a profitable maxim 
 — keeping folks at work keeps them out of vanities and mischief, and the 
 labour of the 18,000,000 of natives iu Java is worth something for a day. 
 Chapels and churches, as well as schools, are not prominent things there, as 
 they are in that English-governed Java called Ceylon. 
 
 In this Dutch India has Holland been "doing good," on the quiet, for more 
 than 200 years. To attend to her philanthrophic labours here she seems to 
 have forgotten herself altogether, and is no longer the great selfish Holland of 
 bygone days — when she was foremost in navigation with her Tasmans and 
 Van Diemens on their far-away voyages of discovery ; in naval warfare also, 
 with her Van Tromp sailing up the Medway, with a typical broom tied to his 
 topmast, intended to terrify Charles the Second; in art also, with her Rubens, 
 Vandyck, Wouvermans, Rembrandt, Paul Potter, Jan Steen, and Ostade. All 
 that happened when Holland had not, in her present way, realized the value 
 of her Eastern possessions. As a good mother, forgetting herself in her 
 children, so is Holland with her Netherlands India. The world hears now 
 but little of her former vanities. No more Tasmans and Van Diemens, nor 
 terrible Van Tromps, nor artistic competitors for the world's admiration ! 
 
 Holland and Spain have alike experienced this change, and from the same 
 cause. This Netherlands India has quieted Holland, while Cuba and some 
 like islands have done the same for Spain. The Dutch and the Spanish prefer 
 to encourage the industry of others — the native races — and to send milHons 
 home to the treasuries of Amsterdam and Madrid as evidence of the good they 
 are doing. They make no noise about it. It might be thought, but for the 
 example of these nations to the contrary, that the wealth we do not earn 
 
94 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 profits us nothing, but is really debilitating and destructive to us. We see in 
 these two examples that all which formerly elevated these nations, and kept 
 them to the fore in the world, has been neglected by them, that they might 
 look after and tutor the heathen, and not live, as some have supposed them to 
 be doing, a life of luxury on the labours of others. Is it a mistake to suppose 
 that Holland was greater as a nation when poor and struggling, and that all 
 her greatness has sunk like to that of Spain, that neither of these nations has 
 now a voice of its former weight in the world, and that the contribute little to 
 its noise or news. Both nations have been steady in the pursuit of money, 
 and if they have obtained it under fewer difficulties than formerly, it is to their 
 credit ; at all events the money is so, and Holland can show a big bank 
 balance and lend to her neighbours. Cynics may say that Holland and Spain 
 have forsaken their former aims, forgot their true worth, debased their national 
 spirit, and grovelled for the dross of earth like to Bunyan's man with the 
 muckrake, until they have forgotten how to hold their heads up in the world ; 
 but then cynics say nasty things, and often what is untrue. I have sometimes 
 heard, with pain, misinformed people say that these two nations were effete 
 pensioners on the earnings of the tens of millions of wretched toilers whom 
 they held in semi-serfdom. 
 
 A facetious Dutchman said to me, "Take Java from the Dutch, and you 
 might wipe out Holland altogether." "But Holland," I said, speaking in 
 ignorance, "was great and powerful before she had possession of Netherlands 
 India ; could she not become so again ? " " Oh, no ; she's forgotten how she 
 lived without that possession, and is past learning old lessons over again." 
 
 This was very good humour for a Dutchman, who mostly is a solidly matter- 
 of-fact person. I am, meanwhile, looking about among all the passengers who 
 are on board with me. About a hundred are invalided soldiers from Acheen, 
 for whose people the malarious fever fights sadly against the poor Dutch. 
 The Hollanders want to make of Acheen, at one end of the Malacca Straits, 
 what the English have made of Singapore at the other, and these cantankerous 
 Acheenese won't give it up to them. This holy war — to put the Christians in 
 the land of the heathen — has already cost the Dutch the last five years' profits 
 of Netherlands India, which may he doubled twice over before the trouble is 
 ended. 
 
 The number of our passengers lessen by many daily as we pass along the 
 coast of Sumatra. The climate of Acheen has been found so killing to these 
 imported Dutch recruits that but few are likely to recover from the fever that 
 is so reducing their numbers. I hear their dead bodies going overboard, 
 splash after splash, as I lie in my cabin in the grey of the early mornings. It 
 is a most unpleasant sound, and I fancy that it is that, or the sickly air of the 
 ship, that makes me quite content that no breakfast is given to one on board 
 Dutch vessels. After these sea-burials in batches every morning, one feels 
 dull indeed all day, and glad to get towards the journey's end and out of it. 
 
 Before that was reached, however, we met several islands not described in 
 the accounts of these seas, nor named in any map. These are floating patches 
 of land, laden with tropical trees, that had been washed down the rivers of 
 Sumatra and so out to sea. On one of these islands afloat was a cluster of 
 three cocoa-nut trees, with large bunches of nuts, nearly ripe, at their tall tops. 
 
 Most Dutchmen talk more or less understandable English. The poor, 
 wretched soldiers were no exception. One of them I talked with knew some- 
 thing of six languages, and was a well favoured and mannered young fellow. 
 The youngest of five sons, he had chosen a soldier's life, and left his mother's 
 home for this distant Dutch war only nine months before. It was sad indeed 
 to see one so young, well educated, and favoured by nature, thus victimized in 
 this persevering war that the Dutch are making for the land of the plucky 
 
Dutch Feeding. 95 
 
 Acheenese. If he blessed, before he died that night, those who had so 
 brought him to an early death, it was, I hope, with his last breath. I trust 
 also that the blessing went, with his soul, to the presence of the recording 
 angel, and was added to other million similar blessings on the awful record. 
 
 The habits of the Malay as regards food have been imitated by the 
 Dutchman in the matter of his meals, but his manner of taking them is here in 
 French fashion. A cup of coffee at 7 a.m. suffices to satisfy nature until 
 I p.m., when a chow-chow of rice, fish, and curry is served up for tiffin. Into 
 this chow-chow is put also sausage-meat, potatoes, chopped-up anchovies, and 
 small seasonings from a tray of eight compartments, that contains different 
 seasonings of all colours. A soup-plate full of this nastiness, yellowed over 
 with curry-powder, is the staple of the Dutch tiffin. This meal is wound up 
 with the eating of half a dozen bananas of the size of sausages and the 
 consistence of soap. If I were to be made over again, and had a voice in the 
 matter, I would choose to have a Scotch constitution and a Dutchman's 
 stomach. I should then have the good digestion which Rochefoucauld said 
 made the heart hard and one's life happy. 
 
 At 8 p.m. dinner is served, when the tiffin dish reappears, with small, 
 yellow, waxy potatoes, and some sour cabbage, apparently pickled in bad 
 beer; that is called " saurkraut " — a dish adaptable only to Dutch taste. 
 These followed upon soup and fish, and then came beefsteaks three inches 
 thick, and tough beyond all mastication. Pork chops followed as an aid to 
 indigestion, and then slices of seed-cake rubbed over with chocolate jelly. 
 Mangosteens, pine-apples, and bananas followed ; and then, as at tiffin-time, 
 came pipes and cigars, smoked at the table while coffee is drunk, and that 
 whether ladies are present or not — and they generally are. As the smell of 
 curry and the sight of the yellow mess is not agreeable to every one, those to 
 whom it is not come off but badly at these Dutch tables. 
 
 The Java tobacco here used is about the worst in the world. A hundred 
 cigars made from it are sold by the box for ninepence, and dear at that. The 
 stomach and the nose that can stand the curry and saurkraut can very well 
 endure the tobacco, which might, for the matter of that, be chopped up with 
 the rest in the curry-bowl. The cheapness of this tobacco is easily accounted 
 for— no other white folks will smoke it. 
 
 The west monsoon blows in these parts during December, January, February, 
 and March, bringing with it almost daily rain. The east monsoon — a dry 
 wind — blows similarly for some months of the year, so that there are long 
 alternations of wet and of drought. The vegetation seems, however, to thrive 
 particularly well, judging by its luxuriant profuseness and endless variety of 
 beauty. This Netherlands India contains all that the Western world would 
 have imagined as belonging to Eden. Palms of all kind, bread-fruits, 
 bananas, mangoes, and mangosteens, pine-apples, cocoa-nuts, tamarind and 
 frangipanni trees, with scores of other tropical fruits and spice-plants, are here 
 to be found in profusion. The fruit-bearing trees of the Eastern world are 
 more luxuriant of foliage and graceful in form than are those of the Western. 
 Such trees are the homes of birds of prettiest plumage, and feed butterflies, 
 beetles and insects that look like animated gems as they sparkle around in 
 their glories of all colours. 
 
 Thunderstorms and driving rains in deluging showers are here common. 
 Caught in one of these storms, I found all coverings unavailable, and the 
 uml>rella quite useless. A west monsoon wave half filled my cabin one night, 
 entering by the port-hole I had kept open for coolness. Others followed ere 
 I could close it, nearly knocking me over. Battling in the darkness with waves 
 rushing through a port-hole, with the fastenings of which one is unacquainted, 
 is a mild help out of the monotony of sea life. In the morning we are in the 
 
96 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 Straits of Sunda, and see the Sundanese land very shortly on our side. This 
 land of Sunda is an adjunct of Java, but a distinct language is spoken by its 
 natives. A settlement hereon that we now see is named Bantam, familiar, 
 through its fowls, to most folk. 
 
 The bay, in which we soon anchor, is not a picturesque one, nor is the low- 
 lying shore as seen from it. A few steamers and sailing vessels are at anchor, 
 and the tymbanums, or passengers' boats, soon come around us. In one of 
 these I am taken to the river Tijiliwong (Cheedeewong), and towed by the 
 boatmen, who walk on the bank, for two miles up its narrow, yellow stream, 
 that soon enters between brick embankments, and so runs up to the Custom- 
 house steps. I am there forced to take everything out of my travelling-bag, 
 and even to open a tin of chocolate, which is thought to be opium. A Malay 
 does the examination business. His Dutch superior does duty in smoking and 
 onlooking in a way becoming his dignity. 
 
 I am bid to report myself at the police-office if I intend to stay over four 
 days. That caution is given to prevent mistakes, and get folks to give an 
 account of themselves, and what they mean by wandering into other people's 
 country. The Dutch are a slow, quiet-going, thoughtful race, who sleep with 
 one eye partly open. The time spared from sleep is much of it spent in 
 smoking. They don't wish to be disturbed. Like to bees settling on flowers, 
 they have ceased their hum in the world, and are busy here looking after the 
 natives and the guilders— a serious occupation that forbids them to smile much, 
 and they laugh as seldom as do the Malays. 
 
 I am next introduced to the Java ponies, a small race of horses little larger 
 than Shetland ponies, and fit companions for the Bantam fowls. In a little 
 dos-a-dos car I am dragged by one of these wretched animals, whose driver 
 never ceases beating him, through two miles of road by the brick-embanked 
 dirty road. The first mile of the road takes me through the " Calli Bazaar," 
 an insignificant Chinese and Malay settlement. I then emerge into a tropical 
 forest, with white one-story houses here and there among the tall trees for two 
 miles onwards. A few bungalow buildings, called hotels, are scattered about. 
 At one of them, named Hotel des Indes, I find quarters in a dark room on one 
 ■side of a courtyard. I find that I am the only Englishman staying there. Not 
 many travellers visit Java. My room has a red -tiled floor, a red wood sofa 
 with cane seat, a bamboo chair, a rickety table, a screen with three pegs at the 
 top, a wretched washstand with a water-jug that holds a pint, an earthenware 
 water-bottle, no soap, and a towel of the size of a pocket-handkerchief, and 
 seemingly made of similar material. That is my bedroom accommodation. I 
 am supposed to bring the bamboo chair outside the door, and sit under the 
 verandah and smoke until the bell rings for tiffin ; then to sleep for three hours 
 and then take a two-pony carriage, at three guilders and a half, pay for two 
 hours' drive ; then to come back to dinner, after which to sit and smoke until 
 bed time. Such is Netherlands India life, such the end, hereabout of every 
 Dutchman's desire — a semi-sleepy and smoking existence for philanthropic 
 objects, in a Turkish-bath atmosphere, tempered by guilders. 
 
 The guilder — value is. 8d.— is to this part of the world what the rupee is to 
 the East Indies. The one I give to my Malay driver for the two-mile drive 
 from the custom-house does not satisfy him. He would not be contented if I 
 gave him two. Although his language is foreign, his meaning is plain. Un- 
 like the Chinese and Japanese, the Malays never learn a word of English. He 
 talks to me in his tongue, and I reply in mine. I know from whom he learnt 
 his greedy ways, and I pity him for the bad Dutch example he has had, instead 
 •of giving him more money. 
 
 About my all-but-furnished room flies of all sizes are numerous. In the 
 ^evening the moths will come, and the jubilant mosquito. The moths put the 
 
The Sundanese Capital. 97 
 
 candle out and go out themselves afterwards, but the faithful mosquito 
 remains, By-and-by others come, for I am landed on a low, flat shore by the 
 side of a river — a condition that ensures a plentiful supply of these things. 
 The room gradually fills with them, and is alive with their music. For the 
 Dutch settlers in these hot nights, so filled with such trouble, I have no pity ; 
 they can smoke the mosquitoes away with tobacco that would choke anything 
 living, but I am sorry for myself — the keenest of sorrow. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SUNDANESE CAPITAL. 
 
 I FIND myself wondering what other place it is that the aspect of Batavia — 
 chief city of the land of Sunda and its straits — recalls to my memory. It is, I 
 find, more like to that other Dutch-made place. Cape Town, Cape of Good 
 Hope, than any other that I have visited. Except in the native and the 
 Chinese parts, called now the old town, there is but little of a town look 
 about Batavia. White villa-like houses of a ground-floor only, with spacious 
 verandahs, standing two hundred feet or more apart, set back from the 
 roadway, and shaded by trees, are the characteristics of nine-tenths of Batavia. 
 Such houses do not look very like shops, stores, or offices, yet they are the 
 places of business, with but a small exception, where an attempt has been 
 made at a street of shops that has stopped at the eighth one. It was all like 
 to this in Cape Town when I was there. An English settler in the main 
 street there told me that he had been three years in business, and hoped to get 
 in a shop-front, in place of the parlour window one, in another year. There 
 is no hurry about anything in Dutch settlements, nor where, as in Cape Town, 
 the Hollanders are ground landlords. 
 
 In the evenings the verandahs of these houses show very brightly. A large 
 lamp or two is placed upon the tables there, around which sit Mynheer and 
 family. The Tijiliwong River runs between its brick enbankments through 
 half the town. Therein the natives are ever washing themselves or their linen. 
 The city has been laid out on a large scale, not as yet filled in, so that distances, 
 to an unpleasant extent, exist between public places. One must take a dos-a- 
 dos car to go two miles to the British Consul's office. From there it is another 
 two in a different direction to the post-ofiice. Riding in these vehicles is nasty 
 and not cheap. The horse will not go without incessant whipping ; the Malay 
 that drives cannot understand a word that I say, and worries always for an 
 exorbitant charge, which he never gets. A primitive tramway has been laid 
 down from the old town to the centre of the new one ; but it is such a shabby 
 affair that only the natives seem to patronize its dirty, ugly carriages. These 
 are raised three feet or more from the ground — for some unknown cause. 
 Their height from the tram-rail renders the appearance of the three ponies 
 harnessed to these cars especially ridiculous. Small enough in any vehicle, 
 they look but three cats in size in the front of these ugly van-like cars. 
 
 In the centre of Batavia is the club-house. Over the front entrance is written 
 "Harmonic." In Samarang it reads as "Concordia," and in Sourabaya as 
 "Amicite. " These club-houses combine reading-rooms, billiard and coffee 
 rooms, and a large concert-hall. They are floored with marble, and well built 
 and kept. The Dutch, when tired of smoking in the family circle of the 
 
98 
 
 2^he Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 verandah, come hither to sit and smoke for the rest of the evening. The 
 reading-room is furnished with papers and magazines that appear to be as little 
 used as is a bright poker. I look in vain for English, American or Australian 
 literature. Not a paper from those countries, save the Illust7-ated News of 
 three months back, is to be seen. Each of the three leading towns of Java — 
 Batavia, Samarang and Sourabaya — publish two newspapers in the Dutch 
 language — wretched-looking prints to English eyes. 
 
 Batavia is altogether a roomy place. The elbow-room that is given by the 
 house-builders is extended also to the streets, which are of great width and 
 mostly macadamized. Space is nowhere economized. Such a liberal spirit in 
 dealing with town allotments as is here shown is not seen in many Eastern 
 places. It is easy, however, to be liberal with that which we take from others. 
 William the Norman was similarly liberal with the land of the Saxons. " To 
 the victors the spoils." 
 
 JAVANESE CARRIAGE-CHAIR. 
 
 Street-lamps are to be seen — at the rate of three to a mile — and some 
 stunted-looking natives are about on police duties. The attire of such 
 functionaries ill-becomes Malay figures. At long intervals apart are watch- 
 boxes for the use of these men, and there a gong is sounded at certain hours of 
 the night. 
 
 Opposite to the Harmonic Club-house is that attempt at an ordinary city 
 street to which I have alluded. Its eight white-fronted shops are half of them 
 kept by French proprietors, and all are for the sale of drapery, perfumery, and 
 other feminine fancies. No attempt at walking exercise is ever made here by 
 European residents, and therefore the straggling character of the town is not so 
 inconvenient. Time also is of no consequence in Eastern places. Folks there 
 object to be bustled. 
 
 Two attempts are made at theatres, but they are poor things. A French 
 opera company was performing at one ; the other was closed. The place is 
 theatrically visited from Singapore on the one side and from Australia on the 
 
The Baiavian Aluseum. 
 
 99 
 
 other. An English opera company from Melbourne had lately left Batavia, and 
 left one of their number behind, who had altered his mind as to his proper 
 vocation, and seen his way to hotel-keeping. 
 
 In one of the prominent places or squares, here called plains, is erected a 
 a similar monument to the one I had seen at Singapore, surmounted by a 
 bronze elephant. It is to commemorate the same important event — the visit 
 of the Supreme King of Siam on the first effort at travel that a King of Siam 
 ever made. I begin now to have a proper respect for his Majesty. When at 
 Cambodia, near to his own land, I thought but little of him, in that unreflected 
 light in which I could but regard him. Admired so, and so honoured by 
 others, he now became of dazzling brightness in one's eyes. What is admired 
 by others is most admired by ourselves. It is the unreflected light that but 
 seldom dazzles the vision human. 
 
 JAVANESE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. 
 
 Near to this plain is another called the King's Plain, on one side of which 
 is something very creditable to Batavia or to any other city. It has written 
 upon it " Museum of the Netherlands Indies," and is just what a museum 
 -should be. There is not too much of it, and little or nothing that one has seen 
 elsewhere. Here are the products of Sunda and Java and all the surrounding 
 islands, and that is all. For that good reason, this collection is, to any 
 European, the best of its kind, and can be only uninteresting to the natives. 
 The labour of the plantations is for them, however, and not museums — taking 
 a Dutch view of the matter. All that one sees is novel, and much of it very 
 interesting. Here are some strange things as musical instruments. One of 
 them is made up of half a dozen pieces of bamboo, like to small organ-pipes, 
 and, like to them, of different lengths. These are notched with holes here and 
 there, and are all strung upon a frame. When shaken, they emit most 
 musical sounds ; but native talent is needed to bring out the proper music. 
 Pieces of \v'ood of different lengths and thickness are here also arranged on 
 
 H 2 
 
loo The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 framework, like to a rock-harmonicon, and can be played upon by sticks with 
 goodly effect. Altogether, a day can be well spent in this place, to which a 
 fine library is attached, and also a splendid collection of photographs, that 
 have the advantage of not reminding one of pictures seen elsewhere.} 
 
 In a book in this library, written by Sir Stamford Raffles, for five years 
 English Governor of Java, I find these words: — "The interior of Java 
 contains temples that, as works of labour and art, dwarf to nothing all our 
 wonder and admiration at the Pyramids of Egypt." Nothing more should be 
 needed to determine a traveller upon seeing such wonders, so certified. 
 
 The Zoological Gardens claim the next visit, but turn out to be unsatis- 
 factory—a disappointment after the surprise of the museum. It is the fauna 
 only of distant lands that may be seen there, and not that of Netherlands 
 India, which is probably too near to be thought rare. I look with nO' 
 astonished eyes at English rabbits, cats, fowls, hedgehogs, foxes, pheasants, 
 and grouse. I wanted to see again that finest of birds, the Java pigeon — a 
 bird of heavenly-blue plumage, bedecked on the head with eight small pillars, 
 each crowned with a glittering jewel or something like it, such as I had once 
 seen in a zoological garden elsewhere. Not one was to be seen here, nor even 
 one of the pretty Java sparrows that I had expected to see flying about in 
 Batavia, but didn't. A Ceylon elephant was here, but not a Java tiger or 
 leopard, nor any zoological surprises. 
 
 The notes that one makes of things noticeable are better set down as they 
 occur. They might be grouped and arranged under different headings, as in 
 the book on Iceland, which contains that famous chapter on the non-existent 
 snakes which alone is remembered by the world. Acquiring knowledge by 
 observation and information only, it was necessarily of a miscellaneous 
 character, but none the less valued for that reason — to me all the more 
 interesting, and so I set it down. 
 
 The Dutchmen that I meet here are like in appearance to the English of 
 forty years ago — the shaved and neat-whiskered men that our fathers and 
 grandfathers were. In the early morning they are seen in their white smocks, 
 and wide trousers of Turkish cut and Manchester print pattern. It is not 
 cotton print, however, but stuff" called " batuck," or so pronounced, woven by 
 the Malays, and the pattern painted in by some indelible pigments. The 
 Malay men and women wear these batucks folded round their heads in turban 
 fashion, and also around their legs, as one might similarly pin around one a 
 printed table-cover. It is, when thus used, called a sarojtg. When this 
 batuck is not twisted round the head, a bamboo hat of the size and shape of a 
 colander, or kitchen strainer, and painted like to a Chinese wooden coffee- 
 bowl, is worn by the Malays. It makes a sunshade and small umbrella 
 combined. The wearer seems to have a huge painted toadstool upon his head. 
 It is tied under the chin by a band as broad as an ordinary horse-girth. The 
 Dutch ladies seem to wear all the daylong a white smock like to a short night- 
 dress, and the batuck continuation — not a dress calculated to show the figure 
 to advantage, but decidedly comfortable for the climate — which the "pin- 
 back " dress of modern fashion would certainly not be in Java. The children 
 wear but one article — the white children I mean — for the children of the 
 natives, up to six years of age, appear to wear nothing — that is a short smock, 
 with shorter leggings that reach to the knee. Shoes and stockings are never 
 thought of for any children. A heelless slipper and sockless feet are the 
 fashion for everybody, male and female, native and European. The white 
 children are given in care to Malay nurses, and thus, to the annoyance of their 
 parents, learn the Malay language long before they do the Dutch. At ten 
 years of age they are generally sent away to Holland to be educated and reared, 
 and to acquire colour in their complexions and strength in their limp-looking 
 
Javanese Fndts. loi 
 
 limbs. Reared in Java they would look something of the colour of putty, and 
 appear to be about as soft. 
 
 At tiffin time I reject the mess of curry and co. that others take, and attend 
 to the fruits. These are mangosteens, custard apples, dorians, bananas, 
 dukkos, rambutangs, pappiyas, and a roasted root called katellapotion. With 
 bread and iced water these make a satisfactory lunch, and one quite proper to 
 the climate. If I want more, there is rice and milk — the proper food for the 
 country. The mangosteen is the king of Java fruits. It has a dark brown, 
 soft, and thick rind, of a turpentiny smell, that encloses five, six, or seven 
 creamy-white pieces of ice-cream-like fruit, which also has a pleasantly nice 
 savour of turpentine. For that reason some object to it — say, one out of a 
 hundred. The other ninety-nine can eat and enjoy mangosteens as we else- 
 where eat peaches. The custard apple has a green and rugged exterior of 
 
 WEAVING THE 
 
 artichoke-look. It is full of sweet white custard and large black pips. The 
 dorian is as large as a melon, with a prickly rind, and not generally liked, 
 though I found it an enjoyable fruit. Folks particular about perfumes say 
 that it smells like to a rotten onion. It is peculiar that way. Its heavy and 
 thick rind contains four compartments, in each of which is a large amber- 
 coloured stone, enclosed in a sort of whitish bird-lime, that sticks much about 
 one's fingers. It is, however, very good eating — barring the smell of it — and 
 as nourishing as the South Sea " taro " or " poi " — the staple food of the 
 ^Maoris and Sandwich Islanders. The dukko has a smooth shell, enclosing a 
 pleasant-eating, whitish, jelly-like substance, that must be nibbled or sucked 
 off the stones it covers. The rambutang might be mistaken for a nettle-top in 
 appearance. Its bristles are, however, softer, and, when peeled, the fruit is 
 found to be a kind of minor mangosteen in appearance and flavour. The 
 pappiya is a veritable melon. The katellapotion, or sago potato-root, tastes, 
 when roasted, like the best of roasted chestnuts. With these novelties in the 
 
102 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 way of fruit, the traveller can steer clear of curry and its concomitants ver)" 
 satisfactorily, likewise of the detestable sourkrout. 
 
 The Batavians ignore blacking altogether. It soils the white trousers they 
 wear in the after-part of the day. The traveller finds his leather boots getting 
 browner every day, and no help for it but to buy varnished leather shoes, 
 which exclude the air and heat the feet. Sending blacking to Java would be 
 as profitable as exporting thither warming-pans or skates. 
 
 After tiffin I take a dos-a-dos car for a long drive through and around the 
 city. All of it is, I now find, like to the suburbs of any other town — 
 white and ground-floor villas peeping from among thick and tall tropical trees. 
 T see the Waterloo Plain, on which stands a tall granite monument on a green, 
 surrounded by barracks. In front of the officers' quarters is a grand-looking 
 colossal figure in bronze, which, in the distance, in hat and feather and general 
 dress, looks like to the pictures of Sir Walter Raleigh. At the risk of a sun- 
 stroke I emerge from the shelter of the covered carriage and inspect it. Its 
 inscriptions tell me that it is the figure of one Jan Peterzohn Coen, Governor- 
 General of the East Indies from i6i8 to 1625, and again from 1627 to 1629 ; 
 that he was born in Ploorn; that he died in Batavia on 21st September, 1629 ; 
 and that he was the settler and first Governor of Java. The Dutch at one 
 time ignored British India altogether, and called their settlements round about 
 here the East Indies. On their old coins of 1796 the letters O.C., for " Ost- 
 Indie Company," appear instead of the crown of Holland. A company, 
 similar to the British East India Company, had then the management of affairs 
 in what is now called Netherlands India, and were made to pay handsoinely 
 to the Exchequer of Holland for their privileges. 
 
 On the occasion of a probable French invasion of Holland, the Dutch once 
 threatened to submerge that country, as Russia burnt Moscow and all the 
 towns on the march thither of Napoleon's army, and to bodily emigrate to 
 these eastern possessions of theirs. It reads very Spartan-like and patriotic 
 until one comes here to see what pleasant possessions they have in this Garden 
 of Eden and earthly paradise. The threat then has a very different look. 
 
 To leave damp, foggy, ditch-enclosed Holland for Java, the spicy Celebes 
 and Moluccas, and the Thousand Islands, was not giving up much — not a 
 sacrifice like to that of the Pilgrim Fathers when the left England to settle in 
 America, there to live upon their own labour. The good that Holland has 
 done the world since then makes one glad that the sad threat was not carried 
 out, and humanity thereby deprived of its best gin. Looking around here, it 
 does not appear that the Dutch would have lost anything by it. They thrive 
 well in this land, and on the care they take of its labourers. Like to Jeshurun, 
 they have here "waxed fat," but his other characteristic appears to be taken 
 out of them. They are quiet as mice at work on a rich cheese. 
 
 The other side of the Waterloo Plain to that on which is the statue of the 
 founder of the city and first governor of the country contains a monument that 
 records on its four sides the great fighting deeds of one Michiels, who seems to 
 have been the Joab of the time in this part of the world. His battles were 
 no doubt something like to the robber raids of buccaneers, but they all counted 
 up to the good of civilization as represented by Holland. The monument is 
 perhaps as well deserved as many of such things. 
 
 While in this neighbourhood I again visit the museum — a thing that may be 
 done many times. There is a room full of gods and goddesses in stone, more 
 or less damaged, brought down from interior temples. Most prominent is the 
 elephant-nosed god. Next to that is a goddess who appears to be counting 
 her fingers. Here also is a wooden figure of incalculable age, and in that 
 respect like to one I saw in the museum at Cairo, which was labelled as being 
 6000 years old — the effigy of the chief of the household of some king who reigned 
 
A Novel " Wifer 103 
 
 about the time of Adam — going by the reckoning of Jewish records. " Abou 
 this time Adam appeared," might be written in the histories of Egypt, China 
 and other lands. These wooden images appear to endure time's wear and 
 tear equally well with stone. The features can be rubbed away scarcely more 
 easily on the one than on the other. The great toe of Jupiter's stone effig}- — 
 now called St. Peter — in the Cathedral at Rome is nearly kissed away. An 
 old wooden figure of a god in a Canton temple had, similarly, its nose entirely 
 kissed off by those who believed that kissing it was good for their eyesight. 
 Some strange carvings of monstrosities are here on show, cut in wood, and 
 indelibly painted — one of them remarkably like to the figure of our own 
 familiar Punch. From Siam are shown some figures cut in cardboard, well 
 painted, and jointed with cocoa-nut string, after the manner in which cardboard 
 figures for children are put together in the Western world. Cups of metal, of 
 different thicknesses and material, are set here in a dish. When half-filled with 
 water, and rubbed around the rims with wetted fingers, the musical-glass music, 
 somewhat improved, can be produced from them. All of our novelties are 
 not so novel as we think for. Inventions seem but to travel in larger circles 
 than fashions. 
 
 It is evening, and therefore dark when I get towards the Hotel des Indes. 
 There is no twilight in Java. One bungalow is so like another that I mistake a 
 neighbouring one for the hotel, and tap at my driver's back that he may stop 
 there. I can ask him no questions, nor he tell me anything, so that there is 
 no chance of his correcting any error. Dinner is spread, and I, without a 
 thought, leave my pith helmet and umbrella on a chair in the verandah, and 
 take a seat at the table among the twelve or fifteen seated there. I do not 
 notice that they are not the folks I saw at tiffin. They seem to smile among 
 themselves ; but I take it to be at some Dutch pleasantry that is going round, 
 and so go on with dinner. The dishes are passed around by the Malay atten- 
 dants as at the hotel. I can see no difference. There are several ladies dressed 
 in white, as usual. All the gentlemen are in white apparel. I am conspicuous 
 by wearing a thin black alpaca jacket. Ignorance was bliss on this occasion, 
 and I dined well and satisfactorily, taking water and tea only as drink, and 
 refusing the wine that I knew I had not ordered and considered as passed to 
 me by the Malay servants in error. When dinner was over, and the cigars 
 were lighted up, I went out upon the verandah and took a chair there, as one 
 who might enjoy his ease at his inn. A tall, elderly gentleman took a seat 
 beside me. I had observed him at the head of the table, and took him, rightly 
 enough, in one sense, for the host. He spoke a little English, and addressed me as 
 of that nationality. He hoped I liked the dinner. I told him that I did. 
 Had I been long in Batavia ? Only two days. Was I going further ? Yes, 
 to Samarang and Sourabaya. By what means ? By the first steamer next 
 week. By which way had I come? By way of Japan, China, Cochin China, 
 and Singapore. Where was I staying in Batavia ; Why here ; at the Hotel 
 des Indes, room No. 7 ! Oh, then, that accounted for it ; the Hotel des Indes 
 was a half a dozen houses — a quarter of a mile — further on ! I had intruded 
 upon the private table of a hospitable, gentlemanly planter, who had humoured 
 the mistake. I was glad of it, for he gave me endless odds and ends of 
 information that were useful. If Dutchmen had any faults, the behaviour of 
 this one had atoned for much. 
 
 A curious thing is on the beds here nightly, which I now learn is called " a 
 Dutch wife." This abuse of a good name is applied to a bolster of about half 
 the thickness and twice the length of an ordinary British one. This article, 
 that I have hitherto kicked off the bare mattress, which is all that serves for 
 bed, should, I am now told, be kept through the night between one's ankles 
 and arms, and so provide space and promote coolness. The article, I believe, 
 
I04 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 has not been patented. With all people it is not a success at first. It was 
 not much so with me. I always found my Dutch wife rolled off on to the floor 
 by the morning. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BUITENZORG AND THE HILLS OF SUNDA. 
 
 No less than six languages are common in Sunda and Java. These are the 
 Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Chinese and Dutch. Madura I have 
 mentioned as a large island, of one hundred miles by sixty, very near to the 
 mainland of Java, and in constant communication with it. The Dutch bank- 
 notes of Java and Sunda are endorsed with notices printed in four languages, 
 which for that reason may be taken to be those most required — Malay, 
 Javanese, Chinese, and Dutch. These notes, with the guilders and half and 
 quarter guilders in silver and cents in copper, make up the currency. One 
 hundred cents go to the guilder. The coinage has a pretty appearance. On 
 one side is the Dutch crown, and on the other an inscription in Malay script, 
 surrounded by another in Javanese character— something like to the shorthand 
 of Gurney in its look. 
 
 Only Dutch maps of Sunda and Java are to be found here. From one of 
 these I get ideas of the islands. Their combined length is near about seven 
 hundred miles from Bantam to Banjoewangie. The greatest breadth is in the 
 middle, in the neighbourhood of Samarang ; there it is nearly a hundred miles. 
 The population, other than European, is about twenty millions. The Europeans 
 number some five thousand. The Chinese are over a million, of whom the 
 majority are traders. The Javanese, Sundanese, and most of the Malays are 
 the toilers, the tillers of the soil, the wealth producers. These eighteen or so 
 of millions are a sort of semi-serfs, who cultivate coffee, sugar, rice, tobacco, 
 and other produce on the Government lands, out of which the millions are 
 made annually for the spread of civilization in Holland, The coffee has to be 
 delivered by its native growers at thirteen guilders a picul. Up to 1874 only 
 nine were grudgingly given for it. A picul is 125 lbs,, and fetches from forty- 
 five to fifty-five guilders when sold l^y the Dutch in that open market to which 
 the native grower is not allowed to bring it. His position is consequently 
 definable by a very plain word. When I have added that the Pasoeroewan 
 district, near Sourabaya, produced last year five hundred thousand piculs of 
 coffee, the profits made on this product alone can be easily estimated for that 
 part of Java. Every opposition is placed by the Government in the way of 
 private individuals obtaining land in Sunda and Java for purposes of cultiva- 
 tion. Some have been waiting for years in vain. The private grower decreases 
 the profits of the state monopolizer. Salt is made a state monopoly altogether, 
 and a large revenue is obtained from it as from other monopolized things. 
 
 This magnificent, highly-productive, and profitable Sunda and its adjunct 
 Java are divided into twenty-five districts of nearly equal size. These are 
 named Bantam, Batavia, Buitenzorg, and Praenger, which constitute Sunda, 
 or that portion of the island in which the Sundanese language is spoken by the 
 natives. Then come Krawang, Cheribon, Regentschappen, Tagal, Banjoe- 
 maas, Pekalongan, Bagelen, Kadoe, Samarang, Japara, Soerakajarta, Djockja- 
 karta, Putjitan, Madiven, Rembang, Kedirie, Pasoeroewan, Soerabaya, 
 
Country Characteristics. 105 
 
 Probolingo, Bezoeki, and Banjoewangi. At this place the telegraphic cable 
 from Australia is landed. The names of these places need not be all remem- 
 bered except by those who fancy their euphony. 
 
 Each of these districts has a superintendent, whose house is called the 
 "Residency." Native princes are kept in puppet state, and are ludicrously 
 designated sultans and emperors. They receive pensions from the Dutch, and 
 a guard of thirty or so of Dutch soldiers. Their palaces, I observed, were 
 generally opposite to a Dutch-built fort, which ornamental thing occupies the 
 •centre of every town in which a sultan keeps his state — or is kept in it. 
 
 Sunda and Java have many fine mountains, some rising, I am told, to nearly 
 twelve thousand feet, which are, as in India and Ceylon, sought as a sana- 
 torium. Several of these are volcanic, accounting for the occasional strong 
 shocks of earthquake experienced here. The hill-sides are the coffee lands. 
 The low lands grow the sugar and the rice Higher up than the coffee tea is 
 ■cultivated, but coffee is the staple of the country. It is to Sunda and Java 
 what wool is to Australia. Java coffee is the great rival to that of Ceylon. 
 Mocha, on the Arabian coast, grows the favourite berry, and much of Java 
 coffee is shipped there, and properly, or improperly, branded, and then tran- 
 shipped as " real Mocha." Ceylon has only three millions of inhabitants. 
 Its produce is, therefore, very small compared with Sunda and Java, where 
 the Dutch grind the coffee out of the natives in a more profitable manner than 
 the British have yet practised. 
 
 The mountain ranges give a plentiful supply of water, the streams running 
 into rivulets and rivers of useful length and breadth, equally plentiful all the 
 year round. Three of the prominent ones are the Tjidami, the Tjitarum, and 
 the Tjiliwong, to which may be added the Callimass, or golden river, of 
 Sourabaya, that floats the cargoes of coffee from far inland to the seaport. 
 Some of the scenery on these rivers is the loveliest that imagination can 
 picture. The eye never tires in gazing at it. The beauties of Sundanese and 
 Javanese scenery would make poets out of many men ; but the Dutchman 
 inclines only to be, in his way, a philosopher and philanthropist. 
 
 This country appears to have but few sheep. Mutton is a rarity at the 
 table. Pork takes its place at dinner-time. That seems to be plentiful. 
 Bullocks and cows are seen but rarely, and I saw nothing of grass lands. The 
 buffalo is the common animal — a huge beast that has a hide like to a dark- 
 coloured pig, and but as little covered with hair. It is, however, timid and 
 •easily managed. A small, naked Malay boy of six or seven may be seen 
 driving half a dozen of them home from the fields, astride, as far as his little 
 legs will reach, on the rearmost one. Nothing in nature can look more 
 wretched than the general run of dogs here. In all Eastern countries the dog 
 seems to come off very badly. His bones can be counted in most cases, and 
 his life appears to be altogether a mistake. If the Indian idea be correct, that 
 he bears his master company in the next world, it is to be hoped that his fate 
 will be bettered there. It can scarcely be made worse. He is positively 
 obliged to drag out existence in the East on mainly a vegetable diet that 
 ■evidently does not agree with him. 
 
 The Dutch ladies seem to be a fair-haired race. Most of those just arrived 
 at womanhood remind me of Eaust's Marguerite in their appearance. They 
 'develop in after-life to a bulbous form that does not look so graceful, but 
 which their style of dress — -white smock (ca/ziisa) — and their sarong much 
 favours. Neither ladies nor gentlemen wear head-coverings after the sun 
 goes down. Then comes the time for the evening drive. The hood of the 
 •carriage is thrown back, and its bare-headed occupants take their much- 
 wanted airing. As for exercise, they get none. Cricket and croquet, horse- 
 racing and hunting, are not the fashion of things in Sunda and Java. Oc- 
 
io6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 casionally a ball is held at the club-house, and the birthdays of the King and! 
 Queen of Holland are honoured in that way. Dancing does not, however, 
 seem to be the most desirable thing in a climate where it is perspiring exercise- 
 even to fan oneself. 
 
 Now that so much is known of the world, now that Nineveh has been, 
 unearthed, and Dr. Schliemann's discoveries have settled all questions as to 
 the localities of the Homeric battles, it is strange that the locality of the- 
 Garden of Eden has not been agreed upon. In Ceylon I was shown Adam's. 
 Peak, upon which is to be seen his footstep, though unanimous belief does not 
 appear to confirm that statement. Ceylon is nice enough for Paradise, but 
 this land is more beautiful, and as such more likely to have been the Eastern 
 Eden. There is nothing paradise-like to be seen in Palestine — that stony, 
 bare, and barren country. Taking Eden, then, to have been in one of these 
 favoured gardens of nature, one can well understand, feeling what the climate- 
 is, that originally man was not intended to labour. I am supposing the first 
 man to have been a white one. His creation, in such a country, on that con- 
 dition, does not square with one's reason and notions of the fitness of things. 
 The curse that he should live by the sweat of his brow can be understood only 
 in the fulness of its punishment in Eastern lands. 
 
 I go from Batavia to Buitenzorg, forty miles, by a primitive-looking, slow- 
 going railway that runs American-fashioned cars. I am glad that it is a slow 
 pace, for the scenery is something so delicious that one would like to go but a 
 mile an hour through it — or stop in it altogether. There may be better places, 
 in the world, or may not. I don't think that there can be, but this satisfies 
 one to the full in the way of Nature's most lavish loveliness. All along the 
 road the eye rests upon and revels in a wealth of verdure that seems almost 
 that of another and a better world — the world of the yellow meads of asphodel, 
 the amaranthine bowers, and the delectable mountains. They are all here, 
 and much more also than poet ever dreamed or painter depicted. Nothing in, 
 the imagination of man can equal the works of Nature. Truth is ever stranger 
 than fiction, and reason tells us that it must be so. 
 
 The bamboo-built huts of the natives, rush-mat covered, peep out from, 
 among the palms and bananas and other full-foliaged trees that the Western 
 world sees only growing under glass. Love in such cottages would seem to- 
 have its proper home. Copper-coloured cupids play about the doorways. 
 Cocoa-nuts, breadfruit, bananas, and custard apples can be had for reaching 
 up for them. The purest of water runs everywhere from mountain rills. Cold 
 and hunger seem distant and impossible things. All around the eye sees but 
 the clearest of blue skies, verdure-clothed hills and heaven-kissing mountains, 
 with eternal summer, lapped in flowers, smiling ever rosily at their feet. An 
 Eastern dream of delight ! Glimpses are obtained here and there of the most 
 delightful of little valleys. 
 
 "Secret nooks in a pleasant land 
 Whose groves the frolic fairies planned." 
 
 It is an upward journey all the way, and gets sensibly cooler and pleasanter- 
 every mile. Buitenzorg is among the hills, and for that much favoured by the 
 stewing Batavians. The palace of the Governor, Van Lansberger, is_ here- 
 situated — a sort of ground-floor Versailles — a tastily-built white palace in an 
 immense garden of finest trees. For living in this pleasant place he draws a 
 larger salary than any British colonial governor. He has besides, I am told, 
 the opportunity to double his handsome pay by private speculation, of which, 
 some governors largely availed themselves. A goodly honey-pot to Dutch 
 flies are these fair lands of Sunda and Java. What a pity, one cannot help' 
 thinking, that Sir Stamford Raffles did not continue their Governor ! He saw 
 the way somehow to England's continuing to retain them, and so advised in a 
 
Buite7izorg and the Hills. 107 
 
 despatch that was, strangely, never shown to the Prime Minister of the time 
 until too late. It had remained unopened for long after its receipt, but by 
 whose fault has never been explained. By such mere threads as that hang the 
 fate of nations ! 
 
 England took charge of Sunda and Java from 18 10 to 1 8 16 during that 
 general scrimmage caused by Bonaparte, in which nothing was considered safe. 
 In the final re-settlement of things that took place at the latter date, after 
 Bonaparte had been put away in a corner for wanting the world as a play- 
 thing, these fair lands of Java and Sunda were handed back by England to 
 Holland. Very few indeed of the English have been to visit them since that. 
 It is too saddening to do so, and they also lie out of the world's way. Even 
 the Torres Straits mail-steamers do not call there, though their way-bills so 
 promise. Every Englishman who sees these lands may think that England 
 might have done with them somewhat differently to the Dutch — perhaps have 
 iinproved them. Nature has done all for them certainly, for which reason it is 
 perhaps, that the Dutch for over 20c years have not done much more than 
 they could help. They have made them pay, however, which is more than 
 England might have done. In that way she is not Holland's equal, and may 
 never be so. 
 
 Here in the gardens of the Palace of Buitenzorg I find the tomb of Lady 
 Stamford Raffles, wife of the one English Governor that Sunda and Java have 
 ever had, — 
 
 " Her part in all the scene that fills 
 The circuit of the sunny hills 
 Is that her grave is green." 
 
 Yet one might wish to die to have one's long sleep in so sweet a place. The 
 inscription merely records her name, Olivia Mariamne, and her death at 
 Buitenzorg 26th November, 1 8 14. 
 
 I find quarters at an hotel that appears almost overhung by a huge 
 mountain, called Salahk, eight thousand feet high, largely infested with the 
 tiger and rhinoceros. On its sides are many tea and coftee plantations. I get 
 the sleep at Buitenzorg that failed me in Batavia, and duly appreciate it. The 
 upper part of the Tjiliwong River, that runs through Batavia, is' here to be 
 seen. Its waters are now clear as crystal. On its banks are many pretty 
 falls. The scenery about Buitenzorg is altogether such as might tempt any 
 man, Dutch or otherwise, to make his residence there. My host talks every 
 modern language, and takes an interest in his visitors. He has been a sea 
 captain, and is now settled here, his rovings over, with a Malay wife, and 
 several pretty-looking half-cast children. He smokes everlastingly, and his 
 wife chews the teeth-blackening, mouth-reddening stuff that is made up of betel- 
 nut, gambler, lime, and tobacco. He says, in excuse of it, that every Malay 
 woman does likewise. It does not look ornamental to feminine lips, 
 
 "If you would see the beauties of our scenery," said my host, "take a 
 carriage to-morrow, and go up forty miles to Sandanglaya ; you will then 
 know more of what we have to show." 
 
 I do as he suggests, and start early in a low-built carriage, with four rats of 
 ponies, harnessed mainly by ropes. My Malay driver knows where he has to 
 go, and I am to supply him with money as he wants it for horse-changes and 
 buffalo-hiring. I ask what the buffaloes will be wanted for, and am told that 
 they are necessary to draw the vehicle over the mountain — which sounds 
 sensational. I wish that I could talk to my driver and learn particulars as I 
 pass_ along, but that cannot be, and I have all the more opportunity for 
 looking around. By this time I have got pretty well used to dispensing with 
 language, and find how well one can get along and through the world 
 without it. 
 
io8 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 At every six miles the ponies are changed. An archway across the road 
 indicates these post-houses. It is all up-hill work, and through delightful 
 scenery. Cooler and cooler it gets every mile of the way. The mountains 
 around attract the clouds, and they presently distil gentle rain upon us. The 
 vegetation varies, and coffee instead of rice appears upon the uplands. Tall 
 fern-trees, or tree-ferns, such as one sees in the mountain gullies of Australia 
 and Tasmania, now appear in profusion, and add additional charms to the 
 scene, as do new flowers and flowering plants. Waterfalls and rushing 
 streams make music all around. 
 
 We stop at mid-day at a post-station called Toegoe, where I get some 
 boiled rice and water for a meal, mixed with sugar. They satisfy hunger and 
 thirst, and no one gets anything better among those around me. A rajah, or 
 some native prince, is driving downwards in a handsome carriage, and makes 
 also a stay here. He is sitting smoking a chibouque, or water-pipe, in 
 Turkish fashion, and looks grandly in his silk turban and sash, long petticoats, 
 and embroidered slippers. lie knocks down one of his Malay servants for not 
 doing something rightly, or quickly enough, and kicks an inquisitive dog clear 
 across the road. Altogether, he is evidently some great man in his small 
 way. 
 
 At the next six-mile stage ten Malays come out and harness themselves to 
 the carriage with ropes. My driver then leaves his seat and delivers the 
 vehicle and horses to their care. The cause is soon apparent. We have to 
 go down a steep incline, cross a mountain stream, and ascend a stifl hill. 
 Altogether, I think it looks best to walk, and get out accordingly, and join my 
 Malay driver in the rear. Quite as quick progress is made in that way, and 
 one gets better opportunity to look around and admire the panorama on every 
 side — mountain, loch, and glen. 
 
 When difficulties are got over on this stage of the journey, other ones begin, 
 and buffaloes take the place of the horses and the ten Malays. A mountain of 
 between two and three thousand feet has to be crossed — some parts of which 
 are very steep indeed. Getting to Sandanglaya is not ordinary road work — 
 very far from it. It is now quite cool, and I put on an overcoat that I had the 
 forethought to bring with me. Its weight, however, tells on the toil of 
 getting up that hill of difficulty, and one feels quite winded by the time the 
 top is reached, and the buffaloes detached. The scene from this elevated 
 position is glorious indeed. A little Scotch whisky at the bothie-like hut by 
 the wayside would not be out of place, but, worse luck, is not in the place. 
 Travellers must be content, so I have to feast on the views around, and 
 instead of the whisky to drink in the beauties of the scene. They are, fortu- 
 nately, very satisfying. Nevertheless, I feel that the ascent of the mountain 
 has taken much out of one who has had nothing since the early morning but 
 rice and sugared water. 
 
 The mountain has now to be partly descended to get to Sandanglaya and 
 its hotel. Here, at the top, is a gate and a sign-post, on which is inscribed 
 Tussaroa-Praenger," indicating that I am entering into a new district — that of 
 Praenger. Such gates mark the divisions of the districts throughout the land. 
 It is easier work getting down hill, and my umbrella now becomes of service 
 to shield me, not from the sun, but from a mountain shower. I am, in fact, 
 among the mists. 
 
 In an hour's time I reach lower land, and the hostelry of a retired doctor, 
 who has established a sanatorium and hotel combined in this inviting but not 
 easily accessible spot. He cannot speak EngHsh, nor can his wife. I am glad 
 of that, for his eldest daughter, whose appearance compels admiration, is called 
 into requisition, and we exchange ideas in English and German-English. It 
 sounds very pretty, though, from her lips — anything would have sounded so 
 
Memorable Girls. 109 
 
 from them, I am not surprised to find that she is engaged to a coffee-planter 
 with a horrible Dutch name. I might have known, by looking at her, that she 
 would be engaged to somebody. There may be ' ' flowers blushing unseen and 
 wasting their sweetness" all unadmired, but they are never to be discovered. 
 Those that I thought were so situated were, I soon found, like to Swiveller's 
 dear gazelle, engaged to planters, graziers, or squatters, or something of the 
 sort. Even one that I met with in a Maori "pah," called Arawanui, in New 
 Zealand, a glory of a Maori girl, named Kiti Kohoota, was engaged three or 
 four deep. Poets sit at ease at home, and imagine fine things — making "the 
 thing that is not seem as though it were." The unfortunate traveller, at his 
 toil and cost, discovers the plain prose of the world. It is the poet, however, 
 that oft incites him to the travel. As that gives him more sense than he 
 previously had, and further knowledge, he has for that much to thank the poet 
 after all. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SANDANGLAYA TO SAMARANG (SUNDA-JAVA.) 
 
 Sandanglaya, as a hill-country sanatorium, has the usual characteristics of 
 invalids and hypochondriacs. I find at dinner-time an assemblage of its 
 visitors, of whom I was about the only one who did not think that anything 
 was the matter with him. The company was made up of those who were 
 really sick, and those who go about imagining some ailment — as an excuse for 
 travelling, idling, or loafing. Here was a young Englishman, smoking all day 
 like a factory chimney, and playing billiards, who said that he was not strong 
 enough to take a journey to visit the great temples in the interior. I noticed 
 that he ate like a farmer, and drank equally well. He would have felt if 
 possible, all the stronger had he walked all over Sunda and Java, which he 
 looked quite able to do. Monetary plethora and laziness were his only ailments. 
 A tropical thunderstorm set in with great violence on that evening. I had gone 
 after dinner to visit a fine lake in the neighbourhood — nearly as fine as that 
 other lake, Tahoe, that I saw among the American Nevada hills, and got 
 caught in the downpour ere I returned. The lightning and thunder were 
 grandly terrific. Up at that height in the mountains they seemed to be, as I 
 suppose they were, all around, and not above, one. The torrents of rain 
 nearly washed me off my legs, and, helped by the wind, made a wretched 
 wreck of my umbrella, and subsequently of myself. 
 
 The journey down from the mountains to Buitenzorg was made in much 
 quicker time than the ascent. It was enlivened also by the incidents of an 
 upset and of as troublesome a team, on one of the stages, as were ever harnessed 
 together. In Sunda and Java, as elsewhere in the East, only stallions are 
 driven, and they seem to be more recalcitrant and pugnacious as they get smaller 
 in size — "little pots are soon hot," says Shakspeare, At one part of the 
 journey the off-leader appeared to think that he was doing more than his fair 
 share of the work, and came to a dead stop to express that opinion to his three 
 partners. He talked to the two wheelers, with his heels, and in a most emphatic 
 manner. I thought that he would have kicked their heads off". They replied 
 by backing hastily, and then rearing up and striking out with their fore-feet in 
 a creditable manner of self-defence and resentment. The carriage was thus 
 
no The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 backed over into a dry ditch, and myself and the driver thrown out. On 
 recovering my legs, I found the offending off-leader now at war with the near 
 one, whom he was biting in a way that caused the bitten one to shriek and 
 scream. He then kicked them all round as a final thing, and afterwards took 
 to feeding on the adjoining hedge — in the coolest possible way ignoring the 
 whole lot, and turning his rear to them. 
 
 After mending the harness and getting things straight again, the journey was 
 resumed, and completed satisfactorily. For the rest of that "post" in which 
 the upset occurred, I. noticed that the driver applied his whip to the three only 
 of the four horses. That off-leader was now treated with much consideration — 
 those who behave worst in this world too often are. 
 
 After another cool night of sleep at Buitenzorg, I am taken by my kind host 
 around his garden, and shown, among other things, a flower, a red orchid, 
 that catches and feeds upon live flies. It seized upon a butterfly while I was 
 present, and enclosed it in its pretty but deadly leaves, as a spider would have 
 enveloped it in network. The sensitive plant also grew here. Its leaves 
 shrunk from a touch, and shrivelled up to nothing when plucked. That flower 
 and this plant must have a nervous system closely allied to that of animals. 
 The orchid to which I have referred has a delicate discrimination in the matter 
 of its food. It must, in the fashion of an Eastern faith, kill its own meat — 
 rejecting any dead fly that may fall upon its leaves. 
 
 P^rom Buitenzorg I make unwilling way to low-lying, hot Batavia, Not 
 wishing to stay longer there, I made inquiries for a steamer going to Samarang 
 — a central seaport, from which I can get to the interior. I meet with general 
 opposition to this inteniton, not only from the hotel-keeper, from whom I 
 might naturally expect it, but from the banker who exchanged money for me, 
 and the agents of the steamer by which I was proposing to start on the next 
 day. 
 
 Samarang, it appeared by their statements, was as treacherous a place as the 
 butterfly had found the orchid to be. The west monsoon was blowing, and 
 would blow for another month. During that time Samarang was a highly 
 dangerous port. I might go, and go there again, and still find the blue or 
 "danger" flag flying. To try to land then was forbidden to ship passengers, 
 and by the state of the rolling billows on the bar. If I landed, as I might be 
 at my own risk in other boats than the ship's, I might not get away when I 
 wanted, and might see "weekly" steamer after steamer come and go away again 
 while I was left lamenting. Dozens of folks, I was told, had found things so 
 at Samarang. Why should I hope for better luck ? 
 
 To me it was, above all things, necessary to get away from Samarang to 
 Sourabaya by boat of the following week, there to catch the outgoing steamer. 
 If I lost that, I must wait about two months for the next one. Two months' 
 detention in this climate sounded like to two years. He that regards the 
 winds and clouds, however, shall neither sow nor reap, and the traveller who 
 regards all the dangers he is threatened with will miss seeing some of the 
 things best worth seeing. I had received, at different times and places, so 
 many warnings that I had got quite callous to them. I was not to venture 
 upon landing through the surf at Madras — but I did. I was not to leave the 
 steamer off Suez in the Red Sea, and land by a boat, until next day —but I 
 did, and got to Cairo by next train, at the expense of only a wet jacket in both 
 cases. I was not to go into the Great Pyramid, after the fatigue of going up 
 and down it — but I did ; nor under the P^alls of Niagara, a really dangerous 
 excursion — but I did that also. I certainly should do neither again, but that I 
 learnt for myself. It had so often been " nearly" with me, and never "quite,' 
 that I felt bound to trust the fortune that hitherto I had always found at 
 flood. 
 
Narroiv Escapes. iii 
 
 One companion had been stricken by dysentery in Calcutta, and another by 
 small-pox at Bombay, a third by sciatica in China, and others by ague in 
 America, and fever at Naples. They each had to stay behind for those good 
 reasons, while I had to go on. I had nearly been shipwrecked off Nagasaki, 
 in Japan, and nearly got dislocated limbs by falling off a camel in Syria, and 
 slipping over an elephant in India. But then we all nearly get run over in the 
 great cities every day of our lives, and take some risk, however little, when we 
 venture abroad, I nearly came off the perpendicular sailors' ladder by which 
 one climbs into the ball and cross of St. Paul's, and tripped, and nearly fell, 
 in the descent of the lofty Kootub Minar Pillar on the plains near to Delhi. 
 It was always, however, "nearly," and never "quite." In life it is all like 
 that. I therefore took my ticket for Samarang, per the " Koningen Sophia" 
 — spite of the monsoon and all monitory advisings. 
 
 For the rest of the day I made another round of Batavia, and discovered a 
 town wall built of blocks of lava from the up-country volcanoes ; also churches 
 of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic faiths, and two Chinese temples. My 
 journey extended to the fort or citadel of Batavia called Ryswik. Here labour 
 and ingenuity and money have not been spared. If such things as forts be of 
 any good, then Ryswik is the right thing. It will hold upwards of 4000 
 people, though what good they would do by being shut up there is not so 
 perceptible. It were better that they stopped outside and fought their besie- 
 gers, who could surround the place and starve it quickly into a surrender. 
 For water supply a splendid artesian well has been sunk in this fort, ensuring 
 the besieged from thirst. Sunda and Java are such fat places among the 
 world's good things, that this fort will likely be wanted some day, when the 
 world shall next, in Malay fashion, " run a muck" at no very distant date. 
 
 I find the " Koningen Sophia," like the steamer of the same company that 
 brought me down from Singapore, crowded to excess. The Netherlands India 
 Steamboat Company must, I now think, be a well-paying affair, and I am told 
 really is so. It has its head office in Austin Friars, London, and its large 
 number of shareholders among the English. It is, in fact, an English company, 
 with a Scotchman for chairman. Like to a Turk, they will " bear no brother 
 near their throne." Trading among the Dutch, they perceive how profitable it 
 is to monopolize, and they do here as the Dutch do — exclude all others from a 
 share in the plunder. Other vessels that have tried to get some of their over- 
 flowing loads of cargoes and passengers have been run off the line by the 
 Netherlands Company reducing their fares below paying price. They are rich 
 enough, with their twenty-five and thirty per cent, dividends, to stand that for 
 a long time. That state of things explains why the Torres Straits Mail 
 Company's boats no longer call at any port in Sunda or Java. They got 
 nothing but loss of time by so doing. 
 
 It is, for the thirty hours that I am on board this steamer, very difficult work 
 to move about. A dozen of the passengers have no berths, and sleep on the 
 deck chairs. The deck is further thronged with soldiers from Acheen, going 
 to Samarang barracks, and with half-naked natives. They lie about so thickly 
 on the deck at nights, that it is quite un acrobatic performance to walk a yard. 
 A dancing-master only might accomplish it. I am glad next day to come to 
 Samarang, where the vessel is to stop, or more, to unload cargo, ere proceeding 
 on the voyage to vSourabaya, to which place I have, as remarked, yet to go, to 
 join the outgoing steamer. Meantime the business is to get on shore here. 
 The terri])le l)Iue flag is seen through the glass to be flying at the masthead of 
 the flagship, and all countenances look blank, and faces lengthen at that news. 
 The vessel, too, begins to rock in a very unpleasant manner, and the rolling 
 waves can be seen breaking on the bar in the distance. Boats nevertheless 
 come round the vessel, and there dance about like to corks on the heaving 
 
112 The Matfi Routes Round the World. 
 
 waters. It does not, however, look worse than Madras. The boats are 
 smaller here than those used there, and worked by three men instead of ten. 
 For five guilders I am offered a boat passage. It will be lowered to three if 
 another goes with me to share the expense. That desirable other one cannot be 
 got. One, an Australian from Port Darwin, volunteers, but he "jibs," after 
 he has stood for ten minutes on the steps, trying to get into the boat. lie 
 returns to the deck and gives it up. I must go alone if I go, and one generally 
 has to get through one's troubles that way. I am suddenly an object of much 
 regard to the other passengers, and the ship's officers smile pityingly upon me 
 as upon one going into danger. I have seen a daring bridegroom going into 
 church similarly smiled upon. 
 
 I get my travelling-bag into the boat, and wait for the next billow to lift it 
 up high enough that I may get in also. It lifts it too high that time. I look 
 at it so going up, and retreat upwards also on the steps. It appears amusing 
 to those on deck, who are taking now a greater interest in the matter. Long- 
 fellow's young man, who would go up the mountain with his flag on his 
 shoulder against all warnings, was scarcely begged by more people not to do 
 so. The next attempt was not more successful, but the luck of odd numbers 
 held out, and the third effort saw me in, and trying to get off from the ship's 
 side. It was just like to the business of shore-going at Madras, except for the 
 smallness of the boat. The waves took great liberties in the way of wetting 
 one, and I soon began to envy the half-stripped boatmen. The water ran off 
 them, but hung about with me in plenty in coat and vest. My pith helmet — 
 that useful hat for this climate — was knocked off very soon, and floated away 
 on the crest of a billow. All this was seen by the two or three hundred 
 passengers left behind, who wanted to get on shore, but did not fancy the 
 sensation. The worst part of the passage came in twenty minutes' time, when 
 the bar was crossed. A rolling billow came over me, as I bent nearly double 
 to receive it, and knocked the stroke oarsman on his back into the bottom of the 
 boat, causing it to rock and stagger with the shock, half-filling it with water, and 
 making a wet mess of me. It was very exciting — amusing perhaps to those 
 who, in safety, looked at it ; but the worst was now over. I got into smoother 
 water, and soon to the landing-place at Samarang. I have left Sunda behind 
 and am now in Java. 
 
 This necessity for thus hurrying on shore was caused by that which drives 
 many folks onward — want of time to take it easily. I had only five days in 
 which to do my journey there and back from Samarang to the temples in the 
 interior — of which I have quoted what great things Sir Stamford Raffles wrote. 
 To miss seeing those was to miss the gem of Java — almost the gem of a fifteen 
 months' incessant travelling — ^judging by the language of that quotation, "that 
 these temples dwarfed to nothing all one's wonder and admiration at the labour 
 bestowed upon the pyramids." That was surely enough to tempt any one to a 
 little trouble and the risk of a wetting or two. 
 
 Not a soul, I found on my return, left the steamer that day, or the next, nor 
 until the morning of the third day. The trouble that they had lying there, in 
 sight of shore, and so awfully crowded, in that now rolling and rocking vessel, 
 for two days and nights, was something greater than all I experienced in my 
 half-hour's boat voyage. They all seemed of that opinion also. By landing 
 as I did I saved two days of precious time, and that alone enabled me to do 
 the intended journey. There is generally some trouble getting anything, sights 
 or otherwise, that is valuable. The trouble which I had had was, in that light, 
 an earnest that it would not be found to have been wasted. 
 
 I found that the train, on the railway that would take me more than half 
 the journey, started in an hour's time. I looked at the clock at the hotel at 
 which I got lunch, and saw that it agreed with my watch. Both proved to 
 
Samara ng Prospects. 113 
 
 be wrong. The train started by Samarang time, which was twenty minutes, 
 or nearly so, in advance of that of Batavia. I had therefore to wait for next 
 train, early in the morning, and to spend the afternoon in looking about a 
 Java seaport town. 
 
 The Samarang Hotel has a strange name. It is called " Heeren Logement," 
 which, I find, means "gentlemen's lodgings." It was full of guests and 
 mosquitoes, and as close and hot as an Australian theatre on Boxing night. 
 Several sea captains are stopping here — against their will. The weather is 
 such that they cannot discharge cargo, and see little hopes of doing so for 
 some time. They smoke, and drink schnapps, and they sleep — which is as 
 much as one can expect from a Dutchman in Java. I want to get a com- 
 panion to go with me in the morning, and propound the subject to several of 
 those about me who have nothing wherewith to fill up their time. I am 
 evidently altogether ignorant of the Dutch mercantile mind. They look on 
 me with as much curiosity and astonishment as can be shown in a Hollander's 
 face. They do not seemingly appreciate works of art, nor the idea of going 
 one hundred and thirty miles up country to see any. I do not think, on 
 further talk to them, that any of them would go a hundred yards to see St. 
 Peter's or Cologne Cathedral. How men like these can learn to talk English, 
 as they mostly do, and acquire nothing of English tastes, is a subject I may 
 meditate upon at leisure. 
 
 That I may not be left behind weather-bound when I come down again, I 
 inquire as to the chances of getting away from this trap of a place. If I 
 cannot go on board the next steamer due from Batavia en rottte for Sourabaya, 
 I shall be fixed, indeed, and that may very likely happen. Is there no help 
 for it ? Yes, there is ! Pope says that — 
 
 " The mouse that has but one poor little hole 
 Can never be a mouse of any soul." 
 
 The other hole or outlet that I discover is that of the mail-cart to Sourabaya. 
 It is over a rough road, in a jolting conveyance, and the distance is two 
 hundred and seven miles. I must bespeak a passage twenty-four hours before 
 starting, and interview the postmaster that he may see I am a proper character 
 to be let go through Dutch territory. These sleek, quiet, philanthropic Dutch 
 are so careful of this Java ! They seem as timid about it as a thief would be 
 about stolen property. I took down the names of the seven townships that I 
 shall have to pass through, if I take that journey, and inquire particulars about 
 each. That trouble is not thrown away, for I find that, half way, I shall 
 come upon the Valley of Death, wherein grows that upas-tree that all the 
 world has heard of. 
 
 I don't care, now, whether the winds and waves are adverse or not. Let 
 the west monsoon blow its worst, and the thunder and lightning and rain come 
 with it, and do their best. I am safe ! I can get to Sourabaya overland, and 
 there is that sight midway — that valley and that upas-tree — which will make 
 all the trouble of the journey feather-light. Who has seen the upas-tree ? 
 What writer has written about it — that upas-tree of Java? I had put the 
 upas-tree away along with the phoenix and the unicorn, and other known 
 things that belong to an unknown world. No wonder that it is trouble to get 
 to Samarang ! Wonders such as these grand old temples and that upas-tree 
 would naturally not be easy of access. 
 
 If I should fail to see that upas-tree, I know that I have seen already 
 plenty of sprigs and leaves and cuttings from it. I have been for days and 
 days among those who for between two and three hundred years have been a 
 dead -weight upon the life and progress of this fairest of all lands that be — who 
 have killed all art, literature, and learning in the whole of its length and 
 
114 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 breadth — who have oppressed its people and monopolized all their labour and 
 its profits, treating them as brutes and serfs — who have crushed all their efforts 
 to attain to the better state of their forefathers, and have kept the gem of the 
 Eastern world in a state of dullness, darkness, and torpidity. In all that 
 much I have already seen the typical but true upas-tree of Java. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SOLO AND JOCKIO (JAVA). 
 
 The above names, which look like those of monkeys, are the titles of two 
 towns, in one of which resides an emperor and in the other a sultan. They 
 are the strange abbreviations adopted by the Dutch of the more euphonious 
 Soerakajarta and Djockjakarta, interior towns of fair Java. It is said that 
 the great names of this world are not upon the scroll of fame ; and though I 
 visited Solo and Jockio, I cannot name the potentates that dwell there. I 
 had trusted to that German almanack of Gotha, as a kingly Court Guide, to 
 supply the information, but it failed me — as also do such books as Men of the 
 Time. So much for the scroll of fame ! 
 
 A railway of 120 miles in length runs from seaside Samarang to these two 
 towns — cities I ought to call them, perhaps, seeing whom they contain. The 
 emperor and the sultan are natives of Java, and descendants of a long line of 
 royalty. Born in the purple, they retain still the names and abodes of their 
 ancestors, and from their palace windows look upon the fair lands over which 
 they reign, but do not govern. Their power is impalpable — so superfine, in 
 fact, as scarcely to be felt. It has been taken from them, and appropriated 
 by the Dutch, who in return allow them princely pensions. They have, in 
 addition, an allowance of an army of thirty soldiers each, which is about as 
 large as that of the reigning power in Monaco. These soldiers are paid by 
 the Dutch Government, and so perform the difficult matter of serving two 
 masters — Mammon and Gammon, or the Dutch and the emperor. Perhaps 
 the absence of kingly cares compensates for the loss of power, and makes 
 easier to lie the heads that wear such crowns. At all events, the monthly- 
 paid pension does so. By early train of next morning I am en route to the 
 old temples of Prambanan, on which route are Solo and Jockio — a five hours' 
 journey by this slow-going line. The temples I go to see first are in ruins. 
 Of that sort I shall see three in Prambanan. Further afield, at Moendoet, 
 two more will be visible in better state, and then further on, at Boer Buddha, 
 and in best condition, will be seen the crowning architectural wonder of 
 this part of the world, or any other, if Sir Stamford Raffles wrote rightly 
 about it. 
 
 The journey is all the way through a long and broad plain, flanked in the 
 distance by high mountains. The peaks of the lofty Japara and loftier 
 Marapia can be seen throughout the day's travel. For companions I have 
 two young Dutchmen, really natives of Java, returned from Holland and 
 education there but a few months. They had been for some days in London, 
 and looked on that and its memories as the great events of their lives. For 
 further information that I could give them about that smoky, foggy, sloppy, 
 chilly, and east-windy city, they reciprocated with much that I wanted to 
 learn about Holland and its Java — about Dutchmen and Javanese. The 
 
Javanese Scenery. 115 
 
 young Dutchmen were of an English poet's opinion, that " Better fifty years 
 of Europe than a cycle of Cathy." Distance lent all its enchantments to their 
 youthful views. In this Garden of Eden — this enchanting Java — they could 
 see nothing worth living for, nor understand that 
 
 " A man's best things are nearest him, 
 Lie close about his feet, 
 Though 'tis the distant and the dim 
 He ever strives to greet." 
 
 Such wisdom would come to them only with later years when the judgment is 
 less green and the blood much cooler. 
 
 Along the road were to be seen the fields on either side, in which the 
 produce of the lowlands of Java were in course of cultivation. The natives 
 were everywhere busy at their daily toils. Some were ploughing the rice 
 swamps, seated on buffaloes to keep out of the knee-deep slush, or standing in 
 it, gathering up the weeds that the primitive-looking plough had turned up ; 
 others were planting the shoots of young rice in the mud from the bundles of 
 it carried under their arms. Rice-planting here, and reaping there, were 
 going on for mile after mile of the way. Then came the indigo fields with 
 their gooseberry-bush-looking plants. Then came the fields of katjang, an 
 oil-producing shrub. Acres of tobacco came next, and then stacks of it in 
 sheaves, drying in the sun, near to the tobacco mills, the chimney-shafts of 
 which could be seen in the distance. Fields of sago and tapioca were now to 
 be seen, and then a wide expanse of sugar-cane, two, three, four, or five feet 
 in height, according to its age. Not a foot of land seemed left out of culti- 
 vation. Where the food for the buffaloes came from I could not see. They 
 were, I supposed, fed upon the rice straw after the tops had been gathered. 
 Nothing else seemed to be left for them. 
 
 With tobacco factories, the rice and sugar factories alternated ; not a church 
 or a school was visible anywhere on that long ride of five hours. Industry, for 
 the enrichment of the foreigner, was the uniform order of things here 
 noticeable. 
 
 Petty stations called "haltes" were stopped at for a few minutes here and 
 there. They were for the taking up and setting down the natives, who, in 
 their red and white holiday dresses, were waiting at these "halte" stations, 
 or travelling in the third-class waggon-like carriages in the rear of the train. 
 It looked — to European eyes — terrible work, toiling in the open fields under 
 that sultry sky ; but I suppose that the brown skin feels the heat less than the 
 white. Here, in the carriage, under shelter, I found it work enough to sit 
 still and perspire, and wipe off the moisture every five minutes. A shirt 
 collar soon became soppy in Java. The fig-leaf attire of forefather Adam was 
 the proper thing for the place. In the fields hereabout, it, or something like 
 it, is the only attire adopted. Looking at the warm and sloppy work doing 
 among the rice-fields, it was certainly quite sufficient. 
 
 At the stations of Kadongati, and again at Soerakajarta, ten-minute stoppages 
 were made. My young friends kindly warned me against the imposition of 
 two guilders and a half (four shillings and twopence) charged there for a 
 lunch. I contented myself, therefore, with a biscuit and some schnapps and 
 water for half a guilder, which was stiff charge enough. My friends had, of 
 course, never seen the temples of Prambanan that I was bound for, or those of 
 Moendoet and the grand Boer Buddha. Nor could I persuade them to come 
 on and visit these wonders of their future home. Oh, no ! They were going 
 to the ball given at Solo that evening by the native emperor. His Imperial 
 Highness gave this ball in honour of the King of Holland's birthday. I might 
 have asked, "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba," that he should do 
 honour to the birthday of a king who was but the chief of those who had taken 
 
ii6 The Main Routes Rotind the World, 
 
 from him the inheritance of his ancestors ? I feared, however, that my Dutch 
 friends might misunderstand me, and so said nothing. Probably to such 
 prudence it was due that I got them to inckide me in that night's visit to the 
 palace — to an introduction to an emperor who was such by right of birth and 
 a long line of ancestry, and not bearing a mere gingerbread-gilt title of 
 yesterday's making. I should also there see a nautch-dance by the native 
 women, and other high jinks of such festivities. All that much I could take in the 
 way back from the sight of the solemn temples of Prambanan — much as the 
 mourners at a soldier's funeral go home to the tunes of merry music. 
 
 It was a "halte" station only at Prambanan. A young Dutchman, who 
 officiated as factotum here, took especial interest in me when I stated my 
 mission. What did I want to see the temples for? " Did I mean to say that 
 I had come all the way from Batavia to do so ? Did I think that there were 
 any buried treasures under their stones?" lie could no-how understand it, I 
 plainly saw, but he got me a guide, and gave him full instructions, a part of 
 which was, no doubt, to cry "halves" for him in any treasure I might turn 
 up. He was a true Dutchman. 
 
 Accompanied by my silent guide, who only spoke Javanese, I started under 
 umbrella covering for the long walk. No conveyance was to be had. In 
 the little villages passed through, in which I stopped to buy cocoa-nuts and 
 drink their contents, I saw that Europeans were not every-day sights. With- 
 out these cocoa-nut drinks I could not have got on. Relays of them were 
 carried onwards for further use. No foresight was wanted to do that. About 
 a cocoa-nut full of moisture seemed to exude from one every ten minutes. I 
 had not previously noticed that cocoa-nut water was so very nice. 
 
 My guide carried, in his girdle, or in the cloth wrapper round his middle, 
 that formed his only attire, the "creese" or short dagger-sword that all the 
 natives seemed to have with them who can afford to buy it. It had a tastily- 
 shaped yellow wood sheath, and a well-carved red wood handle to the dagger. 
 That was of steel, and shaped in three curves. It looked ancient and curio- 
 like; so much so that I bargained for its purchase. Our negotiation was 
 carried on in dumb motions, but satisfactory at last to both of us. I after- 
 wards learned that the five guilders paid for it was not over the market value. 
 With that on hand, I was ready to " run-a-muck " at any time in Malay 
 fashion, should the climate, or other cause, so influence me. I now became 
 more than ever an object of interest to the natives. With an umbrella hoisted, 
 a Malay creese in one's hand, and walking about on the plains in the heat of 
 the day, when all Europeans in Java are usually sleeping for three hours, I 
 was exceptional, to say the least of it. 
 
 The first of the two temples was reached at last. I had been prepared for 
 it by seeing carved stones used in the villages for domestic purposes, and 
 noticing others supporting gate-posts at the entrances to some of the fields. 
 Thus are the works of the past utilized in the present ! A man that sat at a 
 wayside village turning, having some native produce for sale, supported his 
 stall upon a stone of four feet high, on which was excellently carved a full- 
 length feminine figure, that an antiquary would have rejoiced over, and any 
 museum been glad to get. 
 
 This first of the Prambanan temples is a huge ruin of many tens of thousands 
 of carved stones, all having bas-relief figures, or parts of figures, on them. 
 These are now lying in a heap of fifty feet in height, and some three hundred 
 in circvmiference. An old native, who dwelt in a neighbouring hut, took me a 
 winding and scrambling journey over this heap, and to the top of it. Among 
 the stones were five small throne-like canopies or cells, each having in it the 
 figure of the Buddha. At the summit is the larger and crowning cell, having 
 in it a larger Buddha figure. Worship is still made at this old heap of ruins. 
 
The Temples. iiy 
 
 Before the figures that are still here were flowers in fresh condition — left 
 recently by devotees. 
 
 This temple was once, in ages past, of pyramidal shape, and had, distributed 
 around its ascending terraces, a hundred of such shrines or cells as the five 
 that I had seen. Every stone had on it bas-relief carvings. These 
 were continued on those above and below, if one stone did not suffice, the 
 joints being scarcely perceptible. Temples like to this, having no interior, 
 were certainly novelties in architectural art. These had been produced by an 
 artistic and art-loving people of a highly devotional order of mind — a race that 
 had not Dutchmen for masters, and, if the ancestors of those that now consti- 
 tute the eighteen millions of this teeming land, then superior men altogether. 
 Perhaps not so, but only a race allowed and encouraged to cultivate their 
 tastes, and to leave evidence thereof for the world's wonder. 
 
 The second of these temples of Prambanan is a mile further onwards. The 
 ruins of a smaller third one, scarcely noticeable, are passed on the way. This 
 plain, covered with rice-fields, that I am now crossing, was, in its bygone and 
 better days, the site of a large city, the builders of which have passed away, 
 and left their labours to follow them. 
 
 ^::.^ 
 
 AT PRAMBANAN. 
 
 Two colossal figures in good preservation guard what was once one of the 
 four entrances to the courtyard of this fine temple — a far larger one to that 
 first seen, and one that must have been nearly half a mile in circumference. 
 By the little that is left one can guess at that which has been. These figures 
 at the entrance are each carved from a solid block of granite. They represent 
 a male and a female, who are hugely stout, and, by general appearance, of 
 muture age. Each of them is represented as sitting, and they have a broad 
 smile of welcome on their pudding-like faces — a fat old grandfather and grand- 
 mother welcoming their guests at the hall-door. Their height, of ten feet, and 
 their immense weight, ensure their stability. Dutch enterprise will not go to 
 the expense of removing them to the Batavian Museum, which appears to have 
 been done with all the other figures of this ruined temple. These two will 
 
1 1 8 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 probably sit here for thousands of years, though enveloped by the prolific 
 vegetation of the tropics. 
 
 That tropical vegetation is doing its work here, as I saw it doing at Baalbec 
 and elsewhere — overthrowing and overgrowing everything. It is curious to 
 notice how Nature reclaims and draws again within the earth all that man 
 takes thereout, and leaves upon its surface. Seeds are dropped by the birds, 
 or blown by the winds, between the joints of the stones. Moistened by rain, 
 and fed by dust, they germinate, spread their roots, and grow, forcing the 
 stones asunder, and toppling them down upon the earth. There vegetation 
 soon covers them up, until the antiquary shall appear and unearth them as 
 wonders. The Egyptians knew this process of decay, and of Nature's work, 
 when they coated the pyramids with their enduring cement, harder than the 
 stones it covers. That alone can preserve monuments for all time, if thousands 
 of years can be so called. Building on the sands of the desert was another 
 instance of their foresight. No vegetation there grows to help the winds and 
 the rains and the sun in their several labours of destruction of man's masonry. 
 
 About the remains of this second temple of Prambanan one may wander for 
 hours, looking always at something of interest. Twenty, or more, tall piles of 
 stones, of various heights, are still standing, fifty or more feet apart. All are 
 richly carved in bas-relief, all enclose empty cells from which the figures have 
 been removed. The centres of the other three sides each show figures in bas- 
 relief, from which arms here, and legs there, have been knocked away. On 
 the tallest pile a large tree is growing and spreading its huge roots throughout 
 the stones — throwing them down all around. It must have a lizard-like nature 
 to find nourishment among them. In its progress downwards, it will, in a few 
 years, stretch its roots into the earth, and scatter thereon all the building 
 through which it has made its way. 
 
 I sit upon the piles of fallen stones — none of them broken — that are around 
 me, and break a cocoa-nut upon one of them. As I raise it, to get a drink 
 from its interior, I find myself facing an exquisitely carved female figure in 
 dancing attitude in the centre of the standing pile of stone that is opposite to 
 me. As I look upon the beauty of it, a huge lizard runs up and rests upon 
 this figure's face. It is more in its place there, I think, than I am here. It 
 is doing its work in this world. 
 
 I again take the sultry walk to the railway station, and feel baked, or stewed, 
 by the time I reach it. The sight of what is left of Prambanan's temples does 
 but further stimulate me to see those of Moendoet and Boer Buddha, that still 
 are nearly perfect, and not as those that I have now seen. If the ruins are so 
 grand, what, I think, must be such temples in their entirety ? 
 
 I wait for the train that is to take me to Soerakajarta, and to the imperial 
 ball given by the emperor there. Next day I am to see a sultan at Djockja- 
 karta, on my road to the greater temples. I shall surfeit with grandeur at the 
 courts of these great ones of the earth ! The station-master does not seem to 
 think so. He has but insignificant ideas about emperors and sultans, and 
 smiles at the mention of their courts. But then he is a Java Dutchman, whose 
 thoughts are only of coffee-growing and guilders. 
 
 I have got cooler by the time the train arrives, and, after paying my guide 
 for his services and his creese, I go away to Solo, and there find an hotel and 
 my young Dutch friends, and get a Dutchman's dinner. The emperor's ball is 
 given in a ground-floor building, having marble steps and floor, in the centre 
 of the city. The place has a population of one hundred thousand, nearly all of 
 the native race. I walk about its broad right-angled streets and shaded 
 avenues, and look at the walls of the Dutch fort, which is sure to be in its 
 centre. That is mounted with heavy artillery, which warns the emperor to 
 keep himself and the people quiet. The house of the Dutch resident looks 
 
The Emperor s Bah. 
 
 119 
 
 quite as fine as the emperor's palace, and its occupant must necessarily think 
 himself the greater man, though he is but plain Mynheer van something, Of 
 the two, I would rather be in his place. Titles without honour are very empty 
 things, though many who take them, by inheritance only, get along very well 
 with them elsewhere. 
 
 All the king's army and all the king's men are arranged in full dress, 
 squatting on the marble steps of the pavilion and along its broad landing- 
 place. They must have numbered fully a hundred. Their uniform was very 
 fine. The Dutch supply these puppets for attendants upon the greater puppet. 
 They gild the one and give gold to the other. This emperor gets an allowance 
 of 30,000 guilders a month, with permission to make as much more as he can 
 grind out of the natives who live and work upon such estate as the Dutch 
 allow. Land is too valuable in Java for any one but the Crown of Holland to 
 have more than a small share — and that grudgingly given and well accounted 
 for. 
 
 EMPERORS RESIDENCE. 
 
 The emperor, on this occasion, sat upon a throne in the centre of this marble 
 pavilion. The Government officials were in European evening dress, seated, 
 with their wives and families all around them. I see Dutch ladies here in full 
 attire for the first time. They look better now than they did in their white 
 smocks and tablecover-like wraps. The emperor has something like a Windsor 
 court-dress upon him, and a star, the size of a cheese-plate, upon his breast. 
 He sits bolt upright in an attitude of no end of dignity. In front of him a 
 dozen Japanese girls are squatting down who are waiting to give their nautch- 
 dance. They are dressed in close-fitting bodices, and are painted and powdered 
 in a very gay fashion. I fear for the paint and powder if the dance is to be 
 what I understand by dancing. The perspiration is ready enough, I find, 
 without any exertion to promote it. 
 
 The nautch-dance is, however, no violent effort. It is about the tamest thing 
 in dancing I ever saw. The Court minuets through which our forefathers 
 walked are the nearest approach to it. It consisted of a girl rising and then 
 slowly moving herself around and about, throwing herself, meanwhile, into as 
 
I20 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 many attitudes as the human figure is capable of — while upon its two legs. 
 One could look at such movements for hours without a feeling of excitement — 
 if one could only keep awake after the first fifteen minutes. What kept me 
 lively was the expectation of something more lively to come — which never 
 came. The one girl was joined shortly by a second, and the two performed 
 the same movements as the first. Then the third arose, and after an hour the 
 whole ten were afoot. The effect was then something like to the movements 
 of the ballet girls in an opera, who do dumb motions and attitudes, and group 
 themselves about, while the pet of the ballet has gone off for a rest — and a drink 
 at the wings. The premier danseitse, however, never came bounding upon the 
 stage in this nautch-dance, which thus looked like to a ballet by the members 
 of the corps only. I almost expected the stage manager to come forward and 
 apologize for the absence of Mademoiselle Zepherini, but he came not. The 
 movements of the girls got a little more rapid towards the end, but it was never 
 exciting. An excuse for their lifelessness was to be found in the music, which 
 was entirely native. Those who have heard Chinese music have heard some- 
 thing like it. It was better than that, but of the same order of harmony, and 
 always in one tune. 
 
 I got some supper at a side-table in an anteroom, and then, being very 
 tired, and having to get up early next morning, I retreated from the place 
 backwards, as others did, and by so doing fell over a native soldier who was 
 squatting down behind me. Neither of us was hurt, and it was a good warning 
 that going backwards in the world is to be avoided. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE JAVANESE UPAS. 
 
 Of the lions of Java that I could make time for visiting, there remained to be 
 seen the upas-tree and the temples of Moendoet and Boer Buddah as up-country 
 sights. On the way to these attractions lies the city of the sultan — that 
 Djockjakarta that the Dutch have vulgarized, as they have dealt with everything 
 in Java, to Jockio. 
 
 By the slow-travelling trains it was a distance of three hours' journey from 
 Solo to Jockio. Some use was made of this space of time by my despatching 
 a telegram to an hotel-keeper at the latter town to have a conveyance in 
 readiness for the journey to the temples — thirty-five miles beyond railways. 
 
 The city of the sultan is reached about 9 a.m., and at that hour has a quiet 
 provincial look about it. It always has that look, I believe. The usual Dutch 
 built fort occupies the centre of the city, and faces the sultan's palace. The 
 presence of these forts at Solo and Jockio is like that of a cathedral in an 
 English provincial city. Everything is dulled and deadened by the incubus. 
 Who ever saw a cathedral city that had not slowness, dullness, and heaviness 
 as chief characteristics ? The exceptions to that do but illustrate the rule. 
 
 Facing the fort stands the customary Dutch club-house, with " Concordia" 
 lettered on its front. Between that and the fort is a rotunda, in which the 
 military band played on fine evenings. Native singers and musicians were, 
 however, about. To listen to their strains, and look at the strange shapes of 
 their old-fashioned instruments, was more amusing than listening to the band. 
 These folks supplied what I may call the music of the past, in contradistinction 
 to Wagner's music of the future. 
 
Jockio. 12 1 
 
 Jockio seemed to be as large a place as Solo, and better built. Its streets 
 were broad, and shaded by tall trees. In the central and business part of the 
 city were narrower streets, crowded with native traders and dealers. These 
 things having been observed, there were yet the palace and the gardens of the 
 sultan to be seen, as also an ancient temple in the city's centre, that was thickly 
 surrounded by native dwellings, and embedded in tropical vegetation. I was 
 warned not to go to this ancient affair, as a matter involving much troul^le. 
 Good advice is, however, mostly disregarded. 
 
 The sultan's surroundings lay on the road, and were, therefore, first 
 visited. In the large courtyards about his dwelling he has shown fantastic 
 taste in dealing with the tall and thickly-leaved trees. Huge ones, of a 
 hundred feet high, with wide-spreading branches and foliage, are here cut into 
 the shapes of vases, balloons, globes, and square and oblong boxes. Two 
 trees that stand at the entrance of the grounds are disfigured into the appear- 
 ance of big butter-tubs set upon thick scaffold -poles. The sultan has a fine 
 
 NATIVE MUSICIANS (JAVA). 
 
 family of young princesses, who must be costly for dress, judging by their 
 appearance. These young ladies were accomplished musicians, and played 
 the Javanese pianoforte, called a "gamelong," while seated on the floor. It 
 was far from displeasing as music, and very difterent from that given at the 
 nautch of the emperor at Solo the day before. The native Javanese women 
 have the freedom of those of Japan — their faces are not covered by yashmaks, 
 nor are the ladies secluded in zenanas, as in some Eastern countries. 
 
 The sultana had a card-party in one of the palace apartments. She was 
 not the only sultana by very many, but, what was perhaps as good, was the 
 favourite one — the mother also, I believe, of the four young ladies I had seen 
 at the music. 
 
 In one of the anterooms of this palace were things more noticeable than 
 sultans, and quite rival attractions, in an old bachelor's eyes, to the ladies. 
 These were two fine puppies, as I took them to be, of some large breed of 
 
122 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 dogs — Mont St. Bernard or Newfoundland. I was quickly undeceived, and 
 told that they were really young lions — whelps of a deceased mother, and 
 believed to be orphans. Both parents had been, it was thought, killed by 
 hunters, " butchered to make a Javan holiday." The little ones were being 
 brought up by hand, and were most interesting creatures. The young of all 
 animals are that, but these were additionally so from their kingly character 
 and their rarity. There was nothing frisky about them — indeed, their coun- 
 tenances bespoke a settled melancholy — but the absence of friskiness was 
 caused, perhaps, by their great weight. Though not larger than a tom-cat or 
 a Newfoundland pup, they were heavy as lead — ever so much weightier than 
 it was possible to imagine from their appearance. I might have had one as a 
 present if I could well have lugged it about, but the taking of it under one's 
 arm, as is done with a puppy, was out of the question. 
 
 In considering the extraordinary weight of these young lions, one could well 
 understand how the adult animal can break the back of a horse by a blow of 
 its paw. The fibre of a lion's muscles lies close and compact as that of lignum- 
 vitae or other weighty wood. There was nothing of fatness about these 
 
 THE "GAMELONG. 
 
 whelps ; their great heaviness lay wholly in bone and muscle of much density.. 
 I left the ponderous puppy so offered me with great regret then, and more 
 now. I had similarly, but for different reasons, to decline a cobra-di-capello' 
 offered me at Lucknow — a snake that was as well trained as any poodle, and 
 danced to the tunes of a wooden whistle in a fashion that reminded me much 
 of the famous one-legged dancer, Donato. 
 
 Like to the native ex-King of Oude, who is kept in a prison-palace near to 
 the landing-place at Calcutta, this sultan here has a similar fancy for keeping 
 caged tigers. They illustrate, perhaps, the state of their owners, and a fellow- 
 feeling, and sympathy may thus exist between the pampered tigers and their 
 puppet proprietors. Here, at Djockjakarta, eight of these pretty creatures 
 are imprisoned in one huge wooden cage. It is difficult to imagine how they 
 can be peacefully fed, and each satisfied with its allotted bones. I was led to 
 
A Toy '' Sidtajir 123 
 
 that thought by the way they growled at me — tearing at their wooden bars 
 and thrusting forth their paws in what, but for their growls, looked like an 
 effort to shake hands with one. I seemed to see all the way down their 
 fearful throats, so widely did their mouths open. They would have been 
 happier, I thought, stretching their limbs on the side of the lofty Merapia, 
 that is here to be seen smoking from its eight thousand feet elevated crater. 
 
 This Sultan of Djockjakarta has a pension of thirty-five thousand guilders a 
 month, but not the reputation for private wealth that attaches to the native 
 emperor at Soerakajarta. There seem, to a European, to be such very limited 
 means of spending a large income at these places that I wondered how the 
 money was made useful. The Japanese Government have taken to cutting 
 down the allowances of the daimios every year. They get now only about a 
 tenth of the income they had when, ten years ago, they held their landed 
 possessions. Java may very likely take a leaf out of the Japanese book in that 
 way. It would bring more guilders to the treasury of Holland, and that is the 
 end and aim of Dutch government in Java and Netherlands India generally. 
 " The greatest good to the greatest number" is read that way. 
 
 The old Temple at Djockjakarta is difficult indeed to get at. I think that 
 I went through the private houses and back-yards of a half-a-dozen Javanese 
 before I got into the jungle that surrounds what remains of the building. To 
 get through that thick vegetation — tall grass and creepers and brambles, neck 
 high — was to get well wetted with the heavy dew, and much scratched. The 
 walls of a building, very different to either of those at Prambanan, are here 
 partly standing — enclosing court-yards and tanks that altogether cover a space 
 of 400 feet by 200. More like the remains of an old palace than an old temple 
 is what it appears to be. There are rich carvings over the doorways, and 
 evidence of some one having built this place and lived in it who ruled in a 
 different way to the emperor and sultan of my late acquaintance. In the centre 
 of the busy, bustling city, this quiet old ruin, with its broad and silent courtyards 
 paved with marble, now stained and time-eaten, was a curious solitude. Open 
 all to the skies, the rain kept the tanks in the centre of the two courts well 
 filled. The lizards ran upon mouldering, tumbling walls, and everywhere the 
 aggressive and destroying vegetation was feeding upon, throwing down and 
 covering up the ruins. Up its tottering stones I scrambled to the topmost ones, 
 and there obtained a view of the flat-lying town and surrounding scenery — so far 
 as the trees permitted. Difficult, dirty, and scrambling work was this visit to 
 Djockjakarta's antiquities; but an antiquary would pay a dozen such visits to it, 
 and think as little of the discomfort attending it as a German doctor does of 
 experimenting upon himself with new drugs, and making novel surgical 
 operations on his limbs. 
 
 The horses and vehicle bespoken at the posting-house were waiting for me 
 when I got back to it, as also was a young Englishman, who seemed fallen from 
 the clouds, to go with me and halve expenses. He had been three days in the 
 town, intending to go the thirty-five miles to Moendoet and Boer Buddha at 
 some time, and this time seemed to him the best. A Cambridge University 
 student, whose studies had broken his health, he was travelling to recruit it, 
 and was very welcome company indeed in this land of Dutchmen and Javanese 
 — in this unvisited island of Eastern beauty, white masters, and brown-skinned 
 serfs. 
 
 The four ponies took us stages of six miles each, and were then exchanged, 
 and a different driver also taken. Those that we left behind we were to take 
 up again on the return journey. The road was pretty good, except at the 
 crossing of rivers where no bridge had been built, and there twenty natives 
 joined us, and helped the ponies over their difficulties. I thought that things 
 were going on too well to last. A betting-man said once that "What's the 
 
124 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 odds, so long as you are happy ?" were ten to one that you did not continue so. 
 Three miles from the journey's end an important bridge over a broad stream 
 had broken down. There was nothing for it now but to walk. Three miles 
 or more in the heat of the day in the interior of Java, far removed from sea- 
 breezes, is about equal to twenty miles of walking when and where the 
 thermometer stands at 60 deg. or less. How we broiled and stewed and panted 
 and gasped over that longest of short walks! Two«rivers had to be crossed in 
 baskets slung upon bamboos, and pulled across by Javanese. In Java the 
 bamboo is everything. All around, in forests, on the hill-sides the famous teak, 
 equal to the oak for ship-building, grows in plenty indigenous to Java ; but the 
 strong, lighter, and handier bamboo is the favourite of the Javanese. If the 
 carriage broke down altogether, I think they would have made a new one by 
 the wayside out of bamboos there growing. They supplied a splinter-bar in that 
 way in a few minutes, when a new one became necessary on one of the stages. 
 
 Small temples fortunately preceded the great one, as in the Prambanan dis- 
 trict. We had got now again into the region of temples. The first seen was 
 a small gem that might be restored or removed, stone by stone, and set up 
 elsewhere. A huge tree — one of those with lizard-like roots — is growing into 
 and utterly destroying it. Every stone of it is beautifully cut and carved. 
 Some of the bas-reliefs represent figures that are feminine in the upper part, 
 and bird-like in the form of the lower — a variation of the mermaid idea. This 
 little beauty of a temple is only thirty feet high by twelve feet broad. The 
 enterprising Americans who wished to purchase Shakspeare's house, the 
 Japanese Dai Butsa, and other antiquities for the embellishment of New York, 
 might advantageously buy this elegant little temple, and set it up in their 
 central park. Here it will, in two years' time, be scattered over the earth in 
 loose stones, and in another three years be quite covered up by vegetation. 
 Not a stone of it at present seems to be wanting, but all are tottering. In the 
 interior, up seven marble steps, is a conically-shaped cell, in which sits a 
 female figure — some goddess, gracefully enshrined. 
 
 Moendoet Temple is half a mile further on. It is of square shape, but 
 finished with a conical top, and encloses a hall — twenty-eight feet by eighteen 
 — in which sit three figures, all seemingly feminine. The central figure is 
 eighteen feet high, though in a sitting attitude. She is represented in the 
 ungoddess-like occupation of counting her fingers — seemingly trying to solve a 
 like difficulty to that which troubled Dundreary over his digits. Carved out 
 of one block of stone, by some cunning native Canova, this exquisite figure 
 challenges comparison with the labours of all sculptors, ancient or modern. 
 There is a fascination about its stone face and features that bids one sit and 
 look at it, and keep one's gaze fixed as the Ancient Mariner's stony eyes did 
 that of the traveller whom he bade to listen. One stops, similarly, here to 
 listen to what will come of the finger-counting. The half-smile upon the 
 pleasant face of this figure tells one that it will be pleasant news when it comes. 
 Like Marguerite in the garden, plucking the rose-leaves to learn if she is loved 
 or not, this figure, for like reason, seems to be consulting the tapering fingers 
 of its delicately-carved hands. The other two figures are apparently seated 
 attendants that wait and watch upon the words and movements of their 
 mistress. They are richly bejewelled in carved representations of rings and 
 necklaces. Some devout Javanese has laid bouquets, from time to time, at the 
 feet of the central figure. One such had been apparently, by its freshness, 
 left that morning. Such devotion is easily excused. We felt inclined to follow 
 suit, as one would present a bouquet to a living beauty — or what one thought 
 to be so. 
 
 The exterior of this temple shows sides that are each seventy feet in length, 
 and all of richly-carved stones. It is surrounded by a sort of dry moat and 
 
The Upas-tree. 125 
 
 low stone wall. On the eastern side, a flight of fifteen marble steps leads up 
 to the hall, in which sits the goddess or feminine figure I have referred to. The 
 height of Moendoet Temple is al)out seventy feet. Any guide-book as to 
 what it was, when built, by whom and to whom dedicated, would have spoilt 
 all its charm. It was pleasant indeed to find such a temple there among the 
 trees, and to look at it and at all its novelties, and to leave it there in all its 
 beauty and seclusion — a thing of mystery, a puzzling surprise, and to be the 
 longer remembered for thosfe reasons. The things of beauty that are joys for 
 ever are mostly those about which we are the least learned, and therefore the 
 less bored. 
 
 We thought that the end and aim of the journey — the great Boer Buddha — 
 never would be reached. With steps that were slow, but not weary, we 
 plodded along to it, carrying on our arms all clothing that could be well taken 
 off. We had soon to transfer even that to the arms of our native guides, and 
 travel on with umbrellas alone. The carrying those seemed a trouble. It is 
 in the East that the grasshopper is, Scripturally, spoken of as a burden. It is 
 quite burden enough for a European in the tropics to carry himself. It is dire 
 necessity only that can force him to do even that. 
 
 Our guide had, in fact, gone out of the usual road, and lengthened the 
 journey to avoid some further obstruction. It proved a profitable divergence, 
 however, introducing us to another and a great novelty of this land of Java. 
 
 Mention has been made of the volcanic Merapia that was in our neighbour- 
 hood all day. It has a similar effect upon the surrounding country to that of 
 Vesuvius around Naples. I am shown a depression in the earth here, in which 
 it is said to be death to lie down and sleep. A tree is growing on it, however, 
 in an apparently good state, which I am told is the upas-tree. Here, then, 
 was the meaning of the story of " the deadly upas-tree of Java." The tree had 
 nothing deadly about it, but the earth in that depressed part emitted fumes of 
 carbonic acid gas, that hovered over the ground for about three feet upwards, 
 as in the " Cave of the Dog," near to Naples, suffocating those who might lie 
 down on the earth there. 
 
 How wind-bags shrivel and bubbles burst when squeezed ! The Javanese 
 natives believed that the evil influence found here and in some other similar 
 places was due to the properties of the tree. Those who slept under its 
 branches did not awake, therefore the tree caused their deaths. That was 
 told to the first-coming Dutch, who told it to all travellers, who told it to the 
 world — which believed it. 
 
 Finding that my Javanese friends believed also in this delusion, I — as I had 
 seen done in the Cave of the Dog — to explain the chemical nature of the 
 phenomenon, lighted a match, and, holding it near to the earth, shov/ed that the 
 fumes exhaling therefrom instantly extinguished it. A dozen lighted matches 
 were so put out ; but when held three feet or more above the earth, they con- 
 tinued burning. The mephitic nature of the vapour did not ascend that height. 
 Standing in the midst of it, I was all right. Had I lain down, I should have 
 got asphixiated, and, unless promptly pulled away, have died. The upas-trees 
 of Java have, therefore, no distinctive character. The gas that exhales about 
 their neighbourhood is fatal only to animal life. It is questionable whether in 
 any two of these poisonous places the same species of tree would be found to 
 be growing. Any tree is an "upas" that grows on these spots. 
 
 We are loth to part with cherished beliefs, of which the upas-tree is one, 
 and, as a belief, equal to any reality. We knew from boyhood all about this 
 tree and its miraculous qualities — that its pestilential influence dealt desolation 
 all around, so that no herb, flower, or animal could live within a mile of it — 
 that poison was gathered from it by criminals, who were sent to that work on 
 the do or die principle, and that they mostly died. 
 
126 The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 I had seen the upas-tree lately upon the stage in one of ithe newest operas, 
 but that proved nothing, as I had similarly seen there the " Flying Dutchman," 
 and afterwards found that the people at the Cape — Cafifres, Zulus, and Dutch 
 — knew nothing of the phantom ship that is believed to flit for ever about their 
 coast. Clinging still to the firm faith of childhood, I read here, down at 
 Samarang, what the plain matter-of-fact Hollanders have to say about the 
 upas. It is in a semi-official volume, entitled Batavian Tratzsactioiis, edited 
 by a learned doctor, whose name has a halo of letters about it, giving one that 
 respect for him which the aureole about their heads does for the figures of the 
 saints. 
 
 This great authority says that all that has been related of the upas-tree is 
 fabulous. There is, he says, a tree in Java called the "anchar," from which 
 a milky juice is obtained, whence poison can be distilled or extracted. Beneath 
 this tree, however, herbs and flowers may grow, and men and animals sleep in 
 safety. It is but another species of that vegetable production from which the 
 Macoushi Indian prepares his ivonrali poison. The anchar and the wourali 
 poisons are, however, more manufactures than are any of our spirits. The art 
 of preparing them is handed down in families. The native "creese," or 
 dagger, that I had bought was, I was told, smeared with this vegetable poison. 
 I now give up the upas-tree, though parting with it is like almost to losing a 
 tooth. 
 
 On the mephitic spot to which I have referred, near to Naples, a dog is 
 always introduced to the visitor, who is expected to pay five shillings, or more, 
 to see the poor animal killed by the noxious gas. This case of cruelty to 
 animals is allowed to go on week after week unchecked. Several dogs per 
 day must be, in the travelling season, sacrificed in this shabby way. The 
 extinguishment of the match and a candle was quite sufficient for me, and 
 should be so for any one knowing that what supports the flame keeps also 
 flickering the vital spark. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE BOER BUDDHA TEMPLE. 
 
 Expectation rose very high indeed as myself and fellow-traveller neared the 
 locality of the great Temple of Boer Buddha. The long journey by rail, and 
 then by road, had something to do with it ; so had the little troubles in the 
 way of the river to be crossed, and then the broken bridge near to the journey's 
 end ; so had the long walk in the still, tropically sultry afternoon that followed ; 
 so had the sights of the elegant little temple at the roadside, and subsequently 
 of the larger and finer Temple of Moendoet ; so had the lengthening of the 
 walk by the unexpected finding of further obstruction to the road ; so had, 
 and chiefly so, the words of Sir Stamford Raffles, Governor of Java, in the time 
 that England had that island. Of this temple district and of Boer Buddha he 
 wrote, as before quoted : — " In the interior of Java are temples that, as works 
 of labour and of art, dwarf to nothing all our wonder and admiration at the 
 Pyramids of Egypt." 
 
 My inquiries in Sunda and Java, at Batavia and Samarang, had failed me in 
 finding any account, in English language, of these works of ancient art in 
 Java. A learned Plollander had, I was told, published such a work, that 
 could be had only on personal application to him at some distant place up- 
 country. As it was in the Dutch language, it would have done me no service. 
 
 From a fellow-traveller, at one stage of my travels in Java, I had been told 
 the wondrous. 
 
Built in Three Days. 127 
 
 Legend of Boer Btiddha. 
 
 Nearly 2000 years ago — no accuracy could be got as to date — the then 
 inhabitants of Java had determined upon the building of this temple. Its 
 present site was selected as the best in the island for that purpose. The 
 architects, and the artificers in stone-work, quarrymen, masons, sculptors, and 
 carvers, to the number of many thousands, laboured for years upon the work. 
 The designs for it had tested the whole talent of the people, and that which 
 Boer Buddha now shows was selected by a large majority of votes. Like to 
 Solomon's temple, no sound of hammer or chisel was to be heard when the 
 time came for placing the many hundreds of thousands of numbered stones in 
 their proper places. No mortar or cement was to be used. Each stone was 
 to fit upon its fellow-stone so evenly and closely that cement could not be 
 admitted to distend, ever so little, the closeness of the joint. All these stones 
 were to be brought to the ground, and laid in order for those who were finally 
 to place them one upon another. That time arrived, and 100,000 chosen men 
 went to the task of laying these cut, carved, and sculptured stones, and placing 
 and fixing the sculptured figures of Buddha that were to fill the hundreds of 
 temples then and there to be built up to form together the great temple of Boer 
 Buddha. 
 
 The time came at last for the building, and the solitude of Brodjo-alang, and 
 the banks of the Calli-Progo which runs through it, were enlivened by the 
 presence of that great multitude of workmen collected from out of the many 
 millions of all Java — a multitude such as only the greatest national event of 
 the land could call together — the building of its grandest temple ! 
 
 It was decreed that three days only should be given to the great work — that 
 every stone should be laid, every terrace formed and finished, every one of the 
 hundreds of minor temples built up, and every sculptured figure placed and 
 fixed in that short time— including the final and crowning temple that should 
 be the shrine of the greatest of all its figures, A miracle was thus to be worked 
 in so doing the apparently impossible. All the long labours of the designers, 
 architects, artificers, carvers, and sculptors were to be crowned by the wondrous 
 work of these swiftly-working workmen and masons who, thick as swarms of 
 bees, were to work as busily upon the large mound already raised and levelled 
 for the reception and support of the stones of this many-hundred-templed 
 temple. 
 
 High holiday was then proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of 
 Java. The population pilgrimaged to see the wonder-work performed. The 
 immense amphitheatre in which Boer Buddha stands was filled with the myriad 
 multitudes that came to see this greatest of all the works of Java, and to watch 
 its progress. It was a multitude such as the land never before or since saw 
 gathered together, for the fairest of Eastern islands was then a devoutly religious 
 nation — one also that loved art, encouraged its culture, and gave liberally 
 money, labour, and time to the aid of that which they loved. 
 
 Before these assembled millions day by day, of the three days, arose this 
 temple of Boer Buddha. Not a sound of tools was heard. Magically, and as 
 silently as are done the works of Nature, the majestic pile arose in all its white 
 wonder of colour and artistic perfection of form. Its workmen laboured with 
 inspired ardour, carrying out swiftly, but unmistakingly, the plans that had 
 been long studied by them elsewhere. 
 
 So was the great Boer Buddha built ! The sunset of the third evening saw 
 the fulfilment of the promise of its then completion. Illuminated by the rays 
 of the gorgeous Eastern sunset, the crowning figure was then placed in this 
 temple of temples. It was then, at this given signal, that the assembled 
 myriads bowed to the earth in adoration. Never had those we call pagans and 
 
128 The Mai?i Routes Round the World. 
 
 worshippers of images so goodly a cause for worship. If Lahorare est orare 
 be truth, then would the building of this Boer Buddha be but one great act of 
 worship. He is bold and rash, regardless of justice and of judgment to come, 
 who, in these latter and grovelling days, shall say that our time and labours 
 are any better expended. 
 
 Turning the corner of an avenue of trees, at the end of our long trudge, the 
 great temple now came into full view, enthroned upon a raised mound in the 
 grandest of natural amphitheatres that one could wish to see. No other 
 building is near to it, nor any within sight from all points. Only hill and 
 valley and flowing water, as features of Nature, and this great temple on its 
 central mound as the one work of art. 
 
 Boer Buddha, or Boro Boudo, as it is sometimes written, is not a ruin. It 
 stands to-day as a complete pyramid-temple touched here and there by the 
 crumbling hand of time, but as complete as is the pyramid of Cheops. Of 
 that pyramid the cement casing has long since dropped, and piles of stones are 
 to be seen, fallen from one of the four corners. No one calls the pyramid a 
 ruin for those reasons. The stones of majestic and beautiful Boer Buddha are 
 there as the builders left them, still showing, mostly, the delicate carvings and 
 sharp cuttings of the thousands of sculptors and masons who for years laboured 
 at their artistic work. As a crown of glory of the land, and a work of art, 
 this temple may dispute precedence with all the Eastern temples. Its con- 
 struction was fully as laborious as that of the great pyramid, the stones of 
 which are but roughly hewn, while those of Boer Buddha have a dozen figures 
 artistically grouped on each. It is as graceful as is the elegant Taj Mahal of 
 Agra, and, when of the age of that comparatively young temple-tomb, must 
 have been as bright-looking and equally beautiful. I shall always cleave to 
 the picture of it, made by a native artist of Djockjakarta, that I may convince 
 myself that I have seen it, and that it is not all a dream of the traveller. 
 
 It redounds to the glory of England that it was in the time of its five years' 
 occupation of Java that this splendid temple was cleared of its o'ergrowing 
 vegetation and restored to the world's sight as it is now to be seen. The 
 Dutch, for two hundred and more years, had been too busily engaged on 
 coffee, guilders, and the labours of the population, to care aught for the 
 wonders of art in the land they look upon but as a workshop. Even now, the 
 care of a mason or two, necessary to protect the structure against the effects of 
 time and wind and rain, is required. The heads of the figures that have been 
 knocked off, or have fallen, are allowed so to remain in dozens, though a 
 trowel-full of cement here and there applied would replace and fix them for 
 another hundred years or two. The rains and the dust running between the 
 mortarless stones displace them to the extent of many inches, in numerous 
 instances that an artisan's care and skill could remedy, and so save by timely 
 aid the ruin that such neglect will lead to. All one's thoughts about the 
 Dutch and the way in which they treat Java culminate at Boer Buddha temple. 
 At Agra, in Hindostan, I had seen an expensive scafiolding erected to repair 
 the guttering of one part of the roof of the Taj Mahal, and a crowd of masons 
 rubbing and removing the discolourations caused by water to some parts of the 
 exterior marble. All honour to England for such care of native art in a 
 conquered land ! Ashamed am I to mention England — enterprising and art- 
 encouraging England — and its doings as matter of comparison in such con- 
 nexion. Comparisons are indeed odious in some cases, and in this case the 
 odium is all so much on one side. 
 
 One can look long and gaze gratified at Boer Buddha before the eye begins 
 to take in details. The full view of it, in all its ample fulness, is so pleasant, 
 so novel, so utterly different to anything that one has seen elsewhere or looked 
 upon anywhere in pictures or paintings, that it is impossible almost to tire in 
 
A Te/nple of Temples. 129 
 
 gazing at it, and bring oneself to think of its measurements, the number of its 
 terraces, or the smaller temples of which it is the great embodiment. It is 
 such a surprise altogether that one has a long and pleasant time of silent 
 admiration before activity of mind asserts itself, and investigation of details 
 can commence, 
 
 Boer Buddha, then, is a pyramid of something under 200 ft. in height. It 
 might be higher for its great breadth, but its magnificence is not in size, vast 
 though it is, but in the artistic labour shown upon every stone of it. By 
 pyramid is meant a solid mound of masonry, with no interior space. The 
 largest of its many cell temples, which contains the greatest of its seated figures, 
 is that which crowns the building. Each of the sides of Boer Buddha measures 
 at the base 350 ft., a total of 1400 ft. all round. The terraces, up to which 
 steps lead on each side, decrease in height, one from the other, as they go 
 upwards. They are eight in number. The first five are of square form ; the 
 three upper ones are of circular shape. Mounting up the steep mound of earth 
 that forms the groundwork, I come upon the first terrace. On that I walk 
 around the four sides of the building, and look upon the carved stones on each 
 side of me, for the terraces are walled in to the height of 5 ft. Here are 
 figures and groups of figures standing out upon each stone, or upon several 
 stones that mostly unite so evenly that they seem but one. They all did so 
 when first placed here, but the rains have worn away the fine edges in many 
 places. At the foot of each of the four flights of steps that lead from bottom to 
 top of this temple are two well-carved stone lions. All around the building, 
 on the surrounding mound, are cell-shaped temples, each holding a sitting 
 figure of Buddha about 3 ft. in height. These ground-seated cells were, in 
 number, when complete, 116. 
 
 The floor of each terrace of the eight is 4 ft. in width. The stones used in 
 the building are of a uniform size — about 2 ft. square. In this limited space 
 the artist has often grouped as many as a dozen figures. They are mostly as 
 clear and well defined to-day as they were long ages ago, on leaving the 
 artificers' hands. In colour only they have deteriorated. At the four corners of 
 all the square terraces stands a three-celled temple, each cell fronting differently, 
 and holding its sitting figure of Buddha. The single-celled temples are repeated 
 at distances of about 10 ft. or 12 ft. all round the structure. Counting the treble- 
 celled temples at the corners as one only, there are no less than ninety-six 
 temples on this second of the terraces. Over each flight of steps, as we ascend 
 from terrace to terrace, is an arch surmounted by a cell holding a figure. The 
 third terrace is a smaller reproduction of the second. All the figures in bas- 
 relief are of different subjects, and ingenuity seems to have been quite inex- 
 haustible in producing these groups. The antiquary can perhaps discover what 
 they illustrate, and read the stories thus told in stone. The mere traveller 
 only looks on, admires, and makes note of what he sees. Eighty temples are 
 upon the third terrace. The fourth, to which we now ascend, is smaller than 
 the third, and has only sixty-four temples. The fifth of the square terraces 
 shows forty-eight of them. A decrease of sixteen temples will be noticed on 
 each terrace as we have ascended. 
 
 The circular terraces are now reached, of which there are three. A different 
 order of things altogether here comes upon one's notice. The carved groups 
 upon the walls disappear, and the celled temples assume the shape of cages, or 
 like to the exterior one of a set of carved Chinese concentric balls. All the 
 temples of the lower terrace had open ironts to them, in which the sitting figure 
 of the Buddha could be fully seen and touched. Here the figure is enclosed 
 all around by broad bands of stone-work, through the interspaces of which it 
 can alone be seen. Of these strange-looking cages, so to call them, there are 
 thirty-two on the first of the circular terraces, twenty-four on the second, and 
 
1 30 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 sixteen upon the third. No more steps have to be mounted now, as in the 
 centre of this third circular terrace stands the crowning temple. The Buddha 
 of all the Buddhas is here seated — a figure three or four times the size of those 
 seen below. On the exterior of this crowning temple a passage has been cut 
 to the top of it, from which a view of the gorgeous mass of masonry beneath 
 can be seen in another aspect. The country all around is a minor thing just 
 now, but it is a truly magnificent sight when the eye can be detached from art, 
 and let roam around over the beauties of Nature that are here to be seen. 
 
 The smaller temples on the terraces, it will be noticed, number no less than 
 472. Truly, this Boer Buddha may be called a temple of temples — one artistic, 
 harmonious whole, built up of many ! The world has no like to show to this 
 work of a great people who have passed from earth, but left a record so fair 
 behind them. 
 
 Each of the cell-temples is surmounted by a square-shaped, tapering stone, or 
 spire, of a foot and a half high. It is only on the ground terrace and on the 
 square ones that any of the figures are headless. The cages have protected 
 those on the circular terraces. The heads are placed in a pile below, and every 
 traveller will wish to spend time and money, as the Government should do, in 
 restoring them to the shoulders of the figures. It was real desecration to injure 
 such a magnificent work of the highest art, and it is gross and disgraceful 
 neglect to leave the vandalism unrepaired and uncared for as it is now. 
 
 At the corners of each terrace, and by the sides of the stairs, are gurgoyles, 
 as in Gothic architecture. These are shaped as elephants' heads, having 
 the trunk turned upwards and over the forehead. There are endless details, 
 to be further noticed, interesting to the lovers of art and architecture, as well 
 as to the antiquary. Boer Buddha offers to the sculptor, the artist, the architect, 
 the poet, the dilctta7ite, and all who have taste or the love of art within them, 
 full repayment for all trouble taken in getting thither. Such a painter as 
 Turner would have revelled in the sight, and have depicted it as what it really 
 is — a Dreajn in Stone. 
 
 That time may be taken in the study of this great congress of temples, a 
 kindly man has built a decent sort of bamboo hotel near to the foot of it. Good 
 accommodation can be had there, and fully a week might be given to the study 
 of this strange building — the real wonder of Java, and quite substantiating that 
 which Sir Stamford Raffles wrote of it. 
 
 vShakspeare wrote of "sermons in stones," the full meaning of which is fully 
 imderstood when looking upon the wondrous piles that the giant architects of 
 the past have left for our astonishment ere they, like to the gods of old, went 
 from the earth. Though the day of architecture is done, its great works yet 
 speak. In Shakspeare's day, sermons were sermons, and not the dry rot that 
 too often gets from the woodwork into the words of the pulpit. They had the 
 eloquence, power, and life with which these piled stones that have been left to 
 us still speak. But all the eloquence of all the tongues that were ever attuned 
 to speech could not give one the sensations experienced when gazing upon the 
 Agra Taj, the Delhi Kootub Minar, and this Temple of Boer Buddha — labours 
 to which those of the modern architect are but as the squeak of a rat to the roar 
 of a lion. The age cannot develop great builders. It is an age of utilities 
 and make-shifts — of electro-plating, gilding, and lacquering — of French polish, 
 varnish, and veneer. We build to last our time, and not for all time, as did 
 those of old. The race of giant-builders has left a cut stone, dressed and 
 finished, in a quarry at Baalbec, as a sort of challenge to their degenerate 
 successors. This trifle is 75 ft. long and 14 ft. broad and thick. With such 
 stones they built as with bricks in the bygone days. 
 
 Sydney Smith's recommendation to a narrow-minded man to live near to a 
 cathedral, that he might expand his intellect by gazing at a great object, had 
 
Buddhism. 
 
 131 
 
 much sense in it. An American well expressed his ideas — as Americans mostly 
 do — whom I met looking long at Milan Cathedral. I asked what he thought 
 of that many hundred years' progressing work. He said, " Speech won't run 
 to it." 
 
 Respect for Buddhists and Buddhism gradually grows upon one. Effects 
 must spring from causes, and they must have had "an inner beauty in their 
 lives" who have left in this Temple of Boer Buddha such outward and visible 
 signs of it. " By their fruits ye shall know them." Since landing in Japan 
 and journeying down thither, I have been all along, through China and Malasia, 
 among those of this faith, and shall be more with them as I go further eastward. 
 
 The followers of Buddha are numbered at 400,000,000 — a full third of all 
 the people of this world. It will be noticed that they are not the majority, 
 and cannot, therefore, be classified as the fools said by Carlyle to constitute 
 that part. At Ceylon, I shall be at the fountain-head of this faith, 
 whence its stream has permeated the East, and where its doctrines were 
 written and disseminated before the Christian Era. I may there better under- 
 stand it, but have found already that it has many merits — that it is the worship 
 of one power, whose earthly exponent was the first Buddha, the figure of whom 
 has been lately so often before me. Many of his doctrines and moral teachings 
 were, I learn, in certain points identical with those afterwards taught by 
 Christianity. 
 
 Although Boer Buddha, once seen, will remain prominently in the picture- 
 gallery of the mind while life lasts, yet I intend to get a native artist to go 
 there, and bring me down a picture of it. My object is to get that effort 
 of his extended by a water-colour drawing, if I can find some one with artistic 
 zeal, taste, and talent enough to undertake a task worthy of Turner himself. 
 
 Note. — The foregoing was penned four, and printed two, years before the finely illustrated 
 seven volume account of Boer Buddha temple, by the Dutch Government, was published — a 
 copy of which grand literary production is now in Melbourne Public Library. 
 
 CHAPTER XXHI. 
 
 SAMARANG TO SoERBAYA (SOURABAYA). 
 
 The journey back from Boer Buddha was made by a long night-drive, 
 darkened by a tropical thunderstorm, and electrically lighted up now and then 
 by the most brilliant of lightning. The result was a very welcome coolness of 
 air and refreshed spirits. The fireflies were now abroad everywhere over the 
 fields and roadway — veritable little lumps of light. By one of them that 
 blew into the carriage, and whose egress I arrested, I could see the hour on a 
 watch-face. A dozen of them, put into a phial, would seem to be a good 
 substitute for a candle, enabling one at least to read ordinary letter-press. 
 The light is in the tail of the fly, which is in appearance like to a small 
 working bee. A cunning work of creation is this firefly, with its phosphores- 
 cent tail. 
 
 On the way down to Samarang, I am among a number of Hollanders, not 
 one of whom seems interested in the grand works of art in this usurped Java 
 that I have lately visited. It is from one of them that I learn that it is due to 
 the labours of the English, during their short but well-spent time in the land, 
 that I have had the chance of seeing them even as they now are. There is no 
 money to be made out of these temples, and they are, furthermore, not the 
 work of Dutch hands. They cannot, therefore, reasonably be expected to 
 interest many Hollanders, who are mostly what is termed practical men. We 
 
 K 2 
 
132 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 find such folks everywhere. A lady, a European, fond of visiting the theatre 
 once replied to my question of what she thought of a particular representation 
 of "Richard the Third," "Do you think I ever pay any attention to the 
 rubbish on the stage ? " She should have been a Dutchman's wife. 
 
 The tramway that I had seen disfiguring Batavia was, I now found, the 
 enterprise of a foreign company. I had wrongly given the Dutch credit for it. 
 " The fault of the Dutch is giving too little and asking too much," said 
 Canning, who compressed thus his words and meanings in the days of the 
 fourth George. They still keep that character, are proud of their monetary 
 plethora, and took care to remind me that Holland and England — which they 
 place as I have written — are the only two nations that can at present lend 
 money to others. They said nothing about the two nations not getting it in 
 the same way ! Their greatness as a European Power has now taken an 
 altered form to what it was in the days of the second Charles. The world can 
 value the Dutch now for their wealth. They are worth so many millions 
 annually — mostly ground out of these Eastern possessions. I will not say that 
 that is all they are worth, but there are those who will. 
 
 The Germans have a saying, perpetuated in a public stone inscription which 
 I saw in their land, that poverty begets enterprise, industry, and invention ; 
 that these beget wealth and power ; that from these spring ease and indolence ; 
 and that weakness and poverty then follow — completing thus the round of 
 fortune's wheel. Taking the German reckoning as right, the Dutch may be 
 supposed as being now on the last but one of that wheel's spokes. 
 
 All the islands around Java and the Eastern Archipelago have been explored 
 by the Hollanders. They have a treaty with England about their ownership. 
 One nation is not to encroach without the other's assent, and other nations are 
 to be, jointly, kept at bay. Four years ago or so the Dutch began war with 
 neighbouring Acheen, giving up to England, at the same time, that Gold Coast 
 about which Great Britain got into the Coomassie war. Any island of the 
 Archipelago, not claimed by the Dutch, may be considered as little worth, as 
 may also that part of New Guinea which they have not included in what they 
 have there taken. New Britain and New Ireland, which are near to New 
 Guinea, are islands that the Dutchmen do not want — there is no money to be 
 made out of them. 
 
 To give the Dutchman his due, he has been worth much praise as an explorer. 
 The Thousand Islands have been to him a diggings that he has well " pros- 
 pected." He thought to find another Java in large Sumatra, but has been dis- 
 gusted to find only about four millions of natives there instead of the expected 
 twenty ; and only a portion of that limited number can be got to labour for 
 others' benefit, like to the Javanese. The Acheenese, who, as respects 
 Sumatra, are the counterpart, in geographical position, to the Sundanese in 
 Java, know the Dutchman well, and will not have him. They value liberty 
 more than life — thorough Britons to a man, these plucky men of Acheen, whom 
 I would I could help. 
 
 Taking it all " by and large," as sailors say, one understands why the Dutch- 
 men gave up the Cape of Good Hope, and did nothing with Australia — which, 
 I see by all the Dutch maps here in Java, they still teach young Dutchee to call 
 " New Holland." Also, it is to be well understood why they so readily gave way 
 in America, and never tackled New Zealand. The natives of those places could 
 not be got to labour for the Dutchman's profit, as do the eighteen millions of 
 Java. The Caffres, Australian aboriginals. Red Indians and Maoris were no 
 good to the Dutch, and so were left to the British. The discussion of these 
 things and the like with my Dutch fellow-travellers takes up the time that 
 brings me down to Samarang, A steamer is going away to Sourabaya that day, 
 but no money will tempt the boatmen to take me off to it. It looks smooth 
 
Sotirabaya. 
 
 133 
 
 enough in the river, but the bhie flag of danger is flapping vigorously in the 
 strong wind, and the surf on the bar is, they say, impassable. Another boat 
 will be there in thirty hours, which may have better luck. There is time, I 
 find, to wait for it. 
 
 The waiting brings better luck with it, and I get away from Samarang and 
 its treacherous, trap-like bay at the expense of only a wet jacket. It is not 
 without difficulty, however, that I can get on board. The steps cannot be 
 reached in safety. I get, therefore, into a sling, and the boat runs along the 
 ship's side until I feel the cord tightening under my arms, and I am hauled on 
 board in horse fashion — glad to be there in any way. 
 
 Sourabaya is reached in thirty hours. It is the third of the large seaports of 
 Java, and at the other end of the island to Batavia. It is said to contain les* 
 inhabitants, but looks quite as large, or larger, to the eye of the visitor. There 
 is no difficulty in landing at this port, as at Samarang. I pass from the bay 
 into a walled river, as at Batavia, and so up to the custom-house and its 
 trouble. This walled riv^er — the Callimass, or Golden Water — is full of craft 
 that, like to my tymbanum, or Malay boat, are being towed by natives up its 
 
 THE HOTEL VERANDAH. 
 
 yellow stream. Many come from Madura, a large island that lies near to 
 Sourabaya, whose people are constantly trafficking with the mainland. Their 
 produce is what I see filling the larger boats upon the Callimass. Those boats 
 that I meet coming down are laden with the inland produce of Java, brought 
 many miles down this river. All is bustle and business at this port of Sourabaya. 
 I pass along up the canal-like river, and am landed at some steps that lead me 
 into a dirty, wharf-like landing-place, amid the smells of decaying sugar and 
 other water-side nuisances. Near to this is the Sourabaya Hotel — on the banks 
 of the dirty-looking Callimass, and in the midst of its wharf warehouses. It 
 is in about as bad a position as it could be placed. 
 
 The verandah is full of Malay, Chinese, and Javanese dealers, who have 
 unrolled their wares in its wide expanse, and there await customers. Javanese 
 
134 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 cigars are here offered at half a guilder the box of lOO, but I do not see that 
 they find any purchasers among the whites. The native population, possibly, 
 have a taste for them. Walking-sticks, slippers, ready-made clothing, and 
 basket-ware are of the other merchandise offered for sale, after which come 
 the goodly native fruits. 
 
 A lively young native planter from Sumatra, and a chubby officer from a 
 Dutch man-of-war in port, take special interest in me as an Anglo-Australian, of 
 which I am glad. They have nothing especial to do with their time, and I am 
 excuse enough for bringing out and airing the little English that each of them 
 knows. By them I am initiated in the ways of the house and those about the 
 town, and informed of the manners and customs of the Sourabayans. I find 
 that more English are located at this port than at any other in Java, numbering, 
 I am told, over 300. The town is flat and low-lying, and largely infested by 
 Chinese. Our friends the Jews make no show in Java that I could see or hear 
 of. With the Dutchmen and Chinamen as traders, they could hardly squeeze 
 in here as in other places. If they did, they would be in the position usually 
 known as "between the devil and the deep sea." The two nations mentioned 
 leave but little pickings indeed in Java. What trade they leave others to do 
 can scarcely be worth doing, and is sure to be of the unprofitable sort. 
 
 My young friend the Sumatran coffee planter is very hospitable in his ways. 
 His curly and always uncovered head and dark West Indian-looking face is 
 often appearing at my door to propose this or that excursion, which he thinks 
 may interest me, or to show me some native wonder or other. Before the day 
 is over I might become his biographer — so much has he told me about himself 
 and his belongings. He is a sort of a very young St. Clair that we read about 
 in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and has a veritable Uncle Tom, a real good old 
 man, with him as body servant. Only twenty-one years of age, he has but 
 just come into the property of a coffee estate in the mountain land of Sumatra 
 that produces, or is to produce, an annual income of 40,000 guilders. Uncle 
 Tom is an old family retainer — a kindly, white-bearded, black-skinned old 
 fellow, who looks after his handsome young master as a nurse would. This 
 lively and generous youth has but two years ago returned from Europe, 
 whither he was sent for education. He has learnt something of French, 
 German, and English. What is of more use to him, he knows all the dialects 
 of the Malays, Sumatrans, and Javanese, and is withal as canny in business as 
 the cold northern Scot. He is now here on a holiday trip, visiting his factors 
 in Java, who will buy the piculs of coffee from him that are ripening now at 
 Singkarah, on the west coast of Sumatra. I am to go to that estate some 
 time. I must promise that, and to stop a month among the hills and the coffee 
 when I go. He will then show me a planter's life upon the line, and all the 
 wonders of that tropical island. I can only promise to do similar kindness 
 by him when he shall come my way in the world. The likelihood is probably 
 small on either side, and is what some one once wrote as " Nicks." 
 
 Accompanied by this young St. Clair, and him of the gunboat, I am driven 
 around the outskirts, and shown the white villas of the notabilities of the 
 place and their green gardens. The banks of the river, I perceive, get very 
 pretty the further one leaves the town behind. I come at last to a bridge from 
 which the view up and down the stream and all around is well worth coming 
 a long way to see. The further I go upwards, the better I am told I shall 
 like it. The Callimass, in that case, must be well worth sailing up. A visit 
 is then made to some sugar-mills, and I see much simpler modes of making 
 sugar than the Greenock refineries make use of. INIuch of the sugar exported 
 from Java in its rough state is sent to the refineries at Melbourne and Sydney. 
 Six vessels were loading with it at the Java ports I had called at, and as many, 
 I am told, are generally doing so. The cargo that passes me coming down 
 
Trade luith Australia. 135 
 
 the Callimass I shall probably taste of, in an improved state, in Sydney, 
 Melbourne, or Adelaide in days to come. 
 
 Maize is also growing much about Java, but neither that nor the coffee 
 seems yet to have found an Australian market. As this coffee stands high in 
 its character, and Java is near to Australia, the opening up the market for such 
 produce will probably take place now that the South Australians have induced 
 the Dutch to place a line of steamers between the two countries. That line is 
 to run every two months only at present. A subsidy is paid by the South 
 Australian Government for the carriage of mails to that unprofitable part of its 
 possessions — the Northern Territory. It is to be hoped that this effort to 
 open communication may be successful, as otherwise Australians have no 
 other means of visiting Java, now that the Torres Straits mail line no longer 
 calls at any of its ports. And Java is worth seeing — well worth seeing indeed 
 — and no place more so. 
 
 My excursion round about Sourabaya is brought to a close by a visit to the 
 club-house. Here a goodly orchestral band, in a rotunda in a nice garden, 
 are playing a fine selection of music. The house and gardens are well lighted. 
 The white attire of the frequenters of the place looks well at night-time. 
 Coloured servants are about everywhere handing cups of coffee and glasses of 
 schnapps, or carrying firesticks for the use of the never-ceasing smokers. My 
 old friend, the Southern Cross, is in view again above me. For many a month 
 have I missed it. Here, for coolness and respect, I uncover in its presence, 
 and feel glad indeed to look upon it again. The " plough" that I saw so long 
 in the other hemisphere was well enough there, but this southern substitute 
 looks better and brighter. At least so it seems in these Java skies, where it 
 looks nearer to one than in Australia. 
 
 Not much disposition is shown by folks here to visit that Australian land by 
 the fine steamer that is shortly about to start. I find plenty of cabins disen- 
 gaged. That is a blessing in one way, as it is really so warm here, and will 
 be so all the way through Torres Straits, that a cabin to oneself is almost a 
 necessity. The vessel proves to be a finer one than any of the boats of the 
 Torres Straits line that I had seen, and her captain looks all over the right 
 man. Two Germans who have tried their fortunes in Java for seven years, 
 and only got liver complaint by so doing, are going to the more temperate air 
 of Victoria. A sugar-planter, with his wife and little son, is taking a trip for 
 change of air, and he looks as if he wanted it. He is also a German. The 
 crew are Malays and the stewards Chinese. The vessel is nearly a new- one, 
 of Clydeside build. For the first three days on our voyage we had nothing to 
 do but to note the many islands that are always coming into view and being 
 left behind hourly. Some of these look very inviting places, seen as we see 
 them. Off Sandalwood Island a sensational event occurs. A case of kero- 
 sene explodes, and the flames burn the skin, in patches, of the face, neck, 
 arms, and shoulders of a Malay seaman. It sets fire also to the little house 
 on the lower deck in which it occurs, and finds its way among the loose sacks 
 of coal thereabout. These add to the blaze, and smoke, and general fright 
 that seizes upon us. For a time it is a case of ship on fire ; and I am glad of 
 the sight of pleasant-looking Sandalwood Island, that is well in view. In 
 going all over the world one expects to have a share of all sea dangers. In 
 this fire on shipboard the second of the series had come. The first one came 
 in the shape of running on the rocks on the Japanese coast. The third was 
 yet to come, and came further along the road in a collision with another 
 vessel that ran into ours whilst we waited a pilot-boat's arrival. It 
 knocked all our boats off the davits, brought the deck's awnings down on 
 the top of us, and generally upset all our views and arrangements for the 
 day. 
 
136 The Main Routes Rou7id the World. 
 
 New Guinea is now to our left, and some natives come on board in the 
 early morning with birds of paradise — stuffed ones — for sale. These are 
 caught up by the passengers, who would have bought any quantity that oftered 
 of these lumps of feathered beauty. New Guinea is the native home of this 
 bird, and would seem to be its chief, if not only, article of merchandise. The 
 natives brought nothing else, and, what was very strange, wanted no money 
 for their wares. Tobacco in any shape was the equivalent. A simple 
 handful of the odious Javanese cigars bought me a bird of paradise that looked 
 really deserving of its title, though New Guinea hardly comes up to one's idea 
 of heaven. It rather tends to remind one of the hereafter in its other aspect — 
 it is so dreadfully hot. The idea of white men ever digging there successfully 
 for gold, or digging for anything else, is ridiculous. Labour for the white- 
 skinned is out of the question altogether in New Guinea. To lift a shovel and 
 carry it along would bring a shower of perspiration about one. The peculiar 
 heat of the country is of the moist kind that indisposes the most energetic to 
 any exertion. It is also a swampy and miasmatic land for the most part of it, 
 and greatly productive of fever and other sicknesses to most Europeans. 
 Hospitality might be obtained from the natives if they had wherewith to show 
 it, but it is a poor land in that respect, and its inhabitants seem mostly to live 
 in a state of want. Nature puts lines and bounds within which the white man 
 may successfully labour. He fails outside of these, and New Guinea is a long 
 way on the outside. One thing, to my mind, settled all questions about the 
 value of New Guinea as a settlement for a white population. The Dutch have 
 for years had possession of the northern part of it — " Prince Frederick's 
 Land." Had their possession proved profitable — and none know better how 
 to make profit of other folks' land and labour than the Dutch — they would 
 long since have got possession of the whole island. Their not having done so 
 tells, to any one who knows the Dutchman, all that I want to know about 
 New Guinea, and all that any one needs to know. 
 
 In Java and its adjuncts I leave a country which, if it cannot be called "a dark 
 land " equally with Africa, is due to no fault of the Dutch. They have omitted 
 nothing calculated to "keep it dark," in all senses in which the term can be 
 applied. It is strange, when thought is given to it, that the notion of "flying" 
 should have ever become connected with the name of a Dutchman. He is 
 most unlikely among men for winged flights here, and his probability as one of 
 the cherubim hereafter is preposterous. Among humanity he takes that 
 position for physical and intellectual heaviness that is among quadrupeds 
 allotted to that Dutch-stomached one which, if it can be taught anything what- 
 ever, is called " learned," and is shown as a rarity, and is said also to be the 
 least likely animal to fly. 
 
 When Peter the Hermit visited Palestine and saw its condition under the 
 grinding, robbing rule of the Turks, into which it has again fallen, he returned 
 to Europe, telling of the wrongs of the opressed people, and preaching up that 
 crusade which, 800 years ago, helped to free for a time the best part of Syria 
 from the Turkish incubus. Another crusade is as much wanted in the same 
 land now, and more wanted, as it seemed lately to me. There are other lands 
 the condition of which would move to action Peter the Hermit, or any who 
 have hearts like his. "Ten thousand of those men in England that do no 
 work to-day," of whom Westmoreland spoke to Henry the Fifth at Agincourt, 
 may yet find work, and renown too, in the world, if led on by such as Peter, 
 or his more modern prototype. Garibaldi. It is disgusting to any manly mind 
 to see the strong oppressing the weak, and living upon their labours ! The 
 disgusting sight of slavery no longer offends the eye in America, and should 
 not be permitted under any flimsy disguise to do so in Cuba or Java. It 
 would be better for Spain and Holland to 1 ive upon their own labours, as men 
 
Palmerston. 
 
 137 
 
 and nations should do. They would thus earn the respect of the rest of the 
 world, and that place in it which they lost when they descended to a position 
 more disgraced by the ill-gotten wealth it brings than is that of poor pimps, 
 pensioners, and panders. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SOURABAYA TO SOMERSET (TORRES STRAITS). 
 
 The scenery about Torres Straits, in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin and 
 Cape York, is a pleasant surprise to the traveller who has only previously 
 visited the Australian shores on the south, and seen their dreary appearance 
 
 '^,>3t~'"'>y ^.i^'^ii^ ^-J-i^ 
 
 PORT DARWIN. 
 
 from seaward. What Victoria and South Australia have to show in the way of 
 sea-shore vegetation and attractiveness to sea-weary eyes is not much to look 
 at, and less to speak of, but on the little-visited northern shores it is all another 
 and finer sight. 
 
 Palmerston and Somerset, the two settlements on the northern Australian 
 coast, are nice-looking places indeed, as seen from the sea. There is a wealth 
 of verdure about them in tropical plants and flowers down to the water's edge — 
 a generous fulness of greenness that answers all expectation. Pretty outlying 
 islands, about which are anchored the boats of the pearl-fishers and others, add 
 to the charm of the scene. It is all, however, like to fine things generally, best 
 ■seen at a distance. Than Somerset it would not be easy to pick out a prettier 
 
138 21ie Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 spot for a settlement, nestling, as it does, in a little bay in a narrow sea- 
 passage, among a network of pocket-islands. If the climate did but allow it, 
 one might reasonably wish to stay thereabout out of the way of the world and 
 its news, adding one more to the very sparse population of this primitive- 
 looking part of the earth. 
 
 Palmerston was settled as a substitute for Port Essington, which was then 
 deserted. It just now looks as if the same fate awaited the new townshi]?. It 
 had 300 of inhabitants at the time that its territory had 3000, and had (in '77) 
 little more than lOO, and the territory not more than 300. Of these the majority 
 seem to be Government officials. There is a paid Resident, in his white 
 residency on the cliff", and a Government harbour-master and a health officer.. 
 
 AN ABORIGINAL. 
 
 There are two telegraph-stations, and a staff of officials, one for the overland 
 or local hne, and the other for the English company's cable branch. A law- 
 court and police lock-up, a post-office, and other appurtenances of a bigger 
 town are here to be seen. Two streets, east and west, and two at right angles 
 to them, in no particular way reclaimed from the bush roundabout, constitute 
 about the whole of the township. Stores are set up here and there, as also 
 several drinking-shops. All the houses are of wood, and roughly made, with 
 six or seven stone exceptions, A printer issues a weekly half-sheet as a news- 
 paper, but he has no news to tell. The telegraph folks will not give him any, 
 will not give any one a single item of news, though he be, as I was, dying 
 for it. 
 
 Palmerston, with two telegraph stations, is three months behind Melbourne, 
 Sydney, and Adelaide, in learning any intelligence. Its inhabitants will be 
 
The Natives. 
 
 139 
 
 piaying for the Queen's health for that time after her decease, when that 
 undesirable event shall happen. In the second week of March I could not 
 learn which side had won the great cricket-match between All England and 
 Victoria on the 31st of December, nor what horse had won the Champion 
 Race on the Melbourne course on the following day to that. The telegraph 
 officials must have known it all, but considered their lips as officially sealed 
 on all matters. So Port Darwin remains in darkness. The latest newspapers 
 to be got there — I mean those of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide— are 
 nearly three months old. In the United States outside towns, items of public 
 
 A NATIVE KING. 
 
 news are affixed daily on the exterior of the telegraph offices. So doing can 
 harm only the newspaper interest, and that in Port Darwin is nothing. The 
 Palmerston weekly print does not publish much in the way of telegrams. It 
 seems only to serve the purpose of publishing Government advertisements. 
 Without that support the paper would most likely collapse. 
 
 Walking about, but more often sitting or lolling, appear everywhere the 
 gaunt-looking natives in nearly their primeval state. They are a tall, thin, 
 upright race, and seem mostly half-starved. Nowhere had I seen such tall. 
 
I40 
 
 The Mai?i Routes Round the World. 
 
 skeleton-looking women. Their black faces, painted in bands of white, give 
 a disgusting death's-head look to many of them. These natives know nothing 
 of throwing the boomerang, and are a different kind of folk altogether to 
 what one sees about Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide. They are taller and 
 straighter, having also — the men at least — better-featured faces. 
 
 An ugly fashion of these natives is cutting across the flesh of their arms, 
 legs, and chests, in a way that, helped by some medicating aid, leaves raised 
 bands or ridges when the wound heals. I thought that I had seen elsewhere 
 every fashion of disfiguring nature, but this idea of corrugating the skin was a 
 
 A NATIVE QUEEN. 
 
 novelty. These ridges are half an inch thick, and of the like breadth. Beauty 
 or utility does not seem to be in any way served by this rudimentary attempt 
 at tattooing. It gives one a correct idea of the position of these aboriginals as 
 compared with that of the New Zealand Maories, who carry tattooing to the 
 perfection of the art. These people merely disfigure themselves, but some 
 Maori faces are made quite picturesque in their many colours. Between the 
 savage idea of putting the colour under the skin, and the civilized one of 
 putting it on the surface, the choice, in all reason, must be in favour of the 
 first. Nice ruby cheeks, and coral lips, fixed in pigments by the tattooer's 
 art at twenty-one, preserve a fresh appearance for all the time of the wearer, 
 
Native Customs. 
 
 141 
 
 who is thus made beautiful for ever — or for the lifetime of the wearer — which 
 to a Maori is much the same thing. 
 
 About the streets of Palmerston these aboriginals saunter in plenty, 
 establishing themselves comfortably about the back-yards and dunghills of the 
 whites. I saw a king here sitting on a dust-heap, and only knew of his regal 
 character by the tin badge that recorded it hanging round his neck by a string. 
 In bygone times I suppose that the native element was as conspicuous as it is 
 here in Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, where an aboriginal is never now 
 to be seen. The fate of the man of colour to die out everywhere on the 
 
 NATIVE MIA-MIA. 
 
 coming of the white man seems exceptional only in Africa, where the Caftres 
 and Zulus give one plenteous evidence of their presence, increasing and 
 multiplying much as they ever did. 
 
 They come to me, these lath-like, corrugated men, offering to show their 
 skill in spear-throwing for my edification — and spare coppers. Their aspira- 
 tions never rise to silver. A tree trunk is usually selected for the target, and 
 at the distance of 200 yards is generally hit once out of three trials. A native 
 boy officiates as runner for the arrow, which is thrown from a notched stick,. 
 
142 The Main jRoutes Round the World. 
 
 on which it is for a moment balanced. As far as practicable, these natives are 
 used by the whites as servants. In that capacity they get the name of 
 "niggers," and learn to make an attempt at broken EngHsh. Their heads 
 are woolly, and their skins black, in which respects alone are they like 
 negroes. For ornaments they cut a very slender bamboo, or thick straw, into 
 bugles of an eighth of an inch long. These pieces are strung together, and 
 worn by men and women alike as necklets and armlets, showing in their 
 whiteness with good effect on their wearer's blackness. 
 
 As house-servants the natives get often to be valued. For that reason they 
 must be, I take it, a superior race to their black brethren of the southern 
 coast, whom I had never seen so utiHzed. In addition to their strange tattoo- 
 ing they have a novel fashion of mourning for the dead. It is by cutting oft 
 a joint of the mother's finger to mark the loss of each child of her's that dies. 
 A woman with a large family has the bad look-out before her of coming down to 
 her stumps if her family should not be fortunate. It must be a great incentive 
 to her taking care of them, as also to her not marrying too early. Another 
 custom permits of their killing weakly children, in place of rearing them. 
 Such practical way of illustrating the doctrine of " the survival of the fittest " 
 is very appropriate for a district named Darwin. The women, as I have said, 
 are miserable, scraggy beings, that look unlikely to make home happy. As 
 wives they are not, however, more ill-used than wives are too often by whiter 
 savages. 
 
 Palmerston is the port for the up-country townships of Southport, Union, 
 Pine Creek, and other digging grounds. Small in number as are its people, 
 and young as it is, this Northern Territory has its history, which is something 
 like to that detailed of himself by Dogberry — it has seen better days, and had 
 losses. Since 1870 it has had its rise, its heyday of success, and is now in the 
 doleful state of finding itself daily deserted — that is to say, it would be so if 
 there existed any means of getting away from it daily. Its rise was too fast 
 and too artificial altogether to be sustained. The quartz reefs here are good — 
 some very good indeed, but could not be developed so soon as shareholders 
 expected, and so were abandoned, and the machinery, that cost thousands, 
 sold for a few pounds. Some of the purchasers have done well. One, who 
 bought a claim and its machinery for ;!^7oo, let it to eight tributers, and has 
 in six months, got back his outlay, and will now look on each crushing as 
 yielding net profits. He expressed himself as only wanting capital to enable 
 him to make more such paying purchases. Sellers, he said, were plenty ; the 
 shareholders in Adelaide would no longer contribute funds. The mines were 
 too far off to be inspected, and the promises held out when shares were issued 
 had not been realized. The result of the outlay of ten, twenty, thirty, forty, 
 fifty thousand pounds or more was thus abandoned, and its costly machinery 
 left to rust and rot. The reefs have, however, yielded crushings of many ounces 
 to the ton in numerous instances. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of getting to and from Port Darwin are formidable 
 indeed. Not only is nearly a month's time required for the voyage, but it is 
 the most dangerous voyage that can be taken anywhere. Night after night, 
 for a week and longer, the vessel has to coibc to anchor at sundown, and so 
 remain until sunrise. Danger from rocks and shoals is all around for three- 
 fourths of the journey. Few vessels choose these waters for their trading tours. 
 So many that have gone have suffered long delays, or total loss, that Port Darwin 
 seemed destined to remain almost unvisited until the contract made by the 
 South Australians with the Netherlands India Company brought a steamer to 
 it, going or returning, monthly. 
 
 By such means Palmerston and Somerset will obtain news of the busy other 
 end of their own Australian land by way of Ceylon, Singapore, and Java, of a 
 
Port Dai'win. 143 
 
 much later date than before — say, only two months old. A sad accident on 
 this treacherous coast put an end to the strange farce of making Palmerston an 
 assize town of South Australia, and sending a judge and his staff round here 
 from Adelaide periodically. The shipwreck of the steamer, and the loss of 
 the judge, Crown prosecutor, and other officials, ended a senseless proceeding 
 that has not since been revived. It was in that instance senseless in all ways, 
 as, of the two prisoners to be tried, one had been called away to appear before 
 a higher tribunal, and the other, a Chinaman, had freed himself by "leg- 
 bail." Port Darwin now deals with its own prisoners. One of them disposed 
 of himself by getting on board our steamer as a stowaway. 
 
 It is useless for all sailing vessels to attempt the voyage round from Port 
 Darwin. One unfortunate storekeeper there told me that he had started on 
 such a voyage in the brig " Springbok " two years before, and was five months 
 in getting round to Sydney. His partner concluded him to be lost, and so 
 proceeded to administer to his estate by realizing the value of the stores and 
 business, and clearing out with the proceeds to some place where money could 
 be spent to better advantage than in Palmerston. The Great Barrier Reef is, 
 and always will be, the trouble to navigation on this route, on which it is what 
 Giant Despair's Doubting Castle was on Christian's road. As that was strewn 
 around with skulls and bones, so is this with wrecks. It begins near to Cape 
 York, where Somerset is situate, winding away down, like to a large snake in 
 its appearance on the map, nearly to Rockhampton. Steamers that dare to 
 go between this reef and the shore after nightfall run the risk of wreck. Two 
 per twelvemonth is about the average rate at which they come to an end on 
 this treacherous coast. 
 
 The pearl-fishers are of those few folks who make calls at Palmerston and 
 Somerset. Their fishing-ground is all around about the coast here, and their 
 neat little vessels dot the small bays that one can see from the steamer's deck, here 
 and there, among the lovely-looking islets of the straits. A pearl-fisher, who is 
 on shore at Somerset, shows me two small phials of pearls, that look nothing 
 worth in my eyes, but are to him the value of £$0. He has a boatload of 
 shells in the bay, for which ;!^i5o or more per ton will be obtained at 
 Melbourne. They are large shells of the size of cheese-plates, coated inside 
 with what is called mother-of-pearl. These shells are his profit ; the pearls 
 will, he considers, pay the wages of divers and seaman, and of provisions. 
 For the divers the pearl-fisher has to go to some of the islands that besprinkle 
 the seas between here and Java. The xA.ustralian native is of no use to him in 
 that industry. When pearl-fishing was an Australian rage, three or four years 
 ago, Palmerston and Somerset had these visitors more often and in larger 
 numbers, but, like the gold diggings, the pearl-fishing has declined, though 
 some boats are still engaged at it. It did not prove that certain road to a 
 quick fortune which the world has been so long vainly endeavouring to find, 
 and still expects. 
 
 We are received hospitably by the Palmerstonians — a likely event, as they 
 so seldom see fresh faces. The news of the world and of their own Australian 
 land that we had learnt two long months after date was yet all news to them. 
 All the elite, "the upper ten," or perhaps fifteen, which would be about the 
 number in Palmerston, came to tiffin on board our handsome vessel — the 
 largest and finest ever yet in that port, and they brought their wives to an 
 evening dance on deck, and subsequent supper provided by our liberal 
 captain. 
 
 The Resident had unfortunately lost his wife and family recently on their 
 voyage round to Sydney. The Great Barrier Reef, like to an octopus, caught 
 their vessel in one of its unseen but great spreading coral arms, and there an 
 end to it, as to so many other good vessels. 
 
144 TJie Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 All tropical plants seem to thrive at Port Darwin. As it is in latitude 12° 
 or thereabouts, such would necessarily be the case. Bananas are growing tox 
 goodly size, and so are cocoa-nut trees. It has been sensibly suggested to 
 plant all the islands round here with cocoa-nuts, that the tall tops of these 
 palms may be the means of more easily marking their locality to the mariner. 
 A cocoa-nut tree thrives best in sand and salt water, so that only the trouble 
 of planting it is required. 
 
 After bidding adieu to the Palmerstonians, and taking about twenty-five of 
 their sparse population away with us, we discovered that one more had in- 
 cluded himself, unasked and unpaid for, in the number. After anger at his 
 intrusion had passed off, amongst those innocents who had paid their passage, 
 he was not put upon the nearest desert island, as first proposed, but set to 
 work, and brought on along with the rest. It was told us that he was a 
 criminal who had not served all of his sentence. His prison work was probably 
 quite as easy as what we set him to do in the ship. He was not the only 
 criminal on board, I dare say, who had not suft'ered all punishment that was 
 his due. 
 
 Booby Island was the stopping-place for the night after leaving Palmerston, 
 where, with several others, I went on shore. It is a small hill of an island, 
 thickly covered with the sea-birds which give it its name, and which one can 
 knock down with a stick. These and their eggs would afford plenteous food 
 to a shipwrecked crew, as would the numerous fish that can be had thereabout 
 for putting a line into the water. Caves abound that afford good shelter. 
 Fresh water and wood are in plenty. Many a ship's crew would like to stay 
 to get fresh provisions and water at this desolate island. English grass 
 grows there in patches, and so does a sort of wild cabbage. With its caverns, 
 wood, water, fish, and endless boobies to eat up, this Booby Island would be 
 just the place for a hermit. 
 
 The clump of pretty islands, "summer isles of Eden," that surrounds 
 Somerset now comes into view. We are soon threading our way through their 
 beauties, and find an anchorage in the charming little bay around which is that 
 sweetly-situated settlement. About fifteen houses seem to constitute the whole 
 of it. Climbing up from the yellow-sanded shore to the rising ground upon 
 which the houses stand, I take in the view all around, and think that the 
 verdure-covered islands, with their yellow sands and calm bright-green waters 
 and well-wooded shores, compose a scene of loveliness. The residents are 
 tired of it, however, and complain of dulness. They do not appear to under- 
 stand that Adam and Eve were no better off in paradise, in the way of com- 
 pany, and could not have had a much better garden than what Nature has here 
 provided. In their dissatisfaction at having to stay behind while we went 
 onwards, they spoke even disrespectfully, not to say profanely, of our first 
 parents, to whom I so made reference. It is impossible to find folks anywhere 
 in the world, out of Japan, who are satisfied with all their circumstances. To 
 better them, the township of Somerset is shortly to be removed altogether to 
 Thursday Island, about four hours' steaming oft, and now preparing for that 
 event. 
 
 An instance of aboriginal manners is afforded to us as we lie at anchor in the 
 early morning off the mainland between Howick Island and Cape Flattery, in 
 latitude 15°. We had to drop anchor at sundown, and lie there, sweltering in 
 the heat of our then still air, until next morning, when I am awoke by strange 
 noises under the cabin port-hole, and, looking out, find a canoe with four 
 natives in it, all talking at me at once. The canoe is the primitive affair of 
 the hollowed trunk of a tree. It has an outrigging arrangement at each side, 
 of two projecting poles, that supjDort a third one laid transversely at their ends, 
 and dipping into the water. That steadies the frail craft, and renders its 
 
Overland Route. 145 
 
 upset not so easy. Our black-skinned visitors are tall, shapely men, tattooed 
 in the raised ridges of flesh across their chests and arms. They do not come 
 empty-handed, but show commercial instincts in bringing half a dozen pieces 
 of tortoiseshell and some large finely-marked fish-shells that have mother-of- 
 pearl lining. They have learnt sufficient English to say that they want "pipe" 
 and " bacco" in exchange. The desired barter is satisfactorily effected. A 
 large shell brought by the natives, that would hold nearly a bucketful of water, 
 is filled by us with bread and tobacco, to which is added a short pipe and some 
 Javanese cigars. The one pipe was all that we could spare. The cigars were 
 given with that liberality with which we part with what is of no use to us. 
 Their flavour was too strong for our taste. The aboriginal stomach is stronger, 
 and we saw our friends begin to chew them in their raw state as we might have 
 done with sticks of chocolate. These men were of a better appearance than 
 the aboriginals I had seen in the more southern parts of Australia. I did not 
 meet there with many who had such ideas of trade, or of what things would be 
 acceptable to their white visitors. 
 
 The Northern Territory has had occasionally overland travellers. Five or 
 six, in as many years, have been found to get safely through that terrible four 
 months' tramp. How many others that have started on it, and not got 
 through, will never be known — until all things are known. Those who have 
 got to Palmerston from Adelaide in that way have carried a gun in self-defence, 
 and had the essential aid of a faithful dog. They alone know of what real 
 value to man is that best of all friends of his. The dog has watched by night 
 while the man slept. At any footfall of natives heard by the dog, or known to 
 him by instinct, in the far distance, its master has been at once awakened and 
 put on guard against danger. By day the dog has slept while the man has 
 watched. This mutual reliance, this sharing of danger and this companion- 
 ship, has alone enabled man to overcome the difficulties that the desert and 
 the dangers that the natives together threatened. Visitors by that overland 
 route are not likely to do much in the way of increasing emigration, though 
 occasionally a group have come from Adelaide or Queensland by waggon- 
 track. The Northern Territory expects some day to have its overland railway, 
 after the fashion of the great one in America. Such a thing looks now an 
 impossibility, but may look differently in days to come. 
 
 Port Darwin, named after the celebrated author of the theory of man's 
 development from the monkey, is progressing not much more successfully 
 than the doctrines of its namesake. Its one bank thrives on extravagant per- 
 centages and discounts, of which its customers complain. One evidence of the 
 decline of the district was very painful to contemplate : the last of its lawyers 
 came away in our vessel. A sailor made a remark on that circumstance that 
 I did not quite understand. He said that it was a bad sign when the rats 
 left the ship. 
 
 Care has been taken to mark with buoys and red-coloured boats, there 
 anchored, all the dangerous passage from Port Darwin down to the end of the 
 Barrier Reef, near to Port Bowen. It is on this part of the voyage that 
 steamers have to anchor at nightfall until next morning. As full speed cannot 
 be made always during the day, but little more than a hundred miles are ever 
 run in the twenty-four hours. The compensation for this wearing delay is to 
 be found in the calmness of the seas and the picturesque character of the end- 
 less islands dotting the whole length of the passage. The monotonous 
 appearance of a wide expanse of objectless water, so productive of ennui 
 to the voyager, is thus escaped on this route. 
 
 With this chapter is concluded the notes of places of interest visited on the 
 Torres Straits route. They may have served to give some idea of what there 
 is to be seen by taking this route from Australia to Japan, from the ports 
 
146 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 of which latter place steamers run to San Francisco. What is to be seen 
 anywhere depends, however, altogether on the opportunities the traveller may 
 have or may make for himself as he goes along, as also on his observing faculties. 
 There are those, says Sterne, " who go from Dan to Beersheba and find all 
 barren " — which, by the way, they may very well do if that Palestine part of 
 Syria has always been as sterile as I saw it. There are others who, again to 
 quote Sterne, find " that a large volume of adventure may be grasped within 
 a little span by one who interests the heart in everything, and who, having eyes 
 to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out on the journey, misses 
 nothing that can be fairly appropriated." I hope to bear that in mind in the 
 chapters on another route which a traveller between the ends of the earth may 
 profitably take. 
 
 Note. — With this chapter we have come to the end of the Torres Straits Route. After a 
 few notes upon Australian capitals, and the sights of New Zealand, the Overland Route will 
 be entered upon in its aspects of an outward bound voyage from A stralia via Ceylon, India, 
 Egj'pt, Palestine, and Syria. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 Sydjiey. 
 
 Every English-speaking person has heard of Botany Bay, and the remem- 
 brance of its name leaves one vague general association, and that is, with the 
 punishment of the evil-doer. The place was never put to such purpose, but 
 that does not matter. When popular error becomes popular belief, to eradicate 
 it is impossible. We have no doubt that the footman would watch the coats 
 and hats in the hall, and the butler the plate on the table, were any one within 
 the house — a well-ordered EngHsh home — who handed in his visiting-card with 
 this address. In our case. Botany Bay was visited as a reward for doing well 
 — and over-doing it, and getting fatigued with application to business. To 
 i-emedy this we took to the sea and its sickness, and to a voyage southward to 
 Sydney. 
 
 The man who from the masthead of a vessel was first to see the opening in 
 the wall of rocks that lets the sea-sick soul into Port Jackson well deserves 
 having that haven named after him. For haven, one might interpolate a letter 
 and write heaven, and that without subjecting oneself to correction. Sea- 
 tossed, sick, and weary, with ocean rising up before us, dim and dark with 
 ilood and foam, and skies o'ercast with clouds and gloom, we lay on shipboard, 
 wishing the dark night were over and that morning would come. vSickness by 
 ■daylight is more tolerable than by darkness. That was why we wished for the 
 morning. Not that its coming would steady the rolling and pitching vessel, 
 .and enable us to keep a steady stomach, for we had lost the idea of eating and 
 •drinking. To see others do it was nauseating to us, and we despised our fellow 
 man who had an appetite when we had none. Our bones had begun to ache 
 with three days' and two nights' lying upon a hard mattress and rolling against 
 the harder ship-side, or the sharp edge-side of that little shelf upon which they 
 put away a passenger at sea. We never look at those little enclosures of six 
 feet by two without a thought of that other six feet by two, made a little deeper, 
 that will hold what shall be left of us yet, if we die upon dry land. There are 
 .'Stages of sea misery in which death loses its terrors. We talked very often in 
 Melbourne to one of the survivors of the wreck of the " London," on board 
 which ill-fated steamer we could count a score of friends. Our wish was to 
 ^know how the death that came at the end of three days of sea-suffering in the 
 
Sydney Harbour. 147 
 
 Bay of Biscay was looked at by those who had to face it. We found that the 
 king of terrors ceased to be terrible as, hour by hour, day by day, and night by 
 night, cold, wet, hunger, and general wretchedness and misery had done their 
 work upon the miserable sea-sick company. vStarting as they did in wintry 
 weather, but a few days before, they had encountered rough seas that had laid 
 them down with sickness. These seas increased, and with them came o'er- 
 washing waters, dark days, and bitter cold and stormy times. Fires were 
 extinguished, and cooking and fire-comfort were at an end. All were wet and 
 cold, and sick of stomach and of heart. The captain's forewarning of their 
 fate had gone forth, and hope — that sheet-anchor of the mind — was lost to all. 
 They met their doom with gladness and not with fear ; for cold and hardship 
 such work had done that none seemed sorry as death drew near. Those who 
 have been to sea in stormy weather will know the picture that we wish to 
 portray by this digression, and understand that we use it as a dark background 
 to light up the bright morning that shone forth as we entered and anchored 
 within the portals of Port Jackson. We left dark ocean and dark-frowning, 
 rock-bound coast outside, and entered into sunshine and Sydney Harbour. We 
 glided into smooth water also, and could keep on our feet and feel that it was 
 as well to be alive — a thing that we had for two or three days and nights past 
 been quite careless about. Had Sydney Harbour been nothing but a sheet of 
 smooth and land-locked water, it would have been welcome only as such; but 
 being what is — a wonder of beauty — it looked to us as paradise regained. We 
 know nothing of the Miltonian "paradise regained," any more than any one 
 else who has never read it, and that is nearly everybody; but Sydney Harbour, 
 on the occasion we write of, stands, to us, as the realized idea of that unread 
 book. If we remember our Bunyan aright, we enter the land of Beulah before 
 we get to the city Beautiful. Sydney Harbour suggests that idea. Sydney 
 stands amid that harbour as a "fair vestal throned in the south," as a Venus 
 risen from the sea, a sort of golden city washed by silvery waters, fringed in 
 all their little bays and inlets and windings and turnings with an emerald 
 verdure. Little islands dot the waters everywhere. The entrance we have 
 passed through has been hidden from us; a turn of the wheel and we are — in 
 fairy-land. A great deal of all this feeling is no doubt owing to the escape 
 into sunshine and smooth water from outer stormy waves and sickness; but, 
 discounting that much from the total effect produced, what is left will support 
 all our statement, and a little more that we will leave to the poet and the 
 painter. The painter should certainly be Turner, and the poet Tennyson. 
 He that wrote the " Lotus Eaters" and talked of "The land in which it seemed 
 always afternoon," and who penned the scenery of the " Palace of Art," might 
 do justice here to what is real, and not of the imagination. We appealed 
 quietly to the captain of our steamer, "Anything to beat this in the way of 
 harbours that you have come across?" " Oh, nothing that I have seen. I am 
 told that Rio comes up to it, and that the inland sea of Japan excels it, but I 
 have seen neither," he replied. 
 
 We think, as we look about us, that nothing but a forcible exportation would 
 make any one wish to leave the place. That is all that we can conjecture as a 
 reason why folks have gone to cold and leaden-clouded England when they 
 could have stayed here. We wish, for a moment, that we had committed 
 some early misdemeanour, or been found out in those that we perhaps have 
 committed, and been sent out here a quarter of a century ago. We suppose 
 we should have acted as others did, and gone back again. The Gordon rioters 
 opened Newgate, and let loose the prisoners, but the majority of them volun- 
 tarily returned. It is human nature to be obstinate and pig-headed, and not to 
 know when we are well off. But we are beginning to feel hungry, and will 
 get on shore, which we do by stepping from the boat-side on to dry land by 
 
 L 2 
 
148 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the help of a short plank. It is deep water to the land's edge all around and 
 about Sydney Harbour ; no sandy or shingled shelving shore, or mass of mud- 
 bank at low water. A merchant can almost with his walking-stick touch the 
 mast of his ship from his drawing-room window. 
 
 All sides and angles of Sydney, but one, run to the water's edge. The city 
 is built upon a many-bayed peninsula, that makes a site for a city that cannot 
 be improved upon. Nature has given a groundwork there on which no labour 
 and toil needed to be spent, and which no amount of it can better. A yellow 
 building-stone, that looks golden in the sunshine, is to hand everywhere, and 
 of this all houses are now being built, or re-built, as also are all public build- 
 ings. Our idea of the golden city will be realised in a few years to every eye 
 that shall then see it. The natural slope of the land to the bay supplies the 
 best of drainage, and the moist exhalations of the surrounding waters keep the 
 greenness of a well kept and watered garden everywhere around and about. 
 We try hard to find faults, and look for things that Nature might have bettered, 
 but find the search a vain one. All that has been mismanaged about Sydney 
 has been done by the works of man. The coming years, and the men to be 
 in them, will correct all that, and the mental vision looking into the future sees 
 but a queenly city on Sydney site. In its nearly a century of existence, Sydney 
 city has grown gradually, month by month, to what it now is. Each one of 
 the citizens did in the building-Hne that which was right in his own eyes. 
 Building acts and the duties of a city surveyor were unknown to the early 
 Sydneyites. Scarcely two houses are built after one design or of the same 
 materials. That would not be so much to speak of if they had been kept to 
 one frontage-line. It is not altogether pleasant walking on a footway six-feet 
 wide in some places and only two in others, or to have to cross a flight of 
 steps to regain the continuation of the pathway on the other side of them. All 
 these objections are of those that touch upon "vested interests," and wait upon 
 time and Acts of Parliament to be set aright. Many of the shops that abut 
 upon the chief streets are built upon what a while ago was a front garden to a 
 private residence, and the whole streets have grown into what they are as from 
 time to time traffic led to the turning of the domestic dwelling into a shop or 
 store. Scarcely a building in Sydney seems to have been built originally for 
 what it now serves. The pavement is similarly varied in character — bits of 
 good pathway here and there, flagstones for a few yards, then cobble stones, 
 then wood planking, and then plain mud and gravel. There is this good about 
 it all, that we see that the place is not over-built. No rows of buildings 
 appear to have been put up by speculative builders. Bad as many of the 
 buildings appear to be in condition and exterior appearance, we can well 
 believe that they have all, long ago, well paid the builder, and that what cost 
 tens is now worth hundreds, and that costing hundreds is now saleable for 
 thousands. Sydney city appears to have been never properly laid out by a 
 surveyor. The land was sold in large blocks, and the purchasers seem to have 
 sold pieces, of any shape or size, to sub-purchasers, and to have left much to 
 chance as to the boundaries and measurements. The large centre of commerce 
 that Sydney has now grown to be was not foreseen in that dim past when the 
 lovely spot was used but as a convict depot. 
 
 No more characteristic street exists than George-street, Sydney, and its 
 continuation, making the main artery of the city. In shape it is very like 
 to a dog's hind leg cut off close to the body and laid down sideways. It has 
 the sanie turn of form, and widens out towards one end in much the same way. 
 Yet it is a noble street, and a busy one, and a crowded one, and a market one, 
 and a very wealthy one. It is two miles and a-half long ; seventy feet broad 
 in some places, and a hundred and seventy and two hundred and seventy and 
 twice that again in others. It is thickly packed with shops the Avhole of the 
 
A Great Street. 149 
 
 way, and that on both sides — five good miles of sliops ! These shops are 
 mostly like to shops in a market — with much of their goods outside the doors, 
 and nearly all under verandahs that cover the footpath. The footpaths always 
 seem to be crowded, and the roadway is as busy as Cheapside in London city 
 itself. Only omnibuses and hansom cabs are used as public vehicles, and of 
 these there appear to be an endless quantity. The strange names painted on 
 the side panels are all that tell the wayfarer that he is not in London, — "Wool- 
 hara," '•Woolloomooloo,"and "Coogee," and a score of other inscriptions, bring 
 back the wandering mind of the Londoner to his whereabouts. The market- 
 place is in George-street, the Post Office is there, and there, also, or in the wider 
 continuation of it, are the Town Hall and the Railway Station, as also most of 
 the bank buildings. It is an o'ercrowded street — a congested thoroughfare, that 
 will one day suffer from the effects of plethora, and find its life-blood diverted 
 to another channel. The value of land in some parts of this wonderful street 
 must be equal to that of land in any of the busiest streets in London, Paris, or 
 New York. Those who object to the narrowness of some parts of George 
 Street forget that Sydney is a city in a sunny southern clime, and that in similar 
 climates in Europe it is not the thing to have wide streets. The narrow streets 
 and the tall houses give shade to the shop windows and their goods, and to the 
 street passengers too, and keep house-fronts, goods, and faces cooler than wider 
 streets would do. George-street, Sydney, is not likely to be forgotten by any 
 who have ever seen it. We have to go up George-street to get out, seven 
 miles or so, to Botany Bay, and we have only chatted, as we have done on our 
 way up the street, as we talked of the harbour when coming up it. A nice 
 green-sided country road leads to Botany Bay, and prepares us well for the 
 green-grassed and prettily-wooded shore of the bay on which we now come. 
 Nothing has been done to this bay since its discoverers landed on its shores a 
 ceutury or so ago, and made their way overland to where Sydney now stands, 
 and saw the port and harbour, and then came back to shallow Botany Bay — to 
 bid it adieu. The wild flowers that Sir Joseph Banks so admired, and the 
 verdure that greeted and pleased his eyes after a long sea voyage, are there now, 
 and so are an hotel named after him, and stone busts of himself and Captain 
 Cook over the gateway to the hotel garderu Botany Bay is a pleasure-suburb, 
 and was never used for any other purpose — a tea-garden, picnicking, honey- 
 moon-spending sort of place, with a house kept in good style, where a few 
 friends may dine together and spend an afternoon and evening, or to which 
 one might, in early years, drive one's sweetheart, and, by-and-by, one's wife 
 and family. On holidays, "high jinks" are held in the hotel grounds, and 
 balloons go up, and the amusements of a fair are instituted, and the Sydneyites 
 make it a day's " outing" to go to Botany Bay and back. "And this quiet, 
 innocent, rural spot, with its Sir Joseph Banks Hotel, is Botany Bay," we said 
 to ourselves; " this milch cow is the roaring lion with the bad name that is 
 given to it in England; this is the quiet sheep that wears the wolfs clothing to 
 EngHsh ears." How things are misrepresented sometimes in this world ! No 
 convict settlement was made here or within many miles of it. Tom Hood tells 
 of a deaf woman so greatly relieved by a patent ear trumpet that " the very 
 next day she heard from her husband in Botany Bay." We know that that is 
 where the laugh comes in, and we know why, and we know now how Hood 
 was misled, and how he misled us, and how maligned that poor woman's 
 husband was, and is, by those verses — in their popular sense. 
 
 "Always where least expected," we exclaimed, as we got into a chat 
 with the then keeper of the Botany hotel, and found him to have passed his 
 youth alongside of us in the same little street of large London. Gradually 
 remembrances of the past grew upon each of us. Names of folks long for- 
 gotten creamed up again to the surface, and for half an hour or more we lived 
 
150 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 our boyhood o'er again, and felt about forty years or so younger. We seemed 
 to have now a part and lot in Botany Bay, and shall consider it henceforth as 
 of our neighbourhood. We shall, after that, expect to find a schoolfellow 
 waiting for us on the landing-place at Yokohama or Shanghai, and an old 
 sweetheart keeping a boarding-house at Medina or Mecca, or some other least 
 likely place. 
 
 On the way back from Botany we passed through the Donaain and Botanical 
 Gardens of Sydney, situated quite within the city. The place is easy of 
 access, but very difficult to leave, and impossible ever to forget. Nothiiig 
 in the way of "parks and ordered gardens stately" — nothing of the 
 beauty of botanical treasures from all climes in this the finest clime, and in 
 this the fairest garden, greenly sloping, shaded to the sea — can excel these 
 gardens of Sydney city. That tropical birds of grandest plumage are added to 
 the scene is merely saying that nothing is omitted that could adorn the 
 exquisite retreat from the surrounding circuit of busy care, restless crime and 
 strife, and squabble for riches and honours. " What are they all in their high 
 conceit, when a man in the garden his God may meet ?" 
 
 As we go on board the steamer that is to bring us away from Sydney's 
 shores and sights, we notice the large number of steamers and vessels of all 
 kinds that fill the port. A fine sight for the lovers of commerce is that. The 
 mail steamers of the overland route from Southampton, and the mail steamers 
 of the American San Francisco overland route are lying here — offering the 
 choice of two enticing ways of leaving this fine scene. Steamers for other 
 places, intercolonial ones, are everywhere, and here also are lying men-of-war 
 steamers from England, France, and Russia. In this magnificent harbour, 
 every country seems to be represented by its ship, and it seems right that it 
 should be so. That is not all. Business is well represented, as we have 
 said, and so are the great navies of the world, but here also is wealth and its 
 pleasures represented. The fine yachts of two English noblemen have found 
 their way hither also, for the days are now come when men paddle their own 
 canoes to the ends of the earth. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 The Blue Mottntains. 
 
 The scene is in long, busy, winding, and shop-thronged George-street, 
 
 Sydney. The time, the eve of Christmas. The dramatis persojice are four 
 
 visitors from Melbourne, casually met. Their dialogue follows : — 
 " What are you going to do with yourself to-morrow. White ?" 
 " I have thought of nothing as yet. Black ; how with yourself?" 
 "Well, I was thinking of calling upon Brown, here, at the Royal, to ask 
 
 him to come with me up the Zigzag Railway, over the Blue Mountains and 
 
 back, to fill up the day." 
 
 "I'd thought of going there when leaving Melbourne, but it had gone from 
 
 my mind. Now I think of it, I shall go also." 
 
 " We'll see Brown, then, and ask him. Oh, here he is ! What do you say. 
 
 Brown, to going with us up the Zigzag Railway to-morrow, and over the 
 
 mountains to Bowenfells and back ?" 
 
 " Can that be done in a day ?" said Brown. 
 
On the Zigzag. 151 
 
 " Oh, yes ; look at Bradshaw — there is one in the office, I daresay." 
 
 And to Bradshaw we referred, and that was confirmatory of our idea, which 
 was that we could start from Sydney at nine in the morning, get to Bowenfells, 
 and see the wounderful descending terraces of zigzags there ; get something to 
 eat there, and drink toasts in honour of Christmas Day and all friends far 
 away, and then return at night by the train — set down in Bradshaw as starting 
 at twelve — and sleep all the way back to Sydney. The excursion was desirable 
 on several grounds. The Zigzag Railway, beginning its ascent of the Blue 
 Mountains at Lapstone Hill, was an engineering wonder. Nothing can be 
 shown to equal it in Europe, nor on the huge railway across the American 
 continent, though two ranges of mountains have to be passed in its course. 
 That was one reason ; another was, that the air of the Blue Mountains was a 
 good change from that of Sydney, and the scenery, the finest that the eye 
 could delight in ; and, further still, there was the greater reason of the journey 
 affording something to do on a day when it is most miserable to be shut up in 
 a city where one knew nobody, and to think that every one was enjoying the 
 Christmas festival of friendship save and except one's own isolated self. 
 
 Fine and fair broke the morning, and punctually we all met at the railway- 
 station. To save any after remorse, extra care was taken by us to enquire as to 
 the return train from Bowenfells at twelve that night. Bradshaw might be 
 wrong. He had not erred, we were told, and no further care remained. A 
 very pleasant feeling that ! 
 
 The carriages were large and the seats broad, well adapted for sleeping, we 
 said, on our night journey back. The windows, too, were of the right height 
 and size for our having a long look around at all which was to come in our 
 way. It came very soon, too, for we were quickly whisked up to the 
 foot of the ascent, and our train began to go up stairs. We will pause for a 
 moment — though our train did not — ^just to breathe. The Blue Mountains of 
 New South Wales stretch away from within a short distance of Sydney to the 
 neighbourhood of Bathurst, a good day's journey right through. The trouble 
 to reach the far-away summit, up the steep side, is only the beginning of 
 trouble. When the top of one mountain is gained, the tops of all the others 
 have to be crossed ; for it is a huge jumble of mountains that has to be 
 traversed, with dark wooded and rocky valleys everywhere between and 
 around. Through the whole long length of that line there is scarcely a straight 
 hundred yards of road. It is zigzag up the side, zigzag on the top, and zigzag 
 to the bottom, when the ride is over. When it is over, it is not a ride that 
 will be forgotton. 
 
 We remember ascending a staircase in a square tower in a Belgian town, up 
 which we went some twenty-five steps forward to a landing, and then faced 
 about to go twenty-five more steps to another landing, and then right about 
 again, and so on to the top. That is the way that the Zigzag is ascended on 
 Lapstone Hill, with this little difference, that in ascending the tower staircase, 
 we faced about at each turn, which the train does not. The engine pulls up 
 for half a mile or so, and then pushes for another half mile, and then 
 another pull, and a repeated push, and so lugged and pushed, the level earth 
 is left quickly far away beneath us. All heads are out of the windows now, 
 looking over at the staircase-like road down away below us, and up which we 
 were dragging a few minutes past. The feeling is decidedly new and sen- 
 sational. The landscape, too, lights up, as it were, differently as each further 
 ascent is made, and larger views around obtained. The head gets giddy at 
 some stages of the journey, where but a little projection of earth or stone seems 
 to be between the roadside and all that lies so very far away down there. We 
 think that if our iron horse were but to bolt, or to become restive and upset 
 the coach, how little talk about it we should be likely to have after the 
 
152 
 
 The Maifi Routes Round the World. 
 
 accident. It is seen, however, that the engine is of the strongest and largest, 
 the gauge of the line of the broadest, and, though but a single line of rails, we 
 see plainly that the traffic on this wonderful line is not such as to lead to any 
 fear of other trains running into us before or behind. The idea that there is 
 but one train a day — and that probably the same engine takes it back again — 
 allays all nervousness on that score. The Blue Mountains line was not con- 
 structed, we believe, with any idea of its being a paying concern. The country 
 it " opens up" must be a long way ahead, for the mountain tops we have now 
 reached, and the dark valleys all around us can be only dwelling-places for 
 opossums, wild cats, and eagle-hawks, now and for ever. The tops of the 
 mountains afford payment in scenery for all the trouble in getting thither. 
 Our train now and henceforward takes to a serpentine movement, and that un- 
 ceasingly. On looking out of the window— and all heads are outside — we see 
 either the engine or the last carriage of the train about broadside on to us, 
 always one or the other. In and out, and winding about everywhere, did the 
 makers of this difficult road go to find their way. How they ever found it 
 and made any road whatever "is all the astonishment. Cuttings through here 
 and there in short tunnels — cuttings down on this side and on that, and now 
 and again on both sides — filling up of great gaps, and making winding viaducts 
 over others — was of the work to be done everywhere. We never tire of looking 
 out of the windows. The trouble is that we cannot look out on both sides at once. 
 
 The scenery varies at every turn, and the turn is every minute, and the 
 views are of the finest on both sides — wild ravines of torn and upheaved 
 rock, with no speck of vegetation or trace of life of any kind — darkly-wooded 
 valleys of all depths and variety of characteristics, on which the sun and the 
 driving fleecy clouds make picturesque effects of light and shade — are to be 
 seen from one side or another in endless profusion. Little stations are reached 
 every now and then and stopped at, apparently for form's sake. The idea of 
 taking up passengers from the population hereabouts never enters the mind. 
 We have got beyond passengers and taxes. A man might dwell here and 
 never get into the census. In times gone by a monastery would have been 
 perched upon one of the lonely peaks, or on the side of one of these inaccesible 
 valleys, after some holy hermit had chosen such place for his peculiar life, and 
 got sainted for so doing. It may happen so yet, for that which has been will 
 be. An oasis comes at last, when One Tree Hill, or Mount Victoria, is 
 reached. A most delightful spot is this, as it naturally would be, considering 
 all the difficulty in getting to it. From here the Weatherboard Falls can be 
 seen, which Von Guerard has so well painted. Here, also, is a huge valley, 
 which has been bridged with evidently great labour and expense. On the one 
 side of this bridge the view is into the wildest of rocky and craggy depths, 
 and on the other into a long, cultivated valley of green fields and farms. It is 
 as if this bridge parted the goats and their rocky residence upon the left hand 
 from the sheep and their green pastures upon the right. There are two good 
 hotels at One Tree, and a road that leads on to Hartley, distant some few 
 miles, and connected with kerosene-produce, and coal, A week could be very 
 well spent about here by those wishing for that time's breath of mountain air. 
 
 We got on by the rail after this towards Bowenfells, through similar 
 scenery of mount and valley to that which we had seen all the morning. 
 Towards three o'clock we came to the descending zigzag— the downstairs-going 
 business — and to our journey's end. This descending zigzag far exceeds," in 
 every novelty, the ascending one. It is a stupendously grand affair. Slopes 
 and turnings, turnings and tunnels, viaducts and sweeping descents, each down 
 many hundreds of feet, that go as near to danger as practicable, and no 
 further. All heads are looking out and downwards during these descents, 
 and when it is over and done, all heads are turned upwards, and so remain for 
 
Diplomacy and Dinner. 153 
 
 some time with the fixed stare of astonishment. This point was as far as the 
 rail then reached. At the Bowenfells station we said to the porter, — 
 
 " The train starts at twelve punctually, does it not !" We don't know why 
 we should have said so, for we had made quite sure about that at the beginning 
 of the journey. 
 
 " No," he said; "no train to-night, and none back to Sydney until twelve 
 to-morrow night !" 
 
 Open-mouthed dismay was all the answer we could show. Porter did not 
 know nor care what had been said at the other end ; he was right. We were 
 in for it at Bowenfells for the rest of that day — that night — the next day and 
 the next night — until that long twelve o'clock came. Company we could have 
 in plenty, if we fancied any of the angry-looking faces around us. We 
 whispered the porter, " How far off to the village — to Bowenfells ?" " Three 
 miles," was the answer. " How do you get there?" we said. " That 'bus will 
 start presently," he said, pointing to a little affair that would hold about ten of 
 the thirty or more that were waiting its departure. " A good hotel at Bowen- 
 fells?" we queried of our porter. " One house," he said, " and not of much 
 account." Words were now raised between the 'busman and the passengers 
 who "rushed" his vehicle. They must come off. He would only take so-and- 
 so, for whom he had expressly come. They, however, would not get down, 
 asserting the nine points of possession ; and so out came the horses from the 
 traces to settle the question on the 'busman's part. Our necessities sharpened 
 us. W^e said, " If that lot get to the hotel before us, they will make a famine 
 for those that follow." It was really a case of the devil taking the hindmost. 
 Strolling carelessly away, as if waiting for a vehicle, as the others were, we 
 got ahead and then put on a good pace, which we increased as we warmed to 
 the work. Fortune favoured us for trusting to her as we did. We reached 
 the hotel, and quietly spoke of dinner. We could have it. It was just ready 
 — turkey, beef, plum pudding, and mince pies. We could have that room at 
 the end, looking out into the pretty garden, too. All right. We took that 
 room at once, and, as we were strangers, we thought it best to prepay for our 
 dinners — to landlord's surprise. After that. Brown got the table-cloth and 
 spread it. White fetched in the turkey and the beef, and Black got hold of 
 the pudding, some beer, and two bottles of wine — saving the astonished hand- 
 maiden nearly all trouble — and then the blinds were pulled down and the door 
 locked. It was only done just in time. We heard the tramp of horses and 
 of feet, and the sound of voices, and knew that the Philistines were upon us, 
 or rather, good luck ! upon the landlord. We had bagged the dinner. A 
 photograph is very commonly known, in which a cat is shown complacently 
 grinning out that "it has eaten the canary." Our faces must have had a 
 similar expression to that cat's. We should have been dealt with as we had 
 dealt had we come late. We agreed that what we had got was due to our 
 very superfine intelligence— to which we mutually drank in the good wine that 
 we had nabbed. All due honour was done to Christmas, and all friends 
 properly remembered — including the thirty just outside. When all was over, 
 and the dinner finished that we had so grabbed, we went out — through the 
 window — into the garden, not wishing to arouse any feelings that the turning of 
 keys might agitate. We came gradually round at last upon the landlord, and 
 in the most commonplace manner introduced the subject of beds. He was 
 not in a good temper. Neither was his wife nor the servant-girl — the latter 
 being particularly waspish, as if she now understood why so much help had 
 been shown her in dressing our table and getting in the dinner. She really 
 looked as if she had been taken advantage of in some way. 
 
 A stroll about pretty little quiet Bowenfells — a happy valley of Rasselas 
 embosomed in the mountains — opened our eyes to the fact that we had to stay 
 
154 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 there for some time yet, unless our wits devised a way thereout. In the yard 
 of a baker and storekeeper we saw a dog-cart and came to council at once. 
 Thirty miles further on across the mountains, by a good coach road, lay 
 Bathurst— second of the cities of New South Wales, If we could get that 
 dog-cart we could start when the moon rose — about eight — take a moonlight 
 drive to Bathurst, stop there a day and get back to the station in time for 
 next night's train. The same thought would of course occur to others, so now 
 to seize the opportunity. The door of the store was open, and in the parlour 
 was seated an idiotic, gibbering youth, who only bawled at us in reply to our 
 questions. His father was asleep in a back room, and on our rousing him and 
 quietly putting the business before him, he agreed to let us have the cart and 
 a horse for so much. We at once counted it out to him and took a receipt — feel- 
 ing then as if we had eaten another canary ! At all events we were independent 
 of beds and landlords in Bowenfells, and had something now to well occupy 
 our time, and make memorable our hitherto remarkal:)le Christmas Day. 
 
 In the calm summer's evening, with a big bright silver moon o'erhead, we 
 three thankful children of tact went away over the Blue Mountains, with a 
 good horse before us and that feeling of happiness that comes from reflection 
 on well-spent time — an especially happy feeling after a good dinner. The 
 silver clouds were sleeping about everywhere in the hollows of the mountains — a 
 very curious effect, seen in the bright moonlight, against the backgrounds of dark 
 verdure everywhere around. The fresh rarefied air, at the height we then were, 
 had a champagney effect upon the spirits ; and had any one, short of a bush- 
 ranger, wanted to get money from us, it might have been had for the civil asking. 
 We were glad that we could not have gone back to Sydney. There would 
 have been nothing in the way of business to do on the next day — Boxing Day 
 — and here we were trying to realize Disraeli's aphorism that " adventures are 
 to the adventurous." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
 
 Adelaide. 
 
 In 1852 I first saw Adelaide, two days before arriving at Melbourne. Some 
 quarter of a century after, I saw it for the second time, two days after leaving 
 Melbourne. The intervening time had been passed in that mill-horse round of 
 business that habit alone relieves from irksomeness. " The labour we delight 
 in physics pain," says Shakspeare, and much of the delight we have in labour 
 is from habit — that second nature that accustoms us, thank Providence, to all 
 things. When I saw Adelaide in 1852, it was at the end of a long sea voyage 
 from England. We had to approach it bypassing Kangaroo Island, and going 
 up the river, the Yatala, something like to the Yarra at Saltwater River, and 
 dropping anchor at an outlet called the North Arm, about two miles or so from 
 the port. Thither some of us went, at the cost of los., on the deck of an empty 
 water-tank, and of our little number three were fated there to meet with a watery 
 grave. Something attracted attention to one side, and the rush thither caused 
 our unballasted craft to turn over, leaving us all struggling in the water. In 
 sight of the shores that they had travelled 16,000 miles to see, three of us 
 
Adelaide in 18^2. 155 
 
 struggled in vain. A Cornish clerg}a-nan and his daughter, and a young and 
 promising actor, were the victims — a sad slip between the cup and the lip, and 
 a sorrowfiil introduction of the wet survivors to their long-sought land. That 
 land looked all the worse for it, and felt as badly as it looked. The day was 
 broiling hot, and the dust, heat, and flies had all the special annoyance of 
 novelty in their several ways of misery. We intended to have got up some 
 feeling appropriate to the occasion of landing in Eldorado, but our bodies and 
 our spirits had been too damped to permit of any enthusiastic warmth showing 
 itself. The landscape looked barren and yellow, hot and- thirsty. The first 
 hot wind we had felt kissed us with the breath of an oven, and dirtied and 
 blackened us with dust and grit. We had dressed in our nicest to come on 
 shore, too, which intensified the grief felt at seeing what wretched scarecrows 
 we all then looked. 
 
 Port Adelaide was then a very primitive place, containing a few build- 
 ings, mostly of wood. It was eight miles from Adelaide proper, the way 
 to which was along a half-made road, with cottages here and there, deserted 
 mostly by dwellers who had gone to the diggings. There was no conveyance 
 to be had. Half our number were for paying another half-sovereign to return 
 to the ship, which now seemed to us a haven of refuge indeed. Stouter hearts 
 were owned by the others, who, having landed to see Adelaide, would see it. 
 A long drink, of some stuff or other, was obtained at a long price — I remember 
 its deliciousness to our dusty tongues and thirsty throats — and we then set out 
 on our walk to Adelaide, crossing the Torrens River, unknowingly, by the 
 way. It was, of course, dried up, as it often is. Our clothes had dried upon 
 us, but got soaked again in perspiration on that walk. All that "half-way 
 houses" could supply us with did not seem to quench the thirst of that day and 
 that walk. We looked at the deserted cottages, and envied the absentees. 
 Wherever they were, they could not, we thought, but be better off. 
 
 Adelaide I had heard spoken of in London as a desirable place for emigrants, 
 and it had, indeed, obtained a hold as such upon the female imagination. It 
 was looked upon as something between Paris and Paradise. We thought of 
 all that as we neared the township, and looked at the reality of that ideal. We 
 grimly smiled, spite of our many miseries, at the idea of any one in womanly 
 shape wanting to come to such a place. Remember that this was in 1852. 
 Adelaide, as a town, looked then, to the eyes of a Londoner, about as wretched 
 as could be imagined. Two streets, partly built upon, and half a dozen ones 
 diverging therefrom and but just commenced, constituted all of it. Wooden 
 erections, " wattle and dab " huts, of about 8ft. or so high, were the prevailing 
 buildings. A brick house would be visible here and there, a brick tavern or 
 two, and a roughly-built stone church, and a primitive post-office. Roads and 
 side-walks and gutters were all rudimentary. Creeks and chasms ran down 
 the sides of the streets, serving drainage purposes. The few oil lamps lighted 
 at night were of no service to the pedestrian, save to guide his stumbling feet 
 to the taverns that might show them. Adelaide was then about seven 
 years old. As seen by us then, and under the circumstances mentioned, we 
 did not fall in love with it. I left the Lord Admiral, in Hindley-street, then 
 the leading hotel, without any regrets. I had not taken my ease in my inn — 
 the mosquitoes prevented that ; my first night in Australia had been a sleepless 
 one, spite of the miseries and fatigue of the day. For twenty-four years I 
 never went back to Adelaide, so prone are we to think that things remain as 
 we leave them. 
 
 They have changed altogether, however, as far as Adelaide is concerned, 
 in that time. The scrubby little village is now a pretty city. The Lord 
 Admiral is not now the first hotel. In fact, it is very far, indeed, from being 
 the first hotel, and its owner, no doubt, will readily admit as much. When 
 
156 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Rip Van Winkle came down from the mountains, he saw similar changes to 
 what astonished my eyes. Is it possible that this is the miserable little hole 
 that I left in 1852 — yesterday, as it seemed to my vivid memory? Dear me ! 
 what a long sleep I must have had, and how things have been improving 
 whilst I have been sleeping and working ! Let me take a look around. 
 
 No more of the port and the long dusty road of eight miles thence to the 
 city. Nous avons cliaiige tout cela. The landing is now at Glenelg, a place 
 like as Brighton is to Melbourne, and of about the same distance. A jetty, 
 somewhat longer than the Brighton one, and wood-built, there receives 
 passengers from the little steam launches that bring them from the anchorage 
 in the roadstead. Glenelg has no harbour or breakwater. The landing is like 
 what it is on the West Coast of New Zealand, and, in rough weather, is, 
 perhaps, attended with sea difficulties. The steam launch imposes a shilling 
 tax, that may some day be reheved by a longer jetty and a breakwater ; such 
 are of the things that are to be in another twenty-four years. Glenelg has a 
 nice hotel, some well-built waterside residences, some dozen or so of stores, a 
 post and telegraph office, and a line of rails down the centre of the street, or 
 chief street of the place. We take our tickets at the office, a wooden shed, 
 superintended by a lady, and wait for the train to Adelaide. All very nice, 
 indeed, and a great improvement on my landing, in the fashion described, 
 twenty-four years ago. The post and telegraph department are, like to the 
 railway shed, superintendecl by a lady. Femininely named, Adelaide 
 patronizes feminine labour, we perceive, and we don't object to it. The 
 sending of two or three telegrams, and the posting of as many letters, takes 
 up the time while waiting for the train, which now comes up the centre of the 
 street. It seems a modification of the tramway system, this running a train 
 down the centre of a street, for we soon perceive that the terminus at Adelaide 
 is in the centre, or nearly so, of its principal thoroughfare — broad, well-built, 
 and handsome King William-street. It is a primitive sort of railway, with 
 roughly built and large-carrying-capacity carriages, but answering its purposes 
 admirably. 
 
 The country looks nice and undulating to our right, and the range of hills in 
 front of us smile in the sunshine. Adelaide lies at their feet, and we now 
 draw up in its chief street, separated only by a planted enclosure, called 
 Victoria-square, from the busy part of the city. King William-street is about 
 as long as Collins-street, with a sky-line at both ends — a great improvement 
 upon Melbourne's plan of building up the ends of her chief street with a 
 Treasury and a railway station. The towered Post Office stands on one side, 
 and the towered Town Hall on the other side of this fine street, and have a 
 highly pleasing effect as seen from the railway carriages, or from any other 
 part of the city or its outskirts. The Post Office is admirably built ; the public 
 are admitted to a covered hall, around which are all the postal and telegraphic 
 offices. In Melbourne they are kept on the outside of the building, and the 
 effect altogether is in favour of the accommodation afforded by the Adelaide 
 office. It is a finished affair, which is more than can be said for the 
 Melbourne Post Office. Finished, indeed, are all the public buildings of 
 Adelaide that meet my view, and seemingly more adapted in size to the city 
 than are those of Melbourne to its size. The Supreme Court buildings are 
 just what they should be, and are there and finished, and not in the far future, 
 and likely to be unfinished then, as some nearer home. Nothing so disgrace- 
 ful to a city as the unfinished Parliament Houses of Melbourne meets the eye 
 in Adelaide. What is done appears to be well done, and to l)e finished and 
 done with. 
 
 Our old friend, the dusty road from the port to the city, across the River 
 Torrens, is now supplanted by a railway over its course. Merchandise and 
 
Adelaide Revisited. 
 
 ^57 
 
 intercolonial steamer and sailing traffic are taken to and fro by this line, and 
 not by that of Glenelg. The port stands in the relation of the Queen's Wharf 
 at Melbourne. The city is well supplied with water, and passably well paved, 
 and, as to the roads, satisfactorily metalled. The absence of the blue-stone, 
 that gives such a ding}' appearance to parts of Melbourne, is supplied by a 
 brownish-coloured freestone, or sandstone, which appears to take the place of 
 both blue-stone and brick, and has a better general effect than either of them, 
 or of both combined. The banks and their buildings crop up everywhere in 
 the leading street, as Ihey do in Collins-street, Melbourne, with the same well- 
 known names on them. The Bank of Adelaide, a most successful local enter- 
 prise, is about to build for itself the regulation banking palace that successful 
 banks affect. The Exchange is well situated and attended — an improve- 
 ment on the Melbourne institution in that line. The names of well-known 
 those appear here and there on branch establishments, equal in appearance to 
 merchants owned by them in Melbourne. 
 
 The hospital is nicely situated next to the gardens, and is altogether a well- 
 built and well-cared-for place, differing pleasantly from that affair in Macquarie 
 street, Sydney, which is still tolerated as the leading hospital of New South 
 ^Yales. Adelaide does not rejoice in the suburbs that go to make up the 
 greatness of Melbourne, and has no such reserves and park as Carlton and 
 Fitzroy Gardens and Albert Park. North Adelaide is, however, a sort of 
 East Melbourne and South Yarra to the city, and is well studded with the 
 villas and goodly houses of very kind and hospitable folks. No special folk 
 beyond the English appear to have chosen Adelaide. Ireland did not seem 
 to be better represented than Israel, and the latter is well represented wherever 
 there is business to be done and money to be made. Adelaide offers both op- 
 portunities, in its slow and sure sort of way. 
 
 Very distinctive in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney are the street convey- 
 ances. In Sydney, the hansom cab is the most conspicuous ; in Melbourne, 
 the one-horsed Albert car is the peculiarity ; and in Adelaide, a four-wheeled, 
 heavy-looking waggonette, drawn by two horses, is the most seen among the 
 means of conveyance. Next to the lumbering, brougham-like vehicle with two 
 horses, seen in Hobart Town, it appears to the least advantage. A few omni- 
 buses, drawn by four horses, are also \-isible, and are presumably only used for 
 long stages. In the matter of road traffic and its means, other than tram- 
 ways, Melbourne appears to most advantage of all the Australian cities. 
 
 As handy .to the city centre as they are in Sydney are the Botanical Gardens 
 of Adelaide, and better kept than are those of Melbourne. The zoological 
 element is also, as at Sydney, combined with them. All that a city needs 
 seems to be well supplied to Adelaide, except in the matter of theatres and 
 amusements. In such there is a woeful deficiency, and Melbourne stands im- 
 measurably superior. Nothing like a theatre can anywhere be seen. The 
 inquirer for it is directed to a tavern in Hindley-street, of plain two-storey 
 appearance, at the rear of which he is told there is a theatre, opened now and 
 then in the course of the year. The word "stalls " is seen over a side-door, 
 that confirms the truth of the apparently incredible statement that this paltry 
 apology is the only theatre of this fine city. A concert-room, like our 
 Hockin's Rooms, called White's, stands in King AVilham-street, and is also 
 occasionally opened. The A-isitor thinks of Melbourne's grand theatre and 
 Opera House, open all the year round, with its St. George's and other halls, 
 and thinks, too, that Adelaide must be somewTiat sleepy, to say nothing more 
 of the matter. 
 
 The streets might be better lighted, too, after dark. They are well provided 
 with police, and these officials look after their business sufficiently well to 
 prevent the visitors' eyes being shocked by night-sights that are to be seen in 
 
158 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Melbourne streets. Beauty, in silks, satins, and jewellery, is not to be seen 
 and heard in those drinking, fighting, and abusive states that are too common 
 to Melbourne eyes. Adelaide, as becomes its queenly, feminine name, is 
 highly proper and well-behaved. Churches and chapels abound. Not a 
 dancing-room is to be seen, nor did I see there the crowds of ragged children 
 that run about Melbourne streets, apparently as unowned as the dogs in 
 Constantinople. The dirty, demoralizing Chinese element, too, is pleasingly 
 absent. A well-to-do, thriving, sound, healthy, industrious, but rather 
 quakerish city is the Adelaide now seen — a place that I should feel safe in owning 
 property in, and which only owns to one want — that of labour, and seems able 
 to employ profitably all that it may obtain. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 ^ NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 West Coasting and Landing. 
 
 New Zealand, it is usual to say, as everybody knows, is long from south to 
 north, and short from west to east. There is much more, ever so much more, 
 of the short than of the long about it. In shape it is something like to a long 
 stocking — one that garters above the knee. Cutting oft the foot at the instep, 
 the toe part will well represent the third or southernmost island, called 
 Stewart's — the cognomen of some whaler who has managed to stick his name to 
 it. The whole of the three islands might with better grace be called "Cook's," 
 after the famous captain who, in the last century, five times visited them, sur- 
 veyed them, and introduced to their shores pigs and potatoes — blessings that 
 have thereabout increased, multiplied, and replenished the earth. A cut made 
 at another part of the stocking — through the upper part of the calf — will 
 represent Cook's Straits, that divides the middle from the north island. A 
 very tight garter above the knee will stand for that isthmus part of the north 
 island which joins the harbour of Manakau on the west coast to that of Auckland 
 on the east. The whole length of the three islands is about 1 100 miles, a 
 week's pleasant journey in the coasting- steamers. Our business just now 
 will be with the west coast only. New Zealand of the future will be paradise 
 for yachtsmen. Lying as in does, surrounded on all sides by the Pacific 
 Ocean, and indented here and there with the loveliest of bays, channels, and 
 sounds, it is the place, of all others, for those who love to navigate their own 
 canoe. On the southern end of the western coast there are about nine inlets 
 of great prettiness. You sail into lovely little bays, and sail out again — unable 
 for land anywhere. High mountain walls oppose any aggression, and discharge 
 at your head here and there, through their dense verdure-covered fronts, rush- 
 ing cascades of melted mountain snow. Everywhere these waterfalls are 
 rushing down — making the only music in the stillness of those birdless and 
 lifeless woods. When you can land on the west coast, there is no pretty bay, 
 or bay of any sort, to receive you. An open ocean roadstead lies fronting the 
 flat land that the traveller seeks to set foot upon. His steamer comes to a 
 stop a mile away from shore, from which another and smaller steamer comes 
 away, through the surf, to fetch him to the strand. On that strand the long 
 
West Coast Troubles. 159 
 
 rolling waves of the Pacific break, break, break, in a high-swelling surf. " The 
 long wash of Australasian seas" that Tennyson sings about, can be seen to 
 perfection at Hokitika and Taranaki — both on the west coast of New Zealand. 
 The small steamer that comes to fetch you from the large one comes not too 
 near to it, but sends a whale-boat off to you that she has had in tow. The 
 whale-boat comes alongside with four seamen in it. One steers it clear of 
 your steamer's side, another holds on to the steps with a boat-hook, and two 
 stand at the fore-part to grab hold of you when a wave raises their boat to a 
 level with the gangway on which you are standing — and trembling and 
 shuddering. It is a very odd sensation, seeing this boat and these men rise 
 some twelve or sixteen feet on a wave, and feeling them lay hold of you, any- 
 how, and down with you in their arms. You lose your hat generally, and 
 have a faint idea that your head has gone also. Put on one side in the boat, 
 you have to wait until the other passengers, destined like to yourself, are 
 similarly caught and lodged alongside of you. Rising again and again on the 
 tops of these waves to catch passengers is very sensational. It would make 
 even Sir Charles Coldstream's pulse beat quicker. The little game is repeated 
 when the boat has got alongside the smaller steamer that has to carry you in to 
 shore through the surf. You are then caught by two seamen, standing at the 
 gangway, when the wave raises the boat to the level of their deck. Babies are 
 landed first. The anxious mother in the boat has to surrender her charge to 
 the arms of the boatman, who, when the wave pleases, delivers it to the 
 seaman above. When there are several babies, mistakes will occur. Anxious 
 mother, on reaching the deck and rushing for her baby, will get the wrong one 
 given to her. Her terrified appeal on that matter is answered this way : — 
 " The number is all right, mum ; some babies are down below ; you can go 
 down to the cabin and change it." Danger sometimes begins before one gets 
 into the surf, for on our little steamer drawing up anchor to start for the shore, 
 a wave carried her against the sides of the large steamer, and crash — like to 
 breaking a match-box — went the small boat that hung upon the davits at her 
 side. That was another sensation. The next wave might have smashed the 
 smaller steamer, had it not managed to steam away. And then you go through 
 the surf, and are told how lucky you are to get through it so well, and how it 
 often welcomes you to the west coast with its salt, wet kisses, and now and 
 again takes you bodily in its cold, moist embrace, and drenches you and half 
 drowns you in its green and white, foamy caress. So you land on the shores 
 of the Te Wai Pounuma (the water of the greenstone), the middle island of 
 New Zealand, half-way south and north on which stands Hokitika. You 
 cannot always land there when you will, but must wait and wait until weather 
 and tide permit. 
 
 The distinguishing characteristics of the west coast of New Zealand are high 
 mountains with snow-covered tops, and a thickly-wooded country. The forests 
 are of the densest, most impenetrable kind. Tall trees struggle up to thirty, 
 fifty, and eighty feet high, very close together. The life of these trees, equally 
 with their growth, is a great struggle. A Dorsetshire labourer, rearing a 
 family of twelve on eight shillings a week, is the nearest approach that we can 
 think of to the troubles of these trees — they have such encumbrances. Each 
 one looks like to the figures in the sculptured group of the Laocoon. Thick, 
 ropy vines, and other clinging things called Supple Jacks, encircle the trunks 
 and branches like to so much wire-made rope. Having reached the tree-top, 
 these clinging, snake-like parasites descend on all sides, hanging down like to 
 so many loose ropes, until the branch or trunk of a neighbouring tree can be 
 seized by them. Some of these clinging encumbrances have a peculiar arrange- 
 ment of outer prickles that catch hold of everything that they touch, and never 
 let go. The New Zealanders funnily, but with a leaning to sarcasm, call them 
 
i6o The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 "lawyers." These down-hanging and out-spreading affairs make quite a net- 
 work, and to get through most part of the west coast forest is tremendous work. 
 With the aid of a tomahawk and reaping-hook, perhaps half a mile a day might 
 be cleared, and a passage two feet wide to that extent be effected. After 
 seeing the park-like lands of Australia, the New Zealand bush on the west 
 coast presents a great contrast — for the worse. Cattle sent into this bush can 
 only be got out again by trained dogs sent into it for that purpose. 
 
 Ilokitika is Ballarat East brought down to the sea-side. Its long, fine 
 Revel-street represents the Ballarat East Plank road ; and it has a wooden 
 road also, in the shape of a tramway, running the length of it, on which cars 
 go to diggings fourteen miles away. Tramways are specialities in Hokitika, 
 another one running for five miles or more inland to the Kanieri (Canary) 
 diggings. At these diggings, and at the others at Piper's Flat, Staffordtown, 
 Waimea, and Rosstown, we could not but notice the use made of flumes — long 
 gutters of wood, supported on sticks twenty feet or more in height, bringing 
 and taking away water for dozens and dozens of miles. Hokitika is of the 
 wood — wooden. The site of the town was cut out of the wood — the stumps 
 of the trees stand thickly everywhere — the houses are all cut out of wood 
 also— wood strews the beach, and an eternity of firewood is ever before one's 
 eyes. From wood to water, and water to wood, all the streets run. It is a 
 grand sight in the morning to see the sun upon the snow-covered tops of the 
 thickly- wooded mountains that make the majestic background to Hokitika. 
 They are so near and yet so far, these mountains. In the matter of fresh 
 water, there is pretty Maihinaipau (Mayheenaypaw) river, and its prettier lake, 
 to supply all desires. The row on this delightful river to the lovely lake at its 
 source, some twelve miles up, is a very great treat. It took a day — a fine 
 sunshiny and balmy day it was — to do it in, and that day was well spent. 
 The lake is of large extent — miles across — of clearest, purest water, fringed 
 with trees and pretty vegetation, with the grandest of backgrounds of hill and 
 mountain scenery. Those who get no gold at Hokitika are well repaid for 
 their labour in going there and back if they but see the surrounding beauties of 
 the place — the grand scenery of the coach-ride to the east coast, the beauty of 
 Lake Maihinaipau, the Fern Tree gullies and gulches of Kanieri, and the 
 delightful scenery on and beyond the tramway-ride to Waimea. Hokitika — 
 like to Dunedin, to the Otago gold-fields, and to the famous Thames — has 
 made large drafts upon the population of Victoria. The Irish are said to look 
 with contempt upon Scotland as a country that they had peopled ; a S]>ecial 
 legend assigning the little job as one of the many wonderful things that St. 
 Patrick took in hand. The Victorian can look in the same spirit upon all the 
 New Zealand gold-field townships and their inhabitants. He sees old friends 
 and well-known faces everywhere, and, where he least expects it, has to 
 answer to his name. At wild Waimea, seventeen miles to the north of 
 Hokitika. and in mountain Rosstown, as many miles on the south, we came 
 upon long-forgotten folks, people that we had supposed to be dead years ago. 
 We speculated seriously on this matter of recognition and identification of 
 ourselves in out-of-the-way places, and came to the conclusion that New 
 Zealand is no place to go to for any one who wishes to travel under a name 
 not got by fair christening. 
 
 Melbourne banks and Victorian industries are well represented all about the 
 town. The names over most of the stores are names that we remembered 
 elsewhere some time back. Cobb's coach is there of course, and Cobb's 
 driver's too, one of them keeping the best hotel in the place. The theatre was 
 in full play with Melbourne supplies. The diggers at Kanieri and Waimea 
 and Rosstown had mostly come thither by way of Victoria, and gratefully 
 remembered whence they came. Not a few of them intended returning, but 
 
Rosstoivn^ i6i 
 
 colonists and emigrants are always going to go somewhere or other. We know 
 several who have been " going home," as they call it, for ten years past. Of 
 course they are going home daily — we all are, and that is the only home (and 
 may be the- best one) that the majority will ever see. 
 
 A long trudge on a heavy sandy beach takes the traveller to Rosstown road. 
 It opens on the Pacific Ocean, and runs up in a straight level line for about two 
 miles back to the foot of distant dark mountains. This road is something like 
 to the long middle walk in Windsor Park; a tedious tramp it is, so straight and 
 level. At the foot of the mountains lies the town of Ross — an affair of stores 
 and diggers' huts. In every sense of the word, digging seemed to be very 
 uphill work here. One noticeable feature was that six of our fellow-passengers 
 by the steamer were all located together in one store. They were six pretty 
 girls who had been selected in Melbourne for that qualification, and taken 
 down, on liberal terms, to be grog-shop attractions, and to supplement the 
 afternoon's drinking with the night's dancing. They had looked so scrubby in 
 their sea-sickness that we scarcely knew them when that beauty, which was 
 truly but skin deep, had returned to their faces. Their landlord proprietor 
 had, with a fine taste for the romantic, re-christened them all in a pretty way. 
 He evidently thought that there was something in a name, whatever Shakspeare 
 might have said about it. Blanche, Christine, Cora, Stella, Amy, and 
 Constance were names that we could only hope their new owners would always 
 recollect and reply to. They did not do it when we were there, for Maggie 
 and Polly answered as naturally as possible to those names as if Blanche and 
 Constance were not within earshot. Their term of servitude had been fixed 
 for six months, and a promissory note, representing a twenty-pound penalty, 
 had been taken from each, to be enforced if they sought a change before the 
 end of that time. The husband taking one of them would have to take up 
 that note as well. The speculation, on the landlord's part, we looked upon as 
 a tolerably good one — as the world went at Rosstown. 
 
 All about our road everywhere grew the native flax. The New Zealand flax 
 has yet to have its day. It will be heard of, and that very profitably. A 
 wonderful plant is this flax. Growing in the sands, growing everywhere, is 
 this strong, hardy, useful plant. Seen at first, it may be taken for a very large and 
 flourishing fleur-de-lys. Its leaves are similarly shaped, and the whole plant re- 
 sembles that garden favourite. These leaves, scraped with a knife, show an 
 inner layer of fibrous thread, of great strength and silky appearance. A 
 resinous gum has to be carefully scraped off" these threads, and they are then 
 fit for all flax purposes. To get this gum off economically, and to leave the 
 white silky thread unencumbered, is all the problem. We could do it easily 
 enough with a penknife and comb, but such treatment of wholesale quantities 
 is not the way. It won't pay. The four thousand pounds reward offered by the 
 Government of New Zealand for a better way will be claimed some day, and 
 then the wild flax will go to the front with a rush. Meanwhile it is used by the 
 Maories for making rugs, satchels, ropes, and shoes, and by the settlers for 
 harness and other purposes where tenacity and flexibility are required. Every 
 roadside broken trace is mended with it. Rope, cordage, and twine grow in 
 that way all around the traveller. 
 
 The boatman that took us to Lake Maihinaipau we had met before under 
 very different circumstances. On the first occasion he was going from Mel- 
 bourne to England on board the ship "General Grant." He was one of the 
 fourteen survivors of that wrecked vessel who some two years afterwards were 
 found, all ragged and starving, upon one of the Auckland Islands. Brought ta 
 Melbourne, he became of much use there in making affidavits, legally required,, 
 as to those of his fellow-passengers who had gone down with the ship's golden 
 treasure. A fine upstanding man was James Teer. His two years' Robinson 
 
 M 
 
1 62 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Crusoe life had, seemingly, not hurt him. He had been also sought after at 
 Melbourne to join a speculative expedition to the cave into which the 
 "General Grant" had been thrown by the waves, and down into which she 
 had gone. The expedition had been fitted out by some Melbourne adventurers, 
 who looked to the recovery of the gold on board for their repayment. That 
 had l)rought Teer down to this quarter. The expedition had failed, for no 
 weather was found, for some six weeks, fine enough to permit of the diving 
 business being entered upon. Teer still believed that it was practicable, and that 
 the twenty thousand pounds boxed up on board the " General Grant " will not 
 remain in the wreck until the deeps shall give up all their treasures. No 
 expedition to get it will do any good without him. He knows that, and 
 patiently bides his time. He will go some day himself — if not taken. Cheerily 
 enough, Teer told us of life on the Auckland Islands. One of the fourteen 
 washed on shore there had two dry matches. The fire that they lighted was 
 sacred. Tended day and night by its allotted watch, it never ceased to burn. 
 Something dreadful was agreed upon as the penalty for letting that fire fade 
 out. Some drinking-cups were scooped out of roots, and ropes were made of 
 native flax. Oysters and seals were food for a long time, and, to help in 
 fishing, a seal-skin boat was constructed by some genius of the company. 
 There was a greater genius than he there in the person of Teer, who discovered 
 the life preserver for the whole lot. Running about the island were wild pigs, 
 which were doubtless the progeny of a pair that had been landed there by 
 Captain Cook, who has similarly pigged the whole of New Zealand — blessings 
 on him ! The wild pigs might have run there, and folks starved in their sight, 
 but for Teer. No horses or guns had they, and no dogs. He was equal to 
 the occasion. With the circumstances necessitating him, the fitting man arose 
 here. Teer fashioned a strong barbed hook, and fastened it to the end of a 
 native-flax rope, the other end of which he fastened round himself. The hook 
 was baited with a piece of cooked seal, and laid out to catch piggy. It did so 
 — hooking the pig in the mouth like to a fish. The noise was awful and the 
 rush terrific. It was all that Teer could do to hold on to a tree and shout for 
 assistance. Pig on the rush was too strong for him. He escaped, much 
 bruised, and tied the rope in future to something else. That pig — a magnifi- 
 cent specimen — was carried to the fire in triumph, and sucking pig, pork, 
 bacon, and smoked hams were never more wanting in that Auckland Island 
 encampment. Such is genius ! It often nearly destroys the possessor of it, 
 sometimes quite killing him, but it benefits mankind. He that so benefits his 
 fellows is nearly always forgotten in the day when the world gives its rewards. 
 In this case he is left to row a boat for a living on a Maihinaipau lake. 
 
 We had rightly imagined, from the difficulty in landing at Hokitika, that it 
 was a good place to get to. So it was, and the people there were good fellows 
 to us. We felt that we could have stopped amongst them ever so long, and 
 we thought that they would have gladly kept us there. We left it with many 
 pleasant memories of its fine climate, its pretty scenery, and the good time that 
 we had of it thereabout. 
 
 Our other landing on the west coast was at Taranaki, a town famous for wars 
 and not for diggings. The surf-boats are there worked with rope and pulley 
 from the shore to buoys anchored in the open roadstead. Having got us on 
 board in a similar manner as at Hokitika, the boat is rowed under this floating 
 rope, which is then carried on to wheels running between uprights fixed to the 
 boat fore and aft. Three or four boatmen pull at this rope, and so tow us 
 through the surf to the shore. A thick, wet rope running along the middle of 
 the boat, wetting our knees and splashing our faces, was something of a 
 novelty — something to remember Taranaki by ; and about the only thing, 
 apart from its war troubles and its central raised l)arracks and fort, that we 
 
A Grand Drive. 163 
 
 ever shall recall it by. We shall remember Manakau harbour, further north- 
 wards, however, and by a very painful circumstance. As we steamed between 
 walls of rock into its waters, the captain pointed to one part of it with this 
 remark: "Three years ago the man-of-war steamer 'Orpheus' went down 
 there with all hands on board." 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 EASTWARD HO ! ON WHEELS. 
 
 There may be better drives in the world than that from the west coast to the 
 eastern of the Middle Island, but that drive through Otira Gorge is enough 
 to satisfy one. It gives a fulness of content, does that two-day drive 
 across the breadth of New Zealand. The coach used is one of the American 
 pattern, and of the strongest build. It need be so. A wheel coming off 
 on many parts of that journey would leave no one to tell the story. The 
 coroner's inquest, if any ever sat upon the remains of coach and passengers, 
 would have to return an open verdict of "found dead." The road is equally 
 divided between the west and east sides of the dividing range of mountains. 
 Its 150 miles of length has seventy-five on the west coast side, and the 
 like on the east. There is a wonderful difference between the aspects 
 of the two. The seventy-five miles on the western slope of this mountain 
 range is all of the wildest beauty ; woods and waters, rocks and cascades, 
 hills and valleys, and verdure-covered mountain sides comparing favourably, 
 travelled people say, with any that Switzerland can show in that line of 
 beauty. The eastern half of the journey shows an entire absence of trees 
 on the hill-sides, no cascades, nor anything of the wild wonders of the 
 sublime western half of the journey. How one side of a mountain range 
 can be so different from the other in all its scenery is what every traveller 
 that way will unfailingly wonder at. 
 
 We leave Hokitika in the early morning with a driver between six and seven 
 feet high, a jolly old sea-captain beside him on the box, and myself inside. 
 Besides myself in that department were two Maori ladies, one of whom, I 
 learned from our driver, was a queen. For two very long days we three had 
 to keep company. Folks who have been on shipboard know how intimately 
 that sort of life brings them into acquaintance with the peculiarities of their 
 fellow-travellers. It is so in a coach ; when I parted with those two Maories 
 I seemed to have known them for months, years. The first part of our 
 journey and its acquaintanceship, and all its talk, seemed ever so long ago. 
 There seemed to be nothing that we had not talked about, and I felt quite 
 competent to write a biography of my two interesting New Zealanders, with 
 remarks on their manners, which were very amiable, and their customs, which, 
 including smoking, were all that could be expected. 
 
 My surprise at their paying five pounds apiece for coach fare was modified 
 when I learned that their relatives owned half the land on which the seaside 
 township of Greymouth stands, on the west coast. These children of nature 
 have got quite European notions of the value of freehold estate, and draw 
 good rents from that which they lease out, and high prices for what they can 
 be persuaded to sell. My dark friends not only belonged to the aristocracy of 
 their race, but to the capitalists also — an alliance not always found amongst 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Europeans. Yet had they no pride ; they took cigars from me without 
 hesitation, and smoked them, one after the other, in the most friendly manner. 
 It was something, I thought, to supply cigars to a queen — we all have a 
 little of the toady in our nature. Not but what I got full value in return. The 
 amount of Maori knowledge I acquired is not to be found in books. I got 
 invited to the Maori village of Kaipoi at the other end of the drive, whither 
 my ladies were bound, and got information of another native village further on, 
 with an introduction to the chief, and to a probable Christmas dinner there, 
 which, a week afterwards, I was fortunate enough to realize. 
 
 WATERFALL, OTIRA GORGE. 
 
 The first sensation in this coach drive was that of going through a river and 
 finding its waters covering the coach floor. This sensation, repeated some 
 thirty times during the two days' journey, became quite a matter of course at 
 last. It does not seem the thing to a stranger in New Zealand to go through • 
 rivers. The said stranger has mostly been accustomed to going over them in 
 other lands ; but here, through all these mountain streams, and over their 
 
Otira Gorge Scenery. 165 
 
 boulder bottoms, the coach has to go. Only twice during the journey was it 
 otherwise. Across the Taipo (Devil) River two bridges have been made. 
 They are pathways for passengers only, and of a singular construction — little 
 wonders of wire-work — with one narrow plank down the middle for the feet, 
 and a thin one-wire railing (so to speak) on each side for the hands. Crossing 
 a raging river on a narrow plank twenty feet from the water, with a hand 
 clutching a small wire on each side to steady oneself, seeems to be a sort of 
 good practice for learning the tight-rope business. To look down is to get 
 nervous at the sight of the dashing waters beneath, and to look otherwise is to 
 endanger one's footing on the narrow plank. It is not perhaps so unpleasant 
 a "walking the plank " as that by which a sailor goes to his doom, but it is a 
 modification of that feeling, and a little of the sensation quite suffices for all 
 purposes. It is nasty enough going through the rivers, but it is worse to go over 
 them in this way. 
 
 The mountain range before us soon gets to be around us, and we are travel- 
 ling over cuttings that wind around its precipitous sides. Everywhere are 
 waterfalls ; silver streams descending hundreds upon hundreds of feet down 
 steep mountain sides, and through the dense, dark wood, in which they have 
 cut a channel. These cascades are of peculiar beauty and sweet sound, en- 
 livening the solitude of these eternal hills — these snow-covered mountains, and 
 making a delight to the eye and the ear from and for all time. ' ' This road 
 must have cost a trifle, driver ? " to which we are answered that it did so — its 
 construction consuming a quarter of a million sterling. "You are now two 
 thousand feet high," we are told, and hardly need to be so informed, as we 
 look down into the valley far below us. Only a few inches off is the way down 
 to it. Let the narrow knife-board road that we are rolling along upon give 
 way on the off side ; let one of the four horses before us t^vke a fit of any kind 
 — kicking or epilepsy — let a wheel come off, or a trace break, and the chances 
 are to be calculated. The road — the western side of it — is all like that. 
 Round the mountains, through the rivers, now ascending, now descending, but 
 always in scenes of beauty that charm to delirium, and scenes of danger that 
 bring on the tremens. One is so gladly sorry and sorrily glad when it is over. 
 "This is the ' Saddle ;' you must get down and walk for two miles here ; the coach 
 can't get up this pass with any one in it." So speaks our driver, and out we 
 get, and trudge upwards, round and round the sides of a steep mountain that 
 seems ten miles, instead of two, to get to the top of. What a clear, good, 
 strong head it wanted to look down the side of our knife-board roadway on 
 most of that journey ! You were glad to rub along against the mountain side, 
 and keep as far away from the edge as possible. The Moari women did not 
 seem to like it any better than we did, and were decidedly lazy walkers. It 
 occurred to me then that these people did not believe in any exertion. I after- 
 wards found that it was so, and that hard work and Maori notions were far 
 apart. In this respect there can be no question that they are wiser in their 
 generation than the children of light — that is, their lighter-coloured brethren. 
 We burst ourselves with needless labour ; wear and tear ourselves out with 
 needless exertion. A Maori at fifty is as young and strong, or stronger than a 
 European at thirty. They die at about ninety, of old age, the only natural 
 disease, and they keep thick heads of hair even up to that date, whitened 
 though it be. 
 
 " That is Mount Cook that you see there through the clouds. It is over 
 thirteen thousand feet high, and always snow-covered as you see it. You don't 
 always see it ; the clouds mostly cover it as well as the snow." So far our 
 driver. This ^Nlount Cook is the highest peak of the range over which we are 
 crossing. We should have taken its top to be a cloud amongst the clouds but 
 for the information given us. Thirteen thousand feet is a very respectable 
 
1 66 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 height for a mountain. We agreed that Mount Cook was likely to remain 
 unvisited — about the top, at all events — until the French had brought balloon 
 navigation to the pitch of perfection. " What the deuce did the colony go to 
 the great expense of this road for ? The passenger traffic by this coach can 
 never pay interest on it !" Thus we asked, and thus were answered: "They 
 thought, when the west coast diggings opened up, that another way of getting 
 to them must be made than the tedious one of going all round by sea, and that 
 it would open a good market for stock and sheep for the east coast squatters ; 
 besides, the coach takes the mail, and it all helps to pay." A good deal of 
 help, it occurred to us, was wanted in that way, and we began to perceive 
 that other countries besides our own, and new ones too, can incur national 
 debts. We began to understand how the taxation of New Zealand amounted 
 even at that time to six pounds per head per annum. 
 
 "This is the Cass River Hotel, and we stop here for the night," said our 
 driver, as he drew up to a one-story wooden-cottage-looking building in a 
 valley of some stretch around it. All alone there in the valley, that house had 
 a very curious look. There were curious people in it too. The coach-load 
 from the other side, going the way we had come, had got there a few minutes 
 before us. The assembled passengers had all to sleep at Cass River Hotel 
 that night. One amongst them nearly kept us awake till midnight by a 
 superb performance on a tin penny whistle that happened to turn up. I 
 noticed that his music, which nearly set all our weary legs dancing, had no 
 effect whatever upon the Maori ladies. Thinking over it, I do not believe 
 that Orpheus did make the trees dance. These women were not vegetables, 
 and yet they could not be charmed by the most exquisite piping that I 
 ever heard. We had "toiled all day in eye of Phoebus," and we "slept in 
 Elysium." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CLOSE QUARTERS WITH ROYALTY. 
 
 It was with good fortune, which comes generally to those who trust to it, that 
 we fell in with such excellent specimens of the feminine Maori. Our wish 
 to see all good things when we thought of visiting New Zealand was fully 
 gratified as to that particular. 
 
 On that grand coach-ride across the breadth of New Zealand — which took 
 two very long days to make out — we had, as hinted, the company of Amelia 
 Tanui Arahura, and her cousin, Victoria Jawgpetur Kanieri, names that, look 
 long and awkward as they may, we shall never forget. Their owners were 
 the first feminine Maories we had met. 
 
 At the native pah, or village, of Arowainui, near to Timaroo, in the Middle 
 Island, we had afterwards a vision of loveliness that compelled us to rub our 
 eyes to be sure that we slept not. This dream of beauty, in burnished copper- 
 colour, was Kiti Kohoota, and it is up to this day, and will be for all days to 
 come, our delight to shut our eyes to all common outward sights, and see 
 again this brightest of young womankind. 
 
 Victoria Jawgpetur Kanieri, when at home, was, as stated, a queen in her 
 husband's right. She was journeying to her queendom — the native village of 
 Kaipoi, on the east coast, 150 miles from the town of Hokitika on the west shore 
 
Maori Aristocracy. 
 
 167 
 
 of New Zealand. Amelia Tanui Arahura was nothing in the royal way, but had a 
 rich relative on the west coast, who fortunately owned much of the land on 
 which the tow^nship is there built, a street in it being named after him. It 
 will strike the considerate reader that Amelia Tanui Arahura was monetary, 
 or likely to be so. We did not know so much until our two days' journey had 
 come nearly to an end, but we were none the less polite to her, for Amelia was 
 pleasant to look upon and to talk to. Fortune had denied her royal honours, 
 but Nature had compensated her with something better. Her cousin Victoria 
 — the Queen Kanieri — was mean-looking compared to Amelia, who was about 
 twenty-two in years, and had a round, smiling face, not disfigured with tattoo. 
 She had wondrously expressive eyes and mouth. The eyes were dark and 
 restless, with a glitter about them that had something of the fascinating power 
 ascribed to the eyes of the rattlesnake. If those eyes had fascinated us, in 
 
 A MAORI LADY. 
 
 the rattlesnake way, we were certain that the mouth beneath them could have 
 eaten us. It looked so powerful, did that mouth. The thought would come 
 strongly on us that nothing which such a mouth laid hold of would ever be 
 let go. We remembered reading of a brigand chief in Italy, who, on being 
 pushed over a precipice, had seized in his mouth the coat-tail of his conqueror, 
 and hung in that way successfully on it. In the distribution of such mouths, 
 one had come to our Amelia, and when she put a cigar in the middle of it, 
 and smiled 'midst the smoke, it seemed as if there was an ordinary-sized 
 mouth on both sides of that cigar. Had she attempted to screw up those 
 pulpy lips of hers, to make what is called a "cherry " of them, we considered 
 
i68 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 that the cherry would have been of extraordinary dimensions — about the size 
 of a turnip, perhaps. This mouth was not to be reckoned as a feature of the 
 face. It had features of its own, and might be described as a distinct affair 
 from the rest of its surroundings. Its principal aspect was power, consciousness 
 of power, potentiality in repose, the sort of look that impresses us about the 
 listless lion in the Zoological Gardens. The lips were protrusive, pulpy, 
 flexible, stiff, and strong. Carlyle would have praised such a mouth, as he 
 praised everything that is strong by nature and successful by fortune or by force. 
 It was useless to oppose the owner of such a mouth. Had angry words been 
 uttered by it, the ordinary sharpness of woman's angry tongue would have been 
 
 A QUEEN. 
 
 terribly intensified to the ear, while to the eye the look of that mouth when in 
 anger, those writhing lips, and those gleaming teeth, must have annihilated to 
 utter silence all opposition. Had Amelia Tannewhee Arrahhoora (for so her 
 name was sounded) spoken to us angrily, we should have been quiet. Had 
 she chosen to kiss us, we should have closed our eyes and submitted as to fate 
 itself — we yield naturally to the superior forces of nature. 
 
 Queen Victoria George Peter Canary (for so her Majesty's name was pro- 
 nounced) was a mother, and had with her a small prince about four or five years 
 old. Whether the care shown to that boy was only the natural fondness of a 
 
Novel Fashions. 169 
 
 Maori mother, we know not, but he was cared for immensely. Though old 
 enough to be let alone, he was never scarcely out of his mother's arms, and 
 when out of the coach was always slung round on her back, his arms around 
 her neck. He was well able to walk and run, but was not urged to do so, 
 and, like all Maories, old or young, would make no exertion that could be 
 avoided — and he avoided that. In going up some of the toilsome mountain 
 ascents, it seemed cruel for a great boy like that so to overweight his mamma 
 — but he did it, and both mother and son, queen and prince, seemed to like it. 
 Spoilt children we had hitherto thought to be products of high civilization, but 
 such error seemed to be here corrected. 
 
 Both Victoria and Amelia looked at their best when sitting. They were 
 long in the back and short in the legs — sitting the higher for that reason, as all 
 Maories do. Their walk, from the same cause, was anything but the poetry of 
 motion. Amelia's headgear was novel and strikingly graceful. It consisted of 
 the wing or feathers of some bird of fine plumage, brought from behind one 
 ear and carried to the other across the forehead. The feathers appeared to 
 have a natural curve that fitted them to their office, and the effect was very 
 good. We saw nothing better in the way of feather ornaments until we got to 
 the Northern Island, where we met with a gentle Maori who had a feather run 
 through the cartilage between the nostrils. A feather across the face has a 
 very peculiar effect as an ornament. The ring through the nose is nothing to 
 it in that way. As a rival to the moustache that men now so generally adopt, 
 it is very formidable, and can be stroked and curled by the fair wearer much in 
 the same manner. If the ex-Empress of the French, or some other leader of 
 fashion who must now take her place, would only lead off" with a little dark 
 and curled feather through the nose, what a success it would be ! The ears 
 have had their time. Ear-rings have been long played out. Let the nose 
 have its day. Fine feathers make fine birds, especially when the feathers are 
 put through the nose. Let some one patent it. The rest of Amelia's dress, 
 after the forehead-feather, does not merit mention. It was a simple shawl and 
 petticoat, but the shawl had an opening made in it for one arm to come through 
 and have full play — a fashion in shawl-wearing that might yet be turned to 
 advantage. The petticoat was secured round the waist by a girdle of native 
 flax woven in two colours. The feet of both ladies were covered, or half- 
 covered, with shoes, also of native flax. The shoes were more of the sandal 
 shape than the shape of a shoe, and entirely adapted to the wearer's comfort. 
 They were consequently without high heels, and we will wager that the wearers 
 had no corns. 
 
 Queen Victoria smoked a pipe ; Amelia preferred cigars. The pipe was of 
 royal size — the largest pipe we had seen, as to size of bowl, in any mouth. 
 She said it only wanted filling once a day, and we believed her. Victoria was 
 not so communicative as Amelia. She was older and staid. It may be that 
 years, maternity, or the prince, oppressed her, or that dignity did ; but we did 
 not get that ready response to our efforts to exchange ideas that Amelia 
 accorded to us. Whilst Amelia talked to us, Victoria smoked, and seemed to 
 reckon us up. We guessed at her thoughts, which were, perhaps, something 
 of this sort. We were a pakeha (the Maori for white man), and had another 
 Queen Victoria to respect, and that above herself. We were a pakeha, one of 
 those that had come to invade that Maori land that herself and her ancestors 
 had enjoyed for 500 years, when her kindred had left the Malay Islands for 
 Maori land. We were a pakeha and an intruder, an interloper, an alien, a 
 foreigner — one who had come there for no good to her and to hers. Victoria, 
 like all Maories, could have no idea that any one came to her country merely 
 to see it, go through it, and go away from it. The Maories are a practical 
 people, and believe in no travel for travel's sake, nor any nonsense of that or 
 
lyo The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 any other kind. No romance or fanciful sentiment is at all comprehensible by 
 them. It would require a surgical operation to get such things into their heads. 
 And yet she might have thought that we were one of the pakehas that have 
 brought to her and to her country some very good things. She was enjoying 
 one of them in the very coach-ride at the tails of four good horses that she was 
 then having. That pipe that she was pulling at, and that cigar that Amelia 
 was puffing by her side, they enjoyed, thanks to the pakehas. The potatoes 
 they are so fond of were the gift of the white men, and that famous pakeha — 
 Captain James Cook — at whose name we always took off our hat, all through 
 this New Zealand land of his — planted in Maori land the first pigs, whose 
 progeny the natives now so hunt down, eat up and relish. The pakeha 
 brought there the corn, too, which these Maories now make into cakes, and 
 won't learn to leaven and make any more eatable to pakehas than is a door- 
 mat ; and still more, the pakeha brought the pots, and kettles, and pans, 
 which the Maories had to muddle on without before these unspeakable 
 blessings came into their huts. As we looked at Victoria's searching eye we 
 thought that we had an even account with her, and that but for the pakehas 
 she had never borne that splendid first name that she had borrowed, nor had 
 any of the blessings we have enumerated, and a lot of others we have thought 
 of but not set down here. 
 
 In her bosom Amelia had a book ! It was an unexpected thing to be found 
 in such company, for Amelia looked the least literary of womankind. Her 
 ways, and those of her cousin the Queen, were not the ways of the literary. 
 There was, it is true, something Dr. Johnsonish about the manners of the 
 queen, as when she ended a conversation, at any time she liked, by dictatori- 
 ally saying to us, "too much jaw." She would then subside into silence or 
 brief slumber, and we felt quite shut up for the time. Amelia had another 
 way of "giving us pause." She would fill that majestic mouth of hers with 
 smoke, and emit it directly in our face, thus finishing all talk for ten minutes 
 at least on our joart. Our wounded feelings, smarting eyes, and coughing 
 lungs, could not always be brought to resume talk again in a hurry. Yet in 
 her bosom Amelia carried a book. We got to see it at last, and found it to be 
 the New Testament in the Maori language. It had been the gift of some 
 missionary, and was carried about by Amelia as a sort of charm, much in the 
 same way as she carried in her ears a shark's tooth set in sealing-wax. To 
 our offer of five shillings for the book she was about to agree, on which we 
 declared off the bargain, until the journey's end. We omitted to state that in 
 the matter of ear ornaments, the Queen and Amelia were peculiar. Amelia 
 favoured a shark's tooth— very white it was — stuck into red sealing-wax, and 
 thereby fixed to a thin ribbon, which was passed through a hole in the ear, the 
 said hole being pierced somewhat larger than such holes usually are with us. 
 The red and white decoration was not at all unsightly against the dark skin of 
 the wearer. We thought of Romeo's comparison of the beauty of Juliet, when 
 seen at night, to a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear, and saw that Shakspeare had 
 taken notice even of such small matters a.s the effect of coloured folks' orna- 
 ments. Victoria wore an adornment in one ear only. That was a piece of the 
 green stone for which the Middle Island of New Zealand is i3eculiar, and from 
 which it takes its Maori name — " Te wai pounuma " (the water of the green 
 stone). This green stone has, from being only an ornament in Maori ears, 
 become the same to the ears and to the watch-chains of many Europeans. 
 
 We could not get Victoria or Amelia to come to table at any of the road- 
 side stopping-places. They clave to the kitchen and to their own company, 
 and would in no way show us their table manners. When we dined with 
 seventy of their number some time afterwards on Christmas Day, we partly 
 understood why the ceremonies of the table were irksome to these fellow- 
 
At Christchurch. 171 
 
 travellers of ours. We have mentioned that we were talkative on the journey, 
 and we certainly did show great interest in our company, and evidenced much 
 of the inquiring mind. We were as willing, however, to impart as to receive 
 information, and not only information, but anything that the wild road-side 
 could afford in the way of refreshment. Tea and water, however, were the 
 only drinks our friends would take. Their love of tobacco, which was some- 
 thing remarkable, did not appear to lead, as it often does with us, to any liking 
 for strong liquors. In fact, our friends were teetotallers, and not to be in any 
 way brought to taste fermented drinks —a matter that greatly surprised us, all 
 other things being considered. 
 
 At the conclusion of two days' ride we had acquired a large amount of New 
 Zealand knowledge, and got acquainted with a whole string of very useful 
 Maori words, that we were always making an after use of through the country. 
 When we afterwards bought a dictionary and phrase-book, we could not 
 recognise therein half the phrases that we had learnt by ear — the spelling and 
 the pronunciation were, of course, quite distinct matters. 
 
 Our friends had their friends awaiting them at the journey's end, and we 
 suppose spoke a good word for us, as two tattooed Maories came to offer the 
 hand of friendship, and invited us to visit the Maori party at their village of 
 Kaipoi, of which invitation we promised to avail ourselves. 
 
 We have made no mention of Kiti Kohoota — that queen of beauties. She 
 belonged to another event — our Christmas dinner with the Maories, and must 
 appear in that event only, being, as she was, not the least memorable part of 
 that most memorable event. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE SQUARE CITY — AND PEOPLE. 
 
 A MILE, four-square, on the long, level, green plains of the province of Canter- 
 bury, lies the city of Christchurch. It is about half-way on the eastern shore of the 
 Middle Island. For contrast there can be nothing greater than that presented 
 by the two towns of Hokitika on the west, and Christchurch on the east, that 
 are joined by the great Otira Gorge road across the mountains — a road of 150 
 miles in length, going through no other towns, and costing, as stated, a quarter 
 of a million sterling. Hokitika is all diggings and diggers — a population of all 
 sorts, brought together anyhow, with a rush from everywhere. Christchurch 
 is the most symmetrically laid out, and systematically settled, of all the cities 
 that British colonists have made their dwelling-place. When we say that it is 
 the most select and thoroughly correct and respectable of all the cities that be, 
 we write with a consciousness of what we are saying, and with a full recol- 
 lection of Bath, and Cheltenham, and Leamington, and such-like places of 
 decent folk. Christchurch is in our memory the " square " city in all senses 
 of the word. It is a mile square to begin with, and stands surrounded by a 
 huge square of trees, called the City Belt — a sort of band or belt like that 
 which we see in another form surrounding the planet Saturn. Its right-angled 
 streets are all named after the sees of British bishops, except one street that is 
 not on the square, and for that reason, we suppose, not called by a name re- 
 calling ecclesiastical people or places. The two squares of Christchurch are 
 named after the martyr bishops, Cranmer and Latimer. The city calls itself a 
 
172 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 church, and names its surrounding country after the diocese of the Primate of 
 all England. Towards the end of the forties — a long while ago — we 
 went down to Gravesend, there to see off the first batch of emigrants then 
 outward bound to settle this city. The settlement had been taken in hand by 
 the high-church party of the time, with Lord Lyttelton as a foremost promoter. 
 We heard his lordship address these new Canterbury pilgrims on that occasion, 
 and the concluding words of his speech made as much impression upon us as 
 upon any of the departing pilgrim fathers. " Leave," said his lordship, "your 
 Bible to your parson, stick to your prayer-book and your bishop, and you'll 
 never go wrong." We were young at that time, and, youthlike, were unsettled, 
 but inquiring of mind, on many matters. That speech of his lordship's much 
 decided us. When a peer undertakes to preach, it is to be expected that his 
 words will have weight. They had with us. We went about for many days 
 repeating to ourselves the formula, " Stick to your prayer-book and your bishop, 
 and you'll never go wrong." We began inquiring, for the first time, where our 
 bishop — he of London — was to be heard, that we might adhere to him. With the 
 zeal of a new convert, we went about preaching the way of salvation from this 
 point of view. It then occurred to us that a nation's ballads made the leading 
 impression on the national mind, and are the most popular way of conveying 
 facts that one would wish to be ever remembered. To reduce the new formula 
 of faith to verse was, for the time, our great ambition, hoping thus, through 
 the great gateway of song, to communicate it to the general mind. The song, 
 we thought, the song's the thing by which we'll touch the conscience of the — 
 people. Such was our aspiration. We penned the "little psalm of life," as 
 Longfellow would phrase it, and well remember to this day its refrain — 
 " Attend to my song — you'll never go wrong, if you do as directed by Lord 
 Lyttelton." Some difficulty as to the tune, and also as to the terms of its 
 publication, kept it out of print, and spoilt a promising success ; but there was 
 still the good intention. Long years afterwards we were now looking 
 at the city these people, so admonished at Gravesend, had builded, and, to 
 ourselves, we owned that they had never gone wrong. Whether they had 
 " kept their square " before we knew not, but here "all had been done by 
 rule." We involuntarily bowed our head at the city's title, but we took off 
 our hat as we stood on the banks of its river, and heard that river's name. 
 
 Who shall guess by what name these high-church settlers — these bishop's 
 people — have called their river ? There are sacred and ecclesiastical rivers in 
 plenty. There is that one of Coleridge's, " Alph, the sacred river, ran," and 
 there is the Jordan and the sacred Ganges, and then there are Abana and 
 Pharpar — rivers of Damascus, and "that ancient river, the river Kishon," 
 and then, sanctified by the halo cast around them by the touch of time, there 
 are the Tiber and the Nile, At Kentish Canterbury itself there is the Stour, 
 and at Cambridge is the Cam, and at high-church Oxford, the Isis. None 
 of these, nor of a host of other waters, that claim kindred with religious 
 thoughts, have stood as sponsor for the river of Christchurch. That river is 
 named in honour of the Archbishop of Warwickshire Stratford — he that is 
 primate of all the world, and metropolitan of all English-speaking towns and 
 cities — the archbishop ecclesiastical, and master of the ceremonies in worldly 
 matters to all mankind — Shakspeare himself ! It is called the Avon ! We 
 would we knew in what manner this name was given, that we might honourably 
 mention its proposer. There must have been a splutter over it in committee of 
 management. Who was it that proposed it there, and had to hear it condemned, 
 no doubt, as a name connected with theatricals, play-actors, and other low 
 things ? And who was he that afterwards answered these and all other 
 objections, and powerfully, in a speech of praise of Shakspeare and of his great 
 book of life, carried everything before him, and thus ennobled Christchurch 
 
Erratic Rive? s. 173 
 
 for all time ? Ennobled it, too, in a manner that all its bishop-named streets 
 and squares will for ever fail of doing. May we not, parodying Longfellow's 
 lines on Nuremberg and its Albert Durer, say that — " Fairer seems that Christ- 
 church city, and its sunshine seems more fair, since through it runs the Avon 
 river, and brings its train of memories there ?" 
 
 We looked for a swan upon that river, and trod gently as we crossed its 
 bridge. Our old friend, the captain, was with us, and we saved him from 
 committing a sort of sacrilege by turning his head aside, as he removed the 
 cigar from his mouth to expectorate over the railings. No expectorating in a 
 river of that name, if we could help it. 
 
 Whilst upon the subject of rivers, we must mention the great Waimakariri 
 River that runs down from the mountains to Christchurch. This long name 
 means only " cold water," and has a pretty sound — Why-mak-a-rai-ree — when 
 you can get the tongue properly round the word. That river, like to almost all 
 the rivers in the Middle Island, is a great nuisance. It is strong language 
 perhaps to apply to a river, but it is merely sober, straightforward fact as 
 respects the mountain streams. The source of most of the rivers here, perhaps 
 of all of them, is melted snow from the mountain ranges. If this would run 
 in one channel always, and make thereof a decently deep river-like course, 
 there would be no more to say. But do that these rivers never will. They 
 splash and roll over a wide shallow bed of stones, from which they have washed 
 all the alluvial soil. Next season of snow-melting and rains they will take 
 only one side of this course, and so make another wide bed of shallow, 
 desert-looking, stony surface. The year following, the other side of the 
 first river bed is most likely served the same way, and thus a mountain 
 stream that would run in a channel of 25 or 30 ft. by 10 or 12 ft. deep, works 
 out for its fitful self, beds of half a mile, a mile, two miles, and, in the case of 
 the Rangitata, three miles wide. The stream answers no useful purpose — holds 
 no fish, carries no traffic, and supplies no want, but devastates the land, wash- 
 ing away cornfields and grass meadows all along its course. Near Christchurch 
 the ruin caused by the Waimakariri is very sad. Vou look down from a bank 
 of alluvial fine black soil, to where, 15 or 20 ft. below, all is stones and sterility. 
 A similar bank is visible on the other side, two miles ofi", and somewhere 
 between is rolling the troublesome stream that has made all this ruin, and left 
 it all so uncovered and unsightly. It will now be understood what "going 
 through" the New Zealand rivers means. It means driving over their rough, 
 stony beds, and through their shallow, rushing waters, when reached. Bridges, 
 when put up, have to be an awful length. Two that we crossed, over the 
 Waimakariri and the Rakaia, were more than a mile long, with water at that 
 time under about only one twelfth part of that length. These bridges are con- 
 structed chiefly with gas-pipes, on an economical principle, devised by one 
 White, of Christchurch, who, like to that other inventor, Arkwright, was once 
 a weaver. The Molyneux in the South, and the ^Vaikato in the North Island, 
 are, however, very respectable rivers — and behave as such. 
 
 The road from Hokitika, that cost a quarter of a million, is not the only 
 - expensively-made road to Christchurch. The city is separated from the sea by 
 a lofty mountain range, on the other side of which is the sugar-basin-shaped 
 port called — after his high-church lordship — Lyttelton. The sea in most 
 places in New Zealand leaves but small spaces between itself and the mountain 
 base. It is so at Lyttelton. The port shows but little land available for port 
 or township purposes — all the rest is but mountain side. For years the Christ- 
 church folks toiled up this steep and down the other side. To get from port 
 to town and back was a good day's work. They have now pierced the 
 mountain with a small Mont Cenis tunnel, and a train runs every hour from 
 town to port on a railway that has at present about twenty-five miles of length 
 
174 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 from the port inland. That tunnel and rail cost another quarter million. From 
 the top of the mountain range is the best view to be had of flat-lying Christ- 
 church, and its sixty odd miles of level green plains. The staple of the country 
 is supplied by the squatter and the farmer. The earth-slab hedges of the 
 latter, with their green tops, begin fully twenty miles from the city, and the 
 roads and lanes have a very green and English-like look. Everything is green- 
 looking and English-like in and around Christchurch. Green hedges, green 
 fields, and lofty green poplar-trees, with artesian wells here and there, are the 
 features of Christchurch. To that add the best hotels in the colonies — old 
 English-looking houses, well built, and cosy and comfortable, with the best of 
 beds, and nicest-kept stables. The houses are mostly wood built, the streets 
 clean and well-kept. So also of the people. It is easy to see that they are 
 well-selected first-class emigrants — related, no doubt, many of them, to good 
 families in England. The tradesmen and mechanics have the same appear- 
 ance. Every one looks as if he had paid a liberal passage-money, and only 
 came hither to oblige others. We noticed men about in alpine suits, with 
 knee-breeches, that had apparently been worn in Switzerland. They were 
 here, no doubt, on visits to their well-to-do squatting relatives. The Irish 
 element, so marked in most British colonies, seems to be entirely absent in 
 Christchurch. We looked about for Irish names in vain. The most noticeable 
 name, from its repetition, is Oram. That family must be large. Here and 
 there, over shops, one sees this mysterious inscription, " Cookham Boots" — 
 only that, and nothing more. Its repeated appearance forced our attention to 
 it, and we found that a peculiar boot supplied l:)y a particular place in England 
 was best appreciated in this southern city of the saints. There is nothing any- 
 where about to show that one is out of England save a rare-occurring native 
 name to an outlying suburb, such as Papanui, Kaipoi, and Opawa. 
 
 In square-built Christchurch, the central building appeared to be the square 
 four-fronted Bank of New Zealand. We were always coming upon one of its 
 fronts, and they were all alike. By one of its four sides stood, on our visit, a very 
 handsome street bronze drinking-fountain, the best that we ever saw. It is sur- 
 mounted by a handsome square canopy, on which stands a bronze one-legged 
 heron. Under the canopy is a smaller square one, from the four corners of 
 which hang four bells. These being turned up make the drinking cups, and 
 are so always turned down when done with. These drinking-bells ring 
 together when set in motion, and the four sounds they rang out seemed to our 
 ears to chime " Act on the square." It may be that only ourselves perceived 
 this, and yet it must be owned that all bells say something, if you have but the 
 ear to hear it. Tintagel bells, on the Cornish coast, are well known to ring 
 out this rhyme, " Come, come to thy God in time ; thy youth, manhood, and 
 old age past, come, come to thy God at last," which we take to be as good a 
 sermon as was ever preached beneath a bell -tower. We all know what 
 meanings Edgar Poe has extracted from the language of bells, and if anything 
 further in that way be wanted, there is, in the memory of everybody, what the 
 bells said to Dick Whittington when they told him of threefold dignities as 
 plainly as the witches did his thrice-told honours to Macbeth — perhaps more 
 plainly. 
 
 We have mentioned a suburb called Kaipoi, near to Christchurch. It is the 
 native village to which were going our royal lady Maories of the coach journey 
 overland. This word " Kaipoi " is pronounced like to " Carpoy," and means, 
 in the Maori language, "good." It is a word of great use among the Maories, 
 answering also to our use of " very well." We heard it in the first hour of our 
 being in Maori land, and ever and again until the hour that we quitted it. 
 We used it, too, until we got to like it, and have since so christened a dog in 
 hope that he will justify our choice of name. 
 
Missing Friends. 175 
 
 Port Lyttelton has a very cosy harbour, reached by a smooth channel, well 
 protected by precipitous hill-sides. As we afterwards went into that port from 
 the sea side of it, we had a good view of the harbour and the way up to it. 
 On a knifeboard-like road on one side of the channel we saw horses and 
 vehicles, which looked, at that height, like to flies on a wall. The railway 
 and tunnel have ruined the value of property in the port. Nothing and no one 
 stops there now ; all are taken at once right through by the rail to Christchurch. 
 A fire had just burnt down one half of the buildings at Lyttelton, and if the 
 owners can so arrange with the insurance companies, it occurred to us that there 
 would not be much rebuilding. The leading journal of Christchurch still bears 
 the name of the Lyttelton Times, which points to what the port was in bygone 
 days. It is now, of course, with the ChristchtiTch Free Press, published in the 
 city. The meanest thing that we saw in Christchurch was the theatre ; but 
 that was to be expected. We did not expect to find any theatre whatever 
 there, and were therefore thankful for little in that way — and very little 
 it was. 
 
 Rip Van Winkle, when he came down from his long sleep in the mountains, 
 was in much the same position that we were in Christchurch. On the coach- 
 ride thither we had noted down from memory those whom we knew to have 
 gone to settle there — some of the pilgrim fathers that we saw off at Gravesend 
 included. To us it seemed but yesterday that they had migrated. It was 
 more than thirty years, in truth ; but thirty years to those with sponge-like 
 memories and pigeon-holed heads are but as thirty months. We could 
 remember nine or ten, but of all the whole number we failed to find one. 
 " Dead years ago," — "Gone home three years back," " five years ago," " ten 
 years ago," — " Gone to here or there so long back " — were the sort of answers 
 we got to our enquiries. Colonists will never call their settlements their 
 "home." That sweet word is reserved for their fatherland, and, all things 
 considered, we would not alter the custom, though one emigrant did write over 
 his doorway, in some colonial settlement — " To him to whom God is a father, 
 every land is a fatherland." The balance of belief is against him ; and there 
 are the vivid lines of Scott and Goldsmith as to fatherland and mother country 
 first to be effaced from one's mind. Though we did not find any of our pilgrim 
 fathers, we found a pilgrim mother who had emigrated in the first flight — 
 that Gravesend hegira. Her husband had died within a month of landing, 
 and left the widow and six daughters to manage for themselves in that new 
 land. All had gone well with them — very well indeed. The widow had 
 remained a widow, and had now five families of grandchildren to amuse her. 
 The house of business of herself and daughter was her own freehold, and a 
 valuable one too. If her husband could come back as Rip Van Winkle did, 
 he would find more comfortable quarters than awaited the poor Dutchman. 
 
 A nice, clean, well-ordered, comfortable square city is Christchurch — unlike 
 in its characteristics to the other Australasian colonial cities that we have seen. 
 It miglit have satisfied the aspirations of Keats for some place away from 
 " the weariness, the fever, and the fret" of sitting but to "hear each other 
 groan." All feverish bustle, frets, and groans are things that will not connect 
 themselves in our minds with this green-belted, green-treed place, boasting 
 the best colonial museum. We did not look for the prison or the poorhouse, 
 and it occurred to us afterwards that we had failed to observe them, which we 
 did not remember omitting to do in any other town or city. We took our best 
 coat out of the trunk and our neatest linen during the days we stopped there. 
 After that, what more need be said ? 
 
 A fine high road runs from Christchurch to Dunedin — a three days' cruise 
 upon wheels. It was either that or waiting for a coasting steamer, and 
 coasting steamers at that time were not worth waiting for. So it was the 
 
176 The Main Routes Round the Woidd. 
 
 three-days' coach-ride that we decided on, with its two nights' stoppages on 
 the road. At six o'clock on a gloriously fine morning in mid-summer December, 
 we got a seat beside the driver on a fine old English stage-coach — a real old 
 stage, with four fine horses. It was Christmas time ; and, what with that and 
 the stage-coach, we thought that time had travelled backwards for once, and 
 that we were boys again and going home for the Christmas holidays. It says 
 something for the place we were leaving that we could leave it with such 
 feelings. There is something of the school and of all its proprieties about 
 Christchurch; but if we ever turn Quaker we shall, of all the places that we 
 know, go back to live there as to a large Society of Friends. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE MAORI-LAND BIRD— THE MOA. 
 
 At Christchurch we, for the first time, saw the bones of the moa. "Maori' 
 means "native," or " aboriginal," as applied to man, and " Moa" has the 
 same meaning as to bird. The Maori is not, however, an aboriginal. He 
 acknowledges the emigration of his race to the New Zealand Islands from 
 the Malays some four hundred years back, and his language justifies his state- 
 ment. There may have been no men in New Zealand before him, but the moa 
 was there — had been there for some thousands of years, perhaps, and was no 
 emigrant. When Maori land emerged from ocean, with its wondrous 
 volcanoes of coloured and boiling waters, and of fire, and its vast mountains 
 piled upon mountains, the moa came with it. The land and the bird were 
 kith and kin. We had written " New Zealand's bird" as our head-line hereto, 
 but could not let that stand. New Zealand knew nothing of the moa, nor the 
 moa of it. He may have seen a Maori, but he never saw a white man. It 
 was Maori land, or some other land, before the migration thither of the Maories, 
 when the moa had that country to itself. It was a bird that wanted a country 
 to itself — a backwoodsman of a bird, that would feel crowded if any one came 
 within fifty or a hundred miles of it. As the backwoodsman of the far west of 
 America retires and retires as this crowding comes upon him, so did the moa, 
 until it could retire no further. There was then left for it but some large cave, 
 whither it retired to die, and to leave there those bones that are now sought 
 for as a great ornithological wonder of the world. _ What the ostrich or the 
 emu is to the tomtit, what the elephant is to the pig, is, or was, the moa to all 
 other birds. The words of the old book, " There were giants on the earth in 
 those days," will be better understood by those who look at the skeleton of this 
 titanic bird. In the museum here at Christchurch stands its completed 
 skeleton, more wondrous and more awe-striking than all else in that collection 
 of the curious. There stands the lofty moa, and as we looked at him we shrank 
 before his majesty, and sank — to a seat. As we did so, our eyes caught sight 
 of a bust of Shakspeare, standing on a cabinet in the rear. The head^- of the 
 two came into the line of sight, and there seemed to us something proper in 
 that association. Both seemed equally to look down upon us, and upon all 
 around. The solitary lonely genius of the intellectual_ giant, and the solitary 
 lonely species of the giant bird, came upon our mind as things of proper 
 comparison. To the skeleton form, and to the long arching neck of the moa, 
 some student of natural history had fitted a well conceived head, finished to a 
 
The Wondrous Bird. 177 
 
 beak, eyes, and feathers. The effect was good — the furnished head to the 
 unfurnished bones. It brought a sense of half-life to the bird's form — vitality 
 to the dry bones. The eyes were well chosen, too, far-seeing and piercing of 
 look, taking cognizance of something, as the natural ones doubtless could do, 
 that was miles and miles away, for that head stood from the ground 16 ft. high 
 at the least. What the bird must have looked like when the huge, bony 
 framework was covered with layers of feathers, we had to imagine for ourselves, 
 and we have not realized the live moa yet. To some minds that have known 
 it only through books, it is represented as a gigantic ostrich or emu, and is the 
 bird of which a leg-bone only was brought to England some thirty-five years ago, 
 and from which one bone a celebrated comparative anatomist constructed the 
 whole bird, not as Eve was made from a rib, but by making all the other 
 bones of the bird to correspond to the size of that one. When finished, the 
 result astonished him as much as the monster of the story did Frankenstein, 
 who made it ; but that result was a scientifically correct one. How the world 
 of London, that so petted the hippopotamus when he came there, would go 
 mad about a live moa, the lecturer — say Professor Owen — standing between 
 its legs as showman ! He could easily do that. He would like to do so, 
 too, for he built up much of his fame upon the bones of that bird. But that 
 will never be. The moa is gone, so he cannot show now ; but we will not let 
 grief for him shadow our brow. His time was up ; he belonged to an order 
 of nature that has passed away, and taken with it the mastodon, the dodo, 
 and the moa, and all the Titans that were on the earth in those days. Its 
 skeleton is useful for one purpose — it enlarges one's ideas to look at it. The 
 moa's place, dead as he is, in all the scene that fills the circuit of the sunny 
 hills, is still definable. Its bony skeleton is the best lecturer upon natural 
 history — more impressive than all lecturers that ever opened mouth and laboured 
 away for hours to tell us what these dry bones say in their grand silent 
 language. You take off your hat in the presence of the skeleton of this bird, 
 and sit down and look at it for a good hour, and are desirous to be quiet 
 and let your thoughts have free run. It is the same feeling that comes 
 over you at Niagara — the feeling of labour and gestation of mind as new 
 ideas are born within you. It was natural, you perceive, that such as the 
 moa must retire before man and his works. It would run over and destroy 
 them. They or it must go. This feathered giraffe upon two legs— such legs 
 for power ! — was wingless and tailless. Its feet and legs were of the earth, 
 on which they ran, strong and heavy, and its head of the air, into which it 
 stretched, light and airy. That king of living birds of flight, the frigate-bird, 
 Audubon tells us, can breakfast at the Cape of Good Hope and dine in New 
 York, so powerful are its large rowing wings. The moa never left the earth 
 in its flight ; but, shades of Flying Childers and Eclipse ! how he must have 
 " cleared " that earth ! 
 
 As we looked at its remains, we said to our companion, " What should we 
 back against him for speed, captain?" "You could back nothing but an 
 express train," he replied, "And not many carriages to follow it,"' we sug- 
 gested. " Nothing but the engine and the tender if you wanted a show in the 
 race." " If the race could come off, which would you rather ride — the engine 
 or the moa?" "I'd stick to what I'd back — the moa. What a grip one 
 could get round that neck, with both arms !" "But your weight would tell 
 against your chances in the race." "Just as a few more feathers would — a 
 mere feather-weight to that bird. Eh, what a race that would be ! London 
 to Birmingham under three hours!" "Could the moa run that time at a 
 stretch, think you?" "Yes, easily, never drawing a thick breath, or turning 
 a hair— no — nor a feather either " — the captain warmed with the greatness of 
 his suljject. " Supposing that race to be now — how about going under the 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 bridges and through the tunnels?" " Oh, we'd leave the line to your engine 
 and take on outside the fencing — the country for us." "What about the 
 obstructions there — the hedges, ditches, gates, fences, rails, palings, and the 
 brick and stone walls ?" ' ' Clear them all in our stride ; never be thrown 
 out of it, and feel no jerk."' "What about the waters?" "Nothing in that 
 way between London and Birmingham would stop us. The sea might — clear 
 all the rest with a running leap as a fat barn-door fowl jumps." " No obstruc- 
 tions, then, to that courser, you think?" " Not that I can think of. Ob- 
 structions ! that bird had a leaping power which, measured by that of the 
 ostrich and other like birds, could have lifted him over eyerything." " His 
 long jump and his high leap were what do you think ?" "Don't mention it ; 
 something awful, and yet as light as a fairy's." " He must have gone down 
 from side to side in his run, as a dromedary does — how would you have stuck 
 ■on?" "Easy enough with arms and legs round that neck, getting into the 
 swing in time ; chief trouble would be to catch one's breath." " Suppose your- 
 selves hard pressed by the engine, could you let out?" "Equal at least to 
 double speed." "How so?" "Like to the ostrich and the emu, the 
 moa must have had rudimentary wings ; there are none alive to deny 
 it. He would stretch these stumps, and then skim along, touching earth 
 with a toe just now and then." "He could be extended then, if you 
 had to call on him?" "To any extent, and he'd leave the engine 
 nowhere in the race when he liked. The works of art are but weak 
 imitations of nature. I'd back the moa to run against the locomotive." 
 " How about food and drink," we said, "to keep up the steam?" " Oh, he 
 wanted but little of that. Look at his small head and fine beak — like to the 
 ostrich, he wanted but little, and that little went a great way." " It had to 
 do so, looking at the length of that throat," we said. " He would not want 
 feeding and watering one fiftieth as often as the steam-engine did." " If the 
 moa, as a bird, ever roosted, what then ?" " He must have had the strongest 
 scafibld-pole for the purpose. " "About the moa's egg, now — don't go away 
 from the subject — what size would that be?" " Big enough to fill a slop-pail, 
 at the very least." "If eatable now, as emus' eggs are, a meal for how 
 many?" " Food for a family for a fortnight at least, perhaps for a month." 
 " You know how hard the emu's egg is — how difficult to break — what about 
 this bird's egg?" " There you beat me ; how the young moa ever got out of 
 it, if after the emu fashion, I can't imagine." 
 
 . The captain's conclusions were roughly made, but no doubt rightly. If the 
 frigate-bird can do the breakfasting in New York and the dinner at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, as Audubon tells us, there is little doubt but that the moa 
 ■could breakfast on the eastern shore of Maori-land, and have taken a consti- 
 tutional run of about 150 miles in four hours or so to get an appetite and its 
 dinner on the western coast. We wanted a moa-bone as a relic, and a tattooed 
 Maori's head also, if they could be got ; but no such good fortune happened 
 to us. Other folks had wanted such, and gone without them. Like to the 
 relics of Waterloo's battle-field, they should be manufactured somewhere and 
 sent out on spec. As the dense forests, mountain ranges, and untrodden 
 places come to be explored, further remains of the moa will doubtless be 
 found, but that will be in the days far onwards, when our remains shall be like 
 to the moa's, except as to value. Why did the moa retire before man ? Do 
 not the large always retire from the company of the little ! Gulliver coukl not 
 have lived in Lilliput ! The leviathan squatter retires when the smaller ones — 
 the farmers — come upon his run. They push him backwards, and he retires 
 further from civilization. It was so with the ante-Methuselah giants. Even 
 Cain felt crowded, though men were very scarce in his day, and he sought out 
 a country for himself. The superior know of the jealousy of the inferior, and 
 
The Moo's Retirement. 179 
 
 do not stay to put up with petty annoyances. Like to I<andor, they say they 
 " will strive with none, for none are worth their strife." The moa was before 
 man, and was, by the law of his being, to retire when man came, — as the gods 
 of old left the earth for Olympus. If the law of development be the law of 
 life, the men we see around us, before whom the black, the red, and the 
 brown man retires, as did the moa before the Maori, will retire before a 
 superior man yet to be developed. By the way, it is time that he came. The 
 native flax of New Zealand — the strongest and hardiest of such plants — 
 retires before the common little creeping clover. That tame little imported 
 growth of the field, by some inscrutable means, kills out the wild, strong, 
 aboriginal plant. It is a sad thing that it does so, for the flax is as useful as 
 the clover, every bit ; but there is the fact for reflection that the flax of 
 New Zealand, like to the moa of Maori-land, retires before a puny invader. 
 We may say this in its behalf, that the moa could not have been extirpated by 
 man. Its retirement was voluntary, and not like to that of a dog who leaves 
 the apartment that his instinct tells him he will soon be kicked out of. The 
 Maori had no horses, dogs, or firearms with which to hunt the moa — if such 
 things had been of any use for that purpose. In such a chase the bird might 
 have been seen once, and that would have been all— always supposing that the 
 moa would condescend to run before enemies that one stroke of its foot could 
 have crushed and scattered. Nothing but fire-arms could have touched it, and 
 the Maori, we have said, had none. The Maories know no more of the moa 
 than does the white man, and have no particulars to tell about it. As an 
 article of food it could have been no more palatable than shark or whale. It 
 was not intended to be for man's time in any way — either as enemy or friend, 
 for his service or his food. 
 
 There is another bird of New Zealand whose time is nearly up — a wingless 
 and tailless bird of the earth also. It is a fiftieth cousin to the moa, and has 
 decreased in size far more than to that extent in the course of its consanguineous 
 removal. It is the apteryx — a little barn-door fowl of a moa — shy, and retiring 
 of habit, and very difficult indeed to be found. It was supposed to be as 
 extinct as the moa, and is so set down in some books on ornithology, but an 
 occasional one now and then comes to the front. Ten years ago a live speci- 
 men of the apteryx was on show in Melbourne as the last of its race — price so 
 much. We never passed but we looked at it, stopping the pathway and 
 staring the little stranger out of countenance. Who could do otherwise? 
 Suppose that the last one of a race of men was on show, the last Je\y or the 
 last gipsy, is there one amongst us who would be ever tired of " seeing off " 
 such an emigrant as that ? How often we go to see a last appearance of this 
 or that departing star, and flock more to do so when it is the positive last 
 appearance in public ! With that bird it was thought to be the last appearance 
 previous to the departure for London and for life of the last apteryx in this 
 world — Campbell's " Last man " in feathers. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE MAORIES "AT HOME" — TO DINNER. 
 
 We had always liked to dine out of the routine on Christmas Day, and have 
 accomplished some very out-of-the-common-way Christmas dinners in our time 
 —notably that one told of amongst the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, 
 
 N 2 
 
I50 
 
 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 whither we had gone by a train that had to bring us back the same day, but broke 
 down and did not. Yet dinner was achieved amongst the rugged peaks of 
 those wild mountains, and as a Christmas dinner it ate all the better from the 
 trouble we had in getting it, and our intense surprise in getting any dinner 
 whatever under the circumstances. The story of that dinner has already been 
 told. When the steamship " Omeo " took us away from Victoria to Hokitika, 
 in the beginning of December, we had promised to ourselves a Christmas 
 dinner with the Maories in one of their wharries, or native huts, at one of 
 their pahs, or Maori villages. We had no clear idea how it was to be done, 
 but done it was to be — and was. We had got some notion of Maori ways and 
 manners from the two days' enclosure in a coach with the two Maori ladies, 
 one of them " of quality," crossing the Middle Island, and had picked up a 
 few words and phrases, which, as we used them, showed in what esteem we 
 held the language — making so much of a very little of it. For all the rest we 
 trusted to fortune, and tobacco, which we had found to be, like to the old 
 English snuff-box, very good as an introduction. On the 24th December, we 
 started at six in the morning from Christchurch for Timaru, a coast settlement 
 about 100 miles to the south of the Middle Island. We were en route over- 
 land to Dunedin. We had a good four-horse coach and a very amiable driver, 
 who had been at that occupation for several years. Few people travel for 
 whole days on stage-coaches in these latter-day railway times, but all who have 
 done so must have noticed how a long day's ride, from six in the morning to 
 eight in the evening, is like to a lifetime. At starting, in the early youth of 
 the journey, how lively, chatty, and pleasant, how buoyant and youthful every- 
 body is ! How much quieter they have got towards the middle age — midday 
 we mean — and how staid and sober, and sleepy they get as afternoon wears 
 away and evening — old age — comes on ! The last hour or so of the journey is 
 all quietness, save an occasional yawn or snore, and we w^eary of ourselves and 
 our company, and wait impatiently that change which " comes when it 
 will come " alike to the stage traveller of the one day and of the longer 
 journey of the day of life. Towards the end of the afternoon our driver 
 pointed out to us the native village of Arowainui, about fourteen miles from 
 Timaru. "Are there plenty of Maories there?" we asked. "Oh, lots of 
 them," was the answer, although we found that our driver had been for some 
 years too near the place to have had any curiosity to go into it for pleasure, and 
 his business had never taken him within more than a mile of it. To-morrow 
 was Christmas Day, and no coach started from Timaru until the day after- 
 wards. Here was luck, and here our Maori village and our Christmas dinner ! 
 We fairly crowed at our good fortune, though no one that we mentioned it to 
 on the coach seemed to see it in the same light. Our sea-captain companion 
 — a fine old "salt" — thought it only too absurd to be treated as a serious 
 intention. Our driver would, if we liked, bring a two-horse buggy, and drive 
 us out to Arowainui next morning, but he too thought it a strange caper, and, 
 like to the captain, opined that the hotel at Timaru would furnish a better 
 Christmas dinner by far. We explained that no doubt the hotel would supply 
 the best dinner, but a dinner like to that was to be got at any time and any- 
 where, by paying for it ; but what we wanted was this, that being in Maori 
 land, and at Christmas time, we should have our Christmas dinner with our 
 hosts, the fathers of the country, and be received into the family circle, and be 
 treated as guests, and have a memorable time of it. "Oh, if you can do it, 
 well enough, but the chances are all against it," was the encouraging answer 
 we got. "You can stay away if you don't like the venture," we replied, for 
 go we would, whether or no, and so we arranged for the buggy at nine in the 
 morning, and for stores of cigars and bottled ale. With this bottled ale 
 another idea had come into our mind. We would not only dine with the 
 
I 
 
 Christmas with the Maories. 1 8 1 
 
 Maories, but they should, after dinner, drink the heahh of our mother, an old 
 lady far away in old England, and who was, we were quite sure, drinking our 
 health on that Christmas Day in very different company. That last notion of 
 ours was treated as the wildest of impracticabilities. "And so," we replied, 
 " was the seige of Paris six months ago, and yet it had come to pass ! " Such bold 
 comparison silenced all opposition, and the grumblers took their seats in the 
 buggy after all, half hoping for the failure they had prophesied. People are so dis- 
 inclined sometimes to assist in carrying out projects not of their own conception. 
 On a lovely breezy morning we started from Timaru for Arowainui on a 
 cruise for a Christmas dinner. Those who had doubted our success now- 
 seemed to have referred the matter to their previous experience, and to have gone 
 into the business on the faith of our preceding luck in other business in which 
 we had trusted to fortune. How delightful was that Christmas morning's 
 drive on that fine New Zealand day ! We did not then know that our English 
 friends at their firesides in the old country were then shrinking from cold at 
 twenty degrees below freezing point — the coldest English winter for twenty- 
 one years — or we should have pitied them more than we did. We never go 
 into any happiness but we wish to have our friends with us, and that was 
 our real wish on that exhilarating morning — a fitting wish for Christmas Day. 
 Arowainui, the native village, was reached about mid-day, and in its midst we 
 called a halt, and got out of our vehicle to take stock of the place. There 
 were some twenty or thirty of wooden huts stuck about here and there, at a 
 distance of about one or two hundred feet or more from each other. They 
 looked outside, as they afterwards proved to be on inspection inside, of one 
 enclosure only — one-roomed huts — of about twenty feet square. These are the 
 Maori " wharries." None seemed better or worse than another, and none had 
 chimneys, kitchens, or outbuildings of any sort. These were the homes of our 
 intended hosts. In a long wharry of some sixty feet by twenty, a large number 
 of villagers had been attending morning service at that, their native church. 
 Saying good-morning ("Tenakoe") to every one we met, we went in as they 
 came out, and found ourselves inside this Maori church — a building very like 
 to an old and rickety barn. Only a portion of the congregation had left. A 
 large number were squatting in little groups along both sides of the building. 
 A pathway of about a yard or so wide was left from end to end, along the 
 middle, and ridged off by thin poles laid along the ground — there was no 
 flooring. This pathway and the side squatting places were covered with green 
 stuff of some sort — native flax or rushes. Service was over, and we presumed 
 that family affairs, or the nature of the sermon, were being discussed by the 
 various groups. Naturally, on entering church, we took off our hats, and 
 assumed as respectful a demeanour as possible, whilst looking out for a Maori 
 who could talk English. We thought the native preacher to be the most 
 likely, but found that his acquirements in that way were very small. On dif- 
 ferent sides of this Maori temple we discovered a young man and a girl who 
 were able to talk to us. They quite understood the importance of that day, 
 and we learnt that some ceremonies were to take place in special honour of it. 
 They showed no inclination, however, to take us round the village, nor assist 
 our efforts towards dinner in anyway. We left church somewhat disappointed, 
 but still with a good heart in the matter we had come about. We saw now 
 faces at doors that had been closed, and from one we heard a cheery attempt 
 at saying in English " Good morning" to us. That was what we wanted. We 
 shook hands with that man, and got him into tow up to where our buggy stood. 
 His eyes glistened at the sight of a cigar, and we found that he would drink 
 our ale, and took care that he did so. He went with us round the village, and 
 things now began to open up wonderfully well. We had a prescience of good 
 things to come. Doubt and fear died, and standing o'er their graves we smelt 
 
i82 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the aroma of dinner. In one wharry we found a live European, and he was 
 not there to be killed and cooked, as might once have been his fate. How we 
 hailed him — that one of our kindred ! and how we curiously smiled when we 
 found that he was on the same errand bent — dinner-hunting also. We took 
 him into our confidence, or he took us, and we agreed to combine — we four 
 whites, ourself, the captain, the driver, and the squatter, for such our new 
 friend was, and down from his neighbouring run in search of a Christmas 
 sensation. The news he told us w^as of the most encouraging kind. In the 
 church barn buildings, that we had lately left, a great Maori feast was to take 
 place in the afternoon, and he was bidden to that and to all the ceremonies 
 and fakes that accompanied it, and he would take us. In our delight we 
 turned to the captain and the driver, and asked if they did not think it would 
 be best for them to take the trap back to Timaru, and dine at the hotel ? They 
 had been such good j^^i'ophets, and it was so evident that none but a madman 
 would have thought of getting a dinner at Arowainui, except ourself and our 
 new-found friend the squatter, whom we supposed they would call mad too. 
 It was delightful to nag them thus after all they had made us endure. They 
 were now the enthusiasts, and were full of suggestions for all sorts of things, in 
 which we would take no part — sticking to our original programme of the 
 dinner, and that one toast afterwards. Our simple dinner was now to be a 
 feast, and there were all the Maori rites and ceremonies to be thrown in ! As 
 a prelude, we visited, with the squatter, the huts of most of the villagers. One 
 of these " wharries" was just like to another. In them were always one, or 
 two, or three Maories sleeping, another peeling potatoes, and one or two 
 children. A fire would be burning in a hole, sunk generally in the centre of 
 the hut, to which fireplace there was — can one believe it ? — no chimney ! As 
 there were no windows, the doorway supplied all purposes. When that was 
 shut, all would be darkness, or firelight and smoke. We thought that it might 
 be truth that there was no place like home, however humble, and also that 
 habit must be a wonderful disinfectant to let folks live such a life — and like it ! 
 Such intelligent people, and such fine-looking people too ! and so healthy and 
 strong, and such artists as they were — witness their wonderfully-tattooed faces, 
 and their flax-made mats and bags. Why ! one-twentieth part of the time and 
 talent bestowed on that tattooing would, if bestowed on their dwellings, have 
 made their huts habitable and comfortable — to European tastes. 
 
 Perched up twelve or fifteen feet, on three or four poles, were to be seen 
 square, box-like structures, which we found to be provision stores, kept at that 
 height out of harm's way. Dried fish were kept there, and potatoes, and corn, 
 and roots of all sorts for Maori meals. We envied the Maori stomach and 
 digestion as we looked at the stuff, and thought of the coming dinner, at 
 which we were to taste of the Christmas cheer. In wandering about in and 
 out of these wharries, we feared that we might take company away from some 
 of them, but were assured by our squatter friend that annoying insects are 
 unknown in these Maori houses. That was some compensation for their 
 apparent wretchedness. There was in one hut a very fine Maori and his wife, 
 asleep on separate sides of the fire-hole, wrapped each in prettily-woven native 
 flax mats. They arose from their slumbers, and sat up to welcome us. 
 Mahumitti, the man, and Annul, the woman, were as fine-looking human ani- 
 mals as the eye could wish to dwell upon. Properly attired, this pair would have 
 forced all attention to themselves had they walked through the Row in Hyde 
 Park at the hour of promenade. Eeally good and great things had often come 
 out of these pigsty-like huts. Heki, the great Maori warrior, had come from 
 such an one, and in one of these wharries we found Kiti Kohoota ! 
 
 We had not visited New Zealand in vain. Had we seen nothing but Kiti in 
 that two months' journey, we were well repaid. We must prelude that her 
 
A Maori Venus, 
 
 183 
 
 ,pretty name was sounded as Kitty. She had two sisters, Aomi and 
 Koi, but of the Kohoota family Kiti was the only flower. Beautiful 
 vision, flee not away ! Thou dark-browed Venus, thou Moorish-looking 
 Desdemona — "the cunningest work of an all-excelling nature!" — we know 
 not where is that Promethean power that can photograph thee as thou art, 
 or bring thee to life — on paper. Thou flower of "a sunny isle, where 
 summer skies and summer women smile," would that we could ro- 
 mance about thee, or were poetical enough to sing thy praises ! We can but 
 write the poorest words of thee, and say common-place praises in thy behalf. 
 Books and poems would we write, and call them by thy name. Music should 
 be set to our verses in thy praise, and Kiti Kohoota be synonymous with all 
 
 A MAGNATE. 
 
 that is womanly-lovely for the rest of the nineteenth century at least. Do we 
 exceed bounds in telling of thy charms ? Let the three who were with us bear 
 witness I Long they looked at thee, Kiti, and again and again they returned 
 to look. The captain would be missing, and then driver, and then squatter, 
 and they were, one and all, apart or together, to be found with thee on that 
 Christmas Day. What queer excuses they had for being there! Captain had 
 left his stick, driver wanted a light, squatter wanted this, that, or the other ; 
 but we wanted only to look at thee, that was all — and to annihilate them. 
 What was written of one dark beauty might be appropriated entirely to Kiti. 
 She was a beauty " like the night of sunny climes and starry skies, and all that 
 
1 84 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 was best of dark and bright met in her aspect and her eyes." Oh those eyes! 
 Not forgetting our share in the Hfe hereafter, we wished only to live in those 
 eyes, or, to be plain, in sight of them, and to dwell in the heaven of their 
 smile for all eternity. What a smile Kiti had! a smile that would bring any 
 one to her feet, and leave him there — on his knees. The head of this beauty 
 was a wonder of hair, and eyes, and lips, and pearly teeth. The hair was of 
 a peculiarly dark shade, wavy and curly, and abundant to profusion. She was 
 tall and most graceful in figure, with hands and feet to match her peerless 
 face. No trouble was there in seeing those feet, for Kiti wore neither 
 shoe nor stocking, and looked all the better for it. Nothing that you 
 could have put upon Kiti would have improved her. It would have been 
 like to dressing the bird of paradise. Hers was the beauty unadorned 
 
 VERY ORDINARY. 
 
 and that which any attempt to ornament would but disfigure. Graceful 
 Kiti Kohoota ! light of our New Zealand Christmas Day, and of all nature's 
 beauties that we then saw, how weak is all attem.pt to tell of thy 
 power — the power of loveliness ! Did not we want thee to come to Europe, 
 to be a model to all sculptors and a subject for all painters, and did not the 
 driver say that thou wouldst be worth a thousand a year as — oh, what 
 desecration ! — barmaid at any town hotel ? Driver thought but little of 
 sculptors and painters, and his ideas, so expressed, told of the highest 
 estimation — in his way. Kiti, " a ministering angel shalt thou be when he 
 lies " — wherever he may lie ; but never mayest thou help to intoxicate us other 
 than by thy Ijright smiles, the music of thy voice, and the merriment of thy 
 bubbling laugh ! 
 
Queer Christinas Dinner. 
 
 185 
 
 We must get on to dinner, though that meal had lost much of its attractions 
 since we had lost our hearts. What are dinners to the love-sick ? Wandering 
 down to the hall of the intended feast, we found all in preparation outside. 
 We perceived then that our dinner was to be cold and our drink hot. We 
 would have reversed that arrangement if we had our will in the matter. The 
 drink was contained in ten large, wide-mouthed boiling pots, and was the 
 very coarsest attempt at tea that we had ever tasted — and we have tasted some 
 queer tea in our time. In '52, we had tea in Fryer's Creek, in Victoria, that 
 was made with clayey water, that coloured it to the same extent that milk 
 would have done, and in it there floated curious remains of vegetables that 
 were called "posts and rails." We had tasted tea on ship-board also, that 
 had been made with water from rusted tanks, and was of a strange reddish 
 colour ; and we have tasted tea that had been made from tank water that had 
 
 STILL MORE ORDINARY. 
 
 been too long preserved, and that smelt of anything but a rich pekoe bouquet. 
 This Maori tea of Arowainui was, however, a thing by itself. It seemed to 
 have been made long since, and to have got stale, and to have been warmed 
 up again and again, and sweetened with treacle or some other nastiness. We 
 have heard poor drink damned with the faint praise of being " warm and wet." 
 This tea was all that, and was, in addition, sweet and nasty. Whenever we 
 grumbled about anything in our school-days, we were told that it was to be 
 hoped that we might never get worse. We echo that hope with regard to the 
 Maori tea, with the full belief that we could never drink it if we did. Of 
 course, with this Maori tea there was no milk, nor any substitute for it. We 
 have had some substitutes for milk to tea in our days, and among them have been 
 6ggs, butter, and gin, but these were in centres of civilization — not in wharries. 
 
1 86 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 Heads had been counted, and the dishes were being set apart for each of the 
 little groups inside, and this seemed to be a troublesome business to settle. 
 So much dried fish, so much of the dried mashed potato, cold, very high in 
 flavour, and dreadfully hard, much like to stinking Portland cement ; so much 
 cake, made without leaven or eggs, and as tasteless and uneatable as an old 
 door-mat ; and so much cold mutton, and a stuff intended to represent Christ- 
 mas pudding, which was only the aforesaid cake in another shape, with plums 
 here and there. We broke our nails in the first attempt to tear it, as the 
 fingers do all duties — that of knives, forks, and spoons — at Maori meals. That 
 was a pudding of Christmas puddings ! When masticated a little, it stuck to 
 the teeth in a most provoking manner, and could neither be ejected nor 
 swallowed. We brought a piece of it away as a souvenir, as also some of the 
 dried fish and a piece of the cake and the cement-like potato. They are 
 preserved in a native flax shoe, which we found in the wharry of Kiti's mother, 
 and which we prize above all the viands it contains. 
 
 The groups inside the grand dining-hall had to be counted again and again, 
 and the "messes" for each to be arranged and rearranged. We got tired of 
 lolloping about to see it done, and thought we could have set it right and 
 square in a tithe of the time. We generally think that way of the difficulties 
 of other people — 'tis human nature. An old chief, Kohoo by name, a grand- 
 father of Kiti's, we believe, with the middle-aged preacher at the morning 
 service, seemed to have the arrangement of everything, and pottered and 
 muddled over it just as men will do in these domestic matters. Women sat 
 about— tailor-fashion — outside ; some nursing their babies on their backs. 
 Looking at the fashion attentively, there is much to be said in favour of back- 
 nursing. It is easier altogether, and avoids compression of the lungs, and all 
 the pains and weariness of constant bending of the head and shoulders. A 
 swaying movement from side to side seemed to rock the child to sleep as easily 
 as the backward and forward rocking of the white mother. Inside the 
 building the utmost patience prevailed. Maories are not fidgety, and wait 
 with the patience of people to whom it is not a usual matter to dine every day. 
 
 We found occupation for spare time with an intelligent Maori named Mohe 
 Tehike. He knew a little English and was of a tractable nature. We got a 
 bottle of beer and our tumbler, and getting him away to ourselves — behind a 
 distant wharry — we drilled him into his intended duty of proposing our mother's 
 health at the coming dinner. He got to perfection at last, and would have 
 done for a Lord Mayor's toastmaster. That he did not know the meaning of 
 the ceremony or of the words he uttered made it all the funnier and better. 
 To see him grasping the glass in outstretched hand and roaring out, " To te 
 hent of Arar Hinkton !" — for that was as near as the fourteen letters in the 
 Maori language would let him get — was a sul)lime sight to us, who had thus 
 tutored the savage. 
 
 We went in to dinner at last, introduced by Mohe Tehike into his family 
 party — two middle-aged women and an old man. We occupied a central 
 position in the place, and counted twelve groups on each side, and four at one 
 end. The other end was appropriated to a large fireplace, in which, on some 
 dead ashes, part of the feast was piled up. We four whites got distributed 
 somehow each in a different group. That arrangement was quite accidental, 
 and was just as well as not, since we had more time for looking about us, 
 instead of talking. Our Maori friends were quite useless to us, and we to 
 them in the way of language, so that we could not communicate ideas, even 
 supposing that either of us happened to have any. Squatting in tailor-fashion, 
 is very irksome to the novice, and we were beginning to tire of it when a walk 
 round was called by the chief who stood fronting the fireplace. He chanted, 
 or intoned something or other, on which every one started to their legs. Now 
 
A Maori Toastmaster. 187 
 
 the provisions had been spread on the ground down the middle avenue, a 
 complete mess, kettle of tea and all, opposite to each group. We had to walk 
 by the side of the fare, and all round the building several times, walking in 
 single file, ourselves being sandwiched between the two Maori women of our 
 group. It was necessary to pick our steps carefully, and yet it was an 
 irresistible necessity to look up occasionally to see captain, driver, and squatter 
 revolving around in this queer procession. Seats were then resumed, or, 
 rather, we again squatted on the ground, and kept silence whilst the chief read 
 something from a book, to which a chorus or something of the sort was 
 responded at intervals by the company. There was then another chant and 
 another procession, this time the reverse way to the previous one. We began 
 to notice that the effect of these walkings around was to well dust the intended 
 dinner spread at our feet. On this occasion it was five times go round and 
 then another squatting, and another reading and more responses. It occurred 
 to us nov/ that all this was an imitation "high church" service, and that, 
 instead of standing up during the singing-part, we walked round instead — a 
 very great improvement, and to be recommended for adoption by those who 
 are bursting to make innovations in their church service arrangements. There 
 were three more to come of these walks around, and it began to be a hard 
 matter to keep from laughing at the looks of captain, driver, and squatter, as 
 they, in turn, came opposite to us in this most monotonous "breakdown." 
 As for the cake and fish, and potatoes and mutton and tea, they got nicely 
 dusted, quite browned by the time that the order came to fall upon them. It 
 came at last, and we tore away at the fish first, and then at the mutton, and 
 then tried the pounded potatoes, the sawdust cake and the stickjaw- pudding. 
 We tried occasionally to suck our fingers, in order to be in the fashion, but we 
 felt that we did not play our part well. What with love-sickness and the 
 processions and other fakes, we had not appetite enough to do as others did. On 
 looking round, we found that the three other guests, driver, captain, and squatter, 
 had got together in the fireplace at the top, now that the provisions had been 
 removed thence. They were comparing ideas, we could see, and taking stock 
 of ourself in a very critical manner. Taking a partly-eaten chop in one hand, 
 and a piece of cake in the other, we arose and joined them in the ashes. They 
 were each gnawing away at something, and had got a kettle of the tea to 
 themselves. They had to lift up this kettle and drink from out it, lip to 
 rim. Somehow we seemed to get dirtier than the INlaories did at this sort 
 of business. We can easily understand why. We were not used to it. Every 
 one has noticed how those unused to the pen will ink and smear their fingers in 
 their efforts with it. All novices mess themselves in their attempts — so did 
 we. We wanted well washing after that dinner, and well brushing too, and — 
 oh, vanity ! — we could not face Kiti Kohoota again in that plight. 
 
 We disappeared from the group to give the signal to Mohe Tehike, and then 
 resumed squatting. lie did his part well. Shifting himself to the end of the 
 building, he arose, and, holding out his tumbler, which, by the way, he stuck 
 to afterwards, he shouted, " To te hent of Arar Hinkton !" and then, emptying 
 the glass, sat down. To say that we felt proud of our doings after that is but 
 feebly to express our feelings. We distributed cigars all round, and ale to 
 those that would drink it, and listened to many imitations of Mohe Tehike's 
 toast. After that we gathered up some fragments of the feast as memorials of 
 it, and shook hands with everybody. 
 
 When we were all seated in the buggy for our start, the natives came 
 trooping out to see the departure, and we went on our way, waving hats and 
 handkerchiefs, in a general and joyous manner, quite satisfied with our 
 Christmas Day amongst the Maories. 
 
S8 The Main RouUs Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 EAST COASTING, AND COACHING. 
 
 A I'HREE (lays' continuous coaching is not a thing to be done without knowing 
 it. It leaves its mark behind. It leaves its mark in front too, if the time be 
 summer and the days sunny. How the sun came down upon one about noon, 
 in the three days of that drive ! It burnt all the skin off our nose, lips, and 
 checks, and made our eyes redden and smart. The jolting about is lively 
 enough in the fore-part of the day, but irksome towards the end — when you 
 have pretty well got tired of such play and would wish to rest. With all its 
 drawbacks of sun and shaking, coasting by coach will he preferred by landsmen, 
 as it was by us, as we went southwards from Christchurch. From that place 
 the „first port is Akaroa, a small seaport — mostly of French settlers. It has 
 a pretty harbour, and a pretty story attached to it. The story is really of 
 greatest interest to Englishmen and New Zealanders. It is relative to three 
 powers that at the same time struck for the dominion of New Zealand. They 
 were England, France, and Baron de Thierry — on his own hook. "Three 
 up" for a kingdom — to speak in sporting language. Akaroa is the little spot 
 that represents the Frenchman's share in New Zealand. A few acres in the 
 Northern Island, and, latterly, an additional six feet by two there, represent 
 all that De Thierry, that baron bold, got out of the fire. The rest of New 
 Zealand is divided between the claims of the English and the Maories. 
 England's title-deed to New Zealand is a parchment called "The Treaty of 
 Waitangi " — about the largest deed of conveyance, or a conveyance of more 
 land than is contained in any other title-deed, that exists. That deed is signed 
 by New Zealand chieftains. Such part of the land as England has not taken 
 by that or other purchases from the Maories, the latter hold, and their title is 
 thnt of occupation for the required legal time — fifteen years and upwards — 
 especially the upwards. 
 
 The names of great men should not be forgotten, nor should the names of 
 those who attempt to do great things. Success, which is fortune, makes all 
 the difterence. The Baron de Thierry shall have a name in our story as one 
 who fully understootl the force of the maxim, " Nothing venture nothing 
 have." He proclaimed himself King of New Zealand, and made a bold stroke, 
 like Louis Napoleon's of Boulogne and Strasburg, at attaining the title. The 
 one kept his title a few hours, the other a few years. We feel equally for both, 
 as we do for all those who have done anything to enliven the commonplace of 
 life. 
 
 In the year 1S40, Captain lh>lison, of the Royal Navy, formally hoisted the 
 British flag upon the North Island of New Zealand, after having obtained from 
 the natives, on England's behalf, that deed of cession of territory and 
 sovereignty before mentioned. He chose Auckland for his capital, and was 
 not a day too soon in taking possession, as a French man-of-war arrived very 
 shortly afterwards to do that for the French which Hobson had but just done 
 on behalf of the British. The English Colonial Office had dallied almost too 
 long in taking possession of this New Zealand jewel of the British Crown. 
 The French connnander then sailed for the Middle Island, and landed at 
 Akaroa, but some idea of such intention had got wind, and Captain Hobson 
 des[iatchetl an English war-sloop thither, wliich arrived and planted the 
 
A Strange Adventurer. 189 
 
 British flag but a few hours before the Frenchman came. There is no doubt 
 but that the latter said something equivalent in French to "sold again ! " but 
 that is for the dry pages of history, and not for us to repeat. The French 
 .^ettlers, however, landed, and formed a small friendly settlement, which New 
 Caledonia and other French attractions have since frittered away to almost 
 nothing. The Baron de Thierry's part in the story is equally interesting — 
 perhaps more so. He was the son of a French emigrant, resident in London, 
 a good musician, and a teacher of music, of polished manners and unbounded 
 self-confidence — to call it by any other name would be, perhaps, too rough on 
 so smooth a man. We will not question his title, because we know that 
 continental barons are as common as native Australian kings, two of whom 
 may be found at a time seated on one doorstep. When young, the baron had 
 eloped with a lady pupil of his of a good family, taking advantage of the 
 confidence reposed in him as her music teacher. He became afterwards a 
 travelling tutor, and got attached in some way to a foreign embassy. While 
 thus occupied, he met with Hongi, one of the chiefs of the Northern Island of 
 New Zealand, who had been taken to England on a visit. That was some 
 years before England took formal possession of New Zealand. With some 
 scheming ideas in his head he thought to buy some 50,000 acres of the 
 Northern Island from Chief Hongi for the price of thirty-six axes, or toma- 
 hawks, and drew up some paper for Hongi's signature to that effect. Whether 
 the thirty-six axes, worth about five pounds, were paid in kind or paid for at 
 all, does not clearly appear ; but in 1835 this enterprising schemer forwarded 
 letters to the Governments of England, France, and the United States, 
 announcing his modest intention, not of taking possession of his wonderful 
 purchase, but, his ideas having enlarged meanwhile, to establish himself in 
 sovereignty in New Zealand. He, no doubt, announced the name that 
 he intended to call his kingdom, but that has not appeared. He dated his 
 letter from some neutral ground to which he had gone for the purpose, 
 and signed himself "Charles Baron de Thierry, Sovereign Chief of New 
 Zealand." We are writing sober facts, which we wonder that no novelist 
 has yet worked up as the basis of a fiction. There can be no doubt 
 that this incredibly confident schemer had raised funds from some poor 
 dupes on the strength, or rather weakness, of his extravagant pretensions. He 
 must have done so, for he found means to get a ship to take him to Sydney, 
 and called at Tahiti on the way. He left his mark at Tahiti by making a 
 declaration of his " rights" and intentions there. The ship that carried this 
 Cix^sar and his strange fortunes arrived in Sydney towards the middle of 1S37, 
 and here De Thierry began great operations. He induced ninety-three 
 Europeans — loafers picked up from bars and street corners — to join his expedi- 
 tion — form the nucleus of the De Thierry court — and gave them all their titles 
 and dignities. The captain of the ship that took away this riff-raff was to be 
 admiral of the fleet of the future kingdom. We see now that he must have 
 had money, or these ninety-three Sydney loafers would have had nought to do 
 with him. They were men, no doubt, of ruined blood and prospects, but 
 Tennyson tells us that such men are wise, and from their mud to no fancy flies 
 will rise. The money we may be quite sure was not De Thierry's. Early in 
 1S3S, this king, court, and high admiral landed at Hokianga in the Northern 
 Island. He proclaimed his kingdom at once — unfurled his flag, and ordered 
 the court to stand back from his presence and to do him' royal honours. The 
 ninety-three and the admiral we can believe readily did so, but the few British 
 settlers there and the natives laughed at him. There were settlers there who 
 had bought their land with better papiients than he had, and, indeed, he was 
 told that he had made no papnent whatever, the thirty-six axes being only in 
 the nature of a deposit. He collapsed at once. At the slightest pressure the 
 
190 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 De Thierry bubble burst. His kingdom died without a kick. On his promising 
 to behave himself properly, he was, in pity, allowed some small allotment of 
 land to squat upon, for which he was to make after-payment in blankets, when 
 he should get them. He started a saw-mill with some of the Sydney men who 
 would work, but hard work and his majesty were not friendly, and he sought 
 afterwards to live by teaching the harp and giving lessons in music. So went 
 the glory of De Thierry ! He never went back to Europe, but hung about 
 Auckland until his death, which happened but lately. He remained true to 
 his tricky character to the last, however, and about 1864 induced some fools to 
 invest thousands of pounds in putting up large buildings to work out a wonder- 
 ful method that he led them to believe he had found for cleaning the native 
 flax. It was as great a failure as was his kingly fiasco. Why his dupes never 
 had his theory tested before losing their money, they no doubt asked of them- 
 selves when too late. Such is usually the case. Such men as De Thierry are 
 of the peculiarities of humanity. They are not to be accounted for. Looking 
 to his swindling meanness on the one hand, and his mighty aspirations on the 
 other, we can imagine that such as he might have been the offspring, had 
 ■Count Cagliostro married Joan of Arc, or if Jeremy Diddler had wedded 
 Joanna Southcote. 
 
 A stage beyond Akaroa is Timaroo, an east-coast township ; and a further 
 day's stage from that is the white-stoned township of Oamaru, from whence 
 came the stone that the town-hall of Melbourne has been faced with. These 
 are both townships supported by a squatting back country, and will progress 
 with the slow steps of such-like places. Before entering upon Oamaru, we 
 make the passage of the Waitangi — a water that separates the province of 
 Canterbury from that of Otago. The passage of the Waitangi is not a matter 
 to be forgotten. It has to be done upon the zigzag principle, like to the 
 wonderful ascent of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales by the zigzag 
 railway. The Waitangi river has a wide, shallow bed of about a mile in 
 extent, down which, however, run several rushing mountain streams, or, 
 perhaps, one mountain stream which divides into several channels. To go 
 straight across . this the four boatmen find to be impossible, so that your boat 
 passage is done on the principle of tacking, as done by a sailing vessel. Half 
 a mile up that way, and half a mile down the other, and that again and again, 
 and then when the pinch comes, over into the water go all the boatmen, and, 
 standing therein up to their shoulders, give all their propelling strength to the 
 passage of the particular rapid that stops the way. It is a long, troublesome 
 job, this passage of the Waitangi, and the boatmen well earn the silver reward 
 which they claim when it is over. 
 
 Wandering about the little sea-side township of Oamaru in the evening, we 
 came upon a tent pitched in a field. A poor tent it was, consisting only of a 
 canvas hanging from a stick fixed to the trunk of a tree, the sides only, neither 
 the back nor the front, being covered. We thought it to belong to some road- 
 side stone-breaker, not given to providing too comfortably for his sleeping 
 accommodation, but satisfied with the luxurious couch that a day's hard work 
 in the sun provides anywhere when he seeks sleep. To our surprise it proved 
 to be the residence of a travelling showman, with his wife and two small 
 children. We had no thought that an acrobat, with a wife both vocally and 
 instnmientally musical, could come to such very hard lines as these. They 
 were young people, and their two poor little barefooted children were pretty 
 things of about four and two years of age. These strolling players had made 
 very bad times of it indeed. They had been going through New Zealand from 
 village to village, and township to township, for five months, and bad luck, 
 lately, had quite broken them down. Their travelling waggon had tumbled 
 to pieces on the rough roads, and their horse gone incurably lame and worth- 
 
Hard-up Strollers. 191 
 
 less. A little pile of dirty spangled hnery was on one side of the wretched 
 tent, and the poor infant sleeping thereon. The elder girl was fetching water, 
 a can at a time, from some distance, and looked more cold and \\'et and 
 wretched than we remembered ever seeing child look. This poor half-clothed 
 pair had seemingly lost all heart and energy in their struggle with hard fortune. 
 A few handbills in the tent told us of their line of "entertainment," but that 
 word seemed very out-of-place, contemplating as we did the utterly miserable 
 condition of those who were to entertain others. "We performed there two 
 days ago," said they, alluding to the place named on the bill, " but only four 
 people came, and that would not pay for the room. Similar bad luck at the 
 last three places — never saw such times. Regularly stumped up now, and had 
 to raise this loaf, this sheep's pluck, and these potatoes on loan." " Raising 
 on loan " we supposed to be professional language for plain begging, for that 
 seemed to be the real state of things. We stopped an hour or more with these 
 people, devising ways and means of doing something to mend this state of 
 affairs. They had got to such low water, however, that this was not easily to 
 be done, but we think that we left these representatives of the stage in New 
 Zealand better off than we found them. We were not altogether in the best 
 of moods when we happened on them — one of our fellow-passengers on the 
 coach had much annoyed us ; but all our little troubles went to the wind at the 
 sight of such tribulation as theirs, and we felt that we knew not what real 
 trouble was, and so went very philosophically to bed. These people furnished 
 a striking example of mental phenomena. The desert traveller, dying for 
 water, sees the mirage of a distant lake before him that exists only in his 
 fevered imagination ; and these broken-dow^n strollers were similarly affected. 
 Dying for what pence would l^uy, they could talk of nothing but thousands of 
 pounds. I never heard capital so lightly spoken of. So-and-so had cleared 
 thousands on a similar trip to theirs. What's-his-name, who began like to 
 themselves, was clearing thousands yearly. With a new waggon and a fresh 
 start they would soon be worth a thousand or two. But for this, or that, or the 
 other happening from time to time, they would then have been worth — thousands. 
 These " thousands" were always before the starving couple like as the lake of 
 water to the desert traveller, and we thought that one would be as likely to be 
 reached as the other. Their ladder had gone up beyond reach — they were a 
 long way from the lowest round of it. It stood on a bank — that ladder did — 
 and they were, metaphorically, down in a deep ditch below it, with very steep 
 sides up to vantage ground. 
 
 New Zealand is the land of long distances. What there is of population is 
 but few and far between. We rolled along day after day, with long stretches of 
 mountains on the one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other — and got very 
 tired of it. The coaches, too, dwindled very much in size and accommodation, 
 and the drivers deteriorated, and so did the horses. We started with a fine 
 coach, driver, and team of four ; but, stage after stage, we got a worse coach, 
 meaner looking drivers, and meaner cattle. At last we came to a shandry-dan 
 sort of waggon, two scrubbers of animals, and a lout of a boy. Things at the 
 worst will mend. Next morning was to introduce us to the last stage, and it 
 did so, and to a spendidly six-horsed coach, and a driver to match. That was 
 a good finish, and, to make it better, the road and scenery improved greatly, 
 the last thirty miles into Dunedin being almost a pretty copy of the grand first 
 seventy-five miles out from Ilokitika. This fine scenery begins shortly after 
 we left Waikiouati (Wyker-white), and culminates in Horse Range, Trotter's 
 Gorge, Kilmog, and Blueskin. The views from the summit of some of the 
 hills were of the grandest, and seen from the main top of a stage coach — fifteen 
 feet from the ground — were of very exciting character. From Blueskin Hill 
 the first glimpse of Dunedin, in the far distance, is obtained, and a very fine 
 
192 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 view it is all around from thence down hill into the city. A turn of the road 
 reveals Port Chalmers, the pretty port of Dunedin, with islands dotting the 
 harbour like to a miniature Port Jackson. With that, all resemblance to Port 
 Jackson ends, as the waters of Port Chalmers will not admit vessels of any 
 draught within many miles of the city. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CONTRASTS — AUCKLAND — DUNEDIN. 
 
 Characteristic cities in every way are Dunedin in the south of the south 
 island, and Auckland in the north of the north one. They are a week's steam 
 voyage distant from each other, and are not likely to be assimilated in their 
 peculiarities from too much mixture of their inhabitants. The capital of New 
 Zealand, in which its high parliament meets, was, until lately, Auckland. To 
 accommodate the representatives of the southern provinces, the seat of Govern- 
 ment has been removed to Wellington, which is situate midway between 
 Auckland and Dunedin. At this change the people of Auckland are too 
 indignant as yet to speak fully their feelings. What they think about it is 
 something that finds vent in one word only at present, and that is "separation." 
 Dunedin is a little Melbourne, and has been brought to what it is mainly by 
 Melbourne men, their money, and their enterprise. iVuckland is a lesser 
 Sydney, partaking in every way of the characteristic of that city and the 
 people of it, with whom it has most frequent communication. What Melbourne 
 and its people did for Dunedin, Sydney and its folks have done for Auckland. 
 Melbourne has done best. In the works of man, Dunedin, as a city built, 
 is far before Auckland, though only about one-fourth of Auckland's age. 
 The climates, too, of the places are in difference like to the differences 
 in the climates of their prototypes. Sydney and Auckland have much 
 of the same sort of weather, and Dunedin is as much cooler than Auck- 
 land as Melbourne is cooler than Sydney. The well-built and paved streets, 
 and the shops, with all their goods inside, which characterize Melbourne, are 
 also features of Dunedin. The ill-paved streets, and badly-built and ill-painted 
 houses of Auckland, with the shop goods all exposed outside, are all Sydney- 
 like in their nature. Princes-street, Dunedin, is like to a wider Collins- 
 street, Melbourne, and Queen-street, Auckland, is a veritable little edition of 
 that characteristic street — George-street, Sydney. Dunedin is like to Mel- 
 bourne also in its harbour, its shipping having to anchor at a port some 
 distance from the city ; while at Auckland, as at Sydney, in a magnificent 
 h.arbour at each place, the navies of the world might bring their masts beneath 
 the windows of the city houses. In Dunedin, as in Melbourne, one sees no 
 aboriginals, but in Auckland they are a feature of the city, as they used to 
 be in Sydney. Auckland has grown, in some forty-five years or so, since 
 its settlement, house by house at a time, and presents, like to Sydney, the 
 singularity of such gradual growth, in no two houses scarcely looking alike in 
 architecture or in age, or in choice of line of frontage. Dunedin, like to 
 Melbourne, has had no growth, but came to city shape all at once, fully grown, 
 as Richard the Third came into the world with all his teeth cut, or as Minerva 
 came a grown woman from the brain of Jove. Each way of producing a city 
 has its advantages. The poet and the [)ainter and others with an eye to the 
 
Contrasted Cities. 
 
 193 
 
 picturesque will prefer the gradual growth-like appearance of Sydney and 
 Auckland, with all their drawbacks of pigstye and palace side by side — a foot- 
 way two feet wide in some places, and six feet in others, flagged here, wood- 
 paved there, cobble stone-covered further on, with mud and puddle inter- 
 sections. That is natural, but not nice for walking, nor pleasant to the eye 
 for those who like things to look orderly. Those that do so will prefer Mel- 
 bourne and Dunedin, with their well-paved streets and newly-built stone and 
 brick buildings. 
 
 Both Auckland and Dunedin have had to contend with unlevel sites for 
 city building. Both are all hill and dale. Princes-street, in the latter city, 
 is a long cutting, with the rising ground left high on the side. To turn into many 
 of the side streets is to begin a toilsome up-hill trudge, not at all agreeable. 
 It is the same at Auckland, and very trying are both towns to the asthmatic 
 visitor. At Dunedin the said visitor will, in other respects, not know that he is 
 out of England. We tried to find something by which we could realize to 
 ourselves that we were as far distant from Great Britain as we ever could be on 
 this globe, but utterly failed to do so. The town looks like to a slice of London, 
 and the people like to Londoners, if we except, of course, the beggars. Of 
 that curse of old countries there is a conspicuous absence, so to speak, all 
 through the Australias. Dunedin is, like to Melbourne, far away from the 
 gold diggings, to which it is the port of landing, and which have made it what 
 it is. They are some eighty or a hundred miles in the interior, similarly 
 as Ballarat and Bendigo are situated with regard to Melbourne. It is the 
 same with Auckland. The Thames gold-field, to which it is the city of supply, 
 is a six hours' steamer's journey off, but of that more anon. We speak now of 
 the cities only. 
 
 Dunedin is permeated by the Scotch element, its founders, in 1848, being 
 ninety colonists of the Free Kirk of Scotland, who arrived there per the "John 
 Wickliffe," and who, as it as since turned out, could not have done a better 
 thing ; for though Dunedin — the ancient name of Edinburgh — was nothing 
 until 1862, the discovery of gold in the neighbourhood at that time sent shoals 
 of folks thither, and built Dunedin as we see it now. In Auckland the old 
 colonial element is most prominent, the majority of the settlers being 
 from New South Wales. Mails to Auckland are taken thither via 
 Sydney, and sent thence from Auckland. That city has far more 
 communication with Sydney, which is five days' steaming away from it, 
 than with any part of the south island of New Zealand. The south island 
 communicates chiefly with Melbourne. The approach to Dunedin, both 
 by land and water, is equally fine. We have, in our chapter on "East 
 Coasting and Coaching," referred to the prettiness of the coach-road into it. 
 The hour's steaming from Port Chalmers to Dunedin is prettily panoramic in 
 respect to scenery. The approaches to Auckland are by its fine harbour on 
 the eastern coast, and by a delightful drive of six miles overland from 
 Onehunga, on the western coast. Onehunga is a small settlement at the head 
 of Manakau harbour. The road thence to Auckland is well made all the 
 way into Auckland, and shows farms, villas, and homesteads everywhere. 
 To enter Auckland by the west coast and leave it by the east, or vice versa^ is 
 equally pleasant. Auckland from its longer time of settlement and the 
 character of its settlers, is more self-supporting in its character than Dunedin ; 
 there is much native produce brought to market, and not a little of it — fish 
 and oysters especially — brought in by the Maories. The chief local product 
 that we shall remember seeing in Dunedin is a manufactory of walking- 
 sticks. The country is a splendid one for producing the raw material for such 
 industry. Some branches are found with the native vine curled round them, 
 and so adhesive thereto that, when scraped and polished, the caduceus of 
 
194 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Mercury — the snake round the wand — is exactly reproduced. A connoisseur 
 in walking-sticks of the last century would be in ecstasies at the stick show 
 that we saw in Dunedin. Auckland has many people of advanced years 
 amongst her population, but it is difficult to meet with whitened heads in 
 Dunedin. The young, the vigorous, and the enterprising were those that 
 went thither, and there most of them remain. Victoria sent thither two pro- 
 vincial newspaper editors who are men of mark now, and will leave their 
 names in the story, to be, of New Zealand. Mr. Vogel and Mr. Farjeon, 
 who were partners in the Otago Daily Times, have left that position, the 
 first to be Treasurer-General of New Zealand, and the other to establish a 
 name in literature in the London literary market. Mr. (now Sir Julius) Vogel, 
 while we write, is in England endeavouring to carry out a crotchet of his in the 
 raising of large loans for public works in New Zealand. 
 
 Speaking of New Zealand's governmental and financial troubles, we may 
 say that it is the most expensively managed of colonial lands. Objection may 
 be raised on behalf of Tasmania as claiming that honour, with its upper and 
 lower houses of Council and Assembly, and its thousand and ten paid officials 
 to govern only about 40,000 able-bodied adults, the rest of Tasmania's sparse 
 population being in either their first or second childhood. New Zealand has, 
 to each of its nine provinces, a separate Governor or Superintendent, an Execu- 
 tive Council and Provincial Legislature, and for the whole a House of Repre- 
 sentatives and Legislative Council, to which deputies journey from the Provincial 
 Legislatures, and at which they spend their time— at a pound a day's expense 
 to the country — for many months out of the twelve. It is, in fact, the cumbrous 
 governmental system of the United States of America, with its thirty-eight 
 millions of inhabitants, applied to a country that has less than a million in 
 all its length and breadth. This much-governed people groan with the burden 
 of this misapplied system, and feel it severely in a taxation that amounted 
 a while ago to between six and seven pounds per head annually, and in an 
 increasing national debt. What a miserable sort of government it is, the state 
 of Auckland amply testifies. With a municipality to look after its local interests, 
 that city would be paved and channelled as to its foot paths, and levelled as to 
 its streets, and long ago have been made shapely and citylike, and not left with 
 the eyesores that afflicted it as I saw it. 
 
 Queen-street, Auckland, is the chief avenue for traffic of a city that is 
 growing gradually into greatness. It has a day and night life of bustle and 
 commerce that are as the pulsations of a large leading artery. It is the 
 termination of the long six-mile road from Onehunga, and its finishing 
 point is the jetty that runs into Auckland's splendid harbour. To cross 
 that harbour to the north shore— a sort of Sydney Manly beach — and to 
 ascend the flagstaff hill there, is to get a sight of land and water views 
 worth the going for. It is impossible to look around upon the grand scene of 
 land and sea, and to question that this land of New Zealand will be a great 
 home for the English race — and a goodly one too. What the country will 
 produce in the way of humanity is worth a thought or two. We gave it many 
 thoughts. As the climate and the country, so is the man. We see that the 
 American of four or five generations' descent approximates closely to the 
 characteristics of the Red Indian, whom he succeeds. We know that the 
 ancient Britons were much what the Maoris are now ; and we see that Britain 
 produces a white race equal to the aboriginal. We do not like the future of 
 Australia viewed in the same light. Its aboriginals are of the lowest in the 
 scale. Will the land that produces such as they are produce a better type of 
 white man ? or will he not deteriorate also, and be as low in the scale of 
 humanity as the aboriginal whom he displaces? No fenr have we for the 
 future white man of five generations hence in New Zealand. The Malay race 
 
I 
 
 Extinct Volcanoes. 195 
 
 that migrated thither five hundred years ago have by climatic influences 
 become a finer, stronger, braver, and better race than any of their kindred in 
 the Southern Sea Islands — than any dark-skinned race that the world produces. 
 Climatic influences that have worked such goodly change from the Malay to 
 the Maori will be ever at work in the change from generation to generation of 
 the Englishman into the New Zealander. He will be a better man then, in 
 the days far onward, than he is now, and will make a grand New England of 
 great New Zealand. 
 
 A Maori who was civilized enough to wear a paper shirt collar, and to write 
 his name in our pocket-book, and whimsically addicted to winding up his 
 remarks with the words, "And no mistake," took us to several extinct 
 volcanic hills in the neighbourhood of Auckland, and of its suburb, Parnell. 
 There are some half-dozen of these dumpling volcanoes within a circle of as 
 many miles or less from Auckland. Within memory they have been silent, 
 and it is questionable whether it was fire or water that some of them " played" 
 when active. Up the Waikato river, a few miles distant, little geysers, or water 
 volcanoes, are common features of the scenery. New Zealand is very earth- 
 quaky. Nature seems hardly to have finished the work of creation in many 
 parts of it. Sea margins are altering, and beaches widening or contracting in 
 many places. The new land gives new vigour to its people, however. They 
 partake of its freshness and youthfulness. The mighty Pacific that so washes 
 their shores all around seems to love the young country that reposes on its 
 broad bosom, and the roar of its perpetual shore-beating rollers are the trumpet 
 notes that tell of that country's rapid march onward. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 cook's straits — " THE MIDDLE PASSAGE." 
 
 The channel called Cook's Straits divides the south or middle from the north 
 island of New Zealand. On the south shore of the latter island is situated 
 Wellington, and on the north shore of the south island is Nelson. They do 
 not face each other. Nelson being much to the westward. The memories of 
 three great men are thus preserved in these names for New Zealanders who 
 shall be further off than we are from the days and doings of Captain Cook, 
 Lord Nelson, and Duke Wellington. The town named after the duke, as 
 already stated, has lately been made the seat of government for New Zealand 
 generally in place of Auckland, to the latter city's great disgust. The reason 
 for the change lies only in the central situation of Wellington, for the place is 
 not, for city purposes, to be compared to Auckland. It has only a fine 
 harbour, round the head of which, in a semicircular form on the beach, stands 
 the town. It will have to stand there. It can move neither backwards nor 
 forwards. The mountain range behind it descends to the back doors of the 
 houses, and the waters of the bay wash the entrances. Except round the 
 circular bay it is difficult to see how Wellington can spread. Terraces might 
 be cut in the hill-sides, and "lifts" used like to those in the Limited Com- 
 pany's hotels in Europe. Art might thus triumph over the difficulties that 
 nature has put in the way, and Wellington might thus go up in the world. 
 Something of the same sort of difficulty occurs at Quebec, and what is Quebec? 
 It is so hard to make the silken purse out of the porcine auricle. If we called 
 
 O 2 
 
196 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Christchurch " the square city," Wellington might be called the circular one, 
 as far as shape goes. Earthquakes have helped it onwards in one way, which 
 is rather an odd thing for earthquakes to do. Since the city was settled in 
 1839, the bay has receded, and the decreasing waters have left a wider margin 
 for building frontages. The bay did this on both occasions of earthquakes 
 occurring, for there have been two since the date of settlement. Those who 
 study the law of compensation — the good that is to be found in all things — 
 regard this addition to the level land of the township as a make-up for the evil 
 done by the shakings given by these earthquakes to the people and their 
 dwellings. Some can foresee trouble to the Wellingtonians, in time to come, 
 in this earthquake movement. Earthquakes that come twice in thirty years 
 will come again, and, it is reasonable to suppose, will do as they have done 
 before — give Wellington a severe shaking, and leave it more dry land for bay 
 frontage. The occupiers of the present bay frontages will then find themselves 
 situated in back streets, for anything that the water leaves dry in level land the 
 builders will certainly eagerly clutch at. Wellington is no place for waste lands, 
 save in perpendicular shape, and of that sort any quantity. This settlement is 
 the first place that was founded by the company formed in 1837 in London, by 
 Wakefield, for colonizing New Zealand. Wakefield was to colonization what 
 Cook was to discovery. Australia, equally with New Zealand, is indebted to 
 both of them. When people's merits are fully recognized in this world, what 
 Wakefield did in colonizing British possessions will be properly rewarded, as it 
 should be. Wakefield was to Cook what Stephenson was to Watt in the 
 utilization of the steam-engine. Statues to both should stand not far apart. 
 They will do so some time in the day to come, when this world shall "make 
 up its jewels." 
 
 The river Hutt comes down into Wellington harbour, some miles from the 
 town, through a valley of most fertile soil that farmers have eagerly sought to 
 settle upon. They are seeking to get out of it now, as that same Hutt is 
 washing them out, and their land also, in the most aggravating manner. The 
 river takes a different channel to itself, or makes a new one, nearly every year, 
 and no man feels safe in a dwelling that is near to it. The land that he has 
 ploughed and planted one year may be river bed the year following. Then, 
 again, he cannot be always shifting his house, which, in the neighbourhood of 
 the Hutt, becomes more like to a boat than a castle to the Englishman that 
 may own it. If it were possible to limit this river to any bounds, a Hutt 
 River Company (Limited) would, we thought, be a good speculation. A little 
 walking about Wellington goes a long way, if it be extended to any place 
 beyond the quay. We trudged up hill to the Houses of Parliament, and are of 
 opinion that the members of Assembly, who are paid a pound sterling per day 
 to come from level places and attend the Legislature at Wellington, deserve 
 what they get. Wellington is not the best place to live in. The ambition of 
 all good citizens to keep carriages cannot be well indulged there. We l*now 
 several better places for wheeled vehicles — and for horses too. It has taken 
 now to call itself " the Empire City," since its acquisition of the Government 
 business, and we are not of those who grudge it the title, or anything else 
 that will make it feel itself of importance. It wants that. Eight or ten years 
 ago a company was projected in England for making a route for steamers to 
 New Zealand via Panama, and that company made Wellington their starting- 
 place. A fleet of fine steamers then graced its spacious port. They had fine 
 mellifluous names, these vessels, all of New Zealand origin — the Kaikoura, the 
 Ruahine, the Rakaia, the Rangitoto, the Tararura, and others — all scattered 
 now with the failure of the company that started them. The Panama route 
 from Australasia, via America, to Europe was a failure, and as such was 
 abandoned. Wellington hopes to get a return of those days by-and-by, when 
 
Nelson, 197 
 
 finer vessels of a coming company shall make head-quarters there. The 
 central position of Wellington between everything north and south ensures 
 its importance, and its spacious and well-sheltered harbour makes it a most 
 desirable bourne for shipping. Its buildings are, and always will be, of wood, 
 and be mostly only one story of that. Wood is good against earthquakes. 
 
 Cook's Straits are twenty miles wide at the narrowest points, and at some 
 places many times told that distance. Westward down these waters for sixteen 
 hours we went to Nelson, the other celebrity of this middle passage. Nelson 
 owes its existance to two causes — Wakefield and his New Zealand colonization 
 company in the first place, and, in the second, its excellent position for the 
 forming of a settlement. It does not possess a land-locked harbour, like to 
 those of Dunedin, Akaroa, Wellington, and Auckland ; but Nature has 
 provided a boulder-banked basin here, that, though not so sightly to look at, 
 answers all harbour purposes. It is something like the English Portland 
 breakwater, that cost so many years, so much prison labour, and so much 
 money to construct. A ring of low rocks run out from the shore, spread out 
 in bow shape and return inwards, just sufficiently far to leave a good passage 
 for shipping between their termination and the shore. The boulder bank, as 
 it is called, rises but little above the water, but it is sufficient to provide for 
 harbourage. At its furthest point from the shore stands the lighthouse. 
 
 Nelson is a great contrast to Wellington in every respect — and in many for the 
 best. It is all green gardens and trees and verdure, with level land in abund- 
 ance. To distinguish it in our memory, we have associated it with the general 
 characteristics that we observed, and it stands with us as Garden Nelson — a 
 green English village of a place that has slowly grown, and will always slowly 
 grow, and never become too much of a smoky, hurrying, factory-like city. _ It 
 is the sea-side depot of a large pastoral country — and looks like it — looks like 
 to the head -quarters of a population that live upon the products of nature, 
 and not on those of arts and manufactures. 
 
 There are many pretty rides and drives out of Nelson, one being to a suburb 
 named Wakapuaka, which is euphoniously sounded as Walk-uppa-walker, and, 
 as an exercise for the tongue, can be put alongside of the river Waimakarari, 
 spoken of in the Christchurch chapter. We landed here a family that had 
 come from the Cape to settle, selecting New Zealand of all other places for 
 that purpose, and this spot of all others there. Much can be said in Nelson's 
 favour. It's climate is of the best in New Zealand, and so is its land. There 
 is less of rain there than in other New Zealand towns, and not so much of 
 wind. The people of the place, we noticed, never thought of leaving it to go 
 elsewhere. They had intended Nelson for their home when they went to it, 
 and were well satisfied to think as much of it the more years that they stayed 
 in it. Trafalgar-street, Nelson, is not to be counted as one of " the streets of 
 the World" as yet, and the Englishman walking it will not know himself to be 
 out of England, and think probably that he is in one of its Wiltshire towns as 
 he walks the pathways of Nelson. 
 
 A long sea stretch of a night and a day took us from Nelson to Taranaki, 
 which the settlers will not, and we much applaud them for it, call " New 
 Plymouth," the intended commonplace name for their well natively-named 
 settlement. We had several ^Maoris for fellow-passengers on this stage, and 
 two particularly intelligent half-castes, Martin-te Whi-whi, a man, and Koi 
 Raiphaina, a very promising young lady. We were enabled to get into con- 
 versation with both, when we, as a deputation, waited upon them to get their 
 signatures to an address to the captain. What will not passengers on board 
 ship do in order to do something? The " address to the captain" is about the 
 summit of sea-silliness— its culminating point — and shows to what the mind 
 and intellect may be brought by a surfeit of what Shakspeare rightly enough 
 
198 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 calls "sea sorrow." All sorts of ship excitement had been exhausted before 
 that was arrived at, and we wondered not at the difficulty we found in making 
 it understandable to the Maori mind. The address itself, afterwards used up 
 for pipe-lights, was such as was never seen on sea or shore — like to the light of 
 the poet's mind. It says much for the Maori intellect that it is capable of 
 comprehending humour, which it is said all English-speaking people are not, 
 and we succeeded in getting six bo7td fide Maori signatures to our address. 
 They would all know the why and wherefore of the matter before signing, and 
 we much improved in explanation as we progressed. When it came to the 
 half-castes, we were perfect, and felt that we could have compelled, by sheer 
 persuasion, a signature from anything that could hold a pen. Fine fruit, indeed, 
 is the produce of the grafting of the white upon the aboriginal. We wished 
 that our father had been an Englishman, and our mother a Maori! What 
 troubles we should have escaped then! We should have been good-looking to 
 begin with. Our complexion would have been clear brown ; our eyes large 
 and dark — and dangerous. Our hair had been glossy, curly, dark; and, as for 
 quantity, saleable every two months or so for chignons and back hair. Our 
 mouths had been shaped like to Cupid's bow, and our lips — had served all 
 purposes of lips. We cannot encumber our pages with an enumeration of the 
 uses of the mouth, and the mouth of a half-caste is all that a mouth should be. 
 We should have had the strength of an athlete as the gift of nature — the 
 stomach of a Scotchman and German combined, and been strangers to dyspepsia 
 for the longest lifetime. We should have known nothing of nerves, nor of 
 headache, nor of toothache— and may be nothing of heartache either. We 
 should never have caught cold, never wanted our head wrapped up, or our 
 throat swathed in bandages, nor hot water to our feet, and tallow to our nose 
 at night. A chemist's shop would have been a curiosity to us, and the doctor 
 but a dim imagination. We ne'er had wanted ear-trumpets, spectacles, or wigs. 
 We should, in that mixture of blood, the English with the Maori, have renewed 
 primeval man, and have gone through life feeling nothing of the burdens that 
 afflict the too-much-civilized man, and dying with nothing in the world but 
 painless old age to trouble us. We should have slept at will, and that soundly, 
 and have had no thought for to-morrow, or nervous, vapourish fears of aught 
 here or hereafter. Of such were our ideas on seeing the specimens we did of 
 the half-caste race, and what they looked like will be pretty well discerned 
 by our detail of the thoughts that their looks gave rise to. It is only necessary 
 to look at these half-castes in New Zealand to believe in the virtue and 
 value of mixing blood — " miscegenation." If we wanted any further proof of 
 that value we have it, and that but lately, well brought to our understanding 
 in the notices of the death of the recently deceased Alexandre Dumas, that 
 king of novelists, from whose large heart and brain came " Monte Christo," 
 and scores of other fine creations. Dumas, the son of a Frenchman and 
 a negress, should stand as an answer to all doubts on the question of the 
 half-castes and their physical and intellectual endowments. 
 
Picton. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII, 
 
 PICTON AND THE "FRENCH PASS.' 
 
 I 
 
 On the route from Wellington to Nelson there is Picton — Picton the peculiar, 
 to get at ; Picton the pretty, or Paradise Picton if you gush. If the weather 
 be fine, and the skies blue and sunshiny, and yourself young and not bilious, 
 and on good terms with yourself and everybody around you, we know not 
 which of the above terms will be used in describing Picton. If you have an 
 eye for the picturesque, and a soul for beauty, we then know all about what 
 will be said. You will be told that this place was chosen by Captain Cook 
 for winter quarters, and you will think that none could be better, and wonder 
 how he could ever have left it. However it was that he found it will have 
 first caused much wonderment. How, having found it, he could let any one 
 else know of such a snuggery, will cause more astonishment to the selfish 
 mind. What a home, you will say, for mermaids and dryads, fauns, satyrs, 
 syrens, and pirates ! wShut out from all the world and its troubles, and from 
 the winds and the waves of the ocean, here is seclusion, beauty, hill and dale, 
 wood and water, fish and fowl, and lasting sunshine — everything that the soul 
 thirsts for, except the city soul of cash-books and ledgers, restless to live other 
 than in the paradise in which God put man, and intended him to stop. 
 
 We were sleeping peaceably in our narrow bunk on board the coasting 
 steamer that took us from Wellington when our slumbers were disturbed, at 7 
 a,m, , by a gentle shaking of the shoulder. It came from a good soul who had 
 gone the road before, and who wished us to share in the surprise that was in 
 store. " Come on deck at once ; ask no questions now, but come, and you 
 shall see something." We that good behest obeyed, and were soon by his side. 
 
 " You see that wall of green mountains in front of us?" he said. We did 
 so, and saw that the sun was brightly breaking thereon, and showing all sorts 
 of lines of dark and light greens. 
 
 " Now you see that we are steering dead on to that shore?" he said ; and 
 we saw that the vessel seemed to be doing that perilous business. Nearer and 
 nearer we came upon what seemed to us, deceived by distances at sea, certain 
 destruction. " What does it mean ?" we said ; " where are we going ?" 
 
 " That is the first part of the astonishment you are going to have," he said. 
 "We shall go much nearer in shore yet," and certainly we did so until all the 
 mountain side was definable. We could perceive the difference in the foliage 
 of the trees, and began seriously to shiver. 
 
 Our friend enjoyed our surprise, and would not enlighten us as to the way 
 out of the difficulty that appeared so imminent — a ship steaming straight on to 
 the shore, and now not very far off it, 
 
 " Now, look out !" he said, and, doing so, we perceived that a sudden turn 
 of the helm took the vessel round a projecting corner that had seemed a con- 
 tinuous part of the land before us. We had a narrow channel now to enter, 
 and in a few moments were in it, and the way we had entered was hidden from 
 us. High hills appeared on both sides, and also behind us. Nothing could 
 exceed the surprise. It was a strait gate truly, and difficult to find ; it had 
 led to a narrow way also. Was it too much to think of the journey of Christian, 
 and to hope that the land of Beulah, yet to come, would complete the parallel? 
 It was not too much so to think, as we afterwards found. 
 
 We had gone through Tory Channel, as the gateway was called, and had 
 now entered upon Queen Charlotte's wSound, a sheet of water that we never 
 
200 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 saw the like of, and such that, if we had all the eloquence of all the tongues 
 that were ever attuned to talk, we could not sufficiently paint in words as we 
 saw it on that sunshiny summer's morning. 
 
 Coleridge said that his eyes made pictures when they were shut, and we 
 know that they did so, and that the eyes of all others such as Coleridge make 
 pictures also. We are not all akin to Coleridge in that way. But few have 
 picture-gallery heads and eyes that can, from poor bald print, make rich views 
 — creative heads, that can from the raw material of the writer's art make up 
 the finished beauties of nature. We want to tell of Picton and the approach 
 to it, and feel how miserably short we shall fall in the feeble attempt to do so. 
 Queen Charlotte's Sound is in length between one and two hours' steaming up 
 to Picton from the time we entered it. Everybody wished that it would never 
 finish. The water seemed to be about a quarter of a mile wide only. The 
 lovely hills on both sides were plainly discernible, and all upon them, down to 
 a stray sheep that here and there might be seen upon their sides. Now and 
 then, in some sequestered nook, a fisherman had fixed his hut. The smooth 
 waters over which we glided were alive with fish. No storms could get at 
 these waters — no winds"^ or waves devastate their shores. To live in one of 
 those fishermen's huts, roam about these hills, and fish and sail upon these 
 waters, away from taxes and troubles, cark and care of every kind, would woo 
 any one to the hermit's life. We have mentioned pirates just now in enume- 
 rating those that might have dwelt here for peace and quietness, and absence 
 of the police. Captain Kidd might have buried his treasure here, or kept it 
 unburied with no one to disturb it or him. Had a pirate robbed a large 
 merchantman and left her in Cook's Straits, the ship could never have found 
 whither the robber had gone. It would have seemed that he had foundered 
 on shore, and that all hands had gone down, as he ran his craft for Tory 
 Channel, and got into Queen Charlotte's Sound. _ We see what a thorough 
 good subject Captain Cook was, that having got into such a place, he could 
 think of coming back again, when he had good ships and all appliances and 
 means handy here for setting up a Robinson Crusoe kingdom on his own 
 account. The world would have wept for his loss, as we weep for Frankhn's, 
 and he would have lived on unknown and happily as did the mutineers of the 
 " Bounty" in their South Sea Island. Such a general and yet special effect 
 had the scene upon us, that the same thoughts and fancies about it appeared 
 to occur to every one. People who would not agree with us on any subject, 
 through perversity of mind, forgot themselves now for a time, and were natural 
 and truthful for once only. The steward had come on deck half a dozen times 
 to give warning of breakfast, but he "took nothing by his motion." The 
 breakfast-table waited on the beauties of nature. Queen Charlotte's Sound 
 was the Aaron's rod that ate up all else. A company was proposed at once to 
 settle it, for no signs of any township appeared. If there were such a thing 
 many miles ahead, there was plenty of room and to spare for another one — 
 near to the strait gate or midway. That idea may be carried out yet, and the 
 settlers that shall come to this paradise will never want to leave it if they value 
 the finest climate in the world — which New Zealand possesses just about this 
 spot — and a life such as man was intended by his Maker to lead, for his health 
 and happiness here, and his soul's peace hereafter. 
 
 We have seen some fans made for ladies that have a very long handle to the 
 semicircular fanning aftair at the top. The handle is the sound, up which we 
 are going, and the radiating fan at the top represents Picton, or the site of it, 
 for there is very little of town there yet. Green hills all around shut in this 
 lovely valley on every side, save that on which we had come to it. Picton 
 does but perfect the beautiful approach to it. It disappoints no anticipation, 
 except that of l)eing able to gel everything on shore that one might happen to 
 
A N'atural Paradise. 201 
 
 want. Picton is not a "seat of commerce." Very much otherwise. The 
 people have, as they should have, but few wants, and the supplies quite 
 correspond to the demand. Whatever we wanted, that we could not get. 
 How to get over an hour there was great trouble. It was too small a portion 
 of time to go in for any great undertaking — such as a breakfast on shore, as 
 even for that it was questionable if the mutton chops and the fish would not 
 have to be caught before they could be dressed. The only amusements handy 
 were a post-office and telegraph station. We each agreed to have a shilling's 
 worth of telegraphing to strangers, and to wait for replies which were to be 
 requested "instanter." It really formed a lively occupation, and we can 
 recommend it to folks hard up for an hour's amusement at little railway country 
 stations, and out-of-the-way holes and corners. We had first to select those 
 who were to be favoured w ith our ten words, and then what the ten words 
 were to be. The half-dozen efforts produced good hearty laughter — and that 
 before breakfast ! We got several replies before w^e left. The messages were, 
 of course, to people we only knew by name, and on matters that would only 
 bewilder the recipients, and in no ways do damage beyond the payment for 
 answer ; as we spent a shilling also, that equalized matters. Our lot fell to 
 telegraphing a clerical dignitary of the land, and we sent this query to a New 
 Zealand head of the Church : — " Can a Protestant Englishman lawfully be 
 married to an unbaptized Maori in Church of England, and according to its 
 forms ?" The answer cleared up all doubts about marrying any of the pretty 
 savages we saw, according to Church of England forms. We found that such 
 was held to be a sort of Church desecration. The time we had to stay at 
 Picton was on account of mail receipt and delivery. We thought that the 
 purser might have managed all that by a waistcoat-pocket arrangement in a 
 few minutes ; the time, however, had to be occupied. Those who took no part 
 in the telegraph station performance agreed to exercise their wits in making 
 epigrams on the place and its surroundings — a prize to be awarded to the best 
 one, and the nearest local paper to receive it for publication, which proved to 
 be the Afarlborough Press. On an inspection of the efforts made, the 
 shortest was voted to be the best, and the writer was baptized at once in the 
 waters of Queen Charlotte's Sound — equal to Jordan — as the Poet of Picton. 
 This should not be lost, and, as it has appeared in print once, it may as well 
 do so again : — 
 
 " Had Adam, other quarters seeking, 
 When he lost our Eden home, 
 But seen thy beauties — perfect Picton, 
 He of loss had little known." 
 
 That honour may be accorded where 'tis due, it is fair to state that the second 
 line ran originally, " When he lost his Eden home," but a little lady of fifteen 
 mildly suggested that " our " was the better word, and everybody saw it so at 
 once. Of course it was "our" home that Adam lost. We had all been 
 living there, or thereabouts, now, but for the misfeasance of himself and wife, 
 and that co-respondent, the snake. It was agreed on all sides that if any one 
 of that summer morning's crew were ever missed unaccountably from the busy 
 world, his friends might suspect Picton. There is warrant for so saying. W^e 
 all know that the beauties of one South Sea Island haunted the minds of the 
 crew of the " Bounty." The nature of man, and his love of nature, both broke 
 forth in that shout with which, having disposed of all impedimenta, they set 
 out to return thither, " Huzzah for Otaheite ! " 
 
 We were in for good things all that day. If a day begins well, it often 
 continues so ; and though we were out to sea again, there was to be something 
 yet to relieve the monotony of sea life in a coasting steamer. We were to go 
 through a maelstrom on a small scale, to experience a little of Scylla and 
 
202 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Charybdis, reproduced here in a nautical difficulty called " French Pass." 
 Not a few bon viots were made on that name by those whom it reminded of 
 other difficulties, at that time indentified with the French and the "pass" to 
 which their whole nation had come. This French Pass is a narrow sea-gate- 
 way on the seaway from Picton to Nelson, and, as the map will show, to 
 go through it from Admiralty Bay saves going all the way round long 
 D'Urville Island. The waters have only lately, two or three thousand years 
 or so, broken away that island from the mainland, and the passage is one of 
 shallows, rocks, and general trouble. We should not like to go through it at 
 night — if it be ever then attempted — or to try it in a sailing vessel. It is quite 
 sensational enough in a steamer, and brings all hands on deck and all heads 
 forward over the bulwarks. The stream is about four steamers in width, and 
 there is just a passage somewhere in it, of about one steamer's width, and no 
 more, that can be got through. It is that or nothing. Failure would leave 
 our names to be "writ in water." High are the cliffs on both sides, and much 
 broken up here and there. The waters that rush between them have a strange 
 appearance, showing on the surface large whirling circles, smooth in the 
 middle and ringed at the edges. These whirling circles are not to be gone 
 through — where they float, danger lurks. Towards one side, some one — a 
 Frenchman, we suppose, from the name — discovered that there was depth 
 enough for a steady vessel to pass through, and through that we had to go. 
 He must have been an investigating navigator that went through it first. A 
 look would satisfy most seamen, who were not in a hurry to get to their desti- 
 nation, or their graves. Going through the French Pass kept us as much from 
 the dinner-table as going into Picton had kept us from breakfast, and, when 
 we thought to go peacefully below, there was another scene for us that put 
 dinner further back. A great school of porpoises had just gone over the mael- 
 strom — a hundred or more, of all sizes and weights — and, that difficulty over, 
 had laid down steadily for a regular Derby race. On all sides our steamer was 
 surrounded by enormously heavy fish, that bounded out of the water their 
 whole length, three and five at a time, neck and neck, and then, side by side, 
 splashingly dived in again. Their progress through the water was at an 
 immense pace, leaving the steamer behind at pleasure. The sea was alive with 
 them all around, and our vessel had apparently some attractions for them, or 
 their vanity tempted them to display their powers to us, as a peacock or 
 turkey-cock does his tail. Fish that must have weighed two hundredweight or 
 more engaged in a race that, though " flat," had jumps every now and then 
 over imaginary fences ten feet high. The race, at a killing pace, was some- 
 thing better than one could see on a racecourse, and had this great advantage 
 — it lasted nearly an hour, whereas a land steeplechase is a sensation of a few 
 minutes only. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE MAORI FAMILY — " IN TOWN." 
 
 The great historian and essayist — the late Lord Macaulay— has told us, 
 in his essay upon Van Ranke's book on the Popes, in words familiar to us 
 all, that in a day to come a New Zealander shall sit upon a broken arch 
 of London Bridge, and sketch the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral. That is the 
 great interest that we all have in the New Zealander — our successor. It has. 
 
The Maories, 
 
 203 
 
 generally been assumed by writers and artists, who ;have lent their talent to 
 sketching this scene on London Bridge, that the New Zealander whom 
 Macaulay had in his mental eye was to be a descendant of the Maori race ; 
 and such is, no doubt, the impression of most readers ? In a frontispiece to 
 the first edition of the Savage Club Papers, published in London, we have 
 the whole scene before us — the broken bridge, the river Thames grown o'er 
 with weeds and lilies, St. Paul's in the distance, with great cracks and gaps in 
 its dome, and the artist at work, seated on the broken bridge. He is depicted 
 as a swarthy savage, with feathers in his hair, covered only over the loins, and 
 smoking the usual calumet pipe that is known to English eyes as a part of 
 savage life. We question whether Macaulay did not intend that his prophetic 
 New Zealander should be the descendant of the British, and not of the Malay, 
 
 MAORI DRESS (MALE). 
 
 settler, but we found ourselves looking on the latter, in the popular belief that 
 such as he was to see and do in the hereafter what Macaulay had depicted. 
 In Auckland, we found the Maories in plenty. Queen-street, the chief street 
 of^ that city, was noticeable for the number of Maori men, women, and 
 children to be met there. We realized at once that we were in a foreigner's 
 land. The traveller may pass through, and stop for many days in Adelaide, 
 Melbourne, and Sydney, and see no aboriginals there, while in Tasmania he 
 may seek them in vain. In the New Zealand towns of Dunedin, Nelson, 
 Christchurch, and Wellington, he may fancy himself in English townships, if 
 he stops but a short time therein ; but in Auckland it is a very different 
 matter. He meets Maories everywhere, and of all sorts. He sees, too, by their 
 ways, that he is the stranger there, and not they. The Maori is, however, quite 
 
204 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 out of place in a city of white people. His dress, his manners, and his 
 habits, and her dress, her manners, and her habits, t(Kj, do not look the rij^ht 
 sort of thing at all to European eyes. lie puts a blanket round his middle, 
 and fastens it with a skewer, showing more uncovered leg than a kilted 
 Highlander, and that is often her attire as well. Then nothing will do but 
 they must both sit about, dreadfully in the way, in the most prominent places. A 
 British dog will sleep mostly only in the centre of the road or pathway. Nothing 
 of privacy enters into his nature- — until he retires to die ; and it is so with the 
 Maori of ])oth sexes. The white citizens are hurrying to and fro on some 
 business, or with some object ; but the Maori has neither business nor objects, 
 and shows his utter contempt for such l)y getting in everybody's way, and by 
 
 #^^ 
 
 MAORI DRKSS (i-'EMALE). 
 
 sitting about on the footpaths in little groups. That is generally the case about 
 public-houses and public l)uildings— the post-office especially. Now, as the 
 Maori has the happiness of never writing letters, or receiving them, it is 
 obvious that he only gets alxnit that and similar liuildings to be in other 
 people's way, and to force you to step over him, as one does over the dogs. 
 We stopped amongst groups of them, again and again, to note their peculi- 
 arities. Of these, the most palpable and striking is certainly the tattoo 
 business — it lies on the surface. 
 
 Of all the people who have set to work to improve the human face by the 
 aid of art, the Maori stands first. In that respect he has really no second — he 
 is so far away ahead of all others. Painting the face is again becoming 
 
205 
 
 fashionable with some white folks— a return to the fashion of our great grand- 
 mothers, who added patches of black sticking-plaster here and there on their 
 countenances as beauty spots. The Maori is no such cobbler, but, on the 
 contrary, is a great facial artist. We counted no less than fifteen different 
 designs of facial decoration, well drawn, well cut, and well worked out, or 
 rather worked in, on the Maori face. And such good, substantial work too. 
 No need to do it over again. It looks like to the paintings on the Egyptian 
 temples, as plain and definable as if done but yesterday, and yet we saw 
 tattooed faces that had existed nearly a century. The Maori keeps no count 
 of his age, and is as bad a chronicler as a woman pretends to be, but it was 
 easy to see to what great ages some of them had attained. The tattoo that 
 
 I 
 
 ARTISTIC TATTOOING (l). 
 
 had taken but three months to do, when its wearer was but tweh e or twenty, 
 looked clear and plain enough when he came to be eighty or ninety. Talk 
 about the vanity of civilized people again in our presence, and we will make 
 answer and say that the Maori is the greater dandy. With a pair of mussel- 
 shells, used as tM'eezers, he pulls all the hair that grows on the face out by the 
 roots. Whiskers, eyebrows, moustache, and beard — out they all come, with a 
 wrench and a squeak, and tears to the eyes. Having cleared the forest in this 
 way, the ground is to be laid out. The plan is drawn in white paint, made of 
 the scrapings of oyster-shells. That plan is adopted which is best suited to 
 the countenance of the subject — most becoming to his style of beauty. Here the 
 real artist has a fine field before him. A prominent nose, like to Wellington's 
 
2o6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 or Artemus Ward's, can be well decorated on both sides — a broad one 
 can be only so done down the bridge of it. A Walter Scott forehead can 
 have wonders done upon its surface, and a chin like to a hand of pork, or like 
 to the first Napoleon's, can be improved upon to any extent. Whether cheeks 
 will look best with curved lines or straight ones, and which way the curves 
 shall go, is all matter of art, high art. A face may be painted in designs a 
 dozen times before that which is to stand for all time — the owner's time — is 
 determined upon. If the subject, or patient, be of any standing or con- 
 sequence, the opinion of his relatives and friends is often sought by the artist. 
 He is sent home to them with the painted face that they may approve the 
 design. The photographer of the present day adopts this idea when he sends 
 us the first proof of his negative. " Take it," he says, "and ask your friends' 
 
 ARTISTIC TATTOOING (2). 
 
 opinion of it." When the design has been finally approved of, then trouble 
 begins. With points and edges of sharp sea-shells the victim of vanity is pain- 
 fully excoriated, and a blue colouring matter, got mostly from a shell-fish, is 
 introduced into his wounds. A little of this work goes a long way at a time, 
 and the skin is left to heal up. To do a whole face will take from three to 
 six months, and really great works some of these tattooed heads look. In 
 most European museums one of them will be found. A good trade was carried 
 on in tattooed Maori heads many years ago, until Governor Grey stopped it, 
 and seized a sackful of heads that had been placed on shipboard for exporta- 
 tion. Such exports fetched good prices, and, as the Maories have the Egyptian 
 embalming secret of preserving them in excellent condition, a profitable 
 business to them seemed thus to have been suddenly crushed. Such inter- 
 
Aji Artistic Process. 207 
 
 ference with free trade was the more to be deplored because it was a business 
 that much suited Maori tastes. Nearly all Maories, in years gone by, 
 preserved the heads of their conquered enemies. They would eat the body 
 and the brains, but carefully preserve the head, hanging it up in their hut 
 to apostrophise, and nag and swear at, something in this fashion: "You 
 thought you had me then, when I slipped down, but you fell over my 
 uplifted leg, and my meri (club) settled your business. After that you were 
 cooked, and I ate you. I afterwards ate your two brothers. Your wife 
 and children are now my slaves. Yah ! " When the whites came to New 
 Zealand, these heads became of value — everything can generally be turned 
 to that by British traders — and they fetched money, and tobacco, and seeds, 
 and potatoes, and fishing-lines, in exchange. As the demand increased, the 
 supply had to be kept up. A man with a well-tattooed head no longer slept 
 comfortably. His head was worth five pounds at least. War between the 
 tribes had an additional stimulus, and the trades — we beg pardon, professions 
 — of the tattooer and head-preserver became of increased dignity. Instead 
 of this "native industry" meeting with protection. Sir George Grey saw 
 fit to crush it, and yet we seem to be surprised at the Maori going'j to 
 war with us — we, who have taken his land from him, and knocked a 
 profitable business on the head ! The only European artist that can stand 
 his ground with a Maori professor of tattoo would be that famous Mr. Worth, 
 of Paris, the English draper's shopman that was, and the arbiter of the 
 "Becomings" that now is. That potentate of fashion, for a ten-guinea fee, 
 tells us in what we shall look best according to our face and figure, and how 
 best to assist nature to look to our advantage — to his taste. In fact, he under- 
 takes to realize the wish of Robert Burns, and make us see ourselves as others 
 see us. A similar professor of taste is the tattoo man of the Maories. The 
 ladies that he so ornaments are very simply decorated indeed, just a little 
 about the chin, and one or both lips. There is about the same difference in 
 adornment between the Maori face masculine and that feminine, as there is 
 between the plumages of the peacock and peahen. To a European, these 
 tattooed lips of the ^Nlaori women are very ugly indeed. To the taste of the 
 white man, a pair of pink lips is all in all. To trace blue-black lines and 
 figures on them is quite frightful — desecrating, we might say. A little 
 knowledge of Maori ways and manners puts the matter in a new light. 
 Maories do not kiss. They only rub noses instead. So simple a matter as 
 rubbing noses together, instead of rubbing lips, opens a long train of thought 
 to the philosopher. He will argue thence that our pleasures lie in the mind, 
 in the fancy, the imagination, and will tell us that rubbing fingers together or 
 noses is as pleasurable as kissing, if we only think so. Is kissing only a 
 fashion? W^ill it die out some day, and shall we all rub noses or fingers, or 
 the top of each other's heads instead ? Who shall say nay ? In France only 
 the men kiss, as we all well know, and the French believe that they have 
 always led civilization ; but then they believe so many things that we don't. 
 
 There was one old man Maori, quite a patriarch, that would sit about 
 sunning himself all day, to whom we were much attracted. In age he must 
 have been something very great. We have but to look at the trees at 
 Burnham Beeches to see their stupendous age. They have grown through 
 countless years to look more like rocks than trees. It was so with this old 
 Maori. His great-grandfather might have seen the last of the moas. He was 
 so antiquated that he appeared to be partly fossilized. When we took his hand 
 in ours, we were establishing a direct link with the middle of the last century. 
 We went back to 1760 in that grasp, and lived in the early days of the third 
 of the Georges, and saw Walpole and Pope and Johnson and Goldsmith, and 
 the beauty of the Gunnings. There was nothing the matter with this old 
 
208 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 mortality but natural decay. He was dreadfully lumpy, and slow and 
 lumbering, but he was cheerful in his half-torpid way. We could see that the 
 long sleep from which he had emerged in that past age was slowly regaining 
 him again to its embrace. " Our little life is rounded by a sleep," and so was 
 his long one. We liked to put a cigar into his large mouth, and to light it for 
 him, and to see him gently pull at it and smile his thanks. That he should have 
 retained a taste for tobacco up to that age was a very curious thing to us. We 
 thought that the sense of taste, and especially a vicious taste, would have 
 grown dulled altogether. He had a finely-tattooed face, and a head of thick, 
 whitish grey hair. As we sat with him, we thought probably more of his past 
 life than he did himself. There was a large scar on his neck, and another 
 down the side of his forehead. He had been in the wars in his time — in much 
 war, no doubt, for the Maori delights in combat. Life is a serious matter 
 to most of them — they just never can get enough of fighting. How many men 
 had this old Maori eaten ? we wondered, for we could not question the 
 ancient cannibal on the subject. He was a fine old mausoleum, no doubt. 
 Gravestone inscriptions might have been tattooed on that broad chest of his. 
 Did he know So-and-so ? we might have asked, and he might have replied, 
 
 MAORI WOMEN. 
 
 " Know him! yes, plenty well. I ate him!" — a most intimate sort of knowledge 
 that. We looked on him much as Belzoni would upon a fine old tomb, and 
 wondered if we could, as such, get him into the British Museum on remuner- 
 ative terms. 
 
 The Maori is distinguished in several prominent characteristics besides 
 tattoo. He cannot endure a hairy face ; he never eats salt ; he has no faith in 
 a hereafter ; he has no industry ; he has a keen sense of insult ; he has no 
 word for, or any idea of, time, and is careless about time and life ; he is 
 largely self-reliant ; he is greatly lazy ; he is animally selfish ; he has no 
 respect for the dead ; he has no fancy, sentiment, or imagination. 
 
 Their not eating salt is a very peculiar feature with the Maories, as it has 
 l)een thought amongst us Europeans that the use of salt was a necessity of life. 
 The strong, fine, healthy physique of the Maories shows us that our belief in 
 salt as an essential of health is a fallacy. That is a peculiarity worth making a 
 
" Tapuy 209 
 
 note and a query about hy those who have time and opportunity to discuss a 
 very interesting topic — the necessity for salt at the table. 
 
 The Maori god is an image in green-stone, fashioned much like the heads on 
 Gothic buildings called "gurgoyles" are with us. Only the bust seems to be 
 carved. This god is supposed to be influential only in temporal affairs — 
 success in war, and prevention of hostilities by enemies, but to have no 
 relation in any way to the life hereafter. The Maori chiefs assume a great and 
 mystic religious power — that of the " Tapu" — a w^ord which we borrow when 
 we say that such a thing is "tabooed," meaning that it is not to be meddled 
 within action or speech. Every chief is holy; he is "tapued,"not to be 
 meddled with, and he can transmit the power. He can make anything as holy 
 as he is himself — perhaps a little more so. He can draw a line across a river 
 or road, and such is at once " tapued ;" beyond that line none must tread, on 
 pain of death, which follows swiftly on any breach of this superstitious rite. 
 The white man cannot trespass with more impunity than the Maori on anything 
 that is "tapued." This tapu power has caused plenty of war, is a strange 
 blending of the spiritual and temporal power in those who have authority, and 
 is worth thinking of by those who are on the look-out for innovations in our 
 social code. It might be good to give such powers to policemen, if one could 
 get the rowdies to believe in it. Fancy stopping the advance of a mob by 
 drawing an imaginary line across the road with the finger ! such is tapu 
 power. We respect every man's religion, but that did not prevent us bringing 
 away a Maori green -stone god. 
 
 IMany ^laories have strongly-marked Jewish features. The face of Tapieri, 
 the chief of the Thames district, near Auckland, and to whom the miners pay 
 royalty, or tribute, is very Jewish in appearance — conspicuously so. The 
 Jewish element in them probably accounts for their dislike of all manual labour. 
 What we understand by "industry" the Maori knows nothing about. 'Tis 
 not in his nature, and never will be. He has, however, a Corsican sense of 
 insult, and he pursues its revenge exactly as a Corsican does. A word 
 slightingly spoken, or the lie directly given, can only be wiped out in blood ; 
 whilst the death of a man, however accidentally caused, is only to be compen- 
 sated by another death, and by war of tribes, if necessary. Nothing in that 
 way is forgotten or forgiven by the Maories. Time, in the way of revenge, or 
 any other way, is of no consequence. What is not done to-day can be done 
 to-morrow, and in the way of vengeance no count is kept — what has to be done 
 will be done, some time or other. A Maori never counts his years, or his 
 days, nor knows how old he is. He has some belief that four hundred years 
 ago his ancestors came to New Zealand from the Malay Islands, but he cannot 
 in any way verify his chronology. As a rule, the Maori prefers "to-morrow" 
 and "by-and-by" in all his dealings. No one ever saw a Maori hurrying 
 himself. 
 
 The Maori sets small value upon life, and as a sequence he is very self- 
 reliant. He is like the famous John Toler of the many duels — afterwards 
 Lord Norbury — ever ready to rush to battle, but he is not excitably so. In 
 his lazy way he does even that deliberately, and plans and schemes beforehand. 
 When it comes to personal encounter, the Maori excites himself by a war- 
 dance, in which he works himself up to a fever by friction — getting thus into a 
 heated state of blood and brain, and so rushing on his enemy. As a warrior, 
 he develops great tact in choosing his ground, and raising earthworks and 
 other defences. Long ages of battling with his fellows have made war and all 
 its belongings part of the Maori's nature. There is the soldier in all of them. 
 Selfishness is all in all in the Maori mind. Generosity and liberality, like all 
 such sentiments, are unknown to ^laories. We strove to find instances to the 
 contrary, but they are so few in number, and so questionable, as to be unworthy 
 
 P 
 
2 1 o The Alain Routes Roiuid the World. 
 
 of counting as exceptions to the rule. Nothing stands in the way of a Maori 
 doing that which pleases him — if he can do it by fraud or force. Touchy as 
 he is in matters of honour, in all the finer points that make the civilized 
 gentleman he is deficient. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 IN THE RICHEST OF ALL GOLDMINES — THE CALEDONIAN. 
 
 "If you can find our old friend Freekins anywhere out in your quarter of the 
 world, let him know that a fortune has been left him. His friends have heard 
 nothing of him for many years, and conclude him to have passed over to the 
 majority." We read thus in a letter received nearly two years ago from an old 
 London friend, with whom ourself and Freekins had, twenty-two years ago, 
 been fellow-clerks. The missing man had never been seen or heard of by us, 
 and as no funds were forwarded to pay for hunting him up, we dismissed the 
 matter from our mind, our duty being only to tell him of the fortune awaiting 
 him if he came within ken. 
 
 Freekins had nearly faded from our remembrance. Dimly we recalled him 
 as a very easy-minded youth, who was blessed with good health and good 
 digestion, and bothered himself with no cares or ambitions. Now, as we 
 recalled him, it appeared all right enough that a fortune should be left to him. 
 He would never otherwise have been likely to get one. But why did he 
 disappear from the world that he knew and that knew him, as he appeared to 
 have done ? He was never likely to become eccentric or misanthropic, and do 
 as Laurence Oliphant, English M.P., lately did when he left the House of 
 Commons and his Scotch constituency and the gay world of London, and, 
 unknown to all, buried himself for a long time in some semi-monastic society on 
 the shores of Lake Erie, in America. Nor was Freekins likely to become 
 criminal and to flee from justice and the faces of his fellows. We did not think 
 it was so easy for a man to disappear out of society, to drop through a trap on 
 the stage of life, and not be discoverable anywhere below or behind the scenes. 
 It would seem, though, that Freekins had so done. 
 
 We had to go down to New Zealand some eighteen months or so after the 
 receipt of the advice about our missing friend, and we can safely say that we 
 never gave him a thought, owing to the sickness of the sea journeys there and 
 thereabouts, or to the novelty of the new land and its different aspects. We 
 had landed on the South Island, and travelled northwards through its town- 
 ships up to the far end of the Northern Island— just as far as we could go in 
 that direction. As we stood there, we stood as far from London as any one 
 could be upon this globe. That was at Auckland. There were places of note 
 to be seen thereabouts, one of which was the Thames gold diggings, situated 
 on a barren sea-shore on the eastern coast, some sixty miles from Auckland — 
 the most unpropitious place in appearance that it was ever our fate to look at. 
 Fortune there, however, had hidden her largest store of gold, as Captain Kidd 
 is supposed to have hidden his wonderful treasure, where folks would be least 
 likely to look for it. 
 
 It fell to our fortune to be there only in January last, and it fell to our mis- 
 fortune to have no "second sight ;" to know nothing of the place that we were 
 in, any more than that weary work was going on there, as elsewhere, in the 
 
A ^^ Missing Friendr 211 
 
 hope that it might l)e successful. We could have bought mining shares, after- 
 wards gone far beyond our purse, for next to nothing. We rubbed shoulders, as 
 it were, with the winner of the Derby, before the start, and knew nothing of his 
 excellence, nor of what we were doing. We had gone to the furthest antipodal 
 part of the world from our London home, and had entered the house of 
 Fortunatus, and knew it not. We had not Aladdin's lamp to see our way, 
 and noticed not the thousand hands that, all unseen to us, were everywhere 
 holding out bags of gold — in front of the nose that we could not see beyond. 
 
 "Well, my word! what shall we see next?" The voice came from one 
 who stopped our way in Pollen-street, Graham's Town, Thames Diggings. 
 This town is situated on a strip of sea-shore, washed by the Firth of Thames 
 on one side, and banked up by a high mountain range immediately on the 
 other. We knew not our querist, who was dressed as a digger, and we mildly 
 hinted that he had the advantage of us. " So has any one that's got brains," 
 he said. " Don't you know Eaklwell ?" We expostulated that we could not 
 be expected to recall the events of a lifetime at once, nor remember, at call, all 
 the faces that had, some time or other, been familiar to us. " Well, you have 
 not altered a bit since '48, anyhow ; and how is old Slopgoose ? " A touch of 
 that familiar sort made us kith and kin at once. We knew all about it now, 
 and long years rolled away as a mist does before the sun. "And to meet you 
 here ! " we said. " We have come a long way to see something or other, and 
 that something, at present appears, principally, to be you. What are you 
 doing here ? " 
 
 Our newly-discovered friend, with the good memory for faces, had, we 
 found, been working at these Thames gold mines for many months. When we 
 had met him last, he was the well-provided-for son of a well-to-do father in 
 London, and connected with one of the professions. Here he was, a working 
 digger, with a horny hand, and the marks of labour everywhere upon him. 
 The change had come about, we found, naturally enough. Nature had 
 "thrown back" in the son to the original type of perhaps the great-grand- 
 father. He was intended to be a labouring man of the bent back and perspir- 
 ing brow, one who was to live by muscular exertion only, and he had gradually 
 declined to his destiny. It was of no use to prop him up, and think to keep 
 erect a marble figure on the feet of clay. Here, as a digger, with a short pipe 
 in his mouth, he was happy, and the right man in the right place. We did 
 not say "alas," for we were quite sure, after a few minutes' talk, that all 
 would be as happy as our friend was if they could find out their right place in 
 the world as he had done. The labour fitted for him was to him no toil, 
 evidently enough. " We left you a gentleman of fortune," we said, " on the 
 high road to keep a carriage and pair, and a house in Belgrave-square ; and 
 what fortune-teller could have dared to prophecy this change ? " He said, 
 "Look here, old fellow, I am well off, and happy with a good day's work for 
 my hands, and that I never felt myself to be while trying to work with my 
 head. The old man tried me at everything, but it was no go ; and when the 
 money had all gone, I found, in emigration and hard work out here, just what 
 I was fitted for. I'm all right, and am healthy, lively, and strong ; what 
 more could I wish for ? " 
 
 We began to percieve that there was much to be said for our friend's view 
 of the question, and that, perhaps, the refinements of a London life, and the 
 exercise of the nerves and brain in place of the muscles of a man might not be 
 the best way of getting through life happily, and coming healthily in at the 
 finish. This man "toiled all day in the eye of Phoebus, and slept in Elysium," 
 without doubt. We were ready to buy that sound night's sleep of him, 
 were it purchasable, as also his appetite, and there were other things that we 
 envied him the possessing. 
 
 P 2 
 
2 12 The Main Routes Round the Woiid. 
 
 After dinner, he would take us to his workshop "up there" — pointing to 
 the mountain range above us. His workshop, as he called it, was the Cale- 
 donian Mine — afterwards the Great Caledonian Mine, the rich Caledonian 
 Mine, and to be known as the richest gold-mine that man ever opened in this 
 world as far as history supplies a record. The Caledonian Mine was, however, 
 nothing then. Its entrance looked but a dirty hole — a perpendicular, grave 
 like entrance on the bleak, seaward side of a barren mountain — a home for sea 
 birds, and sea winds, and for nothing else. Yet that hole in that sea wall led 
 to the house of Croesus. Through that doorway of dirt El Dorado lay. 
 Through that entrance came two tons weight of melted gold in two months, and 
 that successionally. Ten thousand pounds daily, week after week, and month 
 after month, were handed down out of that unpropitious-looking hole. To 
 have been in the richest mine in this world is something, and to have gone 
 into it to some purpose is something more ; and we did that. 
 
 In dining with Baldwell, we heard the history of a quarter of a century, 
 and began to perceive hov/ long life is, and how very short also, and how a 
 life should be measured by the number and importance of the ideas and actions 
 that it develops, and not by the number of its years. We found that we had 
 travelled to hear news also, and some very unexpected tit-bits in that way 
 turned up in our talk. It seemed at last that the quarter of a century of time 
 had been but a dream, for we got to a distinctness of memory about minutiae 
 that might have been the events of only last week. 
 
 We found Baldwell's superiority over us in the matter of muscular work 
 when we walked up to the mine with him. It was a terribly toilsome up-hill 
 trudge — quite a climb. The day was hot, too, and the moisture of the sea 
 beneath us exhaled and made us suffer from that worst of warmth — a moist 
 heat. We got faint and tired, and very perspiring, over the job. The mine 
 was reached at last, and we entered the " drive " — a long passage of about 
 six feet by four, into which, if we went again, we should prefer to go in a coal- 
 sack, with two holes cut as an opening for our arms, and with a coal-heaver's 
 fantail hat on our head. How thoughtless people are in such matters ! We 
 spoilt a good hat in that excursion, and our coat was nothing to speak of 
 afterwards. 
 
 In the halls of this burrow we saw men working by candle-light and lamp- 
 light all about us, and listened to all the details, and made the usual remarks 
 that politeness demanded. We had a piece of brownish-looking stone given 
 to us also, which we have now, in which stone, further onwards in the 
 workings, all the masses of gold were afterwards found lurking. Anything 
 more unlike gold than the stuff we inspected could not well be imagined. A 
 handful of fuller's earth would be as promising a "prospect," and 3'et here 
 was all the wealth that could be wanted, and more than could be imagined. 
 When Dumas gave to Monte Christo the enormous fortune that he did, he 
 had the great trouble of imagining how to store it away. He imbedded the 
 hundred millions in a hill in a lonely island in the Mediterranean, and made 
 the fame of that island for all time, and his own fame also. We were in a 
 veritable Monte Christo place here in the Thames diggings, and in the 
 subterranean place where we stood was buried a Monte Christo amount of 
 wealth — existing in fact, and not in fiction. " A potentiality of wealth beyond 
 the dreams of avarice," as Dr. Johnson phrased the brewer Thrale's fortune. 
 That wealth could have been ours too, had we been able to see but one short 
 month into the future. We do not shave, and that is satisfactory, or the result 
 might be that reflecting on what we might have done at that time, would be too 
 much for our o'erwrought mind — with the razor so near to our throat, 
 
 " Here's another old Londoner," said Bal'dwell, smacking the shoulders of a 
 digger standing near; and he forthwith detailed to that digger how he had met 
 
Freaks of Fortune. 213 
 
 us on the shore below, and had known us twenty-five years back, in a very 
 different place. " We little thought ever of meeting at this end of the earth," 
 said Baldwin; " but I've lost a day to good purpose in the talk we've been 
 having of old times." We suggested here that it would be as well to renew 
 that talk in the evening if Baldwell would come to our lodgings and bring his 
 friend, the other Londoner, with him. That l)eing agreed upon, we went on 
 to see the rest of the workings, and then to see the machinery, and then to 
 hear of the richness of this neighbouring mine and that one, and how the lodes 
 were all supposed to run out to sea, and how the workings there would have to 
 be under water. "You had better take shares with us before you leave the place, 
 for now's the time to buy before we hit the vein." So they counselled us, but we 
 had not faith in the hitting of that vein, and had aforetime done our fair share 
 of quartz-mining ventures away over the sea in Australia. The results there 
 had satisfied us. For the majority they generally prove satisfactory, and that 
 in the sense in which the worsted one in a fight answers that he has had enough. 
 Blinded mole that we were, standing amidst moles, at moles' work too — how 
 could we see into the middle of next month, when we could not well discern, 
 in the half-darkness, the face of those that we talked with ? For instance, the 
 face of that Londoner digger, whom Baldwell had spoken to, with us was but 
 imperfectly visible, sa much so that we did not know him again when 
 Baldwell stopped him at the entrance as we were making our exit, and said, 
 " Mind, Perkins, that you come down to Burton's to-night." We thought that 
 we had seen the look before that Perkins wore when he nodded affirmatively 
 to that injunction. " What did you call that man ?" we said to Baldwell. He 
 answered that he called him Perkins, and that such was his name, " and what's 
 the matter with you ?" he added. Perhaps the blood had left our cheek to 
 assist our brains in an effort at memory called up by the look of that face seen 
 in the daylight, and by the name of Perkins. The name was near enough to 
 Freekins, and the face was nearer still, if we could remember faces rightly. 
 To settle the matter we stepped up to him, and a few words told us that he 
 was our man — the man wanted for the fortune in England! We had unkennelled 
 him many hundreds of feet underground in this out-of-the-way corner of the 
 earth; and though we missed our fortune in the Caledonian Mine, we gave the 
 news of a fortune to Freekins, and had not gone down to the Thames Diggings 
 for nothing — always supposing it to be more blessed to give than to receive. 
 
 In the evening we heard the long story told of the past life of the missing 
 man, and a not uninteresting story it was. It greatly helped us to understand 
 the story of the claimant of the Tichborne baronetcy. It had been mythical 
 to us up to that time how a man could disappear from the world for a number 
 of years, and keep himself unknown to all his friends and relatives. After 
 hearing Freekin's story, we began to understand that such could be done, and 
 that the Flnoch Ardens and the Tichbornes of this world are not so uncommon 
 as we imagined. The story we heard shall be moulded some day, and told, 
 and be told as the tale of the richest gold-mine of this world. In all but the 
 right names we have commenced it here. 
 
214 TJie Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 " THE SILVER THAMES" — WTIH GOLDEN BANKS. 
 
 The steamer that took us away from Auckland jetty came to anchor, some five 
 or six hours afterwards, in apparently open sea, but off the shore of what is 
 called the Firth of Thames. On one side were only water and waves, as far 
 as sight went ; on the other, between one and two miles away, lay a sandy 
 beach and the precipitous hill -sides that run down to the water's edge here, as 
 generally elsewhere all around the east coast of New Zealand. We were to go 
 off in a small boat to that narrow beach, on which, as we got nearer, we could 
 see a line of habitations built. That — yes, that — was the township of the 
 Thames diggings. That was Shortland. The diggings, where were they ? 
 They were in the sides of the overhanging hills or cliffs ; we should see the 
 entrances here and there as we got nearer inshore. By-and-by we did so. The 
 hill-sides are like to a large pigeon-house, and the holes appearing herein and 
 leading to the drives of the different mines are like to the holes by which such 
 birds make their entrances and exits. To one used to the Victorian diggings 
 about Ballarat and Sandhurst, these Thames mines have a strange look, and 
 the strangeness is not at all favourable. To Scott's tale of the " Talisman" we 
 remember a frontispiece of the convent of Mar Saba in Palestine, a rocky 
 fortress in a valley, partly surrounded l)y high perpendicular rocks, from which 
 the mountain, now cut into a monastery, and called Mar Saba, had, as 
 we afterwards personally saw, been rent by some convulsion of nature. In 
 the sides of these perpendicular rocks monks had bored or tunnelled holes 
 here and there, half-way up, to which they were let down from the top by 
 ropes, each to his little hole, there to abide in solitude till death took him, 
 from what we can hardly call life, in a few years' time. Except that the 
 holes in the cliff at the Thames can be scrambled up to from the bottom by 
 those who have strong legs and good lungs and do not mind soiled dress, the 
 Thames mining quarter looks from the water something like to Mar Saba's 
 precipice. Between that and the pigeon-house appearance the choice may 
 lie. Straggling along the beach are Shortland and Graham's Town, one 
 a continuation of the other in a roadway called Pollen-street, and the latter 
 now the busy part of these sea-side diggings. The glory has left Shortland 
 altogether, and its long street of habitations is but desolation and emptiness. 
 So fares it with all townships that depend upon gold-digging as sources of sup- 
 port. Business and population shift from one quarter to another until the 
 day comes — and it always does come — when the two take leave together. It 
 is then all " Tadmor in the wilderness" henceforth. The scrubby, useless hill 
 or cliffside, in which the diggings are burrowed at the Thames, is owned 
 chiefly by a Maori named Tapieri, whose house is stuck upon some projection 
 amongst the diggings. To that we scrambled up with some loss of wind and 
 temper. He looks, as before mentioned, wonderfully like a Hebrew, does 
 Tapieri, and develops something of the Semitic faculty in drawing very good 
 revenue from the diggers who scratch upon his sterile, bleak hill-sides. Tribute 
 or royalty is paid to him by the miners. He looks on while they toil. He 
 has the best of it. We went from his house to the famous Long Drive Mine, 
 in which Prince Alfred was a shareholder. That mine has this advantage : it 
 can be entered on the level sandy beach by one doorway, again at another 
 fifty feet up the cliff, and at another some forty feet higher than that. We 
 
Undei'-sea Mining. 215 
 
 chose the lowest entrance, but the closeness of the atmosphere and the dirtiness 
 of the job soon gave us enough for our curiosity. Most of these mines extend 
 their claims far out below low- water mark, and the miners sink shafts through 
 the water and sandy bottom to find the continuation of the vein there that 
 they have followed down the hill-side. This digging under the water is peculiar 
 to the Thames. We never saw it elsewhere in New Zealand or Australia. 
 The Botallock coal mine at Cornwall, we know, begins at the water's edge, 
 and runs for a great distance under the sea ; but these shafts begin in the 
 water in dams that have to be pumped out and kept thenceforth water-tight to 
 enable the bottom to be worked. I^igging is mostly arduous work. Except 
 some alluvial diggings that we saw in \"ictoria in 1852, at Fryer's Creek and 
 Eaglehawk, five feet sinking to blue clay, full of gold, we never saw any digging 
 that looked easy. At the Thames, however, in addition to the hard work, one 
 has first to get acclimatized ; the proximity of the water to the cliff-side makes 
 the small strip of beach there of a particularly clammy, sticky, moist, oppres- 
 sive atmosphere. The new arrival, if in the summer time, like to ourself, 
 feels very languid and inert. We did so for the two days of our stay there, 
 and our experience was that of those who went with us. The Thames is 
 only a digging for companies and capitalists. It was at the lowest ebb- 
 tide of luck when we saw it and a few well-remembered faces that we 
 met there were only wishing that they could leave it as easily as we could. 
 Fortune has since given them a smile. "Hope springs eternal in the human 
 breast." These pigeon-holed cliffs are the evidence of that faith that here, 
 practically, is removing mountains — or much of the insides of them. Had we 
 had faith, we might have bought mining shares for next to nothing, and been 
 now considered shrewd speculators. We might have bought a great many 
 shares, too, and several entire mines — plant and all. If we didn't buy, it was 
 not because nothing was offered — O, dear, no ! We will say this for the people 
 of the Thames, that they were willing to let strangers in — to share their fortunes 
 -—on the usual terms. They are still similarly inclined, no doubt. The place 
 is sea breezy, moist, and perpendicular. The people are mixed, patient, hopeful 
 — and open to offers. Surrounded by the gold that was in the mountain sides, 
 and beneath the waters at our feet, we could find no better amusement for an hour 
 than fishing for our dinner at the end of the long jetty that Graham, a white 
 Tapieri, who divides territory here with the iVlaori owner, has lately built. 
 We found two or three others fishing likewise — folks, like to ourselves, not 
 devoured by the greed of gold, nor excited by its presence around, nor by the 
 offers of the people to sell us shares in their fortunes — to come. With these 
 primitive-minded men we pursued the ancient and quiet business of fishing, 
 with much success — taking back a full basket for the dinner-table. The folks 
 who sat down to it seemed glad enough to eat the fish, but too busy — or too 
 lazy — to go fishing for themselves. We had this reflection : that the fishing 
 had been a certain good and a profit. About much of the mining going on we 
 had just a doubt or two that kept us out of all the good things that were to be 
 had around us — for money. Mines were pointed out— that is to say a dingy 
 hole like to the low entrance to an Egyptian building was shown us— as being 
 those in which Mr. So-and-So had come from ^Melbourne and invested so 
 much, and in which this and that Victorian speculator held so many shares. 
 We were glad to hear it ; we smiled and looked pleased — we always do so 
 when we find our fellow men disbursing their capital for the encouragement of 
 labour. How pleasant is the feeling of providing work for the unemployed, 
 labour for the labouring man ! The feeling of doing good in this way brings 
 its reward in the present, and also in the future, when we may look back to 
 time and money well spent, not in enriching ourselves, and leaving hoards for 
 heirs to squander, or to enrich widows for tempting baits to our matrimonia 
 
2i6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 successors — but in providing for the wants of the work-a-day world— the sons 
 of toil. Amongst the means that Providence takes for the dissemination of 
 capital, gold-mining — especially of the quartz kind — takes front rank. Not 
 only does it put about that which one determines upon spending for the given 
 purpose, but it continually keeps one's good intentions in one's mind by 
 periodical "calls." The building of churches and endowing charities was for 
 a long time the channel for diffusing surplus wealth. If but few endowed 
 churches and charities be found hereafter in Australia and New Zealand, let 
 it be known that good impulses took another form — a form that did all the 
 good in the lifetime of the doer of it, and brought him occupation of time 
 and mind — not to say excitement — along with it. We respect Peabody. He 
 did well with his wealth. He would not, however, have had occasion to 
 provide houses for the labourer had he lived near to a gold-mining district. 
 Providing labour there, for the labourers, would have exhausted the Peabody 
 fund — had shares been taken pretty generally in the ventures going round. 
 
 One gloomy thought for the future of Shortlands and Graham's Town 
 forced itself upon our attention. The tunnels burrowed and burrowing every- 
 where in the overhanging cliff would one day lead to large land-slips, and 
 down upon the township at the water's edge would come avalanches of moun- 
 tain side that would restore all things to a state of nature. The attractions 
 of the place as a gold-field may be, fortunately in that sense, exhausted before 
 such deluge comes ; but come it must some day to a natural and engineering 
 certainty. No danger, of course, can be seen by those daily accustomed to the 
 locality. We get so much used to the sight of a thing that in time we cannot 
 see it with the eyes of others. We are blind in more things than love. 
 
 It occurred to some English speculators, about 1S40, to inquire into the state 
 of the once-productive mines in the mountain ranges of the Cordilleras in 
 South America. An agent, accompanied by some Cornish miners, went out 
 to the locality, and duly reported upon it. Somehow this business recurred to 
 our mind on looking at these other mountain-side mines. We could fancy a 
 similar commission sent out to look at the remains of the Thames diggings 
 fifty years hence. Would similar desolation mark the scene, and a few solitary 
 descendants of the Tapieri family be all that remained of humanity thereabout? 
 It is very likely, but the Chinese are to come first. They ever follow the 
 white diggers, these gleaners of the gold-fields. They are great at combina- 
 tion mining ; fifty or more work as one man, and do wonders by such united 
 action. They are taking to emigration largely, and to returning with their 
 profits to their own country. They haven't come to this district yet, but will 
 probably take it up when the white population have done with it. They will 
 most likely wash down all these mountain sides when they come, but then 
 they will go when done, and leave all desolate. Of the Cordillera mines it 
 was reported that they would not pay to work with free labour, and that they 
 never would have paid had they been so worked. Chinamen work much like 
 to slaves, and live most meagrely whilst working. These characteristics, with 
 their wonderfully combining faculty, explain the secret of their mining success. 
 After the Chinamen have done with the Thames diggings, there will be this 
 good result, that there will be no deserted mines left with long tunnels and 
 open drives to cause future land-slips. All will be taken down and washed up, 
 and the place be restored to the sea-birds, from whom, the proper dwellers for 
 the place, those now usurping their territory keep it but for a little while. 
 
 Could one help lingering on deck to take a last look at this new Thames ? 
 The name had a charm for us, and for every English, and especially every 
 Londoner's, ear. We had grown up from boyhood on the banks of "old 
 Father Thames," and loved it as the river of our great native village. It was 
 the "silver Thames," in the language of our forefathers, and on its bosom we 
 
The Thames. 217 
 
 had known our first English boating, and our last. Nearly twenty years ago 
 it had floated us outwards on our start hitherwards. Leaving the new Thames 
 of New Zealand, we did so with the natural wish that we could go quickly 
 back to a visit to the old Thames of old England. It is but right to say that 
 the beautiful thought we have endeavoured to express came upon us as we 
 began to be fearfully sea-sick. Prodigal son as we were of the old Thames, it 
 was only when trouble came upon us that we thought of returning to our 
 father. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 THE WATER KIXG's HEAD-OUARTERS. 
 
 A steamer's journey of about sixteen hours takes one from Auckland to 
 Tauranga (Towranghay), The steamer arrives about noon, giving full time 
 lOr one to call at the Tauranga Hotel, and get dinner there, and chat 
 about the place and its specialities. Tauranga is the landing-place on the 
 east coast of the north island for those who are bound inland towards Lake 
 Taupo, the great lake from whence the river Waikato, that the native 
 wars have made famous, takes its rise ; for those also who are wishful to see 
 that "Gate pah"' at which, a few years back, so many British soldiers and 
 officers fell in a disastrous skirmish with the Maories who had here strongly 
 entrenched themselves ; for those also who are bound on a visit to the great 
 twin volcanoes of Tongariro and Ruapeha — volcanoes of fire, present or past, 
 be it understood ; for those also who are bound for the lakes of hot water 
 called Rotorua and Rotomahana ; for those also who are bound for the 
 boiling geysers, or springs, of Whakarewarewa (Walker-rueher-rueher) ; and 
 for those also who are bound to Te Tarata, the grand boiling-water volcano ; 
 and for those who would see the sight of sights — in this region of Nature's 
 wonders — the terraces of marble basins that, from the top of Te Tarata, 
 receive its heated waters, and pass them down from basin to basin, with 
 gradually lowering temperature to each, until they reach and run over 
 and spread about on the great white marble floor that all around awaits 
 their everlasting lavement. It must be admitted that, with all these attrac- 
 tions, it requires no excuse to go to Tauranga, and that in time to come the 
 traveller will go thither as naturally as to Niagara ; and those in search of health 
 will take to the waters of Rotorua, Rotomahana, and Te Tarata, as they now 
 do to those of a far less healing nature in Germany and Switzerland. Greatly 
 medicinal are these New Zealand heated waters. We have wandered, how- 
 ever, from the Tauranga Hotel, to which we return to be introduced to 
 a guide for our bush journey inland. With the horses he provides we make 
 headway on to Maketu, distant twenty miles further southwards along the 
 eastern coast. An accommodation house here provides supper and bed for 
 the night. Next morning a start is made for Taheke, a sort of stopping-place 
 half way to Rotorua, where another inn-keeper has kindly isolated himself from 
 the world to keep a half-way house for the benefit of such few of his fellow- 
 men as may come that way. Such philanthropy is exceptional and praise- 
 worthy. Shutting his eyes to the present, our host can see, in mental 
 vision, that great traffic will go his way in years to come, but that is all that he 
 will ever see of it. His descendants — of about the third generation or so — 
 may see the beginning of it. Towards evening Ohinamutu is reached, and 
 
2i8 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 "wonderland" is entered upon. This place is a native village that runs out far 
 into the Lake of Hot Water, called Rotorua. It is one of the queerest of human 
 dwelling-places. The air breathed is about half steam from the lake, and the 
 land trodden upon is a cracked and baking crust that here and there fails to 
 cover up the hot seething mud beneath ; where these cracks occur, steam arises 
 all around. No mistakes must be made in one's footsteps, or one sinks into 
 boiling mud, much as Christian did into the Slough of Despond. Mistakes 
 that have been made in that way have not been rectified, at least not in this 
 world. Stones are put about here and there, which are used as those similarly- 
 placed for fording shallow waters, and, stepping about upon these, Ohinamutu 
 is reached, the village of the Hot Lake. Most of these children of the hot 
 water — the natives — were in their element, in the evening, for it is natural that 
 their dwelling-place should make them of an amphibious nature. Of evenings 
 they spend two hours and more in the hot, greenish-coloured, steaming waters 
 of Lake Rotoura. The temperature is about ninety degrees, or from that to 
 one hundred, speaking by guess in the absence of thermometers. The habits 
 of these out-of-the-way Maories are very simple. All bathe together, men and 
 women, which one could see by the long hair of the gentle ones as it floated on 
 the surface. Hilarious were they and jolly, and at play and fun with each 
 other, these girls of the Lake Rotorua. The Turkish bath sort of life these 
 people live agrees admirably with them, and, as a new result of the won- 
 derful powers of steam, we took much note of it. There is something to be 
 said in favour of Ohinamutu as a dwelling-place, though advising any emigra- 
 tion thither is not our thought. No fuel is wanted for cooking. No kitchen 
 is necessary there. A kettle stuck into a hole in the ground anywhere soon 
 gets hot. A pot or pan does the same. Potatoes are put into a flax-made bag, 
 and sunk in the hot earth, and steamed to perfection, and so with any joint or 
 root or grain. The drawback in the eyes of visitors seems to be the insecurity 
 of the place. That which keeps the earth and the water hot, and the mud 
 boiling here and there, and sending up jets of steam, cannot be very safely 
 relied upon to go so far and never any further. The village of Ohinamutu 
 may go up or down some day in this earthquaky, volcanic New Zealand, and 
 is very likely to do so. Meanwhile the temperature is equable all the year 
 round, and there can be no doubt that the natives think no other place in the 
 world is so good as theirs. The Esquimaux, who freezes ten months out of the 
 twelve, thinks the same, as does the African, who roasts for the same period ; 
 and so why not the Rotorua man, who only simmers and steams ? Our guide 
 was of some value amongst the natives here, who knew as much of our 
 language as we did of theirs. We got a wharry for ourselves for the night, and 
 slept the sleep of a working baker near to the oven, or something very like to 
 it. There was the largest warm bath in the world ready to our chamber door 
 in the morning. 
 
 The next stage took us on to the boiling geysers of Whakarewarewa — little 
 hillocks throwing out, some feebly and some fiercely, jets of boiling water, 
 and doing so everlastingly ; for that seemed to us finite beings not the least 
 astonishing part of it. Twenty miles or so further onwards, Rotomahana, another 
 warm lake, is reached, and has to be crossed in a boat. That being done, we 
 bid adieu altogether to the common sort of world we have known so many 
 years, and enter upon that which, from our childhood, we had known only from 
 the transformation scenes in pantomimes and the landscapes in fairy burlesques 
 and extravaganzas. Before us now rises Te Tarata, and we think that, having 
 written that much, we had better stop until we get the shade of J. W. M. 
 Turner, that great painter of the mystic, to assist us. As we do not, however, 
 expect to be credited, it matters little what we say. Our writing \vill be 
 memoranda for our own reference merely — to be referred to hereafter as evidence 
 
The Terraced Mounts. 219 
 
 of how barren our brains were in descriptive power in the year seventy-one. 
 Te Tarata, as with its pink double on the other side of the lake, rises 
 before us a respectably large mount, with a reservoir of sapphire-blue water 
 at the top. The temperature of this water is about one hundred. The 
 reservoir containing it is of great diameter. The inside of it is coated with 
 a pinkish or light coloured silicious or limestone cement. From the 
 water, beautifully l)lue, that bubbles in this large basin, is thrown up from 
 the centre a continuous fountain-like column for ten feet or more above the 
 level of the edge of the reservoir — a veritable volcano of bluish, hot water! 
 In its fall, this column of water sends large quantities from the basin splashing 
 over the side — the lower side of the basin, towards Rotomahana Lake. In 
 its ''play" of countless years, this grand fountain, buried in the wilderness 
 has worked out a wonder equal to the production, in the same time by the coral 
 insect, of the islands in the South Seas. It has fashioned for itself a terrace 
 of titanic basins, by which its waters grandly and gracefully descend its side. 
 A staircase, as it were, of richly-coloured marbles, that stand there to show us 
 what Nature can do when she condescends to architecture upon earth. The 
 whole is something that makes Versailles and its attempts but a gingerbread 
 affair — a mere oyster-shell and mud-pie of the gutter! 
 
 The marble basins of Te Tarata, and its pink coloured brother, are formed of 
 silicious matters that are contained in the blue hot waters of the volcano above. 
 That water comes through various earths, and, heated as it is, brings up in a 
 boiled state all sorts of stony and mineral matter. The splashing and ever 
 falling water works out its own basin, and the petrifying matter contained in 
 it makes that basin's inner and outer coatings. The first one looks of the purest, 
 whitest, transparent marble, holding thousands of gallons of the most 
 deliciously-blue water. Over the edge of this immense basin the waters flow 
 to the one beneath, in a perpetual cascade. A cascade of water is not suffi- 
 ciently beautiful. A cascade of Honiton lace is therefore supplied by Nature 
 as a background to the cascade of water. Inexplicable as this may look, it is 
 of easiest explanation. The same limestone deposit that forms the basin runs 
 with its waters, over the sides of it, and lingers and drops, like to stalactites on 
 a cavern's roof, from the edges all around. These stalactites, or fringes, are 
 lengthened, and crossed and re-crossed by the process of time, until they reach 
 to the basin beneath, and here is the lacework in marble, the lattice in stone, 
 the tracery done by time, the knitting, netting, and crochet worked by the fair 
 and fairy fingers of Nature ! 
 
 In the many gigantic basins, so terraced down the side of the water volcano, 
 and so receiving and passing down its blue, mysterious waters, with a peculiar 
 falling, ringing, gurgling, babbling sound, Nature has avoided monotony to the 
 eye. By her all excelling, cunning hand, colour is introduced with wondrous 
 effect. Pink marble replaces in the opposite volcano the white basins of that 
 of Te Terata, and the lace-work hanging around is of the colour of the 
 basin whence it hangs. To geologists we will leave it to account for pink 
 limestone in place of white, and white in place of pink. They will pcs- 
 sibly say that a different mineral base to the basin into which the water 
 falls, or a different temperature of such water, has worked the wonder. 
 It is very likely. Difficult, indeed, is it to enter into any such disquisi- 
 tions when on the scene itself. The beauty of the wild scenery around; 
 the volcano above one, throwing up its eternal column of bluish, steaming 
 waters; their rush, in foamy-white streams, over the crater's side; their fall 
 from l>asin to basin; the terraced basins themselves; their o'erhanging lace- 
 work; the marble floor, on which all is spread beneath; the effect of light and 
 shade and sunshine upon the whole affair — volcano, terraced marble basins, and 
 falling waters — is so wondrous, so exciting, and so enchantingly bewildering, 
 
2 20 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 that the mind cannot become practical, nor go behind the scenery, as it 
 were, of this great stage- work, to inquire into those disappointing practicalities 
 that we always find behind the scenes. To look and wonder, and to enjoy 
 and worship, is all that can be done within sight and sound of gorgeous Te 
 Tarata and its pink coloured duplicate. 
 
 The water-basins have about three and a half feet of depth, which one can 
 test by going into them. The temperature decreases about fifteen degrees at 
 each fall, and the water is about lukewarm when it reaches its final marble 
 floor. This limestone crust stretches all around for great distances, distributing 
 the water until it reaches the neighbouring lake. The petrifying power of the 
 water is very strong. The body of a plucked fowl exposed to it for twenty 
 four hours becomes not only nicely cooked, but enclosed also in a limestone 
 covering that eff'ectually preserves the enclosure until wanted. A notion is 
 contained in this announcement for a new meat-preserving company, which 
 we here ventilate, reserving no rights — save of eating. Now and again Te 
 Tarata has spasms, and, with one strong convulsion, sends the whole contents 
 of her magnificent reservoir into the air, completely emptying its basin. The 
 waters go to a towering height, and descend with a crushing rush on the basins 
 beneath. We were tokl that the sight was very grand when such occurs, but 
 we were satisfied with the grandeur that we saw, and needed no imagination of 
 anything further. Very curative are these waters of the New Zealand lake 
 district. The district will be the future sanatorium of New Zealand, and of 
 Australia generally. Cutaneous disorders yield quickly to the influence of the 
 waters, and to bathe in them daily for a period is to renovate and renew the 
 nervous system. The journey into the wilds to reach them is, to the seeker of 
 pleasure or of health, a pleasant excursion. The Lake District of New Zealand 
 is for the tourist of the world generally. We found that Prince Alfred had 
 been a visitor to the grand scene that we have endeavoured to write about. 
 Princes are but men, we know ; but, as a common form of laudation, we may 
 say that it was a sight fit for a prince. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE PAKEHA's progress. 
 
 That which Shakspeare took from the writings of others, he has been justified 
 in taking on the score that it was of no value where he found it, and of the 
 greatest where he left it. The same argument applies to all that the white 
 settler has done, and is doing, in New Zealand, except that he pays for what 
 he takes, and gives the price demanded by those who occupied parts of the 
 country before he came. The Arab calls his visitor Howadji, and the Maori 
 calls them all Pakehas. The Maori is of similar old blood to the Arab ; both 
 belong to the old stock that did not believe in working. Much of what the 
 Maori retains as law and custom is of the old Levitical character, and there is 
 a strongly Jewish look to be seen in many of the race. We went to New 
 Zealand with an Exeter-Hall idea of the Maori as a very superior aboriginal, 
 who, if let alone, would develop, in a Darwinian way, into a better kind of 
 being altogether. We soon got disabused on that score. The contact we had 
 with Maories all through the islands disillusioned us completely. The distance 
 and the enchantment gone, the delusion went also. The Maori had had an 
 undisturbed possession of the three islands of New Zealand for four hundred 
 
The Maori's Nature. 
 
 221 
 
 years, and through the length and breadth of them there was nothing to show 
 of the works of man — that he had cultivated the field and the garden, and 
 " caused the wilderness to blossom like the rose." He had for all that time 
 roamed these fair islands of New Zealand, from Foveaux Straits in the south 
 to Cape Maria Van Diemen in the north, and noted not their beauty or 
 usefulness beyond what a wild beast might. He fought with his fellows, and 
 as he killed them he ate them, and the strong ])egan a war of extermination 
 against the weak, and in that way the stronger natives of the north island 
 nearly depopulated the southern altogether — made it a sort of hunting-ground 
 on occasions when they wished to be festive. To this kind of beings the 
 missionaries were sent, and we have had plenteous opportunity of hearing of 
 the doings of these philanthropists, and now of seeing the results. The 
 missionaries who held forth at Exeter Hall in our time in London, long 
 years ago, made great capital, in every sense of the word, of their New 
 Zealand doings. They objected at the outset to the Pakeha settlement 
 of the place, that their good doings amongst the natives might not be 
 interfered with. They would have had the whole country left to themselves, 
 for the express purpose of the conversion of the Maories. It is very likely, we 
 thought, as we saw the scanty result of all their labours, that they did not wish 
 a Pakeha's report of how little of Christianity it is possible to get into the 
 Maori mind. Missionaries are but men, and they like their doings to be 
 thought much of, and to be their own reporters of it. The distance of New 
 Zealand from Europe, and the little that was then known of the strange race 
 that inhabited it, made these missionary reports all the more of interest. 
 Otherwise it were better by far that the missionaries had been employed in the 
 Potteries of England, or in the mining districts, or in the "black country' 
 there, where their efforts are more wanted, and might have had an appreciable 
 result. We went into the little pig-like dwellings of these Maories in their 
 dirty little villages, and to their rude cabin-like chapels, and heard them 
 gabble over the forms of prayer and service taught them as one might teach a 
 parrot, and understood by the Maori about as much as by the bird. It is 
 useless to attempt to Christianize unless you at the same time humanize, and 
 you cannot get the Maori to live like a human being. He will live in his own 
 fashion — that of the beasts of the field, or a very little better. As for the 
 birds of the air, their nests are wonders of art and pleasure-places compared to 
 the pigstyes in which these Maories herd together. They raise their potatoes, 
 maize, kumeros, and taro in little patches about their huts, and these gardening 
 operations are attended to by the women, and are on so paltry a scale that not 
 more than a few thousand acres are under cultivation in the Northern Island,, 
 where it is computed that about fifty thousand natives own twenty million 
 acres of land — useless land to them ; and yet these are the people who quarrel 
 and fight about land ! 
 
 Before we enter upon their fighting reasons, we will dismiss their acquired 
 religion by saying that multitudes of them have lately deserted it for a mumbo- 
 jumbo business called the " Hau Hau" superstition, initiated by one of 
 themselves, who had gone mad, and inaugurated by the murder of one of 
 their best missionaries. This new superstition is professed by all those who 
 are antagonistic to the Pakehas. Their profession of Christianity is a wretched 
 mumbling of a few words, and the possession of a Prayer-book or Bible, 
 printed in their own language, which latter they regard as a sort of talisman, 
 and believe that the possession of the book, and not the reading or the 
 practising of its precepts, is the whole matter. There are no Christian quali- 
 ties in a Maori's nature. 
 
 One of the best men who was ever in New Zealand, or anywhere else, the late 
 Bishop Selwyn, said that he could solemnly declare that since the colony began 
 
222 The Main Routes Rou?id the World. 
 
 no act of wilful injustice had ever been committed by anyone in authority 
 against a Maori, and we believe that the same may be said of the Pakehas 
 not in authority. Why the lighting, then? Simply this, that the Maori is of a 
 quarrelsome nature, and must tight with someone. Fighting is, with the Maori, 
 a disease or bias of the mind ; and all diseases, it is now pretty well demon- 
 strated, are intermittent and periodic in their nature. The partial desolation 
 of Taranaki on the west coast took place because two or three thousand turbu- 
 lent natives thereabout wanted a fight. Neighbouring tribes there were none 
 that could be well quarrelled with, but there were neighbouring Pakehas — 
 quiet settlers from Devon and Cornwall. These Maories owned fully three 
 millions of acres of fertile land, of which they scarcely cultivated fifty acres, and 
 yet they sought, by quibbles and tricks, and afterwards by fighting, to dispossess 
 the Pakehas of a few thousand acres, which had been bought by the Govern- 
 ment from them, and paid for over and over again. It was this triplicate 
 payment for the land that led them doubtless to think that they could get 
 further payments by fraud or by force. Every one knows what it is to have a 
 " black sheep" amongst the peaceable and industrious members of a family, 
 and how he will not work nor keep straight, but will live on the labour of 
 the others, and pluck the weakest, and be violent when wheedling and 
 swindling will go no further. Of such are the Maories. To satisfy their 
 acquisitiveness, they will stick at nothing. For a two-barrelled gun a 
 " Rangitara," or chief, will offer a hundred acres of land — that does not 
 belong to him, or will promise this, that, or the other, or anything that will 
 serve his purpose. He has no conscience, fears no hereafter, and has no ideas 
 of acquiring property by any other means than swindling, roljbery, or fighting. 
 All these he considers legitimate measures. We speak authoritatively on the 
 matter, having been for some time in company of Matene te Whiwhi, who, 
 in 1853, began the native movement to make himself Maori king. On a 
 three-days' journey we had this magnate and three of his kindred in our 
 company, and treasure their signatures in our pocket-book. Matene te 
 Whiwhi did not succeed for himself in his kingly aspirations, but became a 
 sort of king-maker in setting up in 1858 one Wherowhero, who took the title of 
 Potatau the First. The object of the "king" business was to consolidate the 
 Maories against the Pakehas when any opportunity could be discovered for 
 picking a quarrel, and, if none should be discovered, to make one. 
 
 The result of three days' intimate acquaintance on ship-board with these 
 leading men amongst the Maories was, that we concluded the relation of the 
 Maori to the Pakeha to resemble that of a polecat who would interfere with 
 the progress of an ox. Ail our fine notions about the excellence of the Maori 
 race are now obliterated, and we shall look on the gradual obliteration of the 
 race as one of the dispensations of Providence, really merciful — to a better 
 race. 
 
 That better race is the Pakeha, who has, through the New Zealand islands, 
 done more in forty years than the Maori would do in four thousand — a safe 
 conclusion, seeing that he did nothing in four hundred years. For that reason 
 alone we shall be glad that he be removed from the country. That the jNIaori 
 had the fair land of New Zealand to himself for four hundred years, and did no 
 more with it than so many monkeys would, is our indictment against him. If 
 it be thought by any missionary-lover that we are too harsh, we answer, 
 in missionary language, that we judge but in the same spirit that he was judged 
 who made no use of the napkin-buried talent with which he had been en- 
 trusted. 
 
 See the doings of the Pakeha through the long length of this land, and that 
 for the little time that he has had a share of it, and how he has put the talent out 
 at interest in his one great way of doing all things — earnest work ! Running 
 
Wondrous Changes 223 
 
 through, as we did, from Southland to Otago, and so northwards, through 
 Canterbury, \Yestland, Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, Hawke's Bay, 
 Taranaki, and Auckland — ten provinces and their towns and hamlets — we 
 could but echo Tennyson's rhapsody on the works of the doers of this world, 
 and say that all we saw done, and done so well, was but the earnest of what 
 those who had done it all would yet do. If they had done all this as a beginning, 
 what would not the completion Ije like? So much done is yet so little-looking 
 in the vastness of New Zealand. 
 
 In these ten provinces the Pakeha has raised ten chief towns, all well 
 worthy the name, and numberless outlying townships and villages. The post- 
 office list for New Zealand is a walking-stick in length, and might be given to 
 students in elocution as a sort of practice over heavy ground, so far as the 
 names are concerned. A flotilla of steamers are ever coasting south, north, 
 east, and west, and railways have been constructed and are planned and 
 constructing throughout the country. The rakeha has unearthed gold at Ijoth 
 ends of the long length of the land, and that at the northern end, the Thames, 
 has been unearthed in such quantities as no gold-mine ever yet yielded. The 
 Caledonian Mine is a world's wonder in the way of gold-mines, and has 
 enriched the City of Auckland in every conceivable way. Telegraphic wires 
 run through the land. The plains are covered with sheep and cattle, and in 
 wool the Pakeha exports the finest that Europe receives. In building-stone, 
 other countries are customers to him ; the new Town Hall of Melbourne is 
 built with the produce of his Oamaru quarries. He has roamed the forests, 
 and found trees that yield unequalled woods for purposes of commerce, and 
 through the length and breadth of the land he has found fields of usefulness, 
 and has put them to the best purpose. At a national exhibition of the 
 products of the country, held at Dunedin, specimens of gold, copper, iron, 
 coal, limestone, and ornamental woods were sent from nearly all the ten 
 provinces. All that a goodly land can yield is brought forth and disseminated 
 for the good of mankind, and these doings of the Pakeha are but the work of 
 his first forty years. 
 
 Albert Land, not hitherto named by us, deserves a few words. The 
 northernmost part of New Zealand, from Auckland to Cape Maria Van 
 Diemen, is two hundred miles in length, and from thirty-five to fifty-five in 
 breadth. It stands in about the same relation to the rest of New Zealand as 
 Devon and Cornwall do to England. Here the Kauri pine — that king of pines 
 — attains its finest growth. The country is splendidly watered, and pretty bays 
 and harbours indent both east and west coasts. Buried about in the earth here 
 are found the greatest stores of a pale yellowish gum, that can be quarried almost 
 like stone in blocks, and which, under the name of Kapia or Kauri gum, is sold by 
 the ton, and is becoming of much use in commerce. It is a most curious deposit, 
 and various theories are ventilated about it and its origin. Little settlements are 
 to be found here and there in this Albert Land, especially on the banks of the 
 Kaipara river, and eastward on the shore of that wonderful Bay of Islands — a 
 bay as magnificent as the harbour of Sydney. This part of New Zealand never 
 gets its share of visitors, and yet it is fully deserving — a sort of Cinderella of the 
 New Zealand family that will yet look up in the world. The Bay of Islands is 
 the harbour to Russell — a township that once had the more famous name of Korra- 
 reka, the first Pakeha settlement in New Zealand. This place was an ocean " Al- 
 satia" once — a no-man's land of liberty and license of the wildest kind that sailors 
 could delight in. It was strangely deserted soon after the British took formal 
 possession of it because of some hostilities on the part of the natives. It was 
 at Korrareka that the first official representative of England set up the British 
 flag, and it was here that Pleki, a New Zealander who has left his name in the 
 stor}', cut the flag-staff down. This Bay of Islands is a Paradise of a scene — 
 
2 24 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 a lovely bay, dotted with little green islands of bewildering beauty. Here 
 came the weary whaler and the merchantman, wanting rest and fresh water, 
 and Kauri pine-spars for his masts. Auckland got the start when Heki and 
 his Maories frightened the British settlers away from this place, and Korrareka 
 has never recovered itself. Like the sleeping beauty that it is, it will be 
 awakened some day to greatness. The Mormons talk of leaving Salt Lake 
 City and seeking a quieter home. Let them, or some better class of emigrants 
 have a look at the Bay of Islands. They will never want to go any further, 
 and they will never leave the place. It has historic interest further than we 
 have mentioned, for to it came that French man-of-war that was to take pos 
 session of New Zealand for France, but found itself just a little too late, and 
 from Korrareka was despatched that English man-of-war that got down to 
 Akaroa, in the Southern Island, just in time to keep the French from taking 
 possession there also. Here, too, Nature has been kindest in all her bestow- 
 ings through the three islands. Here is the vegetation of the tropics without 
 the tropical inconveniences of scorching heat and parching drought. Peaches, 
 oranges, olives, and pine-apples and bananas, and all the goodly and sweet 
 things of the south, grow here in greatest luxuriance. Some of the little settle- 
 ments on the pretty harbours and bays of the east and west coasts are most 
 romantically situated, and not least so is little Parengarenga, that sits on 
 the nose of the North Cape — the Land's End of New Zealand. Here too, at 
 Korrareka, was signed the "Treaty of Waitangi " — England's title-deed to 
 New Zealand — that deed of bargain and sale between the Pakeha and the 
 Maori which the former has always adhered to with the honesty of an English- 
 man, and the latter evaded, or endeavoured to evade, with the instincts of a 
 Maori. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE Maori's decline. 
 
 Captain Cook estimated, nearly a century ago, that the Maories had, long 
 before his discovery of them, seen their best days — that is, the days when their 
 number was greatest. He thought that they had, in the hundred years pre- 
 ceding his visit, eaten up about one-fourth of their then number. He felt for them 
 in a large-minded way, for the great navigator and discoverer was a liberal- 
 hearted man, and he, in some sort, excused their manners on the score that 
 they had no animals in the country which they could hunt and kill, and cook 
 and eat. They had brought with them, when they migrated from the Malay 
 Islands, only a dog and a rat. We have Shakspeare's authority for calling rats 
 but " small deer." Better venison they had not, and hence Cook was inclined 
 to look with a philosophic mind upon the way they had taken to for supplying 
 the want of animal food. Had he come to the Islands of New Zealand tifty 
 years later, the English nation might have been saved great trouble with the 
 Maories, and the British exchequer a large outlay. It is possible that nearly 
 all of the natives would by that time have eaten up one another, for there can 
 be no doubt that such a taste as they were cultivating would have greatly 
 increased by what it fed upon, and that in satisfying it a larger number would 
 have to be killed than could have been conveniently eaten — whilst fresh. The 
 Maori had to eat his man quite fresh, for he knew not, never knew, and does 
 not know now, the virtues of salt as a seasoning to, or as a preservative of, his 
 
Cannibalism. 225 
 
 meat, or as anything else that is useful. In the mind's eye we can see the waste 
 of such food that must have been occasioned by the Maori taste. To get one or 
 two bodies for a meal, many must have been killed, for it is not likely that the 
 exact quantity wanted for the week's supply could have been obtained as easily 
 as by hunting or by purchase of animal food. It had to be fought for — to be 
 obtained by hand-to-hand warfare. The surplus food was dealt with in this 
 way. The head was cut off, and, the brains having been taken out, it was 
 dried in the sun, stuffed with leaves and kauri gum, and then half-baked before 
 a slow fire. It was ever afterwards kept as a household ornament, until the white 
 man came to the islands, when these heads were all purchased for museums 
 and travelling shows, and the other " aids to science" for which such things go. 
 The head being off, the body was laid upon stones that had been previously 
 heated by fire. It was then covered up with branches of fern, and further 
 covered with earth. The heat of the stones slowly baked it, and the covering 
 prevented any escape of vapour. Six hours afterwards, this baked meat was 
 uncovered, and put away until wanted on a platform supported by four sticks, 
 where it remained until required for breakfast, dinner, or supper. Captain 
 Cook did much to put an end to this kind of feeding, by leaving numbers of 
 pigs on the islands, and by supplying the Maories with potatoes, turnips, 
 carrots, maize, and corn. These latter are cultivated to this day in little patches 
 about the Maori dwellings, and the natives live thereon literally from hand to 
 mouth. Before they got this vegetable diet, they subsisted upon the roots of 
 fern, upon stray rats, and upon stranded whales and sharks, and such fish as 
 they could catch without fish-hooks. These and the "animal food" to which 
 we have alluded constituted their sole sustenance. Birds there were none worth 
 shooting for food, and, had there been any, the Maories had no powder. 
 A moa would have made a meal for a large family for a month, had 
 that gigantic bird existed in the Maories' time, which is very doubtful, and 
 had the Maori possessed any means of catching a bird that could see about ten 
 miles around him at a glance, and could run faster than an express train — a 
 matter which is still more doubtful. The pigs we regard as having done more 
 to suppress the cannibal taste, or to satisfy it, than anything else that can be 
 looked for as an argument in that way. They increased and multiplied, and 
 replenished all New Zealand, and up to forty years ago had the great honour, 
 which pigs never before had, of constituting the whole fauna of a large 
 country. The wretched rat disappeared before them, and there was never a 
 people who could, like the Maories, have so sensibly said "Please the pigs," 
 looking to the great importance that these animals must have had in their eyes. 
 The trouble of catching them was greatly in the pigs' favour, for a very Httle 
 trouble suits a Maori when not bent upon robbery or vengeance, A mother 
 pig and her large young family were the easy victims, and they were not 
 always secured without a battle, of which the Maori often could show the 
 scars. The pigs are now the only animals in the three islands of New Zealand 
 for the sportsman's pleasure. Prince Alfred was treated to a pig-hunt there, 
 on his memorable visit, in the same way that he was treated to an elephant-hunt 
 at the Cape. After all, the elephant looks but a larger pig, and the long-legged 
 New Zealand boar must have given the better sport. There is a great 
 Darwinian point about these pigs that must not be overlooked. When 
 Captain Cook left them on the islands, the pigs were of our ordinary farmyard 
 kind — the type of which every Englishman knows — but the constant working 
 of the pig, in rooting at the fern-trees for food, gradually lengthened his snout 
 to a very appreciable extent. Having to poke that nose always into the earth 
 has lengthened it and strengthened it, until it is quite a distinct sort of snout 
 from the snout of its ancestor and progenitor. Captain Cook's pig of a hundred 
 years ago. Let Darwinians reflect upon this, as it bears out their theory that 
 
2 26 The Main Roiites Rou7id the World. 
 
 the grasping property of the monkey's tail was brought about by the gradual 
 action of fear in the case of those monkeys whose hold was insecure, upon the 
 structure of the vertebrae. To put the formula in other words, " that which is 
 required by the necessities of animal life is furnished by nature;" and we 
 might add, "that which is not required is taken away," as we find the fishes 
 in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky to have no eyes. Sight not being 
 required there, the eyes that were not used gradually faded, and in the 
 progress of the species were not reproduced. 
 
 We will return to our Maori, who is gradually fading too, not being repro- 
 duced at all in sufficient numbers to keep the species upon the earth. There 
 are many more men than vv'omen now, and but few children — a sort of thing 
 ({uite out of the order of an increasing people, in which there are always more 
 women and children than men. Looking at them lying about in their dirty 
 villages, the matter becomes understandable to us. Fighting men they are all, 
 and bulldogs at that. That is their great characteristic. It is good in its 
 way, no doubt, but must be allied to other qualities to make it of good to its 
 owner. Down Whitechapel way, we could pick up any Sunday morning 
 twenty bull-necked, bull-doggy fighting men, who, for a stake of five pounds a 
 side, will punch each other to death for hours together. These men will fight, 
 and will do nothing else in the way of hard work. Cadge they will without 
 shame, and loaf about with pipe in mouth, and sponge upon others, leaving 
 their wives to wash and mangle and slave for their benefit. Work for their 
 living, in the sense of steady labour, these men never will. All that is 
 characteristic of the Maori. This Whitechapel breed will band together and 
 have faction-fights with other similar breeds. That is like the Maori also. 
 These Whitechapellers, hating labour of all kinds, will hate those 
 who pursue it, interfering with and annoying and worrying in every 
 way those who will work, whilst they idle. Of such is the Maori all 
 over. Those "Roughs" of London, and their like the "Reds" of Paris, will 
 cajole and shuffle, lie and swindle, and so also will the INIaories. We were 
 in company with three of them for four days on board a steamer in one of 
 our coasting excursions, and had, then and there, plenteous evidence of their 
 qualities. They were men of mark, too, amongst the Maories — one of them 
 had tried once to make himself king over them. These men were always 
 trying " to come the old soldier" over us in a regular Jeremy Diddler way. 
 Borrowing was their great point, extending from money to tobacco ; and 
 borrowing was only another name for sponging or begging. Draughts and 
 cards they would play, and always stipulate for a stake which they had no 
 means of paying, nor inclination to pay either, when they lost. They would 
 beg only a pipe of tobacco, and then take a handful, borrow a penknife — and 
 pocket it, and try to sell anything that they had saleable — for six times its 
 value. Of all sorts of meanness they were guilty, and such, we found, was not 
 our experience alone, for we extracted from a Wellington paper the following 
 remarks on the Parliamentary Maories whom the wisdom of the New Zealand 
 Constitution permits to sit in the House of Representatives there. The 
 remarks were made in the House by another honourable member, not a Maori, 
 and it will be seen that they are quite parliamentary in style. The speaker 
 said, " One of those Maori representatives was a great chieftain named Mete 
 Kingi, of whom they had doubtless heard. That hon. gentleman had very 
 peculiar notions of the functions of a legislator, and had a number of weak- 
 nesses altogether beyond political weaknesses. For instance, he had a habit 
 of walking away with the soap and hair-brushes belonging to the lavatory. 
 (Laughter.) He met that hon. gentleman one day on the beach at Wellington 
 with a hair-brush sticking out of his pocket. (Continued laughter.) That 
 hon, member also had a weakness which was unfortunately not confined to the 
 
A Maori ALF. 227 
 
 Maori race — that of borrowing half-crowns, and never repaying them. Mete 
 Kingi very soon found out that the best time to borrow half-crowns was just 
 before a division; and he was sorry to say that, having acted as ' whip' for one 
 of the parties in the House, he was very frequently the victim ; and the common 
 honesty of that party had never prompted them to repay him. (Loud laughter.) 
 On one occasion he met with Mete Kingi and a coloured colleague coming out 
 of a certain fishmonger's shop in Wellington, holding by the tail a shark about 
 3 ft. long. It was a remarkable fact that for about a week after that occur- 
 rence it was utterly impossible to sit in the part of the House where the Maories 
 were ; and every one certainly pitied the unfortunate interpreter who had to 
 sit amongst them. (Great laughter.) Mete Kingi made a speech once, and a 
 very fair sample it was. He said, ' England is a great nation. (A pause.) 
 The Maories are a great people. (A pause.) The English have called us to 
 this great house. (A pause.) We sit here.' Then came the anti-climax : — 
 ' They have pounded my cow at Wanganui.' Then he ended like an ancient 
 chief of an Indian tribe : — 'I have spoken.' That was the best speech he ever 
 made." 
 
 We had once before, over twenty years ago, been in similar company to that 
 of our three Maories, and that was a company which a steamer was carrying, 
 amongst others, down the river Thames in London to a prize-fight. When 
 we got off that steamer we had lost purse, handkerchief, gloves, and everything 
 that could well be borrowed or filched from us. Australians have been taken 
 to England as pugilists, and so have Americans, while negroes in plenty have 
 entered the fistic ring ; but we don't remember that a Maori was ever taken to 
 England for that purpose. He seems to have been overlooked by the " Fancy" 
 and the omission should be amended. He will go readily, and will fight well, 
 and "sell" his backers also as readily as he will fight. They may take our 
 word for it that he will do nothing but for his own benefit. And yet, ye gods, 
 how the Maories can fight ! We were shown a spot, near Tauranga, where less 
 than two hundred of them had withstood the British soldiery to five times the 
 number, and that for two days and a night. The Maories had only the advantage 
 of raised ground and some earthworks hastily thrown up. When on the second 
 day they were appealed to by General Cameron to give in, as he was loth that 
 such men as they had proved themselves should die, they returned the Roman 
 answer, " Ask him which it is that he thinks is to die ?" and so fought on until 
 they nearly all fell. The rest fled, still fighting. If such as they were could 
 be got to fight for other people than themselves, we would back them, as 
 soldiers, against all the world — including the present Prussians. We can't say 
 more. 
 
 And yet these people decline, and die out, before the white man. His 
 working powers paralyze the [Maori, and the latter gets sulky and morose at 
 the sight of his busy brother, and becomes careless of life and everything else. 
 He feels that he has lost his place in the land. He is not only no longer 
 number one there, but he is nobody at all. His proud spirit is broken. He 
 feels that his wife cannot think much of him, and that she sees the white man 
 work and support his wife and family, whilst she, poor devil, is called upon to 
 work and support her lazy, do-nothing Maori lord. Do we never sec the same 
 thing amongst ourselves ? We have seen it. It is not unusual to see a superior 
 workman put his fellow's nose out of joint, and to turn the satisfied into the 
 dissatisfied man, who will then lose energy and spirit, and become careless and 
 reckless. It is not all of us who can stand the sight of the prosperity of 
 others, and bear quietly to be beaten in the race of life. The Maori is not the 
 only one who loses heart in the race when he is not only collared but passed 
 in it. Those acquainted with animal life will tell us how many horses "shut 
 up" entirely when that event happens to them. It is a pity, all thing 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 considered, and humanity especially, that the Maori cannot be got to leave New 
 Zealand and go back to his own Malay, or some other, island, where he might 
 begin life anew, with the addition of an assortment of animals to rear and feed 
 upon — to prevent a further decrease of his species. The Maori, with the form 
 and the strength of an athletic man, has the mind of a child. He will not 
 trouble himself to learn the English language. The Englishman has to learn 
 the Maori's, and communicate with him therein. The British Government 
 has set up a native court at Auckland, in which justice is done in the Maori 
 tongue. The court was sitting in January, when we were in Auckland, and 
 we visited an English court of law doing its work in another tongue. The 
 Maori is never satisfied with a decision unless it be in his favour ; a decision 
 against him he looks on as an injury, and broods over it in Corsican fashion. 
 " In the case of Fox v. Walker, to recover from a Maori upon a promissory 
 note, the cause of action (says an Auckland paper) has been dismissed. It 
 appears that, in negotiating such instruments with Maories, it is essential to 
 
 ^m 
 
 AN ATTEMPT AT MUSIC. 
 
 make them understand what they are doing. If they say they don't under- 
 stand, the Maori is rid of his liability." The paragraph quoted we cut from a 
 New Zealand paper, and it shows the difficulty of dealing with men who can 
 say that they understand or not, just as it may suit them. A nice way of 
 getting rid of liabilities, and kind treatment, indeed, on the part of the 
 British ! The Maori's disinclination to learn the language, and conform to 
 the habits of the white settler, keeps him back altogether in New Zealand, and 
 prevents him competing at anything — except fighting. He will not become 
 servant to the settler in any way, and his only friendship forlhim is for what 
 he can get out of him. t^m^^ 
 
 Both Pakeha and Maori are now left, by the removal ot the British troops 
 altogether from New Zealand, to shift for themselves on equal terms. The 
 terms are not equal, however, for the white settler is thinking of working and 
 progressing, and of leaving those who are to come after him better off than he 
 
Exit Maori. 229 
 
 is himself, and the Maori is thinking of nothing of the kind ; he is, on the 
 contrary, idHng about and dreaming of the next cause of quarrel that he can 
 pick, and the next fight, and of that great honour to be achieved amongst the 
 Maories — that of being the first man in the battle to kill one of the enemy. 
 If the white New Zealand settlers intend to hold their own, and to come out 
 of the next scrimmage with honour, they must adopt the Prussian fashion 
 of living, and devote much of their time to military matters and to 
 learning a soldier's duties. To do that, the cash-book and the bank-book must 
 be neglected for a time, and the acquisition of wealth be postponed to the 
 more sensible question of the means of keeping it when acquired. One battle 
 well fought and won will quiet the Maories for a long time, but the loss of one 
 will unhinge everything, with such men as the Maories for victors. Every year 
 fights for the white settler, however. Time is rapidly sweeping away the 
 Maori, and he is disappearing like to the clouds that sweep his mountains' 
 summits. His new diet is said not to nourish him as his former one did. The 
 fern-root that he fed upon before Captain Cook introduced the potato is said to 
 have contained more than twice as much of nourishment. We all know the 
 bitterness with which Cobbett spoke and wrote of the potato as an article of 
 food for the British labourer, and his views seem to be supported by its effects 
 upon the Maori's constitution. Consumption frequently visits his unclean and 
 unventilated dwelling, and he has taken to bad methods of preparing his food 
 for eating. His maize and potatoes and corn are macerated in water and left 
 so for days, and then dried in the sun, and not eaten until they become in a 
 half-rotten and decidedly bad-smelling state. " High " venison may be a good 
 thing, but the "high " living of the Maori is decidedly bad. We tried to eat 
 with them, but found nothing that our eyes or nose would let us partake of. 
 Again, to help him out of the world, he has taken body and spirit immoderately 
 to tobacco, which blessing of civilization makes him lazier than ever, and to 
 which he devotes the energies of a lifetime. The female Maori does the same ; 
 the filthy pipe and the seductive weed are never out of her hands. Tobacco, in 
 excess, which has ruined the constitutions of half the Americans, is doing the 
 same for the Maories. Many of them add the aid of spirits to the tobacco. 
 We all know whither tend idle habits, bad dwellings, bad food, want of cloth- 
 ing, depressed energies, and the excessive use of tobacco and spirits ; and we 
 see how many powerful agents are thus working together for the improvement 
 of the Maori oh" the face of the earth. 
 
230 The Mam Rotites Roimd the Wo7'ld. 
 
 ON THE OVERLAND ROUTE. 
 
 CEYLON. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 GALLE AND WAKHWELLA (CEYLON). 
 
 Ceylon, "India's utmost isle," is a pleasant surprise to the Western-world 
 man who may land at Galle after a wearying time at sea. Passing the 
 "Promontory of Birds," which marked for ancient mariners the entrance to 
 the harbour, he glides into its dancing waters and looks with delight at 
 pleasant novelties all around. The general knowledge about Ceylon is that it 
 is an English Crown colony, having a name for coffee, rice, and spices — chief 
 among which is cinnamon ; that the Portuguese had it from 1505, when they 
 were the great maritime folks of the world, and kept it until a greater than 
 they came in the shape of the Dutch, who, after eighteen years war, took it 
 from them in 1658, and kept it until 1796, when the greatest of all came, who 
 then took it away from the Dutch, and under whose care it continues thriving 
 and prospering, as do all places under British rule — the only protection needful 
 to success. 
 
 This " pearl drop on the brow of India," as Ceylon is called in Eastern 
 figurative language, is of pearliform or lobe shape, 270 miles long by 140 broad. 
 Its length is reckoned from the Galle district on its south to Jafthapatam on its 
 northern end, and its breadth from Colombo on its western to Koemary on its 
 eastern shore — a goodly possession of a place that one is not surprised to find 
 has been a great one, a surprisingly great one, indeed, in its time, and has left 
 indications that endure to testify to it. 
 
 This pleasant land has had a further advantage that neither the greatness of 
 its ancient capital, large as London, nor its Portuguese or Dutch owners could 
 give to it. Its merits and failings have been sung by a poet who has told us 
 that— 
 
 " Spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, 
 Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile." 
 
 About the latter part of the statement it must be remembered that the poet was 
 also a bishop, and so had a professional as well as a poetical licence to sit thus 
 in judgment on his fellow men. They were, I afterwards found, very decent 
 folk indeed — these condemned ones of Ceylon, and as good in all their religious 
 observances as any reasonable bishop could desire — one liberal enough to admit 
 that the New Jerusalem, like to the old, has many means of entrance. 
 
 It is to be supposed that Bishop Heber meant the Cingalese only when say- 
 ing that all men were vile in Ceylon's isle, but the anathematized natives may 
 claim that the stigma attaches to the resident whites also ; and very justly too, 
 was my humble opinion before leaving the island. They have in return the 
 satisfaction, black, l)rown, and white alike, that the poet has saved their land 
 
Cingalese Siuiiidles. 231 
 
 and themselves to the knowledge of future ages. Other nations of which no 
 poets have sung vainly sought to keep a name in the world's story — 
 
 " Vainly for fame all arts they tried, 
 They had no poet and they died ; 
 In vain they fought, in vain they bled. 
 They had no poet and they are dead." 
 
 The view of the pretty harbour of Galle, and fantastical-looking native boats, 
 engages one's immediate attention and retains it for some time. In these 
 queer-looking logs — ^just hewn out sufficiently for two thin men to sit in dos-a 
 dos — the natives actually ask one to trust one's self to the shore. It is true 
 that the insecure looking craft — the narrowest of all floating craft — is really 
 the most secure of all, being kept from overturning by an outlying log, of the 
 same length as the boat, that floats alongside about five or six feet distant, and 
 is secured to the head and tail of the boat by two bamboos. In these craft the 
 natives go outside the harbour, and away to sea, fishing, and always come 
 safely back, subject to what sharks may do. As passenger-boats they are, 
 however, susceptible of improvement. There is no possibility of turning 
 round in one when a seat is once taken. My hands then hung over the sides 
 of the boat, and could have been used, if need be and no sharks about, to help 
 paddle it to the shore. As one travels for novel sensations, nothing but one of 
 these "catamarans" served to take me to land. 
 
 Not all of these catamarans came for passengers. The Cingalee has ideas of 
 trade, and brings out his fruits and vegetables. He peddles also, and has 
 a variety of novel and tempting tortoise-shell goods to offer to strangers. 
 Jewellery is. however, his strong point — and his weak one too. He is so short 
 of gold for manufacturing his goods, that he is unceasingly anxious to purchase, 
 at premium, any gold coins that travellers may have. He wants the sovereigns, 
 half-sovereigns, and napoleons, for melting-pot purposes, and to the melted 
 gold he adds something that will eke it out. That is, however, done all over 
 the world. His land produces many gems. Its surrounding seas are famous 
 also for their pearls. Of the gems the blue sapphires and the rubies stand 
 first. There are also moonstones, cinnamon "Atones, cat's eyes, and zircon 
 diamonds, as also a garnet, so common as to be the pebble found in almost 
 every streamlet. 
 
 The Cingalee offers the stones in set and unset forms, but I grieve to say 
 that he cannot be trusted — that is to say, not more than any other man. The 
 imitation stones that he has on hand are more numerous than the real ones, 
 and quite as good-looking. It is in this hasty taking the good-looking for good 
 that we get so swindled in other things than Cingalese gewgaws. I am here 
 offered a handsome sapphire, from the gem-pits of Birmingham, for half-a- 
 crown, and I cannot for the life of me tell it from another, born of this island, 
 for which ;!^20 is asked. The Cingalee has got altogether a bad name as a 
 peddler of jewellery that goes much against himself and his goods. Bishop 
 Heber must, I think, have been got at in that way. "We learn in suffering 
 what we teach in song." Had the vendors of blue glass sapphires and imitation 
 emeralds never got the best of the bishop, he might not have penned the poetry 
 which so glorifies Ceylon and stigmatizes its people. 
 
 Looking about the primitive sort of boat that I am in, I see that its fasten- 
 ings are all of cocoanut cordage. The sculls are secured in rings of the same 
 material, and when a glance around can be spared, the approaching shores are 
 to be seen all thickly fringed with the tall cocoa-nut trees. In Ceylon's isle 
 the cocoanut tree is king. It is all around its shores. The nearer to the salt 
 water the better for the growth of this tree. It is a singular-looking and not a 
 graceful production — this common cocoanut palm. It won't grow straight, 
 but inclines with a queer twist of its trunk much to one side. It carries all its 
 
232 The Main Routes Round the World.' 
 
 branches and leaves, its flowers and fruit, up some forty feet or more in the 
 air, and so has an ungainly look in the bare length of its notched, scaffold- 
 pole-looking trunk — always gouty about the foot. 
 
 It is "from information received " on this passage over the harbour that I 
 learn that Ceylon is only divided from the land of India by a channel of some 
 sixty miles. It has in fact been washed off from that continent as England has 
 from the continent of Europe. The rocks that still abound in that passage have 
 got the name of "Adam's Bridge." This channel was no doubt a good ford in 
 his time, and legend has it that Adam lived in Ceylon. His footstep is shown 
 in the interior to this day. I may again allude to it, but remark here that it 
 was, from the print of it, just the sized foot of one who could have used the 
 rocks of this channel for stepping-stones. Apropos of narrow channels, my 
 informant tells me that the way here from England by way of the Suez Canal is 
 but 6000 miles, as against a journey of I5,cxx) by the old way of the Cape. 
 
 The town of Galle, which name means "rock," has been a fortified place, 
 and has its old walls and other defences still standing. It is quite oriental- 
 like in its narrow streets and high-walled houses and gardens. Many of the 
 inhabitants are Portuguese, descendants of the old stock that lived here when 
 the town belonged to their nation with the rest of the island. It is unlike, is 
 this Galle, to any other town in Ceylon in the matter of narrow streets and 
 crooked ones. It is. however, all the more of a curio to the visitor, who has 
 soon some one at his elbow offering to take him through its intricacies. This 
 is sure to be a Cingalee, who talks the usual smattering of English that guides, 
 all the world over, appear only to know. I take a good look at the man, 
 whom I find to be attired like the rest of the Cingalese that I see, and one sees 
 but little else in Ceylon — so largely do the natives outnumber the foreigners. 
 
 A tall and graceful-looking man is the Cingalee. He is in features a coffee- 
 coloured European — the coffee slightly tinged with milk, and not of a dark 
 brown. His black hair is kept backwards by a tortoise-shell comb of semi- 
 circular form, similar to that often seen on the heads of young European girls. 
 When this long black hair is curly and parted in the middle, he gets a feminine 
 appearance that his features do not altogether belie. So little variation in 
 costume is there between the Cingalee and his sister, that one cannot always 
 be sure to which of them one is speaking. A white or blue blouse tied around 
 the waist is the usual body covering, and a kind of printed table-cover suffices 
 for wrapping around the hips, from whence it hangs down to the knees or a 
 little below. Stockings and shoes are not wanted in so warm a climate. 
 
 With my volunteer guide I have soon rambled all over the quaint little town, 
 and find a choice of hotels offered. I have by this caught sight of outlying 
 country that looks very tempting, and arrange for a vehicle to take me around 
 after tiffin time. I have begun to have an idea that there is something 
 worth staying to see in this pretty place, and all that I do see supports that 
 suspicion. One thing is quite certain — I must get out of my Australian 
 clothing as quickly as possible, and into some of the zephyr-like things that I 
 see other folks wearing — that is if I wish to avoid much trouble; and it is 
 troublesome to wring out wet tweeds and other woollen clothing, which must 
 be done occasionally if one will wear such things in Ceylon and move about 
 in them. 
 
 So after tiffin I go out for a drive to Wakhwellah, and find myself, as it 
 were, in fairyland. All things are surpassingly novel and pretty, as seen on 
 this four hours' drive. The eyes of an Australian are delighted with the 
 abundance of vegetation all around, and all of it so new to him. Interspersed 
 with the ever-present cocoanut-tree he sees the banana, the pine-apple, the 
 nutmeg, the bread-fruit, the orange, citron, and lime ; as also the mango, the 
 custard apple, and a large green pumpkin-looking thing that grows from the 
 
A Garden of Eden. 233 
 
 trunk, and not the branches of the tree, and is known as the Jack fruit — about 
 as palatable as is the mangold-wurzel, and only a larger edition of the mis- 
 praised bread-fruit. The tree that supplies it, unlike most fruit-trees, has a 
 wood that rivals cedar among cabinet-makers. 
 
 All the low-lying parts of Ceylon are redolent of the cocoa-nut. Its smell 
 soon becomes the recognized characteristic of the country. The first sniff of 
 it is got from the oil, with which all the Cingalese brighten their beautiful 
 hair. Other sniffs are obtained from the oil-mills, which abound, and others 
 again from the burning shells from which the fibre for our cocoa-nut matting 
 has been stripped. To strip that easily, the shell lies in soak for some time, 
 and, like all dead vegetable matter in water, soon gives nasal notice of its 
 presence. Of wonderful use is this tree and all its belongings. All the 
 cordage used in the island is of cocoanut-fibre. It affords food and drink, and 
 makes both cups and saucers, and oil and matting, also house-covering and 
 fences, and firewood to boot. It is to the Cingalese in usefulness what the 
 reindeer is to the Esquimaux, or the date and dome palms to the natives of 
 Egypt. All parts of it are utilized in some way or another which I may not 
 have noted, but I must note that a spirit called arrack is distilled by Cingalese 
 from this source— a liquor of which one may take too much and regret it 
 next day. 
 
 At one stage of the drive — after Wakhwellah has been passed, and the 
 pretty things there to be seen, including the windings of the Gindura River, 
 have been admired — a stoppage is made in a delightful plantation, that might 
 have passed as a complete botanical garden, save that nothing needed glass 
 coverings here which I had always seen so covered elsewhere. A volunteer 
 goes up the nearest tree to get me a drink. It was the first time that a 
 drink had ever been so far reached down for me. It was to be noticed that 
 the climber placed his feet in a ring of cocoanut cordage that held his ankles 
 and heels together, and gave the soles of his feet firmer grasp of the tree-trunk. 
 He jerked himself up the tree in a caterpillar fashion, arching his back and 
 jerking his feet upwards. It looked very easy work as he did it, but all things 
 well done have that look. The cocoanuts grow in clumps of froin twenty to a 
 hundred at the tree-top. Having selected one, it is pulled off" and thrown 
 down, and the thrower is down again almost as quickly as the nut. He breaks 
 a hole through its three covers with a tomahawk, and one's drink is then 
 ready. One wonders where it came from, and how it got into its thrice-coated 
 cup of silver, amber, and green. 
 
 All these cocoanut-trees are carefully counted and taxed. They take five 
 years to come to full growth, and continue fruit-bearing for some twenty more 
 years. The value of one of them to its owner is estimated at a pound sterling 
 yearly. The wealth of the owner of a plantation can, therefore, be easily 
 counted. An ingenious way is adopted of covering the trunk of the tree until 
 the fruit has ripened, so as to detect any attempt at robbing its produce. 
 
 The " spicy breezes " of Ceylon are not nasally perceptible. The cinnamon 
 gives out nothing that breezes can distribute until its stalks are bruised. 
 Among the beauties of nature, so abundant, I go, with some reluctance, out of 
 the road to visit a work of art in shape of a temple for the worship of Buddha, 
 of whose religion this land is head quarters. Further up the country, at 
 Kandy, I shall see the temple of his sacred tooth ; and further up still, up atop 
 of a mountain, his sacred footprint. In this island, at Matella, the doctrines 
 ■of Buddhism were first reduced to writing more than a century before the 
 Christian era. 
 
 Buddha's figure, as I now see it in this temple, is prepossessing — the face 
 being that of one who was seemingly good as well as great. The attitude is a 
 sitting one. The hands lie on the lap, with the palms upwards, as if for 
 
2 34 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 something to be put into them — a way of using the hands much copied by the 
 natives. The eyes are downcast, and the look one of contemplation— a brown 
 study. The attendant showman enlightens me. Buddha, he says, was the 
 son of a king in the neighbouring India. His name was not Buddha, but 
 Gautama, which he bore in addition to the family name of " Sakya Mouni." 
 He was called Buddha or the "enlightened" by his disciples after his 
 decease. 
 
 He took serious views of life at an early age — occasioned probably by a 
 youthful marriage that brought him the sooner to his senses, and showed him 
 the vanity and vexation of this world. He noticed that the church took rank 
 before the state. He saw at last his object in life, and what he really wanted 
 in the world, more clearly than do most of us. To be a king was greatness, 
 but then few kings made their names known in the story. The large majority 
 were forgotten. Religions, he perceived, better perpetuated their prophets. 
 There were so many religions, he noticed, in so many years — the faiths chang- 
 ing oftener than the Eastern fashions. He determined to found a new one, 
 and resigned his right of succession to the throne. For months — hundreds of 
 years before our era — he sat under a tree, " the tree of intelligence," sacred as 
 the "bo-tree" thenceforward to those of his faith. He thoroughly thought 
 out his ideas there by sheer force of continuous thinking, and proceeded then 
 to expound them. Like to the founder of Christianity, he wrote nothing. 
 Stated in outline, his doctrine was that our individuality ended with this life. 
 Transmigration of the soul then took place into the form of any created thing. 
 Evildoers served a purgatory in that way. The good might become divine, 
 and so exist for long periods. The chief good then followed of being absorbed 
 into Nirvana— i\vQ universal spirit. By that the created became part of 
 Nature the creator, and partook of its powers. 
 
 The new faith spr^d and prospered, doing great good. It weaned the 
 Hindoos from the worship of idols and holy cows and bulls — ^from Brahminism 
 and Gentooism, serving also to abolish caste and all the evils that attend it 
 from the Brahmin to the Pariah. Buddhism has now the greatest number of 
 followers of all the religions in the world. It is the faith of a third of the 
 whole of the human race, having spread from India to Burmah, Siam, Japan, 
 Thibet and China. The latter it divides with Confucius, taking two-thirds 
 share of China's hundreds of millions. I never learnt so much about the 
 founding of a religion until I came, later, to listen to one of the elders of the 
 Mormon Church at Utah, telling me the history of Joseph Smith, who has in 
 our time initiated, as its prophet, a faith now held by over 100,000 souls. The 
 priestly showman held out his hand to me at parting, which I shook in all due 
 courtesy. As he followed me onwards, my guide explained that the out- 
 stretched hand was for shaking silver. I apologized, and paid. 
 
 In the botanical plantation, in which I tind myself after leaving the temple, 
 are a variety of palms, all more or less remarkable ; but chief among them is 
 that called the traveller's palm. Its branch-like leaves join the trunk at eight 
 or ten feet from the ground. If at the junction of any of these leaves with the 
 trunk an incision be made, there is then to be seen a surprise like to that seen 
 when the prophet smote the rock ; a stream of water issues out from the cut 
 part — good, sweet, drinkable water too. I am banquetted upon fruit here, 
 and eat, for the first time, of mangoes ; also of custard-apples and undried 
 nutmegs, which vegetable diet is properly enough washed down with the 
 vegetable waters magically distilled from the limbecks of the cocoanut and the 
 traveller's palm. ■ 
 
 Wherever the traveller stops, a group of admiring natives soon surrounds 
 him. If they have had any work to do, they leave it for a time to gratify 
 their inquiring minds. Things seem to be very leisurely done in this place. I 
 
Edeii-like Habits. 235 
 
 saw no one in any particular hurry anywhere. In appearance the men seemed 
 to be better-looking than the women. A plain-looking woman is a form of 
 misery for which I always had much pity. When any of these natives begged, 
 and I had anything to give, I always preferred the feminine beggar. I could 
 not blame any of them for holding out their hands for coin. They had seen 
 the Buddhist gentleman up at the temple, of which I have spoken, do likewise, 
 and were thereby justified. 
 
 The Cingalese, I learn, think husbandry to be the most honourable of occu- 
 pations. Its class, the Vellales, claim pre-eminence in Ceylon. Though their 
 religion of Buddhism does not encourage caste, there is enough of the old 
 leaven in them to make them rise to some recognition of it. Agriculture is 
 therefore placed among these people as even a higher occupation than politics. 
 They seemed surprised when I told them that the latter took first place with 
 people of my nation. They thought it actually a low thing. Next to the 
 agriculturist's the fisherman's calling is most esteemed, and then comes the 
 carpenter's. All occupations are thus graded until the lowest is reached, 
 which is that of the distiller and brewer, whose denomination is that of 
 "Jaggery." 
 
 The low-classed men who make intoxicating drinks in Ceylon never rise to 
 the positions there which the distillers of gin and brewers of beer obtain in 
 other lands. In Ceylon these manufacturers of intoxicants are kept in the 
 place where, elsewhere, are kept the pimps and panders, and such like who 
 minister to the gross appetites of animal nature. These jaggers collect from 
 the palms the juice that makes the " toddy," and that which is also distilled 
 into " arrack," and occasionally turned into a coarse sugar called by the name 
 of the class of its producers^" jaggery." 
 
 In the house of a friend here I see specimens of some strange fishes of this 
 land — or its waters. Here is one that lived in the hot-water springs near to 
 Trincomalee, on the eastern coast of which the temperature is little below 
 125°. It has no appearance, as it ought to have, of being half-boiled. The 
 Pro\'idence that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb arranges things similarly 
 for this equally unprotected fish. It cannot be called a cold-blooded thing to 
 the touch when landed, and must in fact be a hot thing to handle. Its dietary, 
 also, must be difterent to that of other fish in other waters. Here are also 
 mud fishes that only live while half-buried, and die in clean water ; also 
 perches that make their way across country all unaided by legs or serpentine 
 powers. 
 
 The youth of the Cingalese population are not much encumbered with 
 clothing at any time, but up to five or six years of age appear to go about in 
 Garden of Eden condition. Looking at all surroundings they are to be excused 
 for doing so. The eternally blue sky, the warm air, and the abundance of fig- 
 leaves, justify an attire of a scanty kind. One's eyes are shocked at first at the 
 nakedness of the land, but soon grow philosophic and less prudish. I saw the 
 Cingalese often when washing their clothing, of which they appear to keep 
 only one suit, and thought that they looked best in the gracefulness of an all 
 unadorned nature. Oftentimes, when too warm, I wished to imitate their 
 customs. I could have parted with flesh as well as clothing at times, to have 
 got the cool sensation of sitting in one's bones only. 
 
 A Cingalee can sleep anywhere. Unlike a sailor, he does not even look 
 out for a soft plank. In front of my hotel is a verandah paved with glazed 
 tiles. This is the favourite dormitory of the native servants. They lie out 
 here on the tiles all night by the dozen, and justify their taste for this very 
 hard bed on account of its superior coolness. It is very late when I get back 
 here ; and not knowing the customs of the country, I stumble over the 
 prostrate forms of these sleepers. As I fall atop of them, however, no 
 
236 The Main Routes Round tJu World. 
 
 particular damage is clone to either of us. I soon greatly envy their sound 
 sleep, as this first night in Ceylon is much too sultry for my getting any, I 
 wished now that I had stopped longer at the native house, in which was music 
 to listen to, dancing to look at, and handy jugs of arrack and cocoanut-milk. 
 
 The departing steamer of the next morning is to take all my fellow- 
 passengers away with it, but it will leave me behind, and that for a long day. 
 There is a grand coach-ride of seventy miles to be had to Colombo, and a 
 further ride from there to Kandy — a city that once had resident kings. There 
 are excursions to be made thence, through acres of coffee and tea plantations, 
 away up the hill by way of Gampola to Pusillawa, Rambodda, and Newera 
 Eliya, and a cool climate there. Altogether there are attractions sufficient to 
 keep any one away for a time from the monotonous noise of a screw propeller. 
 So strong is that feeling that I do not trust myself to go on board for luggage, 
 fearing that the ship might take me away by accident. A Cingalee fetches all 
 that for me, and early next morning I have secured the box-seat for the 
 journey — a bit of old travellers' experience. 
 
 -My fellow -voyagers have, I find, mostly invested largely in the pedlar's 
 wares. Every one seems to have a big, blue-stoned ring, and some have three 
 or four of these ornaments all worn at once. They are all bargains, of course, 
 and to be worth in distant parts ever so much more than was here paid for 
 them. Little packets of gems, unset, have also been invested in, as presents 
 for those who may wish to have — in tailoring language — their own materials 
 made up. As a good excuse to those who cannot understand one's reasons 
 for stopping behind, I say that I am going up to Ratnapoora, where the jewel- 
 pits are, to get my sapphires direct from the mines. It does not, however, 
 seem to be understood why that which satisfies others should not do also for me. 
 
 The short stay that is usually made at Galle is like to that which voyagers 
 by the American route from Australia to England make at Honolulu — there 
 to-day and gone to-morrow. It has one advantage as a compensation. The 
 most pleasant recollections must always remain of the two places. There is 
 no time for the sweets to cloy, or one to weary — as most of vts do of all 
 things — of the pleasant and pretty surroundings. This little corner of Ceylon 
 is therefore to most travellers between Australasia and Europe all that is ever 
 seen of the eastern world and its endless wonders. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 COLOMBO AND KANDY (CEYLON). 
 
 Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, is reached by a seaside ride of some seventy 
 miles from Galle. It is done in a small stage-coach, the horses being changed 
 every seven miles. The ostler, having harnessed and started the cattle on 
 their journey, runs beside them to the next stage, and so takes trouble off the 
 driver. This running-footman business is common throughout Ceylon. The 
 up-country mails are all thus carried, the runners balancing on their heads the 
 heavy mail bags. The whole road down to Colombo lies within a hundred 
 feet or less of the sea, and is nearly a grove of cocoanut, banana, and pine- 
 apple-trees for the full length of the journey. In respect of prettiness it is a 
 long way ahead of the Shoobra-road, at Cairo, which the visitor to Egypt is 
 sure to be told to visit, and is nearly as picturesque as that grandest of drives 
 
Croivn Colony Settlers, 237 
 
 that begins an hour before the traveller reaches the chief of the seven gates of 
 Damascus. The Possillipo drive out of Naples is fine enough, but then it is 
 European in character, and lacking in the Eastern novelties that this stretch of 
 road at Ceylon presents to English eyes. 
 
 Advantage is taken of the change of horses to obtain drinks from the cocoa- 
 nuts, and to trade for fruits that the villagers bring to one. The whole road 
 is dotted with the huts of the natives — put up wherever the cocoanut-trees 
 leave space. The tree is everything and the house nothing. Miles of cinna- 
 mon gardens — the property of a wealthy Portuguese — are passed through. On 
 one side of the road the Cingalee is at work on the cocoanuts, and on the other 
 he is attending to his boats and nets, and starting, or returning from fishing. 
 He ofttimes does the fishing with rod and line, seated on the outstretching 
 rocks, out of reach of the sharks. 
 
 At the end of a ten-hours' drive Colombo is reached, and one is glad of it 
 after that long sitting. The fortifications of the place have been removed, 
 though its inhabitants are still spoken of as living within the fort. It consists 
 of a native and a foreign town, which in the proportion of their inhabitants 
 is like to a stout blackamoor with a white infant on her back. Colombo, in 
 its white quarter, is a straggling place, with its public buildings far apart. It 
 is altogether a dull sort of place, and its non-progressive character is fully 
 admitted by those who live in it. It will be different, they say, when the 
 breakwater is built, and the harbour brought into use. The hotels appear to 
 be three in number, and distant from each other. Distance appears wearisome, 
 from the sultry character of the climate. The street conveyances — a sort of 
 brougham — do not much help the traveller, as the drivers never move off the 
 stand, even to go to the next street, under a rupee fare. No concert-room or 
 theatre seems to exist. Private theatricals are sometimes given in barracks, 
 and the dissipations of the place appear to consist in an evening drive to hear 
 the military band play on the beach. 
 
 Ceylon being a Crown colony, British folks do not incline to it as they do to 
 Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. One cannot in Ceylon get into Parlia- 
 ment, and pass an Act for paying one's self three hundred a year for sitting 
 there. Neither has one there the chance of rising to be Chief Secretary, and 
 getting knighted for a few months' service in that character, at a couple of 
 thousands a year pay. Such is not for Ceylon. The whites must there sow 
 their fields and build their cots, and be satisfied therewith. In planting on 
 the hill sides, in importing and distributing European produce, and exporting 
 the tea, coffee, and spices, lies the white man's part in Ceylon. The planter 
 gets native assistance, but the merchant obtains the help of Europeans. These, 
 with the civil service folk and the soldiery, make up the society of the colony. 
 The planters take the place in Ceylon that the squatters do in Australia and 
 New Zealand. A most hospitable people they are, too — to the white stranger, 
 and glad of his company at their bungalows. 
 
 The white population of Ceylon favours the press. In Colombo I found no 
 less than three newspapers issued. The Observer is the leading one. This 
 encouragement of literature is a great fact in their favour, and all the more so 
 considering the small and slow place that it is. " It was nae to be expekit," 
 as the Scotch say. A small public library exists, and also a museum. The 
 number of the whites will never be great enough to warrant their applying for 
 a constitution and the management of their affairs as a free colony. The want 
 of it keeps them out of public debt, and also from heavy taxes. But it is not a 
 cheap place to live in after all, this Colombo. Its hotel drinks are all a 
 shilling — or half a rupee. It has nothing to speak of as beef or mutton, and 
 its oysters are wretched things, as are also its miserable little balls of yellow 
 wax called potatoes. The milk is a sad watery stuft' of a bluey colour — even 
 
238 The Main Routes Round the Worla. 
 
 before it has been pumped upon. The eggs might go with the potatoes for 
 size and quality. The town of Colombo can be visited once and remembered, 
 but the traveller is not likely to stay long nor to hurry his return to it. Any 
 inducements to settle there are not apparent to a casual visitor. 
 
 The European residents in the lowlands of the island have to make periodical 
 visits to its hill country in search of health and free-breathing quarters. 
 " Liver" is, as it is all over the neighbouring mainland of India, the trouble 
 of the whites. It bends some of its victims nearly double, and swells others 
 out most disagreeably, racking them meanwhile with headaches and a compli- 
 cation of other pains. Hereabout in Colombo and the neighbourhood it is as 
 warm by night as by day, but among the hills it is a case of fireside in the 
 evening and a pair of blankets at night — 70 deg. only while the sun is up, and 
 not more than 50 deg. afterwards. Before leaving Colombo mention must be 
 made of its crows. They are the most socialile of birds. Before I became 
 accustomed to their intrusions, I often missed fruits, fish, and perhaps a mutton 
 chop that had been before me a minute ago. This friendly crow hops about 
 the door and bides its opportunities. It is greatly favoured in its audacious 
 thievings by the necessity that exists for keeping open doors and windows. 
 Numerous small birds follow the crow's example, and fly about in one's room, 
 and use it, too, in ways not always agreeable. 
 
 Ceylon, it must be remembered, has been washed off from the mainland of 
 India at some distant geological date. The waters between the two are 
 impracticable for sea-going vessels. The passage is encumbered with low- 
 lying rocks that have been some thousands of years washing down, and will 
 take similar thousands before their obliteration is completed. One has to 
 remember this former connexion with India in seeing how many different 
 native races there are in Ceylon— Cingalese, Malays, Hindoos, Tamils, Arabs, 
 Moors, and other brown skins, in addition to the white and whitey-brown 
 ones, that become better known on a longer acquaintanceship than I had with 
 the place. The difference between the races is not easily distinguishable at 
 first. They are all dark-skinned alike to European eyes. To the initiated the 
 shades of brown are, however, as plain as is the national dress of each race. 
 Though the clothing is scanty, the habit suffices, as Shakspeare says, " to 
 bespeak the man," and in Eastern nations the fashion of clothing never alters. 
 
 The closely-shaved heads that I see about are those of the believers in 
 Brahma. The fine Cingalese heads of hair look far l)etter than these shaved 
 polls, but then those with shaved heads are forbidden by their religion to kill 
 anything whatever, and so keep down a growth of hair for — sufficient reasons. 
 The little caps of the Malays and the turbans of the Arabs make a pretty 
 diversity among the shaved heads of the Hindoos and the tortoise-shell combs 
 of the Cingalese men. For foot wear, one sees here and there a sandal, but 
 Nature's shoe-leather is that generally used. The Tamils, from among whom 
 the running footmen are usually chosen, wear the simplest dress — merely a rag 
 around the loins. Of the races visible in Ceylon the Veddah claims first place 
 — in the order of arrival. He is the real aboriginal — the oldest inhabitant in 
 every sense. He is the primeval man, and a veritable wild man of the woods. 
 His abode is a cave, and he shoots birds and monkeys with a bow which he 
 draws with his toes. He is nearly as untamable as the gorilla, and must be 
 somewhere near to that missing link between the two of which Darwinians are 
 in search. 
 
 On the road out of Colombo towards Kandy lies the pretty suburb of Col- 
 petty, on the shore of the still prettier Lake of Colombo. Here it can be seen 
 in all the beauty of its many islands, covered with palm-trees. Around the 
 lake nestle desirable-looking dwellings among the tropical foliage. Ceylon, 
 l>eing an island, has a moisture in its climate unknown to that continent of 
 
iliiiiliw^^^ 
 
A?i Outcast Tribe. 
 
 239 
 
 India of which it was once a part. This humidity promotes greatly the 
 growth of all its vegetation, and especially that of its lemon-grass. 
 
 Near to the Kadaganawa station on this journey, is a village in which exist 
 a strange tribe of Pariahs called " Rodiyas " — a name that signifies outcast, or 
 offal. For some inexplicable reason these people have, like to the lepers and 
 fagots of other countries, been ostracised by all Cingalese humanity. Of old 
 they were forbidden, as they are now, part or lot with their fellow-men in any- 
 thing. All trades and occupations followed by others were forbidden them. 
 Prohibitions did not stop at that. They were not allowed to cultivate land, 
 build houses, enter any town or village, cross any running stream, or clothe 
 their persons. 
 
 In the climate of Ceylon, forbidding clothing to one is no hardship ; but the 
 next restriction, that forbade these people even to beg, took from them the 
 dearest privilege that Asiatics cleave to. They are not allowed to enter any 
 place of worship, and, if they pray at all, must stand afar off from such. I 
 think of one who, in olden time, prayed "afar off" from a feeling of unworthiness 
 that was more acceptable, and so accounted to him, than the worship of the 
 Pharisee. I hope that these "despised and rejected of men" may find similar 
 favour when all shall get their deserts. Their humility here has eaten into 
 their very souls. They kneel when speaking to any one not of their race, and 
 make noises that warn others of their objectionable propinquity. 
 
 From Colombo to Kandy the road is all around the hills, out of which it is 
 cut, and winds about some very alarming precipices — much like to that 
 romantic Otira Gorge road that takes the traveller through the best scenery of 
 New Zealand, from Hokitika to the Cass. It is a forty-mile journey, all uphill, 
 however, and so leads to a cooler atmosphere. Some of the views are cer- 
 tainly fine, if the traveller is not too nervous, or troubled with vertigo, to 
 admire them. Instead of looking at this or that in the valley that lies so far 
 below, he prefers to turn his head and look at the lizard that runs on the wall 
 of rock on the other side of him. The coffee plantations are begun hereabout, 
 but are nothing to notice as yet. Rice cultivation seems to be most followed, 
 and the irrigated fields that it requires lie about, like the squares of a chess- 
 board in appearance, viewed in the depths of the valleys around. 
 
 The difficulties of the journey are repaid, however, by the sight of Kandy. 
 It is well worth coming to see, and coming a long way to see — all is so 
 thoroughly Eastern. White faces and European costumes are scarcely to be 
 seen. It is a compact city, and a crowded one also. Men of every shade of 
 brown down to black are seen about in all varieties of clothing — most of which 
 are gay-coloured. The head dressings that I have mentioned are here seen, 
 varied by the occasional tall hat of the Parsee ; and now and again a being 
 wholly enveloped in yellow serge is pointed out as a Buddhist priest. The 
 town is laid out admirably for the visitor. Its situation is prettily picturesque, 
 on the edge of a lake overhung all around by hills. The streets are at right 
 angles and of good width. From the easily accessible sides of the surrounding 
 heights all the city can be taken in at a glance. The European stores 
 scarcely count in the large number of Cingalese "boutiques," or trading-stalls, 
 that are squeezed together in the ever-crowded streets, the two leading ones of 
 which appear to be those called " Trincomalee " and " Colombo." Here I am 
 shown the large house of one De Soyza, the millionaire of Ceylon, to whom 
 belonged the cinnamon gardens that the road from Galle had passed through for 
 miles. His father had begun the world in one of the small boutiques that I see 
 around. He is said afterwards to have discovered the buried treasures of one 
 of the former native kings, who had hidden the same from the incursions of 
 Tamils or Portuguese. Such deposits were common in troublesome times of 
 the past, and a De Soyza, similarly to a Monte Christo, may perhaps have 
 
240 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 lighted upon them. In this Arabian-Nights-looking town of Kandy, all that is 
 romantic and improbable seems quite in place. 
 
 That large temple — the " Maligawa " before me — at the top of Colombo- 
 street, was erected to hold the sacred tooth of Buddha. It is covered up there 
 by seven jewelled covers, shaped like sugar-loaves. The key of each of these 
 caskets is kept by the hands of a different priest. The " Dalada" — such is its 
 name — is only shown on certain occasions, and to such as princes or governors. 
 I am allowed to see the outer of the jewelled covers, decorated with rubies, 
 pearls, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, gold, ivory, and silver, and feel a 
 proper respect for a tooth so grandly guarded. I am unable to learn any 
 particulars about it, except that it is the biggest tooth ever seen, or why it 
 came to be so reverenced, but am told that the King of Siam had offered a 
 million sterling for it. This tooth is to Kandy what Mahomet's tomb is to 
 Mecca— the fortunes of the place rest upon it. The original tooth was taken 
 away with other plunder by the Portuguese. Its substitute here is, in fact, no 
 tooth at all, but a discoloured piece of ivory that at one time formed part of an 
 elephant. I am wrong to speak in that way, perhaps, of religious relics. 
 Every religion has some to show. It were well that they were all kept from 
 sight as much as the holy tooth of Buddha. More believers might be thereby 
 obtained. I have read, Scripturally, that that which is seen is temporal, and 
 therefore false, and that which is unseen is spiritual, and therefore true. 
 This specially applies to all such relics. 
 
 The palace of the kings of Kandy that were adjoins this temple of the tooth. 
 They were emperors, in fact, acting apart from the advice of parliaments, and 
 executing their decrees — and a hundred or so of their subjects now and then — 
 according to their whims. The descendants of these subjects I see in crowds 
 beneath, as I look from the palace windows, and I think them much better off 
 under the present Government than their forefathers were. In the grand 
 audience-hall of this palace — a regal-looking place indeed — the English 
 Governor of Ceylon had lately received a British prince. The palace fronts 
 to a large artificially-made lake of some extent. Over its edge is built a 
 palatial pavilion in which Haroun al Raschid might have sat with Schehere- 
 zade. It has now fallen to the common use of an Athenaeum — a reading- 
 room for papers and magazines. The tooth in the neighbouring temple 
 might ache at the sight of what it now so sees — with the memories of what it 
 has seen. 
 
 In an adjoining temple to the palace I am shown curious writings in scroll 
 fashion, beautifully written on the leaves of the talipot palm. Some of such 
 writing is tastefully illuminated in fine colours. These treasures are preserved 
 in handsomely-carved ivory covers, and put away in a dainty depository like 
 the tables of the law in a synagogue. 
 
 Though the sacred relic cannot be shown to me, a kindly Buddhist who sees 
 me looking over the illuminated scrolls, and who is probably one of their 
 custodians, gives me, in good English, great information. He explains " The 
 Three Caskets" into which the doctrines and teachings of Buddhism are 
 divided. They were thrown into this form by the disciples of the Buddha 
 after his death, when Buddhism was formulated and reduced to a system in 
 which theology and metaphysics appear to be united. This wondrously 
 popular faith, it is to be noticed, was not initiated by revelation nor verified be 
 miracles. It is solely founded on man's reason, of which — ^judging by the 
 number of its believers — it is the greatest existing effort. No sacrifices are 
 made, nor any deity worshipped, by its followers, unless the creative power, the 
 great first cause, may be so called. The figures of Buddha seen about are not 
 for worship, but for remembrance, as we see crosses and crucifixes regarded 
 elsewhere. 
 
Buddhism Simplified. 241 
 
 In these writings, " The Three Caskets," a code of morality exists similar 
 to that of Christianity, which Buddhism preceded by some centuries. In the 
 " Sins of the Body," the " Sins of Speech," and the " Sins of the Mind," are 
 to be found condemned all that our Ten Commandments forbid. The trans- 
 gressor pays the penalty for wrong-doing by transmigration after this life into 
 that of degraded beings, or of suffering in one, many, or all of the hundred and 
 thirty-six specified means of misery set forth in these caskets. 
 
 In " The Four Verities " is demonstrated the evils of existence and the great 
 good of attaining Ni)"'ana — the absorption of separate existence into the 
 creative essence whence it emanated. " The Eight Means " to that great end 
 are set forth as being right faith, judgment, language, purposes, practice, 
 obedience, memories, and meditation. The simple life that the true Buddhist 
 leads can be traced to the " Five Precepts," which forbid luxuries in meals, 
 dress, and amusements, as also those of " luxurious beds " and taking bribes, 
 which last prohibition I take to be the correct interpretation of that language 
 which forbids "receiving money." It maybe susceptible of other interpre- 
 tation, but I leave it at that. 
 
 I am grateful to the intelligent and zealous official who thus spends time on 
 my enlightenment. He sees probably that I am, in Tennysonian language, 
 "an infant crying in the night, an infant crying for the light," and so 
 patiently talks to me in a way that has with it the power of an apostle. As 
 we talk, I look through the open window on the placid lake below and on the 
 silent hills beyond, and think that the scene is appropriate to the matter of 
 learning what one-third of the people of this world believe relative to the 
 world to come. 
 
 He tells me in different words that " 'tis not the whole of life to live, nor all 
 of death to die ;" that life, like to all created things, is indestructible, and that 
 death but changes its form. That it animates the body as electricity does that 
 on which it for a time operates, and then leaves it to rejoin the source whence 
 it came, or to animate another form. Buddha's views of the life hereafter, thus 
 fully recognized, are worth noting. That existence has its evils has been 
 largely admitted. Buddhism gave to it, in its doctrine of the transmigration 
 of the spirit, every conceivable form hereafter, including those imagined by 
 Claudio in Measure for Measure : — 
 
 " To bathe in fiery floods, or to_ reside 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
 To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
 And blown with restless violence round about 
 The pendent world." 
 
 Claudio says that he "has hopes to live, but is prepared to die." The Duke, 
 a true Buddhist, bids him to "be absolute for death" — that in life,_ in any 
 shape, the odds are so much against happiness that the ending of it is to be 
 welcomed, "that makes these odds all even." We are all taught that "He 
 giveth His beloved rest," and, says Shakspeare, " The best of rest is sleep ! " 
 
 Goethe says, " Life is a disease of the spirit." Buddha, " the enlightened," 
 saw that in whatever form the spirit lived, such disease must follow it. Disease 
 is an incident of life— twinned with it at its birth — that " grows with its growth, 
 and strengthens with its strength" — even if we are one of the ten thousand who 
 suffer but from that old age, with its attendant troubles, which Boerhave said 
 was our only natural disease. There are many besides Buddha and Hamlet 
 who in the great question of " To be or not to be ? " have thought that from all 
 the things they had been it must be something better not to be ! It was the 
 dread of the future existence, not of extinction, that made Hamlet shrink from 
 leaving this life. The existence of the evil-doer, says Buddha, is to be cori- 
 tinued and our modern teacher, Browning, is entirely a Buddhist in his 
 
242 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 remark that "There may be heaven, there must be hell." To the good 
 Buddhism promises an extinction from the evils of separate existence, and the 
 absorption into that greater body of life which all separate existences spring 
 from, and from which Buddhism excluded evil-doers as sheep shut out from 
 the fold. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 PERADINIA AND PUSILLAWA (CEYLON). 
 
 The chief trouble to Ceylon was caused in former times by the incursions of 
 the Tamils from the neighbouring Indian continent, who drove the Cingalese 
 out of the cities of the lowlands to this settlement of Kandy amongst the hills. 
 Its kings had, however, but little peace in it, and very short reigns. These 
 Tamils are in numbers next to the Cingalese at present in the island. To 
 Tamil troubles were added Portuguese ones from 1500 to 1656, and then Dutch 
 ones from that up to 1795. The English then came, and with them an end of 
 all further trouble for Kandy. Its last native king, Wikrama Rajah Singha, left 
 for Madras, at British suggestion, in 1816. There had been a scrimmage prior 
 to his leaving, and he had good reasons for going. He has not returned. Sir 
 Robert Browning then took his place as governor, and no royal foot had trodden 
 the palace floor of Kandy until British royalty came thither some few years back. 
 
 One may sit about in the streets of Kandy and do much curious observation. 
 The half-clothed figures that pass one are tall and graceful : many of them are 
 fine-looking folk, and walk well and with a proud bearing. Here are a string 
 of natives passing by on their way to pick berries on a coffee estate. They are 
 led by one who will be all through recognized as headman and leader. Around 
 are for sale those jars in brass, bronze, and earthenware, called "chatties," with 
 the shape of which pictures of the East have made us so well acquainted. 
 Aladdin has just passed with a lamp recently bought, and is taking it home to 
 his mother. Horace Vernet's Rebecca goes by with her chatty on her head in 
 which to fetch water from the well, as the like of her did thousands of years 
 ago, and will do for thousands to come. Such prophesying is quite proper in 
 this eastern part of the world. She looks a grand girl, this Rebecca, and her 
 polished brass chatty is as a golden crown to her stately form and proudly 
 carried head. Her large flashing eyes return my gaze and squelch me, similarly 
 as the eyes of Sir Simon Simple affected Mould. "He knows the Latin 
 grammar and French, and I can't stand his heye ! " I felt that this woman, 
 or one of her counterpart great-grandmothers, knew the Eastern world in all 
 its grandeur, and all the great men and glories of the wonderful olden time ; — 
 knew the East before it had gone to its sleep, and so let the white men of the 
 Western world emerge from their yet uncleared forests and swamps to have 
 their feverish day and to die as other nations have done — while this enduring 
 East of unalterable fashions sleeps for its time. She glanced towards me as I 
 sat by the road-side, as an oak of centuries old might regard the fungi about its 
 feet. " Forty centuries looked down" upon me more effectively from her eyes 
 than they did from the pyramids upon Buonaparte. 
 
 These Eastern women wear ornaments of all metals, anklets and necklets, 
 earrings, bracelets, and bangles, as also a ring upon the great toe, and well 
 indeed do they become what they wear — 
 
 " In place as fitting as for place 'tis fit, 
 Worthy the owner and the owner it." 
 
Eastern-Life Impressions. 243 
 
 Their al fresco existence, a semi-outdoor life, has its benefits and drawbacks. 
 As all trades and every art is practised in full view of all passers, one might 
 serve an apprenticeship to any of them free of premium. I watch a working 
 jeweller here as he elaborates some delicate ornament with the rudest, roughest 
 tools, that he would not change for those of the finest finish. Further on a 
 smith is blowing the sparks of his primitive little forge into one's face. A 
 comb-maker is at work on his doorstep with his tortoiseshell in all stages of its 
 manufacture around him. Beggars are everywhere met with, but their form 
 of Eastern manners is not pleasant. It is imitated, however, very much in the 
 Western world, but begging has there become more artistic, and has received 
 the aid of talent and been adopted by gentility. 
 
 Of the two hotels at Kandy, I stay at the one kept by a native. As it is not 
 the fashionable one it is less crowded, and one can get more attention, and, 
 what is as much wanted, information. Breakfajt is served at half-past ten. A 
 "chota hazra" of coftee and toast served at six a.m. is supposed to suffice until 
 then. Tiffin comes al two, and dinner at half-past seven. Poultry, nsh, and 
 rice are the ingredients of tiffin and dinner, with the ever-present curries. 
 Ceylon is proud of its curries, and, I am informed, is allowed pre-eminence in 
 that abomination. For me, it is quite welcome to it. A newspaper printed 
 in Cingalese character is here to be seen, which I secure as a souvenir, as also 
 a printed notice in queer English that hung in the bedroom, and was browned 
 with age. 
 
 The legal profession who are not." rushed " with business might take a leaf 
 out of Eastern customs in the way of promoting a practice. Here, in the 
 market-place at Kandy, are two stalls, to which boards are temporarily affixed 
 announcing that a lawyer may be consulted within. Folks bringing goods 
 to market have not much time to run about over the town, nor can they wait 
 at a lawyer's office until the day is, with them, half done, and it pleases Mr. 
 Legality to put in an appearance. He is handy here, at market, for everybody 
 to consult, and seems to profit by it, judging by those who are with him within, 
 and the others waiting without. As a novelty in our market-places, a legal 
 gentleman, equal to early rising, would, no doubt, find patronage and pay. 
 Market-gardeners are not the poorest of men. Judging by Dick Swiveller's 
 account of the reckless way in which they marry, and the useless things they 
 take for wives, they are of the sort most likely to be good clients. 
 
 Passing through the market, where one might stay an hour or two with 
 interest, I make way on a four-mile walk to the Peradinia Gardens, as one of 
 the sights of Kandy's neighbourhood. This botanical collection is a compres- 
 sion of the larger one that the whole island offers for study. Here are forest-trees 
 that bear flowers, the talipot palm in glorious bloom, the graceful areca-tree, and 
 slender-bending bamboos, that are now unsheathing their stalks, and show a won- 
 derful effect of delicate green colour. In these gardens one thing was especially 
 noticeable. There was no greenhouse — a remarkable thing that, to have no 
 hothouse in a botanical garden. Hereabout grow wild all that one sees in hot- 
 houses elsewhere. Over one's head flew tropical birds and crowds of flying 
 foxes. A grand clump of sugar-cane showed this plant's appearance at different 
 ages, and here was a Bo-tree — the sacred tree of the Buddhists. This particular 
 tree was planted here by British royalty, on a late visit, as the obliging curator 
 took care to inform me. Something of the fauna of the island is kept at one 
 end of this collection of its flora. Here is a native porcupine, and one of the 
 pretty bijoit bullocks that run about here in horse fashion with vehicles ; also a 
 native deer, which is as toy-like as the bullock. The birds were of great 
 variety, and such as one sees only on show in stuffed state in all the museums 
 of the world. I never expected to see such birds alive, having, by usage, got 
 the idea that the stuffed condition was their natural one. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 It is all a great garden, this island of Ceylon, and spoils one for ever after- 
 wards for all botanical collections elsewhere. Who could see with any interest 
 that under glass which has been seen growing wild ? This is the land of the 
 ebony and the satin-woods that our cabinet-makers so prize, and also of the 
 calamander — the queen of all decorative woods. Cinnamon and other spices 
 have grown here from the time of creation. So has rice, though it is a matter 
 of doubt whether the cocoanut is indigenous or not ; but then botanists, like 
 doctors, must disagree in some things. All the swampy places are sought by 
 the mangrove, nor are the seaweeds much less beautiful than the productions 
 of the land. Of the flora of the whole world, this one island can show nearly 
 a fourth part. 
 
 " Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland; 
 Droops the trailer from the crag ; 
 Droops tjie heavy-blossom'd flower ; 
 Hangs the heavy-fruited tree." 
 
 The vine will not grow here, nor would it, I found, in India or Java. I had 
 thought that wanting little of water, and finding its nourishment in stony soil, 
 it was well adapted for such countries. But it is not so. She that " weareth 
 the hundred rings " requires for her sap a winter's sleep, and that repose 
 necessary to resuscitation which is not to be found in lands of eternal summer. 
 One of the special industries of Ceylon is to be noticed at every street 
 corner alike in Galle, Colombo, and Kandy. It consists of a particular mess 
 rolled up in a green leaf, and sold for chewing purposes at the current rate of 
 four to the equivalent of a penny. It produces, when put into the mouth, a 
 fine red saliva in a few minutes. Before I was better acquainted with matters, 
 I took it that the Cingalese were all spitting blood, though it seemed impos- 
 sible that diseased lungs could be so general. That which is wrapped up in 
 the betel leaf is a piece of the nut ot the areca palm, a little tobacco, and some 
 fine lime-like stuff called " chunamb." Like all our bad habits, this disgusting 
 one brings its own special retribution. It destroys the teeth of the chewers of 
 it. It is rare to see a dark-skinned race so soon lose their teeth as do most of 
 these Cingalese. 
 
 The Government-house is situated in a pretty park at the foot of one of the 
 pleasant hills that enclose Kandy as in a basin. The Residency looks as if of 
 marble, but is neither that nor alabaster, but of a compound that looks equally 
 well, and as white, and takes a higher polish. It is made, I find, of the afore- 
 said chunamb, a lime composed of the calcined shells of the pearl oyster, for 
 which Ceylon's surrounding seas are so famous. It dries and hardens, does 
 this lime, to a whiteness like that of a sugared wedding-cake, or to those 
 blocks of coral with which the Bermudians and other coiral-islanders build. 
 Leading up from these Government grounds is " Ilorton's Walk," which every 
 visitor to Kandy is told to take. It is well worth taking, too, and winds 
 round the hill side to the top, from which is obtainable a magnificent view of 
 the country, and the scenery peculiar to a tropical clime. 
 
 Leaving Kandy by coach for the hill country, I go to see the plantations of 
 coftee, tea, and cinchona, which latter produces that useful drug quinine. 
 With the native races the cocoanut is everything in Ceylon, but with the 
 whites it is coffee, which is to the island what sheep and cattle are in Australia 
 and New Zealand. The tea and the cinchona are a long way behind coffee in 
 relation to the quantities cultivated. It is all coffee plantations for miles after 
 leaving Kandy. The tea and cinchona will not appear until I near Newera 
 Eliya, when I shall be on ground fully seven thousand feet above Colombo, 
 and distant about two hundred miles from Galle. 
 
 The coffee bush is a sort of laurel in appearance — having a shining green 
 leaf, a white flower, and berries that from green become red. When in their 
 
Coffee-Groiving Business. 245 
 
 white bloom these bushes give to the hillside a pretty appearance, and diffuse 
 a nice aroma — the best taste to be got of the "spicy breezes" of the island. 
 The plant will endure neither frost nor wind. In Ceylon it only grows well at 
 an elevation of from one to five thousand feet above the sea level — a delicacy 
 that would not be expected from its sturdy appearance. The coffee of this 
 island has to fight the products of Mocha and Java in the market. The 
 Arabian is the most esteemed, but Mocha produces so small a quantity com- 
 pared with that of the two islands that it is necessary to meet the demand for 
 it by re-christening much of the products of Ceylon and Java. In that way does 
 commerce kindly supply the wants of the public. In old Middlewick's words, 
 they cry for the moon, and are appeased with a Cheshire cheese. 
 
 The coffee estates of Ceylon are well worth a visit, and the travelling 
 amongst them is pleasant in the freshness of the mountain breezes. The hill 
 sides have been mostly cleared of jungle all around. Parts of it are being so 
 served now by the natives, who are burning up the bush that has been cut. 
 The jungle inhabitants — elephants, monkeys, leopards, and serpents — have now 
 to migrate further afield. Sterile land that grows no jungle will grow no coftee. 
 Fortunately for the native animals, the size of a coftee estate is not like in size 
 to a sheep station. Only hundreds, and not thousands of acres are needed. 
 Plantations of two, three, or four hundred acres are common. Some are of 
 larger size — the Rothschild estate, at Pusillawa, having nine hundred acres. 
 One planter has five estates in different spots, of a total of sixteen hundred 
 acres. His 1876 profits amounted to fifty thousand pounds net. Only one or 
 two others of the coffee planters ever do so disgustingly well as that. 
 
 It would appear easier and cheaper to become a coftee planter here than a 
 station-owner elsewhere. Two or three thousand pounds will, I am told, 
 make a good beginning. The land chosen is first selected and then surveyed 
 and sold by auction by the Government. It is then cleared and planted. 
 The first crop is expected at the end of two years, or three at the outside. If 
 a good crop, it is proof that the land has been well selected. The number of 
 deserted estates passed on the journey told, however, of mistakes in that w-ay 
 and consequent losses. Huts on the estates shelter the natives who look after 
 the plantation. The gathering of the berries is like to a Kentish hop-picking 
 — calling together for a time a crowd of native hands. The berries are placed 
 in bags and sent down on bullocks to Colombo, there to undergo some skin- 
 ning process previous to shipment and subsequent baking and grinding. 
 
 The mountain road begins to narrow and to pass around many precipitous 
 places that show awful depths. I almost wish to walk the rest of the journey, 
 and envy the running natives, with their heavy mail bags, who have to fear no 
 coach accidents, w4th possible coroner's inquests to follow, on nothing to 
 speak of in the way of remains. A strange stillness — a dead quietude — reigns 
 all around. The hillsides echo the noise of our wheels and the sound of the 
 driver's whip. Such quiet and solitude may be sublime, but the taste for it 
 does not always come with it. None of the coffee-planters are to be found on 
 their estates — nor, indeed, in all Ceylon — and there seemed reasons in plenty 
 for attending to the work by deputy. Somebody must live in London to 
 receive the coftee cargoes — and the cash. 
 
 The coach comes to a stop at Rambodda Pass. I am told that there is here an 
 end of the journey on wheels. The rest of the travelling would be on horse- 
 back. In this coach ride, begun at six a.m., I had stopped at Pusillawa at 
 two p.m. for breakfast — a long, hungry, and thirsty stretch of eight hours in 
 the freshness of mountain air. This Pusillawa rest-house is to one a sort of 
 oasis in the desert. It is, like others established throughout the island, a 
 Government aftair. The tariff" is printed and signed by authority. "Guest- 
 house" would be a better-sounding name, but names are nothing when one is 
 
246 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 famishing. Here, at Rambodda, is another rest-house. I appropriate its 
 printed tariff as a soiiuenir of the place. It is signed " H. O. Russell, 
 Government Agent." 
 
 As this is a meiiti issued by the Imperial Government of Great Britain, it 
 may be worth attention, as showing the care that can be paid to little wants by 
 great minds. The power which rules the hundreds of millions of neighbouring 
 India should be judged as much by small as by large matters. The wonders 
 revealed by the microscope are equal evidence of power to those shown by the 
 telescope. The elephantine trunk that uproots trees also picks up pins — all which 
 is sufficient reason for my copying the Rambodda rest-house bill of fare, the only 
 royal bill of fare I ever saw: — 
 
 TARIFF FOR REST-HOUSE: RAMBODDA. 
 
 5. d. 
 
 For a night-light . . . . .06 
 For an ordinary breakfast . . -30 
 For ditto dinner . . . . .40 
 For a cold tiffin . . . . .20 
 Cup of tea or coffee . . . .06 
 Beer, per pint 10 
 
 5. d. 
 
 For a sofa or couch, with bedding . 2 o 
 
 Ditto, without bedding . . .10 
 
 For a bed, first night . . . .40 
 
 Ditto, for every succeeding night. . 2 o 
 
 Halting, for more than three hours, in- 
 cluding lights after dark . . .20 
 
 Stabling horse for twenty-four hours, 
 
 including straw . . . . .20 
 
 N.B. — An ordinary- breakfast consists of beefsteak and potatoes, ham and eggs, rice and curry. 
 An ordinary dinner will be meat, fowl, and two dishes of vegetables, one side-dish, curry 
 and rice, bread and cheese. 
 
 H. O. Russell, Govt. Agent. 
 
 I felt, on paying the score here, that I had dined at the table of the Empress 
 of neighbouring India, and was so flustered at the idea that I nearly realized it 
 to a fuller extent by forgetting to " remember the waiter." 
 
 There is a shrub much seen hereabout that has got for itself the name of 
 "The Planter's Curse." It is not indigenous but imported by some one of 
 kith and kin to him who took the Cape weed, the rabbit, and the wrong spar- 
 row to Australia. It spreads here with great rapidity, getting as much anathe- 
 matised by the Cingalese as the Scotch thistle is by Australians. 
 
 It is all coffee, and talk of coft'ee, that is around me now. I learn that there 
 are two hundred thousand acres of it cultivated in Ceylon. Though not indi- 
 genous, the climate is most favourable to its growth. It will, in some sort, 
 grow anywhere in the island, even down to the hut-gardens by the sea-shore. 
 That sort of coffee may be classed, however, with "husband's tea" for 
 inferiority. The good kind is only found from fifteen hundred to five thousand 
 feet up the hills, and the pick of it, the crejiie de la creine, is gathered only at 
 an elevation of between two and three thousand feet. 
 
 The rice grows only up to the point where the good coffee begins. Where 
 that ceases, tea commences and goes on. Beyond the line of that — at seven 
 thousand feet — begins that cinchona from which quinine is made. The coffee 
 is, however, the best paying thing to Europeans, and the stock of it was valued 
 at the time of my visit at six or seven millions sterling. 
 
 Other industries of the island are the distillation of citronella, cinnamon, 
 and that lemon-grass with which the place abounds. I am shown here wasps' 
 nests, over five feet in length, hanging from the trees. There is a moth shown 
 to me from which silk is made of a quality known as Tussa. The cicada is 
 heard all about grinding its knives, and here are curious things in the insect 
 world not seen elsewhere. Of spiders and butterflies, as well as Buddhists, 
 Ceylon is head-quarters. 
 
 Those who travel in the East must, I find to my trouble, learn to like 
 curries, and to eat them whether they like them or not. The yellow-looking 
 
Nasty Native Dishes. 247 
 
 messes only tempted me when nothing else was to be got, and that was too 
 often the case. Along with the curry stuff there is given to one some fish — 
 like a sprat dried to a chip. This abominable thing smells as bad, or worse, 
 than it looks. It is called, in playful humour I suppose, " Bombay duck." 
 ■ It is so nasty that I prefer not only leaving it personally untouched, but also, 
 for half-an-hour after the meal, not to talk with any one who has eaten of it. 
 If necessary to do so, I take care to keep to the windward of the speaker. 
 There are several queer things offered to the traveller in different parts of the 
 world. Notably on the American overland route, at some of the out-of-the- 
 way stoppages in the desert, there is given to one a hash called " flumma- 
 diddle," and a mixture of tea and coffee named " slumgullion," but neither of 
 them were so nasty as this breath-perfuming Bombay duck. There are folks who 
 like it, however, much as George the Second was pleased only with the stalest 
 oysters. 
 
 The rest-houses of Ceylon are wooden buildings of one story, and under 
 charge of an attendant called an "appoo," and several native servants, all 
 answering to the call of " boy." A broken English is jabbled by all of them. 
 Leaving Rambodda by the light of the rising moon, I go on horseback for four- 
 teen miles, and then reach Newera Eliya (Neuralia), the sanatorium of Ceylon, 
 over which hangs Pedrotallagalla — the top of which mountain is the highest 
 land in Ceylon, Next to that lion of the place, the only show is the farm and 
 brewery at which Sir Samuel Baker (Pasha Baker afterwards, and Mr. Baker 
 then), lived and worked for years, before beginning those travels which got 
 him fame and knighthood. 
 
 Travellers who wish to get on with their work of seeing the world must 
 avoid company. It seems sad to say so, but much that is true is not pleasant. 
 I was always getting companions here and there, and strangely found them to 
 be very encumbering. The fact was that they were more or less invalids, and 
 mostly more so. Folks don't usually appear to go abroad until they are only 
 fit for the infirmary. The world is seen by them with sickly eyes, and they 
 travel only on the doctor's orders. The object of life is, of course, only to 
 grind a purseful of money out of the world, and then to die and leave it for the 
 benefit of others. Leaving business merely to see the world one lives in before 
 leaving it is, of course, an idle waste of precious time. Only the sick are, 
 therefore, to be found travelling. I was inveigled in that way by one staying 
 here, who volunteered to go up Pedrotallagalla mountain with me. Taken off 
 my guard, I rashly took him as companion, and thought that I should never 
 have got him to the tojD. Sinbad's old man of the sea could not have 
 been a greater encumbrance to him. He afterwards told me that he had had 
 no sleep to speak of for two years. As sleeplessness is the beginning of mad- 
 ness, I was glad that our short acquaintanceship was near its end. Of half-a- 
 dozen that I might have similarly associated with, not one of them was fit for 
 travel, save with a nurse. There are exceptions, of course, but I found by 
 experience what the rule was. 
 
 Since leaving Rambodda the journey had been through the tea and cinchona 
 plantations. The coffee has been all left behind now. About Newera Eliya 
 and the neighbouring hills the tracks of the elephant are often seen. He is 
 considered to be Government property, and a tax of £2^ per head is charged 
 by the revenue collector on each one that is exported. The price of one 
 delivered on shipboard is £,']S' They make nice presents for friends at a 
 distance, so that the information thus detailed may be useful. Sixteen hundred 
 of them had been exported, chiefly to India, in the preceding five years. 
 
The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 NEWERA ELIYA TO DONDERA (CEYLON). 
 
 Not a horse is to be got when I am ready to leave Newera Eliya and its cool- 
 ness, but being happily unencumbered with luggage, I start in the early morning 
 for the walk back to Rambodda. Although I fail to get a horse for this 
 journey, I get something that occupies my thoughts during greater part of it. 
 There is an antiquated maxim about the care to be taken of what we speak, to 
 whom we speak, and where, and how, and when, that would be very objec- 
 tionable in practice, if possible to carry out. I am sadly reminded of it here, 
 where I go to get the horse for the leaving of this locality. The horse-owner 
 is not within, but his daughter, of womanly age, asks me to wait his early 
 coming, which I do, talking with her meanwhile. She wishes to learn much 
 about Australia, as soon as she catches from my conversation that I have been 
 lately in that quarter. All other places seem suddenly to lose their interest 
 when mention of that land is touched upon. It is well that I know something 
 about it, from the eagerness with which she questions me. 
 
 Is it a nice place ? she wishes to know, and one where an Englishman would 
 like to settle ? That being asked of a twenty-four years resident there. I feel 
 on the side of truth in answering in the affirmative, and likewise in adding a 
 few adjectives that were superlative on the subject. Is it a better place than 
 Ceylon ? and did I think that a young mercantile man going to Melbourne for a 
 holiday would be likely to stop there ? I am always as desirous to give informa- 
 tion as to get it, and object to no one questioning me in return for the curious 
 interrogatories I am always putting to others. Speaking my opinions, I reply 
 that as a free colony is better for enterprise than is a Crown one, so is 
 Australia to be preferred to Ceylon ; that Melbourne is a great city, and that 
 the climate alone would determine its choice in preference to any town in this 
 quarter. I am somewhat in hopes that I am promoting emigration to the 
 better land we talk of, and little think the harm I am really doing in my good 
 efforts. 
 
 The real question, to which all the others had been quietly leading up, was 
 now put — Were the ladies of Australia nice-looking ? Perhaps it was by 
 contrast with the black and brown skinned ones that I had seen so much of 
 lately, or perhaps it was from the long absence from Australia and its great 
 distance, that my memory brought back to me a bright picture of Australia's 
 people. May I l^e forgiven if I answered too enthusiastically to that delicate 
 question ! My replies brought an anxious look to the face of my querist, and 
 then a sigh came from her that she could not repress, and with that she hastily 
 left me. I saw that something was wrong, and soon learnt all about it from 
 her father, who presently returned. I lis son-in-law, the young lady's husband, 
 had been some time in Australia, and was staying unconscionably long — ever 
 so much longer than could have been expected. I had been extolling the land 
 that he so lingered in, and the sirens that might be thought to help to detain 
 him ! Had I only known it all, how easily I could have avoided adding to the 
 trouble of this wearily-waiting one, to whom all nature spoke but on one 
 heme — 
 
 " Whose heart was told a message 
 
 None else could hear beside, 
 
 He will come ! — soft breezes whisper'd _; 
 
 He'll come no more ! — the wild winds sigh'd." 
 
iilllilliilillllil I 
 
WondroKS Ruined Cities. 249 
 
 There was no help now for what I had unwittingly done. He is but a 
 poor observer, however, and at best a wasted traveller, who gives all his 
 observation to works of art and wonders of inanimate nature ; who neglects, as 
 he journeys, to notice the sounds to be heard from that human harp of a 
 thousand strings that responds everywhere in similar notes, but upon which 
 circumstances play such ever-changing variations. 
 
 Nothing passed me on the road down to Rambodda but two running mail- 
 men, each carrying in his hand a long staff with a tinkling bell at the top of it. 
 They did the fourteen miles in two hours and three-quarters, laden as they were 
 with mail-bags, but they went as the crow flies, caring nothing for the road. 
 The way these men dash down the hillsides is something to wonder at. They 
 are Tamils, as also are the majority of the coft'ee-pickers, a hardier and tougher 
 race than are the Cingalese. These fellows do most of the labour of the island 
 now. Formerly, as invaders, they did their best to destroy the place. 
 
 And what destruction has been in Ceylon ! It has quite a show of ruined 
 cities, chief among which is the ninety kings' city, for such is the meaning of 
 " Anaradhapura." There is Pollanarua also, another grand city of the past. 
 So great was the first-named of these places that, judging from what remains 
 of its towering walls, it must have been over fifty miles in circumference 1 A 
 goodly city that — quite a second Babylon, in which a straight walk could be 
 taken for nearly seventeen miles within the walls. It is said to have been 
 founded nearly three thousand years ago by a king whose translated name is 
 " Delight of the Gods," and deserted through a Tamil invasion twelve 
 hundred years ago. A learned German (Dr. Goldschmidt) is said to be doing 
 for it what another learned explorer (Dr. Schliemann) has done for the site of 
 Troy. The ruins of this ancient city are now in a forest of jungle, but there 
 are standing, amongst other wonders of the place, sixteen hundred granite 
 pillars, in forty lines of forty pillars each, that sustained in their time a palace 
 of burnished brass. These pillars are each of one piece of granite, twelve feet 
 high and two feet and a half thick. 
 
 This city of the past was built upon a plain, and surrounded with rice-fields. 
 These had to be irrigated, and were, for that purpose, terraced and supplied 
 with intersecting water-courses, that were sloping only to engineering eyes. 
 It is greatly noticeable, as I saw in China and India, what Eastern surveyors 
 have done in the way of finding or making water levels, and causing streams 
 to flow apparently just where they pleased. Of that skill they have left 
 evidences all over the East in an unmistakable and enduring way. Here is to 
 be seen the oldest of trees extant, and the holiest — a bo-tree, planted two 
 hundred and eighty-eight years before our era began. There is nothing very 
 sturdy-looking about a bo-tree that it should be so enduring. It is not of the 
 banyan sort, that roots its branches as soon as they touch the ground. The 
 leaf of the bo-tree, as I have it pasted on a card, reminds me only of the ace of 
 spades. It is of that shape, and has a tendril two inches long pendant from its 
 acute end. There is no doubt of the antiquity of this tree, of nearly two thou- 
 . sand two hundred years old, and also that it is, by several centuries, the oldest 
 tree extant. The Government of Ceylon, being British, is careful of such 
 things as this tree, and it is too far in the wilds for tourists to get at easily and 
 take it away in pieces, as they certainly would do. 
 
 Here are to be seen among the mass of ruins many vast bell-shaped erections 
 called " Dagobas," which are something between a pagoda and a pyramid. 
 These are coverings for things sacred or great, and are probably monuments 
 to kings that await there, in the jungle, the Belzoni who will yet reveal their 
 contents to the world. One of these, that is supposed to cover some relic of 
 Buddha, is no less than two hundred and fifty feet high, and a mile and three- 
 quarters in circumference at the base. It is overgrown with vegetation, but 
 
250 The Main Routes Round the Woi'ld. 
 
 the spire at its top is plainly discernable. It has a name over an inch in 
 length of small type. A parallel to this ancient city wonder is to be seen 
 at Mitrahenny, near to Memphis, on the right bank of the Nile, twenty miles 
 from Cairo. There lies an immense statue in limestone, one stone only, of 
 Rameses the Great. It is forty-three feet in height, or rather length, con- 
 sidering its position. Here at Anaradhapura lies a similar monolithic granite 
 statue that is sixty-five feet long. It is the figure of someone whose name is 
 lost to the world, notwithstanding such Titanic labour as this hewn stone was 
 given to keeping it in remembrance. It is evidence, however, that the men of 
 this old city of Ceylon were similar slaves to those of old Memphis, and that 
 there was no better way found of occupying time and the population than by such 
 fruitless labours. 
 
 This ancient city affords fine scope for the explorer. It has the additional 
 advantage of being situated in a land belonging to Great Britain, and in one in 
 which labour is plentiful and cheap. The difficulty is in the way of cutting 
 away the jungle, and clearing oft' the iinmense mass of vegetably-deposited 
 crust with which everything is overgrown and encumbered. In Java temples 
 were unearthed in that way during the time that Britain had possession of that 
 land. Similar enterprise might, further than it has been, be extended to 
 Ceylon. If it be alleged that it will be no aid to history to uncover places of 
 which there are no records, then the same might have been said of the temples 
 of Java, which look worth any labour taken upon the bringing of them again to 
 the light of day. My information as to Anaradhapura was furnished by a 
 fellow-traveller to Rambodda, a clergyman, who had the previous year visited 
 and sketched the stupendous ruins of this once mighty city of the ninety 
 monarchs. To them and to their fate the lines of an English poet are, by 
 mere transposition of the tense, most applicable, — 
 
 "All ye as a wind have gone by, as a fire are ye gone and are past ; 
 Ye were gods, and behold ye are dead, and the earth is upon you at last ; 
 In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of things,^ 
 Ye now sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world has forgot you as kings." 
 
 It is as well, perhaps, that their names should be forgotten, if they were like to 
 some of those that history has let live. One of them, who reigned three 
 hundred years before our era, whose reign is remembered only as that in which 
 Buddha's sacred tooth came to Kandy, has the highly euphonious name of 
 " Kirtisrimeghawarna." There are other similar ones, which it would be an 
 insult to orthography to copy. 
 
 Rolling down the hills in the coach from Rambodda, I find a passenger 
 alongside who has lately visited another lion of Ceylon, the famous Adam's 
 Peak, on which is to be seen the footprint of our first forefather. Adam's 
 interest in it has, however, been much neglected. The mountain has been 
 appropriated by the Buddhists, who have made it a holy one, and claim the 
 footprint thereon as that of Buddha. They have covered that footmark, like 
 to the holy tooth at Kandy, with a jewelled covering, and have erected a temple 
 over it, and established a resident priest for the usual coin collection. The temple 
 has been more than once blown away. The present one is secured with stones 
 and chain- work. The journey and the ascent are toilsome, but are accom- 
 plished by numbers of faithful Buddhists at a certain season. Footsteps have 
 had to be cut in many places on the mountain, and chains secured to it to 
 assist the traveller against the winds, which have blown more than one from 
 its side. As the mountain is, however, a holy one, any death on it or from it 
 includes the certainty of salvation. The top of the peak has a surface of 
 seventy feet by thirty, and is walled around to the height of five feet. Near to 
 the centre is the " Sdree Pada," or sacred footstep, impressed on a rock that is 
 covered by a temple supported on open pillars. To see the footstep the 
 
Adam^s Footprifit. 251 
 
 metallic covering has to be lifted, which rests upon a raised border of cement 
 placed around it. This cement work greatly helps to make out that the large- 
 looking splotch is really foot-shaped. It is between five and six feet long, by 
 two-and-a-half feet broad. One may lie at full length in it. The explanation 
 is that there were giants on the earth in the early days, and that they had 
 extensive feet. In like manner I was shown on the summit of the Mount of 
 Olives an indentation in a stone there, which is said to be the last footstep upon 
 earth of One who thence ascended from it ; and elsewhere two of the last foot- 
 prints of Mahomet's were also shown to me. There is a disagreement, how- 
 ever, as to Adam's size, which I recalled when looking at his tomb, shown to 
 me in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. By that he would not 
 seem to have been much larger altogether when he died than is this footprint 
 of his on the peak. Perhaps the great ages to which these ancients of the 
 earth lived shrivelled them up, so that they died of the size of modern men at last. 
 
 Though personally Buddha did not claim to work miracles, nor sought their 
 aid in support of his teachings, his successors and adherents have not been so 
 scrupulous. This stone-mark upon the mountain top is not only said to be his 
 footstep, but a pool of water a little lower dewn is said to be efficacious for 
 various matters, because he had washed in it. Legend, that grows about 
 everything great as creepers do around a tree, has it that Buddha stepped from 
 this mountain to the Indian continent when leaving this favoured land of his to 
 return to that which gave him birth. There has been an attempt made to cut 
 a figure of him on one part of this peak, in the manner in which large figures 
 have been similarly cut on the hill-sides in England. The first ascent of this 
 Adam's Peak by an Englishman was in 1827. In difficulty it is said to equal 
 the Peak of Teneriffe and the Peter Botte Mountain together ; but surrounded 
 as it is on three sides by plains, the view from the summit is said to repay all 
 the toil. 
 
 Sabbath observance is conspicuous by its absence in Ceylon and all over the 
 East. The bazaars, as the streets of native shops are called, are all open, and 
 business done all the seven days of the week. I asked a Scotch merchant, 
 whom I met, about this matter. He said that the missionaries would set it all 
 right in time, that it was their business, and he helped to pay them for doing 
 it. It is to be hoped that he will not be disappointed, but it will require im- 
 mense missionary power to do the work, judging only by what has been effected 
 already. Among the Mahometans nothing has been done. It is said that the 
 Society for the Conversion of the Jews to Christianity have, after years of 
 labour and the expenditure of many tens of thousands, one convert and a half 
 to show for it. That missions do not succeed much better with the Buddhists 
 and Brahmins is what the traveller will conclude when he has been over the 
 scenes of their labours. They succeed best among savage nations — the 
 Maories and South Sea Islanders. I once travelled on the west coast of New 
 Zealand with a Maori woman, who smoked a pipe all through the journey. 
 She carried a small Bible in her bosom, and, I found, fully believed that it was 
 a talisman — that while she held to that no harm could happen to her. Looking 
 at these small results from great efforts, one can but think that perhaps after all 
 it may be true that " God never made His work for man to mend." 
 
 A reflective European who goes about in such Eastern places as Ceylon, 
 must come to the conclusion that he has not got the best thing in the way of 
 hats or other head-coverings. Also that coat, waistcoat, and trousers do not 
 set him oft" to the best advantage. He becomes as miserable about it, if he be 
 proper minded, as a girl who sees another girl better dressed than herself — or 
 looking so. It is a sort of clean clothes day among most of the native races 
 that I am now looking at, and many of them appear to be really lustrous in 
 their attire. Some white linen, or cotton, is wrapped tastefully about them 
 
252 The Maiji Routes Round the V/orld. 
 
 from the shoulders to the knees. A coloured bandana kerchief is twisted 
 around the waist, and a pretty shawl is made up as a turban. Sometimes this 
 head-wrap is wholly of one colour, red or white, blue or green, as the wearer 
 may fancy most suited to his coffee-coloured complexion. In these three articles 
 of dress these men look grandly arrayed, and one's eyes turn in disgust from any 
 EuTopeanly-dressed, and consequently gawky-looking, creature that may 
 happen to pass. 
 
 It is really all in the turban — the head-dress does it all. The Hindoos and 
 the Arabs may claim it as the chief secret of the East. This fashion has stood 
 the approval of all the ages, and so may be accepted as correct in taste. The 
 value of the turban in putting a crown upon its wearer, and so almost trans- 
 forming him, is seen at once if the wearer be noticed with head unadorned. 
 The difference is as "Hyperion to a Satyr;" the noble-looking creature has 
 now, denuded of his turban, become a mean and vulgar being in appearance. 
 Some, to avoid the trouble of turban-folding, wear a tall, smoking-cap-shaped 
 headgear, the sides of which are stiff, and interlaced and embossed with 
 cording and braiding, silvered and gilt. I felt as a shabby sort of thing indeed by 
 the side of these holiday-dressed children of the sun, and it was a long day before 
 I got reconciled to my stove-pipe hat again. As a variation to the decorations 
 of the smoking-cap, a red silk sash, such as is worn by Californian diggers 
 around the waist, is tastefully twisted about the sides of the cap, and the 
 tasselled ends of the sash then hang gracefully upon the shoulder. These 
 may not be proper head-dresses for the climate of the East, but they carry 
 all to nothing in their favour the question of improving the wearer's appearance. 
 
 In " Sam Slick" a shrewd observer of the world has said that, however well 
 we may dress, we look but badly attired if the hat be not good. If that be so, 
 it atones, he says, for all shabbiness in other parts of the dress. Someone 
 may yet bring a turban hat into fashion, for the stove-pipe adornment can 
 scarcely be such a work of genius as to last for all time. We have lived to see 
 the prison-crop become the fashion of wearing what little hair is left to us — a 
 style of head -dressing or rather nakedness, that would have necessitated the 
 wearing of a wig forty years ago. We have seen ladies also adopting the style of 
 the stage mad woman, going about with their hair adown their backs, like to the 
 crazed Ophelia, or like to the distant appearance of the pretty waterfalls that 
 one catches glimpses of among the hills that I have been visiting. 
 
 Waterfalls suggest rivers, in which particular Ceylon is not famous. Its 
 chief one, with a name devised to annoy printers, runs from its source for about 
 one hundred and fifty miles to its double mouth near Trincomalee. The rivers 
 of Ceylon are only about as navigable as those of New Zealand. They are, 
 however, highly ornamental, which makes up for many deficiencies in more 
 things than rivers. 
 
 On the road between Kandy and Colombo I stay again at the locality of the 
 Rodiyas — those expatriated pariahs whom I have previously mentioned, for I 
 have personally no caste prejudices, and am not afraid of being contaminated. 
 They live, I find, much in the inscrutable way that gipsies do elsewhere. The 
 British Government treats all alike, brahmins and pariahs, so that these poor 
 despised ones have in that way the like rights as the rest of the Cingalese. 
 They go in a body, in the season, coffee-picking ; keeping, however, to them- 
 selves. They have got some mud hovels, thatched, and some cattle, that 
 wear a particular badge to mark Rodiyan ownership. It is, of course, a badge 
 of the commonest sort, and, therefore, a cocoanut-shell. The women are very 
 gipsy-like in being graceful, good-looking, and adepts at hanky-panky sleight- 
 of-hand business. In that and in their one article of clothing I was reminded 
 of them by the miserable folks that now occupy a few huts on the site of 
 Jericho, by the Dead Sea. I could no more make out their means of living 
 

 Queer Customs. 255 
 
 than that of these Rodiyas ; but then I could never understand how gipsies 
 lived. If it comes to that, there are many others who assume to be in a higher 
 circle, as they call it, whose means of living are equally mysterious. I heard 
 the wife of one such — these folk always have wives— remark once that " Provi- 
 dence provided for all." 
 
 The customs of Eastern races are, like to their fashions, of the ancient and 
 unalterable — the Levitical-antique — stamp. Of large number are those to 
 whom it is an essential that only those of their faith should kill that which they 
 eat. Their mode of killing is unfortunately of the cruellest, but they would 
 sooner be killed themselves than alter it. They will not eat with strangers, 
 nor oft" a platter from which another may have eaten, nor drink from any vessel 
 that may perchance have been defiled by other lips. One hand only must serve 
 the mouth, and one man only must do this, and one that, and one the other, 
 until I come to the conclusion that it takes nine Eastern men to make up in 
 usefulness one Western one. 
 
 Work can thus go on only in Eastern fashion, that is to say, slowly, with 
 such hindrances of usage. Separate cookings, different sittings to eat ; and 
 such divisions of duties, so rigidly observed, make an uncomfortable household 
 for those who have ill-assorted native attendants. They cleave to their 
 customs more than to their lives. Canvas piping has to be substituted for 
 leathern to please those who are forbidden to sacrifice animals, and therefore 
 to handle anything of animal origin, and for the like reason a greased cartridge 
 cannot be carried by a native soldier, as it is an insult to expect him to give it 
 the needful bite, and so let his lips touch the grease. 
 
 The bankers of the Eastern world sit about in primitive fashion, with their 
 little stalls covered with coinage, in the olden fashion of money-changers. 
 Among the rupees and their silver subdivisions, and the copper cents that form 
 the coinage of Ceylon, there is a strange coin of smallest value, that seems to 
 have got astray, and to be out of place in its company. It is, I am told, a 
 remnant of the Dutch occupation of Ceylon, and has been adopted and con- 
 tinued in circulation by the British. There is evidence of that in the medallion 
 head of the third of the Georges that figures on one side of it. On the other is 
 an elephant, and beneath it the words, "One Stiver." This coin, of little 
 value, and its name, recall and explain the old expression, "not worth a 
 stiver," that was common in days long past. 
 
 I return to Galle to leave "the gateways of the day" for the neighbouring 
 India. The steamer that will take me does not leave for two days, so I have 
 a pleasant excursion to Dondera, the southernmost point of Ceylon, where the 
 Portuguese landed. In the way of maritime discovery there may be greater 
 names than that of James Cook. In that way Marco Polo, Magellan, 
 Bartholomew Diaz, Vasco di Gama, Tasman, Van Diemen, and Columbus 
 may dispute honours with him. Yet his name stands out well in relief as 
 having always behaved to the honour of England as a nation, and to himself as 
 a man. That he did good wherever he landed, and where he could not, did 
 no evil, is what can be credited to few discoverers. 
 
 Of all that I have thought at many scenes of wreck in this fair island, and 
 especially here at Dondera, where are to be seen ruins and remains of a once 
 fine place and a grand temple which were sacked and sacrificed by the Portu- 
 guese. They were, as the discoverers of the Cape route to India, the first 
 Europeans to land in Ceylon, and disgraced their name and civilization 
 generally in all that they did here, especially in 1587. That was their way of 
 returning thanks for a safe voyage so far. They then recklessly destroyed this 
 Dondera, and ruthlessly murdered its people. Nemesis follows such deeds, and 
 never follows in vain, as witness the poor position to which Portugal has sunk 
 in its present, compared with its prosperous past. 
 
254 '^^^^ Main Routes Rotmd the World. 
 
 This Dondera was an especially fine place, and its great temple was the 
 wonder of Ceylon. It was built after the fashion of the one at Rangoon, that 
 is so conspicuous from the sea. Dondera stood partly on a promontory, on 
 which prominently stood this temple, on a foundation of arches. As seen from 
 afar, it glittered as a golden glory, its exterior being covered with gilded 
 metal. Within it were a thousand statutes of stone and bronze, something like, 
 probably, what I saw in the " Temple of the Five Hundred Genii," at Canton. 
 They were all destroyed, and Dondera, thus sacked, was then burnt. Such of 
 its men, women, and children as survived the sword were thrown into the fire. 
 After that butchery and unlimited robbery, immense treasure was taken away 
 for the enrichment of Portugal. Thinking of all this and the like, I further 
 think that the Frenchman who condemned mankind generally as an 
 unredeemed scoundrel had probably been much about the world, and saw 
 reasons, as I do, for what he said. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVHI. 
 
 AT MADRAS. 
 
 While awaiting the arrival of the steamer at Galle for passage to Madras, a 
 vessel came in with a great surprise on board. It had brought back from the 
 grave, as it were, one half of the survivors of a New-Zealand-bound vessel that 
 had been a whole twelvemonth unheard of. Those passengers of the ill-fated 
 " Strathmore" who were now landed at Ceylon had been for nine months on 
 the Crozet Islands, or one of that group. Subsisting there for so long mainly 
 upon the eggs of sea-birds, the hair of most of them had become of a yellowish 
 colour. That it had got of this fashionable tint without the aid of expensive 
 dyes they attributed solely to their late dietary. A passing vessel had at last 
 noticed their flag of distress and taken away the survivors. Being too many 
 for this vessel's larder, one half of the number had been taken on board a 
 barque bound for Rangoon. Ceylon was the first land these people had seen, 
 other than the cold and sterile Crozets, since they had, a year before, left 
 England. It must have been to them as if they had achieved Paradise. What 
 little clothing could be mustered had been distributed among them, and these 
 misfitting things, and their ragged beards and queer-coloured heads of hair, 
 made them the strangest-looking of scarecrows. A few hours afterwards they 
 were in other outfits, and, by barbers' help, scarcely recognizable. 
 
 On the morning of the next day the " Poonah" drops anchor off Madras, 
 and I get a first view of the shores of India. It is not a very prepossessing one 
 at this part. The city, which lies a good half-mile away, stands on a low, 
 level site, and there is little to invite one in its appearance. This city by the 
 sea stands all unsheltered by breakwater or harbour, the long rolling billows 
 breaking for ever on its beach in a mist of surfy spray. There is much of head- 
 shaking and doubtful looks at this rolling surf by those who are for the shore. 
 No great eagerness is shown in getting luggage ready, nor is there the hurry, 
 scurry, and bustle to be seen, such as is usual after letting go the anchor. 
 
The Surf Boatmen. 255 
 
 Various black-looking objects are to be noticed now and again on the crests of 
 the surf, and these soon prove to be a crowd of boats, which are coming, 
 energetically enough, for the apathetic passengers. 
 
 In half an hour we are surrounded by about twenty of what are seen to be 
 large surf-boats, each requiring the serv-ices of ten boatmen. The men and 
 their boats and belongings are really novelties in every way — but that which is 
 pleasing. These are the famous surf-boats and boatmen of Madras, about 
 whom one had read and heard, now and again, from childhood. This much 
 may be said, that, unlike many sights, the surf, the boats, and their owners, 
 were beyond expectation. As for the surf, the general opinion among us 
 seemed to be that Madras in its present position was a great mistake, and that 
 those who built on such an unprotected shore should have come to the watery 
 grave that they have caused to so many others. It will never be known how 
 many have been drowned in landing at or leaving Madras. 
 
 These surf-boats are rudely-built little barges, having several sticks of bam- 
 boo stretched from side to side as seats for the rowers. As the boatmen have 
 no clothing, this sort of seat looks especially uncomfortable, and yet it must be 
 stuck to, as five feet or so below is a pool of bilgewater awaiting them. The 
 primitive fastening of cocoanut fibre cordage has been used instead of nails to 
 secure plank to plank in these boats, which have at the stern a place set apart for 
 passengers. Here a screen of much-used canvas is rigged up, should any lady 
 happen to be taken on board. The oars in use are bamboo sticks, having 
 triangular pieces of the size of a ship's log fastened with cordage to the end. 
 The boat's sides are so high that, although the bamboo sculls are lengthy, the 
 water is only touched by the little addition so made to the end of them. It 
 was noticeable that, when the first officer made for the shore, the ship's boat 
 was not put to use, nor the ship's men. It was to one of these surf-boats that 
 he trusted himself, and to the care of its ten boatmen. 
 
 jT Ah, those boatmen ! will one ever forget them ? They swarmed up the sides 
 of the ship and invaded its poop in their competition for passengers. They 
 frightened even the ship's cat from the deck — they were so rough-looking and 
 so noisy, and so much in want of clothing. The smallest of dirty rags, secured 
 by a piece of string, served as an apology for an apron, and that was folded up 
 at one corner to hold tin tickets, which it is the object of these demoniacal- 
 looking beings to get one to take. These badges bear numbers on them cor- 
 responding with the particular boat thfit you are supposed to be booked for, if 
 you take the ticket. The rough, dangerous life these men lead seems to make 
 them regardless of all manners, and quite unconscious of blows and kicks. 
 These they get in plenty from the ship's people, in staying their endeavours to 
 seize and carry down to their boats any article of luggage about the deck. To 
 get the luggage was, in their ideas, to get the passenger to follow. Yet 
 these men do not value their lives a pin's fee, and dare all the dangers encoun- 
 tered by the adventurous Deal life-boat men, and that daily. Any mistake 
 they may make is corrected by an enormous billow of heaving water, twenty 
 feet or so high, that washes them off" their bamboo perches altogether. Their 
 stick of a bamboo oar, and their skill in swimming, can then alone save them, if 
 their strength should serve to fight their way through the surf to the shore — 
 and no shark be too quick for them. 
 
 The boat that I get into has three other passengers. The very getting into 
 it was perilous matter enough, so rough is the water on this coast. The mass 
 of boats, and crowd of black fellows at the ship's side, who yelled at us, each 
 claiming us as theirs, made it a pandemonium sight altogether. The shouting 
 so boisterously may have been caused by the universal idea that it is necessary to 
 talk loudly to foreigners. We get out from among the mass of boats at last, 
 and then our ten boatmen give play to their sculls, breaking out also into a 
 
256 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 chorus of yells that was as discord gone mad. These unclothed black demons 
 and their strange screeches, added to the watery terrors around, likened the 
 journey to crossing the Styx with half a Score of devils as ferrymen. It was 
 easily perceived that nothing too much had been said about the dangerous surf 
 of Madras. Yet, with all their noise, it was to be noticed how well these 
 fellows managed their boat, and fought the billows, and timed the strokes of 
 their spoon-ended sculls. Any missing the water on the part of either of them 
 must have led to his immediate descent from his perch to the bilgewater 
 below. As we rise on these billows, and descend with them, we get a sensible 
 notion of our helplessness, and wish, for his punishment, to have with us the 
 misguided being who wrote about " a home on the rolling deep." 
 
 Several jetties have been erected different times at Madras. Some morning 
 the jetty is missed, as it was in the year before my getting there, and after a time 
 another is commenced with the same fate, for a certainty, before it. The boat- 
 men are, however, quite independent of landing-places, and beach the boat in 
 clever manner, half-a-dozen of them throwing themselves over the side to drag 
 it ivp with the aid of the next roll of surf. The passenger is then handed down 
 by one boatman to the arms of another below, who takes him, pickaback, to 
 the far-lying dry beach. One is not likely to forget going ashore at Madras, 
 there is so much of the sensational by which to recall it. 
 
 A fine and very novel effect was produced in the way of illumination when 
 royalty was last at Madras. As the surf is the most memorable feature of the 
 place, it was suggested by some genius to light it up. This outre idea was 
 actually carried out, and successfully too. All the surf boatmen were 
 provided with lights, and directed to keep their boats and their lights in a hne 
 at so many hundred feet from the shore. This dancing line of lights, as it rose 
 and fell with the surf, had a picturesque effect, and when low down in the 
 trough of the waves, shone well through the wall of water in front of it, thus 
 illuminating the surf. 
 
 The sands at Madras are as much a sight as those at Margate in full season. 
 I am surrounded by hawkers, who offer lace, needleworked muslin, and sandal- 
 wood ornaments. There is a crowd of folks about, who appear all to have 
 something to do there, in one way or another, some in selling puzzles in wood 
 and metal work. The idle element of the Margate beach is wanting, and so 
 are the bathing-machines. No boatman here, however, would be so imagina- 
 tive as to suggest to a straggler that it was " a nice smooth day for a sail, sir." 
 
 The public buildings belonging to the Government are mostly on the strand, 
 and the length of this cannot be taken in at a glance. Madras is a long straggling 
 place, and either a gharry — as the brougham-like vehicles are called — or an 
 umbrella covering, is necessary to the traveller who will go much about. As 
 these conveyances seem unlikely things from which to look when inside, I 
 prefer the shelter of the umbrella, and a walk upon the red dust that covers the 
 roads and streets of the city. Engaging a guide, who, lyingly, said that he 
 knew English, I start on my perambulation. 
 
 A car of Juggernaut that stands alone under a thatch of palm-leaves in a 
 fenced-off' piece of land between two buildings, brings me to a standstill. 
 There is no need to be told what it is, though my guide volunteers a long 
 description. It was so like what one had seen in pictures of this barbarous 
 crushing-machine — covered with carvings, bosses of metal, and spiky cannon- 
 balls hung round from top to bottom. Its use is prohibited now, so that it lies 
 here as a reminder of the past — like to an old stage-coach in a country inn 
 yard. When looking at its huge, broad, and heavy wheels, one's thoughts 
 would go to wondering how many human beings they had crushed. I saw at 
 Cairo, at Easter time, a holy sheikh, returning from Mecca, ride on horseback 
 over the bodies of a hundred or more of Mahommedan believers. Few of those 
 
Indian Jugglery. 257 
 
 fanatics seemed to be hurt, but here, with this car of Juggernaut — or Jagannath 
 properly — the size of a Pickford's van, or a travelling menagerie waggon, and 
 twice as heavy as either, the devotees could have had no chance — at least not 
 for life in this world. Once a year one of these cars are brought out and 
 dragged around by a crowd of devotees, who like hard work. Officials watch 
 its progress, and snatch would-be suicides from the wheels. It occurred to me, 
 on looking at it, that it would make a good show in some distant land — this 
 Juggernaut car. Its strange appearance made it a fine curio, while the 
 strength of its build guaranteed its standing wear and tear for centuries. 
 Madras seemed to be the home of Juggernaut. I met with three of these cars 
 thus laid by in Madras, and saw none others elsewhere in India. 
 
 A crowd of beggars surround me whenever I stop. When all small change 
 is given away, my guide undertakes to satisfy their importunities with a 
 walking-stick, but I suppress his benevolence in that way, as some of these 
 mendicants were seemingly in need of help. The Oriental beggar has always 
 something to show in the way of ailment that is far more speaking than any 
 words or whining. They talked to me in an unknown tongue, but their 
 deformities, sores, and sufferings spoke plain language. Next to these beggars 
 sympathy was demanded for the miserable horses to be seen in the general run 
 of vehicles. In any other place such wretched, scrubby, worn-out animals 
 would not be allowed, and the want of India for horses from other lands is at 
 once understood. I see an auction sale going on of a cargo of what are here 
 called " Walers," that signifies horses from New South Wales. Good prices 
 seem to be obtained, but I leave the yard with a feeling of pity for these 
 Australian animals. I know that I should not like to have to live in Madras 
 and to work there, and so can feel for other exiles. 
 
 In the verandah of a leading hotel in the principal street (Popham's, Broad- 
 way) I stay at the sight of a group of jugglers, four in number, who seat them- 
 selves on the stone flooring. They have for clothing only the usual bit of rag 
 around their loins, so that nothing can go up their sleeves or be concealed 
 about their dress. Yet these men were the best of their kind that I ever saw. 
 It was possible, also, looking at their black colour and unprepossessing 
 features, to believe that their clever doings were really diablerie in all senses of the 
 word. Among the things done by this quartette was the placing in the mouth 
 a common pebble. The mouth was shown open — and very much open, too — 
 before the stone was placed in it. The pebble was also passed around for 
 testing. Yet from this pebble and otherwise empty mouth our dark friend, or 
 fiend, blows first smoke, then sparks, and afterwards a jet of flame. This 
 devilry being done, he re-opens his mouth to show his white teeth and innocent 
 red tongue, with the pebble, and nothing else, lying on it. Taking out the 
 pebble, and throwing it away, he closes his mouth, and on reopening it 
 proceeds to take three larger stones from it. There had been no previous 
 motions of the throat visible outside to indicate that he had brought them up 
 in ruminating fashion from the stomach. After that, it was no v/onder to see 
 him swallow a sword, as he appeared to do. One of the jugglers then laid a 
 nut on the stones of the verandah, and covered it with two pieces of towelling. 
 He raises these now and again to show the process that is going on. The nut 
 is sprouting, and the sprout grows more each time it is covered, until it is, in 
 ten minutes, a veritable little tree, the roots of which are shooting out of the 
 other side of the nut. Another nut is then changed into a mouse or frog, 
 while the said nut is held in a closed hand in front of our deceived eyes. The 
 quick hand is closed again, and the mouse is gone and the nut there again 
 when it is opened. Seeing should not be believing; that is quite evident here. 
 Never believe what you see would be the right maxim. In one way or another 
 we are all throughout life the fools of our senses, to which we so pin our poor 
 
258 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 faith. A flat basket is now produced. The wickerwork is handed around to 
 show that it is empty— which it is, and dirty and decayed also. It is then 
 closed and placed on the floor. Some shibboleth is muttered over it, and the 
 lid is then raised. With it rises a snake that stands on its tail, and spreads its 
 hood and hisses— just to show its identity. The basket is again closed, and 
 again opened to show that no snake is there, but in its place a scorpion, 
 There was no apparatus about, and where the snake came from or went to is 
 one of those things that no fellow could understand. 
 
 One of these high priests of deception shows that he derives no aid from 
 anything around him in his tricks by mounting on a T-shaped cross-bar for his 
 performances. It is the most awkward of seats for doing anything whatever 
 upon, as it consists only of a couple of small poles, and requires dexterous, if 
 not supernatural support, to keep it upright when a man is on the top of it. 
 He balances both it and himself all through his tricks, one of which is 
 the production of a snake fro^ji an egg, which he hands around for our 
 inspection before he breaks the shell. It is to all appearance a common barn- 
 door fowl's egg, but the snake had evidently been in the world before he 
 emerged from it, and was, I am sure, not hatched there. Keeping brass balls 
 flying about is a common performance if done with the hands, but our friend 
 atop of the triangle struck them only with his elbows. He reserveg}- his hands 
 for tossing about a ball of granite weighing nearly twenty pounds, which 
 seemed to fall naturally into the back of his neck, and not hurt him, each time 
 he threw it aloft. At the end of the performance he danced on his perch, and 
 then, stranger still, walked oft' on it, using it as a stilt. 
 
 It is unpleasant warm work, I find, this rambling about beneath an Indian 
 sky. The said sky is of a dark leaden-like blue, unlike to the blue of the 
 skies of Italy and Australia. It is the cool season of the year, I am told, 
 of which they have four months in India, and account that season as heavenly. 
 The other eight months must give the whites a notion of another place 
 altogether. My boots and thence upward to my knees have got by this time 
 discoloured with the red dust of the place, which, more or less, seems to tinge 
 everything in Madras ; the fields, trees, and houses, as also the surfaces of the 
 lakes and tanks, and the mosques, churches, and temples. This brick-dusty 
 effect has not a cleanly appearance nor a desirable one. The visitor will 
 remember Madras by it, as he will recall Cincinnati or Newcastle-on-Tyne by 
 the smoky, almost sooty, look of most of their houses. The shops are much 
 crowded together in the streets of the old town, but it looks bad for the traders 
 that the clothes of the natives are all as destitute of pockets as are the shrouds 
 of our dead. 
 
 The city seems much neglected by its municipality — if such body exists here. 
 Buildings appear in a very dilapidated state, and many lie in ruins, to the dis- 
 figurement of the streets and inconvenience of the pedestrians. The brick- 
 layer and the mason, as also the whitewasher and the painter, seem to be 
 greatly needed here. I am glad to get out of the uneven footways and 
 neglected town into the tree-shaded high roads, and to visit the public gardens, 
 and another which combines zoological and botanical specimens. The immense 
 size of the elephants here is astonishing, making the smaller ones of Ceylon 
 look but insignificant. The elephant is, however, at home in India, and is for 
 work more than for show. In the fort and barracks numbers of them are kept 
 by the Government. They look there as formidable as the cannons that they 
 help to haul about. As engines of war they, however, need iron plating now 
 against modern conical shot and Catling guns. They did very well in the 
 bygone days of bow-and-arrow warfare. 
 
 This Madras is quite the proper city to Ijc first visited in India, as it was the 
 first place in which a British settlement was made. It was also the ground on 
 
A Troublesome Shipuieiit. 259 
 
 which the English and French fought their first Indian battle. The first fort 
 — that of St. George — was built here by the English, and here was established 
 the first of Indian Presidencies — the small beginnings, two hundred and eighty 
 years ago, of the interest which Great Britain now has in India; an interest 
 that is greater than ever acquired by the sword of its Baber, or ruled by the 
 sceptre of its Akbar. One can look back on all its progress now from the day 
 that the old East India Company invested their first thirty thousand pounds in 
 this Indian adventure — the best that Englishmen ever undertook — to the other 
 day, when they were displaced, and the Empress of India proclaimed. 
 
 The mere visitor will not wish to make a long stay in this Madras. It is a 
 very satisfying place, w^hich has a different meaning to its being a satisfactory 
 one. It has railway communication now with Bombay overland, so that the 
 unpleasantness of entering it by its water gateway may be avoided. By that 
 way, however, myself and companions have to leave it, as our liberty days 
 have expired. It is a worse day for leaving than was our day for landing, and 
 really requires good courage to face the breakers that come dashing on the 
 shore. This, however, is a secondary trouble to that of getting out of the 
 hands of the boatmen who have no right to us, and finding those who have. 
 If these men were unmannerly on board sliip, they are outrageous now, with 
 their feet upon their native sands. One of our number is a clergyman, and a 
 particularly inoffensive man. With wonder I behold him illustrating the 
 church militant in fighting his way out of the hands of these devils of black 
 fellows. He has broken his umbrella to splinters in dealing blows right and 
 left with it, and is glaring through his spectacles with only half the handle of 
 it left in his hand. As it is the same fare to pay, whoever takes me, and there 
 is variety in different boats and boatmen, I get peace and quietness, and am 
 first off, by surrendering to the first captors who are content to start with one 
 passenger. As a preliminary I tie myself to my seat, as a help to keeping it 
 on the dangerous journey. That being done, the boat is run out to sea, and 
 the half-dozen who have assisted at it cling to the sides, and come on board as 
 wet as drowned rats. That ducking is pleasant in the heat of this climate, 
 and no damage is done to their clothing — in fact, the dirty rag that constitutes 
 all of it gets the washing that it needs. 
 
 The aid of a boathook would, I feared, be necessary to get me up the ship's 
 side. The big PoDnah rolled from side to side in the swell of the surf, and 
 from my little barge I obtained at high times full view of its deck, and next 
 moment almost a view of the keel. Both sides of the vessel were tried in this 
 endeavour to effect my shipment, which was at last done by the boatswain 
 catching me as I rose to the level of his standing-place at the head of the steps. 
 It is sometimes a fortunate thing to be a light weight, and this was an instance 
 of it. If I ever visit Madras again, it will be on urgent business, and from the 
 landward side by way of the railway, or any other way than that by which I 
 last left it. 
 
 S 2 
 
26o The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 ON THE HOOGHLY. 
 
 The waters of the Hooghly are entered upon soon after leaving Madras. 
 They are one of the many divisions of the stream of the Ganges, that here finds 
 its way for between one and two hundred miles into the Bay of Bengal. The 
 sacred Ganges as it nears the sea makes the most of itself, and a mess of itself 
 too, spreading and flooding about in a shallow, shifty, and marshy way, and in 
 many streams, over the broad stretch that is called its Delta. This delta of the 
 Ganges, of which the Hooghly, that I am now upon, is a western branch, is 
 believed to be the hotbed, in every sense of the word, of malarious diseases, and 
 the birthplace of Asiatic cholera. Considering the number of the dead that 
 this sacred stream is believed to float to salvation, whose remains in some 
 shape must here lie in shallow water, the evil is not to be wondered at. 
 
 It is to be wished that the sacred waters were of a better colour, and that 
 they were deeper and kept to one course after adopting it. For these great 
 mistakes, and for its unhealthy behaviour at its outlets, this river should be 
 execrated rather than deified. Therein is the behaviour of the Hindoos 
 typical. They have ever bent where they should rebel. To that which ill- 
 uses them they kneel. Their destroyer they worship. Of their trinity the 
 favourite god is the destroying Shiva. 
 
 When the sea-voyager hither on the way to Calcutta has been brought, 
 as he might suppose, to his journey's end, his water trouble really begins. It 
 commences at " Sandheads " here. On reaching "heads" elsewhere one 
 is soon thereafter at anchorage and debarkation. At these Sandheads of the 
 Hooghly, however, I learn that it is yet two days and nights to Diamond 
 Harbour and the landing-stairs at Calcutta. Folks accustomed to travel will 
 know what can be done in that space of time, and will chafe, as I did, at the 
 idea of dropping anchor each night, and dawdling along for fifty or sixty miles 
 a day only. That is the mode of getting to Calcutta, as it always has been, 
 and always will be — by its waterway. Worse things might happen, though, 
 than this wearisomeness, which one gets over after the first day of it. I 
 was detained once an equal time in a fog at the entrance to New York harbour, 
 and another time for a longer period in that antiquated, exasperating torture 
 called quarantine — an invention of the Evil One to promote profanity. 
 
 One passenger and his supplement have been added to our number at 
 Madras, but he occupies as much attention as a whole dozen might. Some 
 folks can make themselves felt — have a " presence," as it is called — and way is 
 given to them accordingly. We could not have left Madras until we got this 
 addition, and if by any mischance he had died or dropped overboard and 
 drowned, we must have gone back again and waited — even if we waited 
 a month — for his successor. The waters of the Hooghly are so shallow, 
 its sands and currents so everlastingly shifting, and with new channels ever 
 forming, that no sea captain dare take a ship up to Calcutta unassisted by an 
 amphibious creature known as a Hooghly pilot. 
 
 Such is our new acquisition, and he proves to be quite a curio. All of 
 us feel gauze clothing to be quite enough to satisfy the demands of the climate. 
 We walk about also with umbrellas hoisted when away from beneath the ship's 
 awning, bowing before that fierce sun which is the real Great Mogul ruler 
 
The Dandy Pilot. 261 
 
 ■of India, in whose presence one must, like to a Hebrew taking an oath, 
 not stand uncovered. Yet our pilot is resplendent in broadcloth uniform, a 
 thick heavy cap, kid gloves, and patent leather boots I These articles of 
 costume he never varies. The amount of training that his system must have 
 endured to qualify him for such self-torture as those gloves and boots would, 
 otherwise applied, have qualified him for a martyr, or made him a holy fakir 
 at least. He must have, as it is, something of the latter in his composition. 
 
 A gorgeous-looking being in a dazzling turban, white blouse, and sash 
 of many colours, came as an addition to our pilot. He is ever at the elbow of 
 the dapper little dandy, waits behind his chair at meal times, and sleeps on the 
 mat at his cabin door at night. All power and dominion is now given 
 up by the captain and officers, who, with the rest of the ship's folk wait on the 
 words and dumb motions of our new ruler. We hear from the captain that it 
 takes twenty years to learn the art and mystery of the Hooghly pilotage, and 
 that our new ruler in the patent leathers draws the appropriate ministerial salary 
 of ^^1500 a year, and a retiring pension of half that amount, at the end of a 
 service which finishes at the early age of fifty. The amount of local 
 knowledge he possesses ensures him respect from the helpless officers. The 
 nature of his restricted life and its small sphere had also to be all considered 
 when regarding the mixture of fop, exquisite, and martinet that was to be 
 seen in this little Eastern "Long Tom Coffin." 
 
 They stand first among the pilots of the world in way of position, pension, 
 and pay, do these men of the Hooghly. One wonders how ever they got the 
 grand old East Indiamen up this river after the long six months' voyage in the 
 olden days, when steam and steam tug-boats were not. The bigger steamers 
 have now superseded the big sailing-vessels, and in that respect there is a 
 change of style in the scene at Calcutta's port. There is a rat, however, at 
 work, it is said, at every ship. The rodent that is gnawing at this port and its 
 fortunes is the overland railway from Bombay — a port which is many days 
 nearer to Europe, reckoning by time. 
 
 This railway has helped to make the fortune of Bombay's port at the cost of 
 that of Calcutta. All mails are now landed at the former place and brought 
 across country to the latter, thereby saving five days or six days in the 
 delivery. The passengers follow the mails, and go by railway also. By- and - 
 by the half-empty steamers will not saunter round to Calcutta with a few 
 passengers and a little cargo, paying heavy pilotage for so doing, but will 
 debark everything at Bombay. By that course of events Calcutta will become 
 the Edinburgh, and Bombay be the Glasgow of India. 
 
 I lounge about the roomy " Poonah " and enjoy its emptiness and its 
 deserted bath-rooms, watching meanwhile our slow progress up the Hooghly. 
 The water is smooth and turbid in most places, scarcely in some parts seeming 
 to flow — 
 
 ' ' As if in grief for those whose sway 
 Had ruled here in a bygone day 
 And left a charm on it impress'd, 
 Its tide had wept itself to rest." 
 
 And what bygone grandeur have these waters not seen ! Such reflections are 
 very proper to an otherwise unoccupied mind. We have come to a do-nothing 
 feeling that is quite in keeping with the climate, and are in no hurry about 
 anything. " What will be will be," and if it takes a month or a year to get to 
 Calcutta we shall be satisfied — as satisfied as are the listless folks on board the 
 native boats that we pass by, which, by the help of a little wind and more or less 
 lowing, will get up to Calcutta when Providence pleases. The waste of wide, 
 greenish-yellow, sand-mixed waters stretches further on every side than the eye 
 •can follow, and no land is yet to be seen. The native boats that we pass in 
 
262 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 such plenty are crafts of from five to fifty tons, which, bringing up produce 
 from the neighbouring coasts, and drawing but little water, get over the perils 
 of the Ilooghly passage without help from pilots. Fleets of fifty or more of 
 these craft are seen sometimes in a bunch. 
 
 Birds from the land begin now to come near us, and at last we are visited by 
 a stray butterfly, and soon see the land itself, and what of trees and verdure it 
 has to show. But our water life is not yet finished. The windings and 
 crossings that have to be taken are endless, as the ship dodges sandbank after 
 sandbank, and finds channel after channel known only to the little gloved 
 autocrat on the ship's bridge. The chart of this strange straggling river is 
 a large-looking and bewildering affair, and bears the following remarks in 
 bold print : — 
 
 "Caution — The navigation of the Hooghly cannot be at any time safely 
 undertaken without a pilot. The various sandbanks indicated are always 
 shifting, and no channel can be relied upon as here shown." 
 
 It must be an awful responsibility to be a Hooghly pilot, and know always 
 all that is going on beneath the water ! I am glad when this Hooghly part of 
 the voyage ends — for it does end at last — and the landing-place at Garden 
 Reach is pointed out. Before reaching that, however, there is an attraction 
 for our eyes in the water-side palace and gardens of the King of Oude. Why 
 this monarch has been brought down from the interior and imprisoned here on 
 the water's edge we do not learn, beyond that the East India Company 
 wanted his possessions. Here, however, he is, the last of the native kings 
 dethroned by the now dethroned company. It is said that his dethronement 
 was the straw that broke the camel's back, and brought about that great 
 mutiny in 1857, in which the yet uncaught Nana Sahib figured so con- 
 spicuously, and of which Cawnpore has so much that is sad to show. 
 
 For a full half-mile in length on the river bank stretch the gardens and 
 buildings of this ex-king of Oude. At one part of the water frontage, in full 
 view of all passers, his majesty has caged a magnificently large and very 
 restless Bengal tiger. Perhaps the idea is that the captive condition of the 
 animal is illustrative of that of his owner — that he has done by the tiger as 
 John Company has done by him. It seems to be in bad taste to place this 
 prison palace where it is. Such unpleasant features of the country should be 
 set further back. It is now seen to have been a great error of the old company 
 to have "annexed" this monarch's territory. The dreadful reprisals that 
 followed are of the saddest pages in Indian history. They were followed by 
 Parliament taking over all powers from the company, winding up its affairs, 
 and proclaiming afterwards an Empress of India in place of old "John 
 Company." 
 
 Two vessels bound for China pass by. Chief among their cargoes figures 
 that opium, the production of which has been for years the best paying of 
 Indian exports. The Hindoos have no taste for smoking this drug. Its 
 consumption is thoroughly a specialty of the Chinaman — a little fact that 
 requires a physiological essay fully to account for. If the Hindoo seeks 
 inspiration from exterior aid, he prefers hashish to opium, but he is not the 
 epicure in that way that the Chinaman is. This opium-growing is to India 
 what sheep are to Australia and coffee to Ceylon and Java. But sheep and 
 coffee-growing are respectable avocations compared with poppy cultivation and 
 opium exporting. The deadly nature of this baneful drug is well known to 
 those who grow rich on this disgraceful traffic. China once resented the 
 importation of it, seeing what nunibers of its people became imbecile and 
 insane from its use. To force them to take it thus against the will of the 
 Government was the cause of the first of the wars of England with China. 
 Instead of this horrible stuff being forced into the Chinese country at the point 
 
opium Iniquities. 263 
 
 of British bayonets, the trading in it should be suppressed as the slave-trade has 
 been. It is about equally protitable, and equally disgraceful and demoralizing. 
 Even the Dutch have never engaged in the opium-trade, and particularly 
 search one's luggage to see that none of the stuff comes into Java. As there 
 are nearly a million of Chinese settled there, a cargo might be sent down from 
 India, and war be thus promoted with foemen more worthy of British steel 
 than are the non-comljatant Chinese. 
 
 It is to the credit of Great Britain that she does not enrich herself with 
 these profits from opium, nor from the profits of any other Indian produce. 
 Every penny that is raised from India is spent upon the government and 
 improvement of that covmtry — in providing it with networks of raihvaj's, 
 native schools, and courts. Every protection is afforded to the people, who 
 cannot now, as in times past, be robbed by their rulers, and sacrificed to please 
 their whims. The fifty millions of revenue yearly raised by Great Britain from 
 India, are, within a few pounds, expended there in promoting protection, 
 civilization, and the progress and bettering of its people. 
 
 Great Britain keeps tight hold of India as the brightest jewel in the British 
 crown, and keeps it very much for the reason that all folks keep jewels — to 
 show the world that they can afford to do so. We see people wear diamonds 
 that might be sold, and the proceeds invested to yield a good income ; but they 
 prefer to show their power to earn the income otherwise, and keep the 
 brilliants for mere pride, and what the Americans aptly express as " cussed- 
 ness." It is not too much to say, as a late authority on the subject has said, 
 that the possession of this vast India alone places Britain in her foremost 
 position among the powers of Europe. To lose it would be to sink to a second- 
 rate place in the world's regard. 
 
 Garden Reach at Calcutta is about the shabbiest landing-stairs that man was 
 ever put ashore at. It is a dirty dust-heap of a place, with a wretched, ricketty 
 attempt at a jetty — not at all what one would expect as the water-gate to the 
 so-called city of palaces. As an excuse for it, I am told that it is all in 
 consequence of a great tidal wave, rightly enough termed a "Bore," which 
 periodically rushes up this swampy river, and damages everything upon its 
 banks ; so much so, that it is not a wise thing to do anything that this big 
 wave may, as it will, surely undo. I wish it would undo the Custom-house 
 and its officers for whom we have now to wait. 
 
 It is a Sunday morning, and the day for inspection of the ship's staff and rank- 
 and-file. This review of forty or fifty men takes place on the quarter-deck, to 
 which each man, be he officer, engineer, steward, sailor, or stoker, comes in 
 his holiday attire. They all look as they should do, but the Hindoos get ten 
 glances to the one that is spared to the Europeans. These men have been all 
 the week unnoticed in their work-a-day dirty drab and bluish cotton wraps, 
 and uncovered heads and feet. All that has "suffered a sea change into some- 
 thing rich and strange" that is now here on view. Fine feathers have made 
 fine birds. The dazzling white cotton blouse, the bright bandanna or many- 
 coloured shawl, worn as sash or girdle, and the gorgeous turban of every variety 
 of pattern, obscure all notice of other costumes. Even the captain's uniform, 
 as he passes up and down on this parade, looks but as a mean thing. 
 
 The Custom-house folks come to us at last, and annoy us as much by their 
 coming as they did by the time they made us wait for them. Everything that 
 has been packed up has to be uncorded and opened out — no small matter, 
 with the thermometer at 90°, and the heat of a moist quality. An Australian 
 on board gets very huff)- about it, and taunts the officials of this great India as 
 being only the servants of "a Crown colony," and having no discretionary 
 powers or liberty to exercise them in favour of a free and independent colonist 
 like himself. It was some satisfaction, no doubt, in return for the perspiring 
 
264 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 and useless trouble that was given, to call India a Crown colony, and so to 
 snub its officials. 
 
 The landing-place is distant a good two miles from the hotel quarters, to 
 which a gharry takes me — a vehicle that has Venetian blind sides for admitting 
 the air and excluding the sun. Tropical trees are plentifully about, as is also 
 the omnipresent crow, with an occasional kite or two. The bird which 
 Calcutta, however, might adopt for its crest is one called the " adjutant " — for 
 some reasons best known to military folks. It is really a scavenger, but has a 
 very pronounced Pecksniffian appearance. It is a stuck-up creature in every 
 sense, conspicuously perching itself about on one leg, and looking down on 
 things generally with outswelled chest, and with an air of puffy importance 
 quite Turveydroppish. 
 
 In my innocence and ignorance I am taken to the Great Eastern Hotel — 
 a vast affair of endless floors and rooms, and of distances that lend no enchant- 
 ment in any way. Getting upstairs is real toil, and my room was located, I 
 found, on the third floor. The lift of the American hotels would have been 
 an unspeakable blessing. Wanting that, I thought several times of getting 
 carried upstairs by the palanquin-bearers. 
 
 This palanquin, or "palki" is to Calcutta what the jinrikishaw is to Jeddo — the 
 conveyance that is most seen. Anything more cumbrous and unfitted for its 
 purpose than the generality of these things could not be well devised. Its mere 
 deadweight of heavy wood is nearly ninety pounds. The thing might be made 
 equally as strong of bamboo at one-fourth that weight. It is difficult, however, 
 to alter any fashion of the East. When a fourteen-stone man is added to the 
 burden, the two bearers of it have enough weight to break their collar-bones. 
 They progress with it at a jog-trot. These palanquins are of one and two 
 poles. If of one pole, the forward bearer supports it on the right shoulder and 
 the backward man on his left, changing shoulders as they jog along. The 
 two-poled one distributes the weight on each shoulder, but does not admit of 
 a change. To a European it is at first not a nice sight to see men doing the 
 work elsewhere done by animals. To parody Byron, one may say that after 
 seeing it once or twice, the eye becomes more Indian and less nice. Some 
 palanquins are shaped to hang between the poles, and admit of the 
 "fare" taking a sitting position; but the most favoured fashion is that of a 
 compressed brougham, in which one has to lie as on a sofa — quite an Asiatic 
 attitude. 
 
 The drawback of this Great Eastern Hotel is that there is only one servitor, 
 seemingly, in its height and depth who can talk English or understand it. It 
 is unfortunate that he is on the lower of the four floors. He advises me to get 
 a " boy"--he will get one for me — who smatters broken English, and will be 
 always within "cooey," as Australians say. It has to come to that at last, for 
 white folks are few indeed compared with the multitude of Hindoos that are 
 around one, and I might as well be in a deaf and dumb asylum. 
 
 Characteristic of all East Indian hotels are the "chits," or paper orders for 
 whatever is wanted, that, with pencil by the side, are always on the table. 
 Next for notice are the hot-water plates that come with every change of dish. 
 India would seem to be the last place in which such things would be expected. 
 Warming-pans would be just as likely. Rice and curries are the staple of all 
 meals,_ save with the six a.m. cup of tea and slice of toast. To follow that is 
 the nine a.m. breakfast, the one p.m. tiffin, and the seven p.m. dinner. 
 Finger bowls, having pink flowers floating in them, figure at every meal. 
 The day's eating and drinking is then done ; smoking, with most folks, now 
 occupies the evening. Thereafter come the candles — always in wide glass 
 enclosures— and then the ascent to the big and bare-looking bedroom, with its 
 huge lattice doors and windows. To get to that, one has to pick one's way among 
 
I 
 
 Initial Experiences. 265 
 
 the native servants, one of whom, and often two, are lying outside the door 
 of each room. 
 
 Ere I sleep I have to rise and cover the venetian-blind-Iike door-windows 
 that admit the starry brightness of the night equally with the air. It seems to 
 me that stars must be more about than usual — I never saw them in such 
 quantity, and looking so bright. It is the leaden, not light, blue of the skies 
 which so helps to the reflection. These be the stars of which poets have 
 sung— 
 
 " Eastward roll the stars of heaven, 
 
 Westward tend the thoughts of men ; 
 Let the man to Nature given 
 Wander eastward now and then." 
 
 I. dream of the empire into which I have thus wandered — an empire that is as 
 large as all Europe, if we omit the European Russia ; that runs through 
 twenty-eight degrees of latitude, and has more square miles of land than I 
 know how to write without help ; that has two hundred and fifty millions of 
 souls, including the Mohammedan women, about whose possession of souls 
 there is a doubt that is yet unsettled — one of the many branches of the 
 " Eastern question." Of this vast country, stretching from the sea that I have 
 left to-day right away to Persia on the far west, and from Thibet and Tartary 
 in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, the little island of Britain with 
 its small thirty-eight millions is really the owner. It is one of those things that 
 only seem real in dreams ! When I say " really the owner," I look upon the 
 ownership of nearly four-fifths as the greater term that includes the lesser. 
 The independent native states that number fifty-three millions of people are 
 only semi-independent, and that only because it is policy to keep them so. 
 As the possessions here of the French at Pondicherry and Portuguese at Goa 
 do not number more than a quarter of a million, they can be looked upon only 
 as girls are in some families in which their brothers do not count them. 
 
 Is it anything but a dream — all that relates to such romance of a land that 
 has had every great nation of the past at some time for its owner — that 
 belonged alike for a time to Egyptians, Bactrians, Medes. Persians, Greeks, 
 Syrians, Turks, Tartars, and Mongols, and in which the Portuguese, Dutch, 
 and French have effected a footing ? None of those great nations of the past 
 have held greater power in it than little England, and none have held it 
 longer. It is something wonderful to obtain of such a land even the bald and 
 barren idea that writing can only convey. To see it is to satisfy one that there 
 is an object in life. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 IN CALCUTTA. 
 
 One's earliest recollection of India's head-quarters is, I think, connected 
 with the story of its " Black Hole." That fearful narrative gives to most folk 
 an unpleasant impression of the place. It is sometimes read of as the " City 
 of Palaces." It will be never talked of as such by those who have seen it. 
 That name might be appropriately given to Lucknow, the late capital of that 
 King of Oude whose prison palace is seen near to the landing-stairs of Diamond 
 Harbour, but palaces are no distinguishing mark of Calcutta. 
 
 It consists of a European and a native town. The houses in the European 
 part are roomy, and give room to each other. Those of the native town called 
 
2 66 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the Upper and the Lower Bazaars are small and much crowded together. The 
 European part has wide streets and spacious reserves. The native town has 
 very narrow streets, and dirty ones too, and no greens or gardens are to be 
 seen about it. The houses here are black or brown with dirt, smoke, and age, 
 while those of the European town are resplendent in stucco and whitewash. 
 There is more of plaster than of palaces as Calcutta's characteristic. 
 
 There is a sort of Hyde Park between the city and the wharfs, which is 
 known as the Maidann. The side of it furthest from the water is built over with 
 lofty white stuccoed mansions that stand fifty feet or more apart, and are set 
 back in their gardens. They are the residences of rich native and European 
 merchants, and look to best advantage when seen from the other side of this 
 greenswarded Maidann. The brilliant sun lends a glittering appearance as of 
 marble to these whited walls — save where the stucco has in some parts fallen 
 off them, and left the plain brown brickwork exposed. 
 
 This European quarter is known as " Chowringhee." In its centre are the 
 law courts, from the high tower of which a fine view of the city can be 
 obtained by those who care nothing for the trouble of climbing, and the aches 
 that follow it. All beyond the European part has a squalid look of decay and 
 dirt. The two towns so closely adjoin that it is but a step from the white 
 houses and broad streets to the narrow and tumble-down-looking Hindoo 
 quarter. It is as if a Londoner stepped from Bond Street into Field Lane — 
 from fine Parisian-looking shops, grand public buildings, banks, hotels, and 
 warehouses, to a back-ground of lanes, huts, and sheds, where dirt and dingi- 
 ness are everywhere seen. 
 
 In spite of its smut and squalor, the Hindoo quarter has most attraction for 
 the traveller. He has seen Dalhousie Square to better advantage elsewhere, 
 and more attractive streets and buildings than Chowringhee has to show, but 
 Chitpore Road and Burra Bazaar are streets that he cannot see everywhere. 
 They are two of the many streets of the native Bazaars, as the Hindoo shop 
 quarter is called. I walk in the roadway there, the sidewalk being too 
 crowded, and dodge the vehicles and palanquins. The place is busy as an ant- 
 hill, though from the nature of the articles on sale and the size of the shops, 
 business must be restricted to small profits and rapid returns. -That accounted, 
 perhaps, for its being so much spread. The dwellings in this Bazaar street 
 appeared to consist of a room behind the shop, and seldom more than two 
 above it, out of one of the windows of which there was mostly a face to be seen 
 gazing on the crowd below. Much shopping might be done here at a small 
 outlay. 
 
 There is little, however, that a European can find to purchase in these shops 
 of the Hindoos. The whole stock of most of them might seemingly be bought 
 for twenty shillings. Watching it, sits the proprietor cross-legged, or stretched 
 at full length, or in some other unbusiness-like attitude, whiling or dozing 
 away the day. To help him to that end he will occasionally take to tobacco- 
 smoking, but he appears to prefer chewing the mixture of betel-leaf, areca-nut, 
 and lime, which, twisted together in a small ball, he puts into his mouth, 
 where it produces a blood-red juice that is occasionally squirted abroad. 
 Great sale of this chewing material appears to be made in this native quarter. 
 The little balls of it are sold at six a penny. No white man, that I could meet 
 with, had learnt to like this Indian quid. One trial of it is enough to satisfy 
 those whose mouths may water for it. That mouth will water much more 
 after it — so irritating is its eftect. 
 
 In Chitpore Road no vehicle can well get along, so crowded did I always 
 find it. Palanquin folks do not get along there so quickly as they would on 
 foot. Two of the narrow bullock waggons, which are common in this native 
 quarter make quite a deadlock for a time, if they meet. To let them pass. 
 
TJie Natives' ToTcn. 267 
 
 myself and the native guide have to go into one of the neighbouring shops, of 
 which there is then time to make further note. Mud walls and floors, a tiled 
 roof and no chimney, make up the style of most of them. The fires are lighted 
 outside the buildings, and so smoke-colour the houses and irritate the eyes and 
 noses of passengers. Publicity not only applies to the cooking, but to all of 
 the Hindoo's domestic affairs. He is to be seen cleaning his teeth with a 
 brush made of shredded bamboo, combing his hair, and making an a]:)parently 
 phrenological examination of the heads of his family. As a race these men 
 are well-featured, but have smaller and narrower chests than Europeans, and 
 but slim arms and legs. 
 
 The Hindoos are of temperate habits. The way of life of the majority, 
 wretched as it may seem, no doubt best suits them. There can be no question 
 that they are better off under British rule than their forefathers have ever been 
 under any of the many rulers that India has had, and a change in ownership 
 appears to have been very often made. All the powerful nations of the past 
 seem to have had for a time India's possession, and to have kept it only until 
 a stronger than they came — and the stronger always did come. The Hindoos, 
 however, never had under any of their conquerors the chances that the British 
 give them of educating themselves, and so advancing to position, place, and 
 wealth by the development of any talent they may possess. Schools abound 
 at which the education is free, and four cheap and excellent daily papers are 
 here published — which is something better than Akbar the Mighty, or Shah 
 Jehan the Magnificent, ever did for the general good of this land. 
 
 Other nations than the British have feared to educate the people, dreading 
 that knowledge would emancipate them ; much as ecclesiastics in former days 
 locked up the Scriptures, fearing to lose that power over the public mind which 
 further acquaintance with them might occasion. Great Britain boldly sets such 
 fears at detiance. We are wiser than those of pre-printing days. We have 
 been taught also by one of our best teachers that "by education men become 
 easy to lead, but difficult to drive — easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." 
 Britain enslaves none of the hundreds of millions so liberally governed by her 
 and finds it all to her advantage to have the schoolmaster abroad. 
 
 One hundred and fifty thousand Europeans to two hundred and forty-two 
 millions of the native races is the return given by the last census of India. Not 
 one perhaps of the adult Europeans had a father living who was born there. 
 India can never be colonized by a European race. The climate decides that. 
 No white children are reared and educated here, but are packed off to Europe, 
 to which their parents are soon glad to follow them — if they live long enough. 
 The climate is not bearable elsewhere than in the hill country for more than 
 five months in the year. It says something for good government, that one 
 hundred and fifty thousand should dwell so peaceably, as a governing people, 
 among two hundred and forty millions. Government by some foreign power 
 or other has become natural, however, to the Hindoo, and will remain so until 
 "caste" is abolished, and the different races combine. That, in the unchanging 
 East, appears unlikely. The white population, though it cannot be increased 
 by native growth, will be kept up in number until health is valued before 
 wealth — which is another unlikely thing to expect. 
 
 Purchasing an umbrella, wnth green interior and white exterior coverings 
 supported on split cane ribs, I am prepared to perambulate for the afternoon. 
 At that time it is rare to see Europeans walking. They are then generally 
 having their two or three hours of sleep, after which comes an hour or so of 
 business, and then the Maidann drive. I find the day-sleep so much interferes 
 wdth that wanted by night that I prefer the exercise that brings it. Accom- 
 panied by the native guide I go out, though he expresses strong reasons 
 against walking. He wants to ride in Asiatic ease, but has to accommodate 
 
268 The Main Routes Round ike World. 
 
 his feelings to circumstances, which he does with a grace beyond the reach of 
 most guides. Where the post-office stands, in Dalhousie Square, is, he tells 
 me, the site of the famous "Black Hole*' of the old days. This square is a 
 great business place in the European quarter. It is surrounded by tall four 
 and five story houses, having large doors and windows in French fashion. I 
 get up the steps of the post-office, and under its verandah, out of the sunlight, 
 and look around. I am surrounded at once by a swarm of pedlars, vendors of 
 cocoa-nuts and bananas, and the omnipresent beggars. Strange-looking little 
 delicacies are offered me by the sweetmeat sellers, compounded seemingly of 
 flour, sugar, and kitchen grease. The sight of them satisfies one. 
 
 My Hindoo, who has heard me complain to the beggars of shortness of cash 
 as a reason for non-contributions, takes the statement literally, and guides me 
 to an adjoining bank in this populous square. He takes off his shoes as he 
 enters it, as he does when he enters the hotel and any other building. One 
 reason for so doing may be that the pavement outside has been too hot for his 
 feet — it would be, I know, for mine. This uncovering the feet and keeping 
 the head covered indoors is a noticeal^le reversal of European fashions. In the 
 bank I find Hindoos doing all the clerkly work — acting as receiving and paying 
 tellers and ledger-keepers. The clerk who reckons my exchange is called a 
 " shroff," or something of that sound, and gives me a written note of the 
 amount I am to get from another coffee-coloured gentleman at a distant 
 counter. 
 
 It is very satisfactory to get change for English money in this place. As 
 much as £2?> and i6s. is handed to me in exchange for twenty-five sovereigns. 
 The cash is, of course, in rupees and in five-rupee notes. I can have it all in 
 which of these currencies I like, but there is no gold to be had. Mohurs are, 
 like to guineas, things of the past, and Sicca rupees are talked of and read 
 about, but not seen. 
 
 The native boy who has me in hand brings me an open carriage at about 
 five o'clock or half-past. He considers it a matter of course that I will join in 
 the fashionable and customary evening drive around the Maidann, which is to 
 Calcutta what Rotten Row is to the West-end of London. I find there great 
 show of everybody, white or brown, who can keep any sort of vehicle. The 
 parade lasts about an hour, and is worth visiting. There is something like it 
 about the same hour at Naples, on the Posillippo Road. To prove the force 
 of fashion, Europeans appear on this drive in tall chimney-pot hats, like to 
 Londoners, and in London fashions of latest dates to hand. The crowd is 
 mixed, of colours in all shades, and stretches in a continuous line for a good two 
 miles. Behind the better sort of vehicles are two turbaned native servants, 
 who stand where they can find a foothold. My guide scorned the idea of 
 dispensing with these ornaments. On the score that they added nothing to 
 the hire of the carriage, I let them come. Had it not been for these native 
 servants behind so many vehicles, the affair would have resembled the road to 
 Epsom on a race day, and especially so in the queer appearance of some of the 
 many conveyances — mere donkey-carts and costermongers' barrows. 
 
 For evening amusements three theatres are to be found in Calcutta, one of 
 which number is generally open. Two were so at this time, one having an 
 Australian opera company, and the other some spiritualistic impostors from 
 America. More attraction is found nearer home in a Hindoo entertainment 
 that is going on close to my big barracks of a lodging. Hitherto I had but a 
 half belief in miracles, but I retired that night convinced that there was more 
 in heaven and earth to understand than he thinks for who sits in the seat of 
 the scorner. 
 
 My conversion, like to that of Bishop Colenso by the pensive and inquiring 
 Zulu, was accomplished by three nearly-naked Hindoos who, I am convinced, 
 
Asioundi fig Jugglery. 269 
 
 were nothing but human beings. One of them threw up in the air numbered 
 balls, which I was allowed first to handle and to mark. I am prepared to 
 swear that I saw these balls go up and get smaller to the sight as they 
 ascended — making an apotheosis — as it were — and so going out of sight. 
 They remained thus until a spectator specified what number he wanted back. 
 In response to the Hindoo's call, No. 7 came bouncing down to his feet with 
 but little delay, and No. 5 also when I asked for it. At a seance of any 
 spiritualists, such a performance would have stamped out scepticism, and 
 crushed all scoffers. Who can question that " the viewless spirits of the air" 
 assisted in this little swindle, leaving for a time their recognized occupations of 
 rapping tables, and writing meaningless messages in execrable English ? 
 
 Following upon this exhibition came another, which knocked away the last 
 frail supports of materialism, and would have converted the densest dunderhead 
 of an unbeliever — even if German or French. One of the trio came to me for 
 a coin, and got a good English half-crown, which I afterwards desired him to 
 keep — to avoid giving him ten times the amount, which he really deserved. 
 The coin was handed round for show, in conjuror fashion, and then offered to 
 any one to hold, which a Frenchman at my side kindly consented to do. 
 Before he closed his hand upon it I saw that it was my half-crown. Doubt 
 there could be none. 
 
 Hankee Pankee then asked me, in broken English, into what other 
 country's coin I would like the half-crown to be changed. I mentioned Hin- 
 doostan, upon which the Frenchman was asked to open his hand, and there 
 lay a rupee and no English half-crown ! The Frenchman declared that he had 
 felt no invisible fingers at work, and that nothing to his knowledge had gone 
 through his skin. I had seen a scarce coin in Ceylon made of copper, and 
 having an elephant stamped upon one side, and the head of the third of the 
 Georges upon the other, already described as a " stiver." I requested the 
 dusky supernaturalist to change the rupee into that coin, when the Frenchman 
 had again closed his hand upon it. On his again opening it at the conjuror's 
 command, the change had been made, and from that it was again changed to 
 the half-crown now offered to me. It was free from all smell of brimstone, but it 
 was such a '• kittle" or uncanny coin that I bade Hankee to keep it as a reward. 
 
 Other wonders followed. One of the trinity now swallowed a blue powder, 
 then a red one, and afterwards one of a yellowish colour. These were all 
 taken out of small papers as if bought of a neighbouring chemist. The three 
 powders were then washed down, as it seemed, with copious drinks from a big 
 brazen chatty, which must have held a good pailful of water. That large 
 quantity seemed to be actually all swallowed by this drinker, whose divine, or 
 devilish, thirst might have been envied by any bacchanalian or common toper. 
 To one's bewildered eyes the drinker's body seemed to be swollen by his imbi- 
 bitions. Presently, all the water was ejected in a series of jets from his 
 mouth, from which came then the wonder of the three powders. They were 
 spat out in the reverse order to which they had been swallowed, but they 
 came out all dry and unmixed, were caught on papers, and so shown around ! 
 
 Such jugglery may be called the poetry of illusion, and, like to the imagina- 
 tive faculty and the poetic genius, makes "the thing that is not seen as 
 though it were." A "local habitation" had seemingly been given in the 
 "airy nothingness " to the numbered balls. Such art is a specialty of Hin- 
 doostan. Practised for ages, and handed down from father to son, it has 
 reached that fine finish that takes from it all semblance of art. In that way, 
 the world has not its equal to show. 
 
 My Hindoo guardian gets me to go early next morning to the Calcutta 
 market — a large and finely-built place, and well divided and adapted to its dif- 
 ferent uses. A strange sort of English is used here — like to the pigeon-English 
 
270 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 of the Chinese. "Europe meat," "Europe groceries," do not look or sound 
 well to English eyes and ears, but I am told to be satisfied with the customs 
 of the country, in which any one who sells English goods is said to keep 
 a " Europe shop." The things most attractive are the various fruits, chief 
 and best among which stands the mango. 
 
 Three faiths are prominent in India. There are probably a larger number 
 of beliefs, and as many sects here as elsewhere. The Buddhist, the Brahmin, 
 and the Mohammedan are, however, the three that have the most prominent 
 places of worship. I am allowed to go into the Buddhist and Brahminical 
 temples, but not into the Mohammedan. One might mistake the "interior of 
 most of these Brahminical temples for small museums, they are so full of 
 carvings and curiosities. The gilt and ungilt figures of the gods sit and stand 
 about all around, much as one had seen them in home exhibitions of rarities. 
 At the entrance of some of these temples it was necessary to take off one's boots, 
 and so walk the marble pavement in stockinged feet. Not knowing the ways 
 of the people sulficiently, I preferred not to leave the boots outside, and 
 .so carried them about, as I have seen some folks doing with their shoes 
 in Ireland, where it is a fashion to wear them inside only, and not as here out- 
 side of the places of worship. 
 
 In one walk on the outskirts of the native town I was sensible, distinctly, of 
 the smell of roast pork. Following my nose, and led by my native boy, 
 I found myself in a brick enclosure, near to the water-side. It was one of the 
 native " crematories," if I may coin a word to express the substitutes for 
 cemeteries, or the place in which cremations take place. The Hindoos burn 
 their dead. It is done in the afternoon if the death takes place in the morning, 
 but if in the evening, or during the night, then on the next morning. Nothing 
 was to be seen in this crematory but a few smouldering ashes and particles of 
 burnt bones. A fierce fire of burning wood had reduced to this a dead Hindoo 
 in twenty minutes. The actions of the just, we are told, smell sweet, 
 and blossom in their dust, but the aroma left about by the dust of a burnt 
 Hindoo, just or unjust, is as nearly as possible that of roast pig. 
 
 A print which hangs framed in my bedroom so perplexes me that I take it 
 down to my general referee on the ground floor to get it explained, and 
 so off my mind. He tells me that it illustrates the " Choruk pooja," a 
 Calcutta festival in honour of the goddess Cali, which was abolished by the 
 British aljout the time of the abolition of the " Suttee," or burning of widows, 
 This print represents a machine like to a merry-go-round used at English 
 fairs, and similarly worked. At the end of each horizontal spoke, elevated 
 twenty feet from the ground, swung a devotee, hooked thereto by iron hooks 
 through the fleshy parts of his shoulders. They were thus swung round, as by 
 a whirlwind, until the supporting flesh gave way, and they fell to the ground. 
 Their screeches were deadened by the beating of tom-tom drums. I am glad 
 that I am some years too late to see this ceremony. 
 
 Conspicuously in the European quarter of Calcutta stands Government 
 House — the gates and steps guarded by native soldiery. Those of " The 
 Honourable East India Company's Service," to which all white soldiers here 
 once belonged, are but seldom seen about. Like to the whites generally, they 
 are but a mere handful to the number of natives employed as military. 
 As a soldier the Hindoo looks well. Soldiers generally do, but the clothing 
 which is here worn by these guards becomes them more than ordinarily, oV 
 they become it. A kind of sandal is worn by them, which has a strap running 
 up between the great toe and its neighbour. A grating of straps, so to call it, 
 secures this sandal over the instep. 
 
 After some days I get courage to go into a palanquin or palki — when nobody 
 seems to be looking. I lie there as in a coffin, and, coffin-like, am hoisted on to 
 
A Palki Ride. 271 
 
 the shoulders of two men. They carry me away at that jog-trot pace in which 
 a pauper's funeral is generally conducted in Christian countries. It is not the 
 pleasantesrt mode of conveyance, nor does it give rise to any pleasant thoughts. 
 If my grunting carriers, or one of them, had slipped one of his bare feet, I 
 seemed to stand a good chance of being picked up insensible. My head 
 must, in the fall, have been necessarily bumped much on the top and sides of 
 this thick wooden box. It would, all things considered, have been safer to 
 have been carried on a hospital stretcher, and to have occupied the time by 
 holding up an umbrella to keep off the sunshine. There is an old story of an 
 Irishman who, being in London for the first time, was anxious to ride in the 
 then fashionable sedan chairs. He was placed in one in which the essentials 
 of seat and flooring were omitted. It was started before he could get any ex- 
 planation. As it was, he wanted none — merely saying, when he was taking 
 oft" his battered head-covering and bespattered dress, that but for the look of 
 the thing he would much rather have walked. To a lesser extent I had the 
 same feeling on leaving this mounted shelf. The palanquin is not so nice a 
 mode of conveyance as is the Japanese wheeled perambulator, which, with 
 that nation, has in seven years quite superseded the cumbrous thing still used 
 throughout India. A good thing awaits the innovator who will introduce the 
 jinrikishaw of Japan into Hindoostan. 
 
 It is possible to leave Calcutta with but little regret, judging by my experi- 
 ences in what is termed its cool season. The name of the city is derived from 
 the goddess Cali, the Hindoostanee aforesaid deity, who was propitiated by 
 human sacrifices. These were rendered to her by a sect called Thugs, who 
 have been wrongly represented as murderous. They had, however, no malice 
 towards their victims. Nought did they "in hate, but all in honour" of their 
 deity. Her temple and effigy I shall no doubt see in Benares, the city of gods 
 and goddesses, if the British Government have not abolished it — as they have 
 done with the Thugs. 
 
 Meanwhile, I have seen something of the city of this Cali, to whom, I soon 
 find, that human sacrifices are still made in a less direct but equally sure 
 manner. It is a sacrifice of health and life to stop long in Calcutta. A year 
 spent in it would, I think, be my last. At the conclusion of it one's liver would 
 ]:ie enlarged like to that of a Strasburg goose, and by the same process — the 
 living for months in an oven's atmosphsre. 
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 THE " HOLY CITY " OF INDIA. 
 
 The capital cities of India are — Calcutta, the political one ; Benares, the Hindoo 
 one ; Delhi, the ^Mohammedan one ; and Bombay, the commercial one. A 
 glance has been given at Calcutta, on leaving which a journey of four hundred 
 miles, made through indigo and opium-fields, brings one to the Holy City of 
 India, and also one of the oldest of existing cities. 
 
 The arrival of the train occurs late in the evening, which adds to the impres- 
 siveness of the approach to this semi-sacred place. Such approach extends yet 
 over four rsiles, for Benares is as much out of the line of the rail as it is out of 
 the ways of the world generally. No vehicles are waiting for us. They will 
 be only found on the other side of the Ganges, to cross which is forbidden to 
 
272 The Mai7i Routes Round the World. 
 
 them, and if it were not, there is no bridge, save one of boats, to take 
 them over ; to use which would compel payment of a heavy toll. A crowd of 
 natives come around us, however, each anxious to do porter's work. They 
 will conduct us in the twilight to the river side, a mile or so distant, and carry 
 the luggage for us. 
 
 The distribution of labour among these men is very general. One article is 
 all that each wants to carry, and that, of whatever weight it may be, is always 
 carried on the head, and there balanced. I might carry my travelling-bag my- 
 self, for all the load that it is, but the road is not good, and it is only a trifle of 
 cost to have it carried, and looks more the thing to have it so done. These 
 lanky light porters form, therefore, quite a procession — each one carrying a 
 lantern. As they went along in that Indian file, of which I now saw an illus- 
 tration, on the winding road to the river, I stepped aside more than once to 
 admire the strange parade of which I formed a part. It was a very picturesque, 
 not to say grotesque, affair. Thirty at least of the natives marched along 
 barefooted, noiselessly, and nearly naked. They walked bolt upright, each 
 carrying balanced on his head some article of luggage that made him look more 
 or less ridiculous. One man carrying a portable bath looked, so surmounted, 
 particularly comical. 
 
 We reached, at last, the bridge of boats, and found it to be a very primitive 
 one — as quaint and queer ' as the city to which it leads, and seemingly as 
 ancient. The bridge was more than half a mile in length, and at the other 
 end of it lay a State barge, built for a late royal British visitor, to avoid his 
 walking over our bridge. The gilt gingerbread-looking thing seemed quite 
 out of place where everything else appeared so antiquated. It is yet some 
 three miles to Benares, but we have done with the walking part of the busi- 
 ness, and our procession now breaks up. Each head now resigns its burden to 
 the waiting vehicles, and the dark hands take the annas, or coppers given in 
 payment. We now journey onwards on wheels, through the darkness, and 
 enter what looks to us, in that light, as a conglomeration of old cathedral cities. 
 Such is Benares, where I find an hotel kept by an asthmatic Englishman, who 
 is a welcome sight indeed to me. Here I get supper, and serve as such for a 
 crowd of mosquitoes afterwards. 
 
 I am up early indeed next morning to take a look at the sacred city, but 
 cannot find a guide, nor can get one until mine host is astir, at a late hour. I 
 learn some information about Benares from other sources, the getting of which 
 helps to fill up time. It is, I find, of the most ancient of all habitations of 
 men in this world. It might divide honours in that respect with Tyre, 
 Tangier, or Joppa, if not with Damascus itself. Its antiquity, so far as I can 
 learn, is the chief ingredient in that sanctity to which its crowds of temples only 
 help. It has thus a hallowed halo cast around it by the sanctifying touch of 
 time. It has always been the head-quarters of the ancient faith — that 
 Hindooism, or the Brahminical form of worship, which has now resumed its 
 sway over India, and nearly driven out from thence the reformed faith which 
 Buddha, the Luther of India, introduced. 
 
 Of this faith called Hindooism there is no known founder or prophet, as 
 there is of Christianity, Mohammedanism, or Buddhism. It has been 
 described as the natural religion of humanity, and as the outcome of our 
 ordinary devotional instincts, unguided by any revelation. In its origin it was 
 the worship of the elements, and, through them, of their Creator. Gradually, 
 forms were given to the powers worshipped, and so gods and their images were 
 added as the ages rolled on and teachers of the faith multiplied. Professor 
 Max Muller's lectures on the origin of religion, as illustrated by the religions 
 of India, trace in this Hindoo faith the earliest efforts at forms of worship 
 beyond those of the primitive savage. 
 
The Sacred River. 273 
 
 The worship of "the Great Spirit" was the original idea of the faith, but 
 Hindooism has become now but a mere confused worship of many gods and 
 goddesses, whose temples are all here at Benares. Of such are Agni, the fire- 
 god ; Kama, the god of love ; Surya, the sun-god ; Ganesa, the god of 
 wisdom, and a hundred others. To these gods, as also to Vishnu and Shiva — 
 two of the supreme trinity — are given wives, who are worshipped as goddesses. 
 In coming to Benares, I am come to a bewildering city of worship, in which 
 is to be seen all the idolatry and grovelling to graven images of which we read 
 such denunciation in the Scriptures, and are so apt to think as a thing of a 
 bygone period ; and not, as it is, the form of religious worship followed by over 
 one hundred millions of the inhalntants of Hindoostan. 
 
 To this state of things came Buddha, two thousand six hundred years ago, 
 as a reformer. Here, at Sarnath, an outskirt of Benares, was erected the first 
 Buddhist temples, from which spread out over India, and thence over the world, 
 that faith, which, taught at first by him, has now elsewhere the largest number 
 of followers. The grosser superstition has been, however, too strong in 
 Hindoostan, and the Buddhist temples of Benares are now nearly all converted 
 into Brahminical ones — to shrines for the worship of those idols of whom, in 
 Benares, that of vShiva is the most prominent. The purer faith of Buddha, the 
 reformer, has nearly disappeared from that India which was its birthplace, to 
 find acceptance with millions of believers in other Eastern lands. Of Buddhism 
 I have seen something, and at what has replaced it here a look around has now 
 to be taken. 
 
 The Ganges has made Benares! The city clings to its shore, and to one 
 shore only — the left bank — and that but for some four miles in extent. On that 
 side of the river, and for the distance of two miles out of the four, the Holy 
 City pushes itself everywhere into that sacred stream. Temples jostle temples 
 and the grand mansions of those who could aftbrd to buy and build on such a 
 specially sought-for site. The mansions of the wealthy, and the palaces of 
 princes of the past, have, like the temples, all of them, stone stairs, called 
 ghauts, that run adown the river bank, and into the water, and beneath it. 
 The Ganges swells up, in the rainy season, for forty feet or more above low- 
 water mark, covers the ghauts, and reaches to the lower floors of these buildings. 
 Hence the necessity for the stone stairs when the flood subsides. 
 
 On these ghauts the bathers walk down into the water in great throngs 
 throughout the day, and there the faithful wash, and believe themselves to be 
 sanctified by so doing. The followers of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, and the 
 hundred lesser representative deities, believe in this sanctifying power of 
 the Ganges with a strength of faith that we, born of a cold northern hemisphere, 
 scarcely comprehend. On ascending the steps and leaving the sacred 
 stream, each believer goes to his priest, here seated under matting-made sun- 
 shades, the size of a large parlour table-cover. Still wet with the holy water, 
 he has now red and white paint marks placed by the priest upon his forehead. 
 They will be worn throughout the day, and tell to all who see him whence he 
 has come, and what he has that morning done. The red and the white paint 
 is not always used, but in their place a whitish dust, made of the burnt droppings 
 of the holy cows and bulls, which walk undisturbed in this sacred city. It is 
 a city sacred in its waters, in its shrines, its priests, its monkeys, its bulls, its 
 cows, and its fakirs — a class of fanatical beggars peculiarly holy and filthy. 
 
 Benares is now a grand old ruin from end to end, and makes no effort at 
 "restoration" or repairs of any kind. Much of it has been going to ruin since 
 our antiquity began, and is going to further decay daily. The city is so sacred 
 that all seems left to fate and to supernatural power to provide what municipal 
 bodies attend to elsewhere. The stones lie about as they fall. They are 
 stepped over and around, and not removed. The stitch in time, that saves the 
 
2 74 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 additional eight, is never given here. The sinking foundation is not impeded, 
 and, by and by, the house follows its supports. For such events the Benarians 
 wait, and when it happens they sit about upon the ruins, and get blessed by 
 the priest, and have their faces smeared and painted with holy pigments. 
 
 Half of the inhabitants of the city are pilgrims from distant places in this 
 and in other lands— here sojourning for a time for purifying purposes. Those 
 who can do so, stay here to die, for so to do is what it would be for a Jew to 
 lie in Abraham's bosom. They worship, meantime, in the thousand temples 
 which are around, and to the thousands of symbols of their faith that stand in 
 little shrines at the street corners. The population is calculated at a quarter of a 
 million, and it is told me that half of that number have come hither strangers, 
 like myself, and as to a city of sanctity and sanctifying power. Here they 
 find, to their minds, the relief found elsewhere by Christian, told of in Bunyan's 
 wondrous tale. The load of sin which has troubled the mind is removed, and 
 those aweary of this world are now, all unburdened, ready to leave it — happy 
 in the assurance of a better one. The phenomena of faith can be well studied 
 here — in this its head-quarters. Crowds are around me working out their 
 salvation in the waters and in the temples ; the priests ever at their elbows — 
 and pockets. 
 
 And am I to have no part or lot in the matter, and to stand as a scoffer at it 
 all ? These people may all be right, for what I know, and for what Tennyson 
 knows also, if he believes, as he tells us, that Death is 
 " That figure cloak'd from head to foot, 
 Which keeps the keys of all the creeds." 
 
 So I follow example, and do here as others do — bathing in the Ganges with the 
 rest. My guide points out to me the most sacred spot, which is also the most 
 crowded ; and there I wash as vigorously as any of the believers. I feel, for 
 different reasons to theirs, all the better for it, as one always does after a bath 
 in this climate. Then, to be all in order, I turn to one of the priests for anoint- 
 ment, and receive the mark on the forehead, like the rest of them. It is^ in 
 this case, literally the " mark of the beast," being made, as it is, of the white 
 powder of burnt cow-droppings. I paid a half-rupee for such priestly care, 
 and carried the mark about Benares, until perspiration and the necessary 
 handkerchief took it off — a result that soon followed in this warm region. 
 
 I had bathed in the Ganges — a pilgrim who had come further, so to do, than 
 had any of those around me. Often as I had read of this river, of this city, 
 and these devotees, it had never entered my mind that I should one day stand 
 here to do as they did. Not all, however, was yet done. My good guide 
 smiles on my zeal, or it may be that he laughs at my folly, Hindoo as he is. 
 He tells me of two other waters, one of which is to be inwardly applied, and 
 not outwardly, as is that of the Ganges. These are the Well of Knowledge 
 and the Well of Purification. The Ganges has washed away sin. The Well 
 of Knowledge will give me wisdom, and that of Purification keep me holy for 
 ever. I feel faith growing strongly upon me, and bid my guide to lead me on 
 while I follow him, much in the fashion of my prototype Sadak, in search of 
 the Waters of Oblivion. 
 
 The Well of Intelligence is, I find, situated, as it should be, under a golden 
 dome, where are a crowd waiting around the fount. Its high priest is ladling 
 the water of knowledge into the open palms of the devotees, from a huge jar 
 of it which stands at his side. I have my doubts about this jar and its con- 
 tents, and wish to have my drink of water as I see it drawn up from the well. 
 This well is some thirty feet or more deep. It has over it the before- 
 mentioned gilded canopy, around it are gilded railings, and coming up from its 
 water is the scent of a cesspool. The water was brown-looking and stagnant 
 stuff, strewn over its surface with flowers, thrown thereon as offerings by 
 
Some FanioiLS Waters. 275 
 
 devotees. Such vegetable matter, as it decayed, gave to the water the 
 peculiar aroma alluded to. As flowers for such offerings were on sale here- 
 about, I contributed my quota before drinking, as so to do seemed part of the 
 ritual. 
 
 I thought indeed that some supernatural assistance was really wanted to the 
 drinking of this water. The smell would have deterred most people from 
 taking it, but faith is worthless if it can be stunk out of believers. We all 
 know that it cannot even be burnt out of some, who have so died for its sake. 
 Fortifying myself with the scriptural advice to "try all things," I got a 
 handful of water — it is all drinking from the hand here — from a bucket pulled 
 up for that purpose, and, holding my nose meanwhile, gulped it down as I 
 would a black draught. I had to pay black draught price — half a rupee — for 
 it. I had now drunk of the water of the Well of Knowledge, and certainly 
 knew more than I did before. I expected further knowledge within an hour 
 or so, if that nasty mixture did not meantime act upon me as an emetic, \\niy 
 we do such things those can well answer who risk their lives in climbing to 
 dangerous peaks which have proved already fatal to many adventurers. No 
 knowledge is to be gained by doing such risky climbing, but here the case was 
 different ; and I followed only the example of thousands whom I have no right 
 to say were less wise than myself. If we learn in travelling what fools there 
 are in this world, we also learn how we have been equally befooled at home 
 in other ways. 
 
 The Well of Purification — the famous Manikarnika, as it is called, was my 
 next destination. With that my course of the waters of Benares would be 
 complete, and I should be sanctified, purified, and made perfect in knowledge. 
 The water of this well is purgatorial in its effect. It can whiten the red hand 
 of murder, and purge the guilty soul of the parricide. Its effects are also per- 
 manent, and those washed by it can no more be dirtied by sin in their way 
 through this soul-soiling world. I find the desired fount of such a balm on a 
 terrace, at the top of one of the ghauts. It is railed all round, and has but 
 one gate to it, at which stand two guardians. Fifty or so of steps lead down 
 to its dirty, disgusting-looking water. I tender a rupee to the gatekeeper 
 priest, without consulting the guide about it, and find my offering refused. 
 My guide explains this phenomenon of the refusal of money by priestly hands. 
 
 '• The water is only for Hindoos — you cannot go down to it. You must be 
 one of the faith to get any benefit from it." 
 
 " Tell him that I am one of the faith, and have washed in the Ganges, and 
 drunk of the Well of Knowledge. Say that I have come from the ends of the 
 earth — both ends of it — to wash in this water, and also, that the doctor 
 orders it. " 
 
 A long colloquy now ensued between my guide and the attendants, ending 
 in his saying to me, " He still says, 'No ! You will not be allowed to go 
 down — even a Mohammedan is not allowed to go down, but only those of the 
 Hindoo faith.'" 
 
 I urged that he should try again, but he only repeated that so to do would 
 avail nothing, and might lead to unpleasantness. I reconsidered the position, 
 and remembered that all men have been said by a wise man to have their 
 price. Fifty pounds should be spent over this business ere I failed, 
 
 "Ask them how many rupees they want to let me go down and wash my 
 hands in the water — -say that I will give anything !" He went, and made such 
 liberal offer, and returned reporting thus : — 
 
 " He says that you cannot go down for a thousand rupees, or ten 
 thousand !" Another resource now occurred to me — the money one having failed. 
 
 "Ask him, then, to let you fill this phial with the water," I said, producing 
 one that I had that morning filled with the water of the Ganges, which I now 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 emptied out, as being easily replaced. The offer was madt 
 but the answer was — 
 
 " He says, 'No.' You cannot touch the water, or take any of it away, on 
 any account, or for any money. It is too precious !" 
 
 "I got water from the Well of Knowledge, and why not from this?" I 
 expostulated. 
 
 " The water from the Well of Knowledge is but water, but this liquid is the 
 perspiration of the God Vishnu, who dug this well, and so filled it, as 
 the result of his labour!" 
 
 I began now to perceive that the matter was far weightier than I had 
 supposed, and required consideration. A devotee now came up, who paid his 
 fees, and was led down the steps by one of the priests to the water's edge. He 
 was a tottering old man, who had, probably, made great effort to get here ere 
 death overtook him. It was a sight to remember, that of this poor old sinner, 
 supported by the attendant, and undressed by him at the water's edge. He 
 thence descended into it, until the nauseous-looking stuff reached his waist, 
 and then stooped to lave it over his head and shoulders. At the bidding of the 
 priest, who shouted into his deaf ears, he repeated this lavement three times, 
 the exertion seeming to quite exhaust him, and the smell of the water half 
 choking him. About the latter there could be little wonder. Thousands 
 of devotees have washed in this water for years without number, until it has 
 become foul and thickened by such washing. I must evidently, I saw, 
 get the hand-washing I wanted at secondhand, and one, like myself, with the 
 water of the Well of Knowledge within him, might be expected to know how 
 to surmount all obstacles. 
 
 " You go down to the well," I said to my Hindoo guide, " and bathe j'our 
 hands in the water, that I may do by deputy what I am not allowed to 
 do personally ! Here is a rupee for the fee." I had, in this much, only told 
 him half of my intention. 
 
 He did as desired, paid the fee, descended the steps, and bared his hands to 
 the wrists, returning at once up the steps to me. When he came, I had the 
 pleasure of grasping both his hands, and so getting mine as wet as his own ! 
 The full benefit of the water might not have been so obtained, but it would go 
 for what it was worth, and the good intention added to it might make up for 
 much. The idea, let me say, was not original. I once saw a sleeping negro 
 robbed of his hair-oil while he slept, by another, who, rubbing his hands on 
 the sleeping one's head, so transferred the grease to his own hair. 
 
 Sending the guide down the ghaut to refill the phial with Ganges water, to 
 be preserved as a talisman, we went, on his return, to the Cow Temple. Here a 
 dozen or more of pampered cows were wandering over a marble floor, and 
 occasionally fouling it. Devotees were kneeling about, but whether in 
 worship of the cows, or of an image which was stuck up at one end of 
 the temple, could not easily be determined. The guide seemed also uncertain 
 about it. I gave the cows the benefit of the doubt, as they at least were 
 living things, and the work of a greater Creator than the graven image. 
 
 The Temple of the Sacred Monkeys, and Hanuman the monkey-god, was a 
 still more curious exhibition. In it were at least a hundred monkeys considered 
 as holy things and pampered here like spoilt children. Sellers of sweatmeats 
 crowded the steps of this temple. The purchases made are used as the buns 
 are with the bears in the Zoological Gardens. One could thus buy something 
 for the monkeys, though not for the cows. On looking about at the interior 
 carvings of the temple, monkeys were to be seen perched about everywhere. 
 The traveller must leave this temple with the idea that Darwin has been there 
 before him. Monkey on the brain might in one sense be got here to a 
 certainty. On that point I speak with authority, as, in their unchecked 
 
An Impressive Cremation. 277 
 
 frolics and sacred fearlessness, a younger one of the family jumped upon my 
 head. 
 
 For the rest of the day I patrol the narrow streets of Benares, seldom of 
 more than seven feet in width, and look at the very diminutive shops in the 
 walls. No vehicles traverse these streets. The barefooted palanquin-carriers 
 are the only burden-bearers, and they never seem to slip on the smooth cobble- 
 stones, that would certainly bring a shod horse down. Here I see at work the 
 celebrated brass-workers of the place, turning out those dishes, cups, and vases 
 curious for the handicraft and carving shown in them. Here are images of 
 many of their gods, and I buy, as curios for my own enlightened land, half-a- 
 dozen different idols, the worship of which I innocently thought had long since 
 died out. Here, too, is made the famous "kinkob," a cloth of golden threads 
 interwoven with woollen ones. Great care is taken of this cloth by the traders. 
 Half-a-dozen locks and bars shield the cupboard in which it is kept, and a 
 high price is asked for it. For about enough to make a waistcoat I was asked 
 ;^8 sterling. The cloth, equally with its price, seemed too heavy for me. 
 The diamond dealers are another class among the Benares merchants ; but 
 diamonds are things I never could appreciate, save in their useful capacity of 
 drilling rocks and assisting glaziers. 
 
 On a second visit to the waterside next morning, I, for first time, see a crema- 
 tion — the most impressive sight, next to a hanging, that I ever saw ! The burning 
 ghaut here is the favourite one for all India, as the ashes of the cremated one 
 are thrown in the Ganges at the Holy of Holies, as it were. Several crema- 
 tions are now taking place. There are five piles of wood blazing at one time, 
 but I give my attention all to one. The ceremony of burning the dead is 
 superintended by a priest, and watched by the relatives of the deceased. The 
 chief mourner in this case is the widow. The body of her late husband is 
 brought down thinly covered with muslin net. A wood pile is built in a few 
 minutes, to the height of four feet, by dried logs laid at right angles. On that 
 height being reached, the body is laid along upon it, the back of the head and 
 soles of the feet protruding at either end. The wood-pile is then built up to a 
 further height of three feet, and is all the work of five minutes only. It looks, 
 when finished, nearly square. 
 
 The young widow has been sitting, dressed in white, among the mourners, 
 with averted head, awaiting the finishing of the pile. It is her sad duty to 
 light it. A handful of straw is handed to her. on which the priest drops some 
 oil. The fire is supplied by another attendant, who has brought it from some 
 sacred source, where it ever burns, and is heavily charged for. No other fire 
 but this sacred flame must light the funeral pile. Before lighting the straw, 
 the miserable woman — for such she is in other sense than being only a widow 
 — walks three times around the pile, each time touching the head of the 
 deceased. The pile is then lighted at the foot upon the side facing the river — 
 probably from the breeze being strongest in that quarter. The dry wood 
 ignites quickly, and crackles in the flames, which soon reach the dead body. 
 That swells greatly with the heat, and the skin bursting causes a strong smoke, 
 that for a time struggles with the flames. They soon gain the mastery, how- 
 ever, and as I see the wood falling inwards, all around, I know that the fierce 
 fire has done its work. In twenty minutes, nothing but a pile of ashes remain. 
 The protruding head and toes have fallen in towards the centre, as the wood 
 burnt away, and there is not so much as a bit of bone to be found. The 
 burning-up has been complete. 
 
 The widow, who lighted the fire, had meanwhile withdrawn with her friends, 
 and sat afar off, with face averted. The scene was a solemn and impressive 
 one. ]\Iy first sight of cremation in the holy city of Benares, on the banks of 
 the sacred Ganges, will l^e a life-long recollection — one of the most enduring 
 
278 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 that all India leaves with me. The British Government did not do wholly a 
 kindness to the Hindoo widow when they abolished the custom of her burning 
 herself with her dead husband. The customs of the Hindoos are as unalterable 
 as all customs of the East ; and this practice was founded on others, which 
 should have been also altered at the same time. A widow is not permitted 
 to marry again. Her parents are, for many reasons, and all reasonable ones, 
 forbidden again to receive her; she has, therefore, unless left a wealthy 
 woman, no refuge whatever but to become the slave of her mother-in-law ! 
 Much has been said about mothers-in-law, but no one knows so much of the 
 matter as the poor Hindoo widow — thenceforth for the rest of her life the 
 most miserable of all womankind. 
 
 CHAPTER LH. 
 
 THE PALACE-CITY OF INDIA. 
 
 I AM kindly advised, before starting on my overland journey through India, of 
 the wants I shall find by the way. In addition to the railway ticket, I have to 
 purchase a pillow, a towel, and some soap; the pillow is to go as a head-rest, 
 at the end of the stuffed leathern carriage seat which will be my sleeping sofa 
 for the night ; the soap and towel are for use in the little lavatory in a corner of 
 the carriage. The pace of the train is slow, and the country is fiat, and looks hot 
 and uninteresting to those who have only eyes for scenery. Among the indigo 
 and the poppies are now and again seen the heads of the natives, and here and 
 there an occasional hill breaks the dead level of the far-stretching plain. The 
 villages on the line of road are merely collections of mud hovels but one 
 degree better than those seen on the banks of the Nile. The labourers are, I 
 fear, but little better off, to judge by the wretched appearance of their dwel- 
 lings. Those who in Egypt are called "fellahs," are here "ryots." 
 
 The opium-fields are mostly white when the poppies are in flower. Of 
 those grown for this produce, the white is the favourite, though red and purple 
 specimens are to be seen about. Fifty years or so ago, opium was heard of and 
 used mostly as a medicine. Its use as a stimulant has steadily increased 
 since, and here in India is the greatest field for its manufacture. The poppy, 
 that we know of only in the wheat-fields and in the druggists' shops, takes here 
 the place that the potatoes do in Ireland, and tobacco in the Southern States 
 of America. This district, through which I come from Calcutta, is about the 
 largest in which it is cultivated and is a plain of 600 miles long by 200 or there- 
 abouts broad. It was ceded to England less than a century ago. One end of 
 it runs to Patna, and the other is taken charge of as a district of Benares. The 
 whole plain is divided thus into two districts, of which the cities named are the 
 head-quarters. Patna had a name once for rice, which she has not maintained 
 in the market, finding opium-growing more profitable. The heads of the 
 poppies are, when on the stem, probed in the early morning, and then left for 
 the juice to trickle out during the day. It is next morning scraped off in a 
 gummy state, and deposited in a jar carried by the labourer. By him it is 
 then transferred to other jars, and in that state collected from his hands by 
 the officials of his district. So many jars make a chest, and the value of a 
 chest is ^^150. 
 
 When it is added that eighty or a hundred thousand chests are a year's 
 product for India, it will be seen by heads not much given to cyphering what a 
 
Opiuj/i Enormities. 279 
 
 source of revenue opium is to India ! When it is further considered that one- 
 half of this produce is forced upon the Chinese market by the British, it will be 
 perceived how little creditable opium-growing is to Great Britain. There are 
 spots in the sun, and this opium-producing business is, from beginning to end, 
 a dark spot on the lustre of England's commerce and means of wealth. The 
 opium is grown by little better than slave labour, and its great profit is only 
 realized from those Chinese, who have to take it, or a war is the penalty of 
 their refusal. Let a spade be called a spade ; and this opium business is but 
 little less disgraceful than was the slave-trade of old ! 
 
 The world, though large, is, in one sense, small. It is difficult for those 
 who wish to get away altogether from a recognition to find the seclusion they 
 seek. I think of that when finding, as a station-master at one of the out-of- 
 the-way stations on this line, an old Australian acquaintance. He tells me 
 that he is not so happy as when in that land from which he was one morning 
 suddenly missed, and in which he now much wished himself back. The heat 
 here made life, he said, unbearable, and he could well understand why the 
 devisers of punishments to come had made extra heat the chief one awaiting 
 the sinner. He hoped, for himself, that he was here doing a semi-purgatorial 
 course, that might be carried to his credit when he, like the rest of us, should 
 have to answer hereafter to the great "roll-call." 
 
 It is on this journey, and this evening, my first effort at getting a night's 
 rest in a railway train. Like most first attempts, it is a failure. I must get 
 accustomed to it, however, as I have, in the far distance before me, long rides 
 upon the rail to do, over other continents. Sleeping over the screw, in the 
 after part of a steamer, is not learnt at once. I thought at one time that I 
 should never get used to the thumping noise, until at last I found sleep difficult 
 to get without that monotonous lullaby. The rattle of the wheels in a railway 
 carriage tells in the same way in time, and even the shrill steam-whistle does 
 not, at last, awaken me. We are more adaptable to circumstances than we 
 think for. Somebody said, " We are wiser than we know," and, perhaps, that 
 is equally true, and we are not all the fools that we appear. 
 
 The railway from Benares to Lucknow is called the Oude and Rohilcund 
 line, and is about the worst to be found in India. To make up for the dis- 
 comforts of dirty old carriages, and other ol)jectionable things that are noticeable 
 on long journeys, I happen upon good company. There is a silver lining to 
 every cloud, and such here appears in the form of three Americans, who are 
 travelling with no better reason for doing so than I have. In the long journey 
 from Calcutta to Benares I had but Hindoos for company, and conversation 
 therefore rather flagged ; which is but a mild way of saying that I could not 
 understand a word that I heard said by those around me. I once met with a man 
 of defective articulation, but exceedingly given to talking. He never expected 
 any reply or remark to be made to him, and that fortunately, as scarcely a 
 word of his long utterances were understood by any one. The like of him 
 could have travelled comfortably for a day among these Hindoos, and have 
 talked all the time, or for such part of it as passengers could have been got to 
 stay in the carriage with him. 
 
 It is in the early morning that I reach Lucknow, the "City Beautiful" 
 of Hindoostan. Taking the usual cup of tea and slice of toast, which are 
 served at five a.m., at Hill's Imperial Hotel, I go out to have a three or four 
 hours' perambulation of the city before breakfast, and in the great advantage 
 of the morning coolness. It is, I find, the real "City of Palaces" of India, 
 to which title Calcutta has, in comparison with it, no pretensions whatever. 
 Something of all the best parts of other Indian cities is to be seen here 
 in Lucknow. To those attractions have to be added half-a-dozen or more of 
 palaces of novel construction and highly pleasing appearance. Some of them 
 
28o The Mai ft Routes Round the World. 
 
 are coloured in yellow, blue, and white, in the fashion in which Owen Jones 
 tricked out the Crystal Palace in 185 1. Surmounting such buildings are 
 gilded towers, spires, and other novelties, to which allusion will be made. 
 
 This Lucknow, that was so grand-looking but awhile ago, is the capital of 
 the kingdom of Oude, and is in the very garden of Hindoostan. Hence its 
 troubles ! The late East India Company set their greedy eyes upon it, and then 
 followed their acquisitive hands. Such occurred as lately only as 1856. It was 
 the last of the " annexations" made during their reign, and the "hottest" in 
 its results. Following the deposition of Wadi Ali Shah, the late King of 
 Oude, came that mutiny of 1857 — events which those with whom I talked in 
 India looked upon as cause and effect. The native soldiery at Lucknow, 
 Cawnpore, Benares, Delhi, and other places were, by some means only to be 
 guessed, instigated to mutiny and to the massacre of the British. Though the 
 promoters have never been fully discovered, the organization was complete, 
 and terribly effective for a time. 
 
 The visitor sees in Lucknow, in addition to its many palaces, some of the 
 finest mosques to be seen in Hindoostan ; for Lucknow, like Delhi, was of 
 Mohammedan faith. Here, too, are also to be seen those " Gardens of 
 Delight," to which a lifetime of good taste seems to have been devoted. Here 
 also are buildings that are not to be classified to English understandings — the 
 palace tombs of ex-kings and their wives and mothers, most of such edifices 
 having gilded domes. And here is the grand " Kaiser Bagh," or Cresar's 
 Garden, a magnificent quadrangle of palatial buildings, erected as lately as 
 1850, at a cost of a million sterling. They enclose a vast garden of over 
 fifty acres. In its area are bowers, marble garden-temples, fantastically-built 
 arches, and other bewildering prettinesses. This was the work of the last 
 of Lucknow's kings — he who lives now in the prison-palace on the Hooghly at 
 Calcutta. It was this extravagance on his part, in this Caesar's Garden, that 
 led, among other things, to the coveting of his kingdom. Coesar he has been 
 of a verity, and is nothing now. 
 
 All the fine palaces are now perverted to base uses, save the Kaisar Bagh, 
 which is left to the dominion of desolation and dust. Several of them are used 
 as Government offices. Papers, books, and red tape, with smudgy-fingered 
 scribes, fill these halls of the Haroun Alraschids and Scheherezades. In the 
 Kaiser Bagh Garden Palace there must be, I think, between one and two 
 thousand rooms, all now empty and falling to that decay that in all buildings 
 seems so quickly to follow upon desertion. From a central building, the 
 Barahdara, the solid silver flooring has been taken up. All the surrounding 
 buildings of these gardens are coloured in yellow, white, and blue, in a highly 
 tasteful way. But the gay sight looks a very sad one now — as would a painted 
 beauty appear in silks, flowers, and feathers who was crying her heart out, 
 reddening her eyes, and Ijesmearing her face. 
 
 The whole scene presented by Lucknow — desolated as it is in every way in 
 which it is looked upon — forcibly recalls that prophecy of the fall of Venice, 
 which Byron puts so effectively in the mouth of Marino Faliero when upon the 
 scaffold ;— 
 
 " Then, when the Hebrew's in thy palaces, 
 
 The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek 
 
 Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his ; 
 
 When thy patricians beg their bitter bread 
 
 In narrow streets, and in their shameful need 
 
 Make their nobility a plea for pity ; 
 
 Then, when the few, who still retain a wreck 
 
 Of their great father's heritage, shall fawn 
 
 Round a barbarian Vice of Kings Vice-gerent 
 
 Even in the Palace where they swayed as Sovereigns." 
 
 Every image, so forcibly presented in those nervous lines, is here realized in 
 
Ruined Splendour. 281 
 
 Lucknow, or in what remains of that once magnificent city. There is enough 
 of the nature of the Hebrew, the Hun, and the Greek in all of us, and 
 certainly so in all the Europeans whom I see here, to support the full meaning 
 of the words of the dying Doge. 
 
 From the Kaiser Bagh, but a short distance, is another palace of rainbow 
 colours, showing two fine towers at its sides. These tow^ers are overhung by 
 semi-domes, in umbrella fashion. This is the famous " Chutter Munzil,'' or 
 Umbrella Palace ; so-called from such decorations. It was formerly a harem, 
 but is now desecrated to the uses of a club. Hairy-faced beings are smoking 
 and drinking, where dark-eyed houris only once smiled and fanned themselves. 
 Seen in the sunshine, this Chutter Munzil long detains one's gaze. Its 
 glittering towers, and their golden coverings — the latter seemingly hung high 
 in the air — have their full effect as architectural novelties. It is an effect that 
 remains with the traveller as a pleasant memory, in which respect the building 
 has been admirably planned for its original purpose. Should a design for a 
 harem be desired by any millionaire, that of this Chutter Munzil, at Lucknow, 
 had better be followed. It is a building that, in a sort, invites the visitor and 
 woos him to visit it. 
 
 Many days may be well spent in seeing the "lions"' of Lucknow, and to that 
 list each of its kings seem to have added. And not alone the kings ! Here is 
 "Constantia" — -the Martini Palace — an architectural phantasy of one Claude 
 Martin, a French soldier, who rose from the ranks to riches and greatness 
 under favour of one of the Kings of Oude. Martin was offered by his king a 
 crore of rupees — the equal of a million sterling — for this palace, when finished, 
 but refused the offer. The building was his architectural pet, and being built 
 alike for a dwelling and a tomb ; he lies buried in the basement. As an amateur 
 architect he made blunders, and appears to have forgotten the staircases, 
 which had to be afterwards run round outside the building. By night this 
 jDalace was lighted up by lanterns, formed of monsters' faces, the flame of the 
 lamp within showing from their eyes and mouths. 
 
 A grand mosque, indeed, is the neighbouring great Jumma Musjid, and all 
 the grander for standing on high ground. Such, added to its majestic breadth, 
 and the great height of its minarets, renders it visible from all points of view. 
 A splendid outlook over Lucknow is to be had from these minarets, but the 
 architect has omitted to enclose the tops, which renders standing on the 
 summit a troublesome matter to those of unseamanlike heads. This mag- 
 nificent mosque is now used as a jail — a desecration greater than using the 
 harem for a club-house. It was on the staircase of this building that I met 
 the only volunteer guide I ever had in India, and, altogether, the best one. 
 Two could not pass on that narrow way, and he insisted on retracing his steps 
 upwards to save my going down. He was an educated Hindoo, a Baboo, or 
 writer, and kindly attached himself to me for my time in Lucknow — so doing 
 suit and service for which he would take no pay. 
 
 This Lucknow the magnificent has much the appearance of a man-of-war 
 after a hard battle, or " the pet of the fancy" on the day after the fight. It 
 has seen many masters, and its buildings have been put to many uses. Several 
 of^ them have stood siege, and been garrisoned alternately by British and 
 Hindoo troops. Any citizen can imagine what his town hall, cathedral, public 
 library, and post-office would be in appearance after standing siege-assaults for 
 days. Some such have suffered here beyond hope of repair. Here is " Dil 
 Koosha,^' or Heart's-delight, all riddled and in ruins, and here is the Residency 
 ill which dwelt the British Agent or Ambassador previously to 1857, with only 
 bits of the walls now standing. This building appears to have been the very 
 focus of siege operations, and to have been shattered by shell after shell, until 
 scarcely any stones of it are left standing. 
 
282 The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 That the buildings were not all that suffered is evident in the neighbouring 
 monuments. On those I read names that are familiar to all readers — if only 
 those who read nothing beyond the daily press. They are names which I had 
 never thought to read out of the pages of that history in which they will live. 
 Of such is the inscription — 
 
 "To the memory' of Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. Interred here (date) 1857." 
 
 To that simple record of Sir Henry Lawrence I might add those of Sir 
 Henry Havelock, General Neill, Major Banks, and half a score of others, who 
 fell at the siege of Lucknow. One monument records the names of several 
 officers, and adds : — "Also of 324 of the rank and file of that regiment." Such 
 record as that was not singular, for the rank and file of the world are lumped 
 together in death much as they are in life. 
 
 In one of the deserted palace gardens I "interview" my first Fakir — a holy 
 hermit of a man dwelling in a solitary garden-house. It was in a small 
 marble-built garden-temple that I found this most gruesome, grimy creature. 
 His hair, beard, and finger-nails had apparently been untrimmed for years, 
 nor had he seemingly for that time been scraped or washed. His godliness 
 was certainly not next to cleanliness, and very far from it. This make-up of 
 a maniac and a wild man of the woods wore nothing but a ragged cloth, 
 secured about his waist by some substitute for string. In that deserted garden 
 he represented fitly the spirit of the despoiled place. Previously to the spolia- 
 tion of Lucknow he had lived here up a tree, and sought to get immovably 
 grown around by the branches. That peculiar way of getting into a fix was 
 frustrated by the British soldiers, who fetched him down. I wanted to give 
 him money, but Baboo said that he would not take other offering than food, 
 and that all my attempts to shake hands with him would be futile — the length 
 of his nails alone would have much hindered that effort. 
 
 Of these Fakirs I met many on the journey through India, though they are 
 not now seen as often as formerly. They are looked upon by the Brahminical 
 sect only as superior beings. One, who had slung on to the lobe of each ear 
 a thin brick common in Indian buildings, was looked upon, in these horrible 
 earrings, as particularly saintly. His ears had become dragged down, and 
 seemed to have grown as tough as leather. Women touched his ragged attire, 
 that they might thereby be blessed. The disfigurements and punishments to 
 which some of these fanatics put themselves are very disgusting. A favourite 
 one is the holding of an arm above the head until it becomes there rigidly fixed, 
 and the nails grow either to a great length, or through the palm of the hand 
 when clenched. 
 
 The Chowk, or native town of Lucknow, shows a better appearance and 
 wider streets than those seen in Benares or Calcutta ; the reason being, probably, 
 that Lucknow is a more modern city. Here, also, the natives seemed to dress 
 to a greater extent, using about half a white sheet instead of a quarter-one, and 
 keeping it something nearer to its original colour. More elephants and camels 
 are to be seen about in strings of five or six — loaded up with what seems to 
 European eyes crushing weights. These were the first camels I had seen out 
 of a menagerie, save only those that I saw starting on a certain Australian ex- 
 ploring expedition, twenty or more years ago — an expedition whence one only 
 returned of the many whom I saw depart. 
 
 Lucknow boasts, as curios in the building way, of two things that are largest 
 of their kind — the largest room or hall, and the largest well in the world. 
 The large room is the "Great Imambara," or House of the Prophet. This 
 whim is said to have cost a million sterling. It is told me by Baboo that it 
 was the result of a competitive challenge to the architects of the time, requiring 
 them to surpass in size and magnificence all existing efforts, and to produce an 
 
Tiuo Big Tilings. 283 
 
 original design. The name of the successful competitor has seven syllables in 
 it — a name becoming to one with such large ideas. This House of the 
 Prophet is now used by the British as an arsenal, and strewn with cannon, 
 cannon-balls, and conical shot. 
 
 In the building of this sacred house no woodwork was permitted, nor any 
 pillars or supports beyond the walls. What the builders had to do was to 
 build a hall of a hundred and sixty-five feet by a breadth of fifty-five and a 
 height of seventy. The walls are the only supports allowed for the roof of 
 this leviathan room; they are of the vast thickness of sixteen feet. The build- 
 ing has been just a hundred years finished. The roof, as I look up at it from 
 below, and walk about afterwards upon its outside, seems quite flat. To make 
 it a holy building in Hindoo eyes, some Grand Vizier has been buried beneath 
 the centre of the floor. A gallery runs around this great hall which, though of 
 a respectable size, looks from the floor but a mere shelf. The whole aftair 
 oppresses the mind with its immensity. No scaffolding was. Baboo says, used 
 in the building of this biggest of rooms. A mound of earth of the exact size 
 of it, was first raised. Over and around that was the building laid, and the 
 earth was afterwards excavated from the interior. 
 
 The largest well in the world was next inspected. Great doors are un- 
 locked, and an immense rotunda so opened to view. At one side is a twenty- 
 feet wide flight of very broad steps, that appear to lead down only to darkness. 
 Facing these stairs is what reminds one of the interior of a theatre, and a tier 
 of private boxes. Those sitting therein, and looking down, might have seen, 
 sixty feet below, a circle of water forty feet in diameter, and two hundred feet 
 deep, to which led the staircase told of. Baboo cannot tell me what all this 
 means — wherefore the well, and why the staircase and auditorium ; some 
 king, it is to be supposed, had a whim to have the largest well in the world, 
 as another had to have the largest hall, and for that alone the people's time 
 and money were expended. 
 
 After two days of hard work in sight-seeing, I rest for the morning of the 
 third, and have time to watch a native snake-charmer, who has nothing with 
 him but a cotton wrapper around his loins, and two black bags for what, in 
 theatrical language, would be called "properties." He takes from out one 
 bag a cobra snake, which, to a tune he pipes on a reed, stands on its tail, and 
 moves about to the music. We make nothing of our snakes; but in India, to the 
 jugglers at Madras, and this new performer at Lucknow, the snake is a valuable 
 adjunct. This one lies at full length, and shams death at the word of com- 
 mand— stiffens itself out when bidden, and can then be lifted from one end 
 like a stick. In an instant, and at a word, it is up and dancing again, or 
 making a knot of itself round its owner's neck. Snake-dancing is an unnatural 
 sight — as is also what most recalls it, a one-legged dancer. I once saw in 
 Japan a gamecock walking on stilts, and thought it a melancholy exhibition ; 
 and the proud-spirited bird seemed, by its looks, to think similarly about it. 
 What is unnatural is, seemingly, painful. 
 
 The other bag carried by this snake-charmer contained the snake's natural 
 enemy — a mongoose. This animal is like a ferret to the casual observer, and 
 has the like feeling towards snakes that ferrets have to rats. The finish of the 
 exhibition was to set the two fighting. The snake darted its head again and 
 again at its enemy, but the move was always met and dodged. Each of the 
 combatants had proper respect for the other. They had probably set-to in 
 this fashion scores of times. Not a chance was thrown away. Mongoose 
 wished to seize cobra by the back of the neck, and cobra knew it. He got a 
 slight hold at last, however, and swung there bulldog-like, drawing blood as 
 the snake tried to catch his body in the folds of his own, and so to squeeze it 
 to death. If mongoose got deep hold enough to bite through cobra's spine, then 
 
284 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the snake must die ; but if cobra could get a turn round mongoose, the squeeze 
 that would follow would finish the battle the other way. Cobra, in this case, 
 won the day, as announced by the squealing of the mongoose, who was imme- 
 diately liberated by the exhil^itor, and each of the combatants restored to its 
 bag. With an untrained snake the mongoose would have been more success- 
 ful. I am offered the snake as a purchase for a reasonable sum, but it was an 
 awkward thing to carry about as a curio, and I could not stay to learn the 
 music that was necessary to doing business with it. 
 
 Birds are very cleverly trained by these Hindoos. An exhibition in that 
 way followed on that of the snake and mongoose. I see a canary pick from 
 out of a dozen slips of paper thrown together one on which I had made a 
 mark ; known, as I thought, only to myself. How the bird also knew it is 
 one of those mysteries that I put away with the wonders I had seen done by 
 the jugglers in Madras and Calcutta. 
 
 Lucknow will remain in memory as a dream of desolated grandeur — gay- 
 looking palaces, gilded domes, and gardens of delight. Zobeide, in the 
 "Arabian nights," offers to bet her "garden of delights " against the Caliph's 
 palace of pictures. The stake might have been one of these Lucknow gardens. 
 The memory of the visitor will recall also its architectural wonders and 
 curiosities — its desecrated temples, deserted halls, and siege-battered 
 buildings— the glory that has gone, "leaving doors and windows wide." Here 
 are the " cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples" 
 disappearing all " like the baseless fabric of a vision," and leaving but wrecks 
 behind. Such is the lesson of Lucknow ! 
 
 The journey onwards, that is now resumed, is fortunately with my American 
 friends. On the next stage it will be again necessary to sleep in the train eti 
 route. To do that in a horizontal position, all of the carriage is wanted by the 
 four of us, and one of that number is a lady ! She must have a side of the 
 carriage to herself, and one of us must lie on the shelf above, which is secured 
 by straps at each end, and now holds lugggage and hats and umbrellas. It 
 was necessary to divide the carriage at night into two compartments, by 
 hanging a travelling-rug across its width from top to bottom. At this piece of 
 upholstery my Americans were very effective, and also at another device which 
 had equally to be thought about. We found that we could not secure the 
 carriage to ourselves, and might have others thrust in upon us who would 
 discompose our arrangements. My Americans are fertile of resource. A 
 small-pox epidemic had been spreading a scare throughout Hindoostan, and 
 of that they now took advantage. One of them feigns to be sick of it, and 
 lies at full length on a seat — his head wrapped in a white handkerchief, 
 whenever the train comes to a stoppage at a station. Those who would come 
 into the carriage are asked not to sit too near the sick one, and informed of the 
 sad state of the matter, and that our friend is on his way to the hospital. As 
 there is an hospital in every city, that is not far from the truth. The end is 
 said to justify the means used, and it is by such bamboozling that my lively 
 friends gain their end, and "Hold the Fort," as they term it, against all 
 comers. 
 
Delhis — Past ajid Present. 285 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 IXDIA's MOHAMMEDAN CAPITAL. 
 
 " TiMOUR the Tartar" and " The Great Mogul" are historic characters, of 
 whom every one has heard. The next stage in my Hindoostan journey intro- 
 duces me to that Delhi — the Mohammedan capital of India, which they made 
 as famous in the world as themselves. I am in such haste to see Delhi that I 
 overrun another city by the way, to which I must return, as it has a name in 
 the story lately made more prominent even than this great Delhi, though from 
 other and sadder causes. I had heard of the Mogul's city in early youth, how- 
 ever, and of Cawnpore not until recently. Youthful impressions being of the 
 strongest, Delhi so draws me to it, irresistibly. Literature has helped to its 
 great fame. Many of the scenes of Lalla Rookh are laid there, and Moore's 
 pleasant imagery and word-painting take hold of the reader, and remain in the 
 memory — thus giving to Delhi a poetical, equally with an historical, interest. 
 
 In Indian names particularly are the changes observable that we see in all 
 earthly things — Delhi is here spelled " Dehli," and Mogul is now modernized 
 into " Mughul" and " Mughal." The famous city is some thousand miles from 
 Calcutta, nearly as far from Bombay, and on the west bank of the Jumna 
 River. A fine high-level bridge, the grandest in India, of lattice girder form, 
 iron build, and twelve spans of two hundred feet, is a good introduction to the 
 greatness of the city it leads to. The Delhi of to-day is but one of many 
 Delhis, the remains of which lie round about. It is the one, however, that 
 was taken by Lake at the siege of it by the English in 1S03. After fifty years' 
 possession, it had to be again besieged and retaken, after a far greater tussle, 
 in 1857, when the mutineers of that fatal year in India held it, well garrisoned, 
 for several months. Its greatness, even now, is testified by its selection for the 
 public proclamation of its last-made Empress. 
 
 It is a wonder of a city in the mere outside sight of it, and still more 
 wonderful in those surroundings which remain of its predecessors — the Delhis 
 of the past. A massive stone wall stretches for some seven miles around three 
 sides of it— the river guarding its fourth side. Ten or eleven gates can be counted 
 in the walk round, which takes up half a day — so many things are there to 
 detain one by the way, and so very warm is the climate. The many conquerors 
 that Delhi has had from times to which history runs, appear to have considered 
 a new city indispensable. The conquered one was therefore abandoned, and 
 its people set to work, as slaves, to build a new one. Hence the remains of 
 Delhis of the past, the ruins of which I shall see, after a look of what remains 
 of the present one. It is only the "remains" of the present Delhi that I can 
 see after all. I should have been here in the last century — about 173S — to 
 have seen Delhi in all its glory, ere the Persians then despoiled it. There are 
 things better worth seeing, however, in the present time — somewhere — as 
 there will be yet better ones in the future. The best sights that the world 
 has ever had to show its people are to be seen now. 
 
 The fine Shalimar Gardens are one of the exterior sights, and one that has 
 got a name of which the world has heard. Like the interior Great Mosque, 
 and that wonderful Kootub-^Iinar column that I shall yet see at one of the old 
 Delhis, these gardens are kept in a fit state. The present ruling power in 
 India thus acknowledsres throushout the land the great worth of the works of 
 
286 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 genius and talent of which it seems rightly enough to look upon itself as but a 
 trustee. Thus I shall find the grand Taj Mahal at Agra in as well-kept state 
 as it was in the lifetime of its builder. 
 
 Entering by the Lahore gate, and that by accident only, I come at once 
 upon Delhi's chief street, the fine Chandni Chouk, or " street of silver." This 
 goodly thoroughfare is of about a hundred feet broad, and nearly a mile 
 in length, with a double row of trees adown the centre, between which is a 
 raised walk. The city has another street, less given to business, but of about 
 the same noble proportions and minus the central tree avenue. Madras, Cal- 
 cutta, Benares, Lucknow, and Delhi, as I have seen them, are all on the 
 ascending scale in the traveller's estimation, and for that reason he is glad that 
 his curiosity has led him onwards. 
 
 The Chandni Chouk alluded to, is the combined Cheapside and Regent 
 Street of the city. Here are found the stores of ihe leading dealers, and those 
 merchants whose presence is not so publicly announced, but who have to be 
 found in first floors, and away in back buildings. More prominent are the 
 dealers in Cashmere shawls and caps, and those labours of the needle called 
 "chicken work." Also, the vendors of gold, silver, and silk embroidered 
 work, and the gold and silversmiths, whose delicate efforts, "filagree work," 
 are of world-wide note. It is impossible for the most determined economist 
 not to purchase Cashmere caps, and something in the way of this delicate jewel- 
 lery, as also some of the carved ivory work, which is another of Delhi's industries. 
 Such purchases would fail to impoverish the smallest purse — so cheap is all 
 Hindoo labour. 
 
 I invade the warehouses of the merchants in out-of-the-way holes and 
 corners, and have unlocked for me safes, boxes, and chests, in which every- 
 thing appears to be kept from, instead of for, show. It has all a very antique 
 air — this way of doing business ; but I forget that Eastern fashions are as 
 they ever were and will be. A concession has been made, however, in that 
 respect in Delhi, by most of the traders putting up their names and specialities 
 of their wares in more languages than one. The like is done with the names 
 of the streets. It shows thoughtfulness for the world generally to see this, and 
 but reminds one of the many foreigners with whom Delhi has changed hands. 
 
 "With whom Delhi has changed hands !" The first Delhi that one reads 
 of existed nearly two thousand years before our era. It was Hindoo then, and 
 afterwards Afghan, till the Tartar Timour came in 139S and destroyed that 
 Delhi, and its population also. His descendant, Baber, built a new one, and 
 made a great place, indeed, of it ; and a greater still was made of it by his 
 descendants, until Nadir Shah, the Persian, came in 1739 and drove out the 
 Tartar dynasty, repeating then that sacking of the city and the massacre of its 
 people which the Tartars made three hundred and forty years before. To that 
 succeeded a Mahratta dynasty, which was displaced by the British in 1803. 
 Delhi is the centre of a rich province in India, that has been always an attrac- 
 tion to some invader or other who has not been so successful as England in 
 obtaining more extended possessions in the land. 
 
 Half of this city is of busy and business character, with the usual contracted 
 streets and huddled-up appearance that Eastern cities generally show. The 
 other half is of a " West End " and open character, to which public gardens 
 contribute their share. The Delhi that I am now looking at was begun by 
 Shah Jehan the Magnificent in 163 1 ; he who built the world-famous tomb at 
 Agra, as a monument to his Queen. His famous palace is now known as the 
 Fort, to which purpose the red granite walls with which it is surrounded 
 greatly help. Shah Jehan was a sort of Louis the Fourteenth in his magnifi- 
 cent ideas and doings, and this Delhi Palace of his was meant for a Hindoo- 
 stanee Versailles. Of that there can be no doubt, as the visitor reads, as I do. 
 
INTERIOR OF PALACE, DELHI. 
 
 f'age 28 
 
Desecrations in Delhi. 287 
 
 at each end of one of its halls the well-known inscription that Moore's " Lalla 
 Rookh " tells of — here lettered in gold in the Persian language — 
 
 " If there is Paradise upon Earth, 
 It is here, it is here." 
 
 What idea this descendant of the great Mogul had of Paradise is all around 
 to be seen in whitest marble and finest alabaster. I enter through the hall of public 
 audience, and pass to the private one ; thence I am led to the music-hall, in 
 which a ball was given to English Royalty when lately represented here ; 
 after that several pavilions, and a sort of throne-room and judgment-hall are 
 visited. The walls of most of these halls are inlnid with rich mosaic work 
 representing flowers, fruits, and birds of India — all of such work being in rare 
 stones. The ceilings, once figured in silver filagree work, are supported on 
 elegant pillars that have between some of them richly wrought alabaster 
 screens, reaching half-way up from the floor. It is all a bare, empty, and un- 
 furnished scene now, and a desolate one to boot. The most valuable of the 
 rare stones have l)een picked froni out the wall decorations, and the silver work 
 has been pulled out from the ceilings. 
 
 Enough is left to show that it must all hereabout have once approached that 
 barbaric splendour which is so thoroughly Eastern. When the furnishings 
 were here in the days of the golden throne and the ivory and jewelled ones, 
 the sight presented can be well imagined. It can be better imagined if the 
 absent lamps are included, as also the dark -eyed houris who go so far to make 
 up Asiatic notions of heaven. Of the treasures taken hence by Nadir Shah, in 
 the Persian invasion of the last century, was a parrot constructed of one 
 emerald — the largest stone of that rarest of gems that the world has seen. 
 The golden throne and the Queen's peacock one, made all of jewels and ivory, 
 and valued at six millions sterling, were also part of the spoil. From a 
 picture of that last valuable, it is to be seen that the peacock's tail blazed with 
 diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, and was likely enough of the immense value 
 stated. The Persian despoiler probably thought such luxuries to be unneces- 
 sary to the furnishing of a Paradise, and differed therein from the more 
 sensuous, but less sensual, Hindoo. We know, on Byron's authority, that a 
 Persian's heaven is easily made, being summed up, he said, in the simple ideas 
 of "black eyes and lemonade." 
 
 That Persian despoilment of Delhi is said to have robbed it of a hundred 
 millions sterling in value. After such a frightful extent of robbery there followed 
 the massacre of the people and their personal plunder by the troops. The 
 vitality of the city is in nothing more shown than its rallying after such 
 tremendous and repeated crushings. Other cities have been left, after the like 
 calamities, to crumble to that more complete ruin which comes from the hand 
 of Time — gentlest of all destroyers. The jewelled mosaic work has been 
 partly restored by paste, cement, and putty. Some foil-leaf and Dutch metal 
 have been used to represent the silver and gold once present. A Sepoy 
 soldier here on guard replaces the Mogul ; while an old woman, carrying a 
 broom, a slop-pail, and a house-flannel, is all that is feminine now left of 
 the thousand and one houris, the Lalla Rookh beauties, of " the earthly 
 paradise." 
 
 The traveller through India thus finds here that he is a day after the fair, 
 and must see Delhi in all its glory in the mind's eye only. The grandeur that 
 was so shorn by the invaders cannot be e.stimated in money. The emerald 
 parrot, and the jewelled peacock, and golden thrones, were but a part of what 
 made a paradise of Delhi's palace. The rest can be filled in by the imagin- 
 ation of those who look now upon that which is left. I do so as one who stands 
 by the empty tables after the feast is cleared away and the company have gone, 
 taking music, song, and dance with them. Even that picture does not wholly 
 
288 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 represent the sad state of things here seen, which is as the condition of a 
 mansion not only after the feast but after a sale of furniture and fixtures by a 
 hostile creditor, who tears away cornices, mantelpieces, sideboards, and 
 grates, in a desire to despoil for his own profit. 
 
 In that idea of the state of Delhi, I walk about its deserted palace, into the 
 throne-room and up the steps that lead to a marble throne still there. I notice 
 now other decorative work on the walls and pillars, one of which is a complete 
 
 picture in mosaic, representing the old fable of Orpheus charming the beasts 
 
 the masterpiece, I am told, of a great European artist, imported for the special 
 decorating of this palace. I step over the low marble railings, and rest for a 
 while on the throne of the Great Mogul ! Such presumption on my part took 
 place at 7 a.m., when there was no one about but the sepoy guard and the old 
 woman laundress to constitute a court. It was not easy to get up the feelings 
 proper to an absolute monarch under those circumstances, otherwise I might 
 have given orders after the olden style of doing things here. Such would have 
 been caricatured in my bidding the soldier to strike off the old woman's 
 head, or to bowstring her and throw her, tied in a sack, into the Jumna. 
 So to do would have been but realizing one's proper position — seated as I was. 
 As it is only once in a lifetime that one gets to a place accredited on such 
 high authority as being Paradise, I am loath to leave it. We have to take 
 some one's word for everything, and the Mogul's word stood for much indeed 
 in his day. Save the present Empress, he was the most powerful ruler who 
 was ever in Hindoostan. In that way I must respect his earthly paradise, so 
 called in the words that are still as plain as when here first inlaid. That they 
 have been so preserved is due to their being in black and valueless stone. In 
 green, bloodstone, or lapis lazuli, they would have been probably half effaced 
 by the stones being picked out from their inlaying. I pass into the deserted 
 seraglio and imperial baths in which water and mirrors make fantastic effects— 
 the sides being lined with reflecting glass. From here, if I bathed, and were a 
 Mohammedan, I might next pass into the " Pearl Mosque " — a wonder of white 
 stone and exquisite taste, and quite the place of worship fit for a paradise. A 
 chapel built of white satin or bride-cake sugar is the nearest approach that 
 western-world ideas could get of this palace of prayer. 
 
 Passing from this Pearl Mosque, I depart from the scene, and, for the sake 
 of contrast, proceed to the largest mosque existing in India, and which may 
 dispute supremacy with that of St. Sophia at Constantinople, or that of Hassan 
 at Cairo. This Jumma Musjid of Delhi is all of red stone and marble 
 throughout, the three white domes having lately been renovated by order of the 
 British Government. Its minarets are 150 feet high, and give one, from their 
 summits, a goodly outlook over Delhi. Seen as I see it, the morning sun 
 lighting up its trio of glistening cupolas, it looks a king and a glory of a mosque, as 
 it is. This costly edifice, like the more costly palace, was the work of slave labour, 
 as was likewise the wondrous tomb that I shall see at Agra. Slave labour is 
 the secret of the wonders of architectural India, and the secret, also, how the 
 builder's dynasty came to an end in Hindoostan, and also how he himself came to 
 lack all sympathy when his son imprisoned and, it is believed, poisoned him in 
 order to gain his throne — such being the end of Shah Jehan the Magnificent. 
 
 Passing outwards through one of the half-score of gates, my notice is called 
 to marks upon it and upon the adjoining walls, of that terrible mutiny of 1857, 
 of which I have seen so many traces at Lucknow. The mutinous Sepoys 
 made a resort and a stronghold of Delhi, and those in garrison there joined 
 them, shut the gates, and massacred those of the Europeans who failed to 
 escape. The native reigning king was a pensioner of England, drawing a 
 hundred and twenty thousand a year. He was under British protection, but, 
 perhaps compulsorily, turned traitor and sided with the rebels. When reprisals 
 
Wojiders Aroimd Delhi. 289 
 
 came about, himself and his two sons were shot ; and, since that time, the 
 representative of the Great Mogul, Shah Jehan the ^Magnificent, and the Grand 
 Aurungzebe, has been a resident commissioner and revenue collector. He 
 lives in a plain house, and uses a common chair instead of a throne of gold. 
 Such seat is safer of the two. 
 
 Delhi, when so held by sixty thousand of native mutineer soldiery, was be- 
 sieged by a force of seven thousand. They worked long, and at great loss, to 
 make a breach at the Cashmere Gate, and in the neighbouring wall. Such 
 breach was at last made, and those who would be first to dare death poured 
 through it to what was as certain destruction. It proved so to eleven hundred 
 men and sixty-six officers ; but they died, knowing that Delhi was taken. 
 General John Nicholson who led the attack, has a tomb near to this point, and 
 another one records that it is to the memory of those of the British army who 
 were killed between May and September, 1857. The assault told of was on the 
 13th of the last-named month. Delhi, it seems, in that four months, cost the 
 British 186 officers, and a total of nearly 4CXX), whom this monument tells of 
 as being killed. 
 
 In the Northbrook Hotel, at which I am housed, my sleep is disturbed 
 nightly by a mongoose, which ferret-like thing pushes away the screen that 
 stands in the doorway, and comes around in search of rats and snakes. The 
 animal is as useful, but not as quiet, as a cat. I get alarmed at the noise for 
 the first and second nights, until I complain of the matter, and learn the 
 customs of the country. I noticed one custom that I think might be mended. 
 I hear a heavy fall just outside the bath-room one morning, and looking out 
 see two Hindoos engaged on the ground in an earnest and silent fight ; no effort 
 is made to rise, the hair of one clasped in the fist of the other, and he is 
 chewing away at the knuckles of the other's hand. I notice that no passer- 
 by interferes in the matter, and so adjudge it to be all right, though it looks to 
 English eyes an unfair way of fighting. 
 
 Journeying out from the city for several miles, I pass the ruins of the previous 
 cities. The first seen are the vestiges of the earliest known Delhi, the remains 
 of which are said to be thirty miles in circuit. The Delhi of a later date has 
 something more distinguishable to show, and again that of a still more recent 
 period shows fine tombs and buildings still standing. These claim the travel- 
 ler's attention as much as anything within the Delhi of to-day, and are, in 
 some respects which I shall now name, of infinitely more interest. About 
 four miles from the city two kings of the Mogul dynasty have magnificent 
 tombs of red stone and white, facing each other, at the ends of a grand avenue 
 of trees. One is the Taj, or tomb, of the father of the famous Akbar, and 
 near to him are smaller mausoleums of those whom Hindoostan delights to 
 honour. One of these is pointed out to me by my guide as that of the author 
 of the "Arabian Nights." His tomb records him as being " Amir Khusroo, 
 first among the Persian poets of India." 
 
 I had thought that the authorship of the famous entertainer of our youth 
 was unknown, but we travel to learn. Khusroo's position in India is like that 
 of Chaucer in England, his Bagh Bahar, or Garden of Delights, being the 
 best remembered of his writings. My guide appeals to the custodian of the 
 place as to his statements, and gets them confirmed. I am satisfied an}' way, 
 and the author of the famous story-book may have been Khusroo as likely as 
 not. By his name he is of a Persian descent, and presumably a Mohammedan. 
 The "Thousand and One Stories" tell us clearly enough about a I^Iohammedan 
 people, and of their morals, manners, and observances, which are in favour of 
 the claim made for Khusroo's authorship. 
 
 Here, also, is one tomb most notable among all the grand ones in the land 
 of India. A railing surrounds it, and nothing but grass covers it. It might 
 
 U 
 
290 The Main Routes Round the Wo? Id. 
 
 be taken for the grave of a pauper, did not the headstone tell one that it is 
 that of a princess. I may say, looking at it, that the two grandest tombs in 
 Hindoostan cover those of the family of Shah Jehan. The marble wonder 
 which I shall see at Agra memorializes his queen, and this equally great wonder, 
 in another way, his daughter. Where display in tombs seems to be, as in 
 India, the one thing desired, such disregard of it as here shown by one of 
 womankind, and a princess to boot, is beyond all expectation. The record 
 on the headstone reads, translated, thus : — 
 
 " Let no rich canopy cover my tomb, 
 The grass is the proper covering for the grave of the poor in spirit. 
 The humble, the transitory Jehanara, 
 Daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan." 
 
 None reading this but must think of what is promised to " the poor in spirit" 
 in a certain Sermon on the Mount, by One of whom this meek princess knew 
 nothing ! Who can but hope that, notwithstanding her ignorance of the 
 promise, she yet found herself to be included in it, as also in the blessing and 
 the kingdom ? 
 
 I leave unnoticed the grand towering tombs of the kings that attracted me 
 hither, and inquire about Khusroo and Jehanara. She had, I find, sad cause 
 for the broken-heartedness that may be inferred from her self-written epitaph. 
 She saw her younger brother cause the imprisonment of her father and the 
 death of his l)rothers, that he might gain the throne he then usurped. Melan- 
 choly at that event had seized upon her, much as it did upon Hamlet for like 
 cause. She left the court of the blood-stained fratricide, and secluded herself 
 from a world that recognized brother's murders and the imprisonment of a 
 father as of the ways to its highest honours. The monstrous murderer who 
 caused all this misery is known to the world as the great Emperor Aurungzebe. 
 
 I am beckoned away from these amazing tombs by the lofty tower of the 
 Kootub Minar, that is growing nearer to the view. Progressing towards it, 
 the guide draws me aside to a large and deep tank, surrounded by old decaying 
 buildings. One is a mosque, on the dome of which several Hindoos are 
 standing. Their purpose is to jump therefrom into the pool below for my 
 surprise — on proper payment. A rupee each suffices for that, which the guide 
 arranges. Two Hindoos then run down the rounded surface of the dome, and 
 jump, flinging their legs widely apart when doing so. It looks a fearful fall to 
 my eyes, and of fully sixty feet. The legs are brought rapidly close together 
 just before they touch the water. The terrible jump can be done, I am told, 
 in no other way. The extension of the legs keeps the body from turning over, 
 and the bringing them together at the water's surface saves the diver from 
 injury there. 
 
 The Kootub Minar is a sight to remember for a lifetime. It is simply the 
 largest shaft, the grandest pillar, the tallest and most costly column, that the 
 world can show ! It is an architectural wonder as regard labour, art, elegance, 
 and strength ; built, it is told me, for a muezzin, or prayer-saying tower, or 
 minaret, by the first Mohammedan king of Delhi, Kootubredin, in 1 190. It 
 is of red stone for the three lower stories, and of red stone and marble for the 
 two upper ones. All, however, look as fresh, and its endless carvings as 
 clearly cut, as if but done last year. This glory of a pillar is cherished by the 
 British Government, who spent lately ^{^2000 in arrangements for its permanent 
 preservation. Its height is 250 feet, the diameter at the l>ase 48 feet, tapering 
 away to 9 feet only at the summit. Everything is both great and graceful 
 about this pillar. 
 
 Each of the five stories is surrounded with a stone-railed balcony, of a 
 design appropriate to the architecture of that portion. Such differs for each of 
 the stories — differently shaped pillars, all richly carved and capped, being the 
 
The Wondrous Kootub. 291 
 
 idea seen in the first three stories of this tower. In the two upper ones the 
 perpendicular pillars are, as it were, laid horizontally, and appear as bands or 
 belts of stonework. Scrolls or inscriptions in that most tasteful-looking of all 
 writing, the Arabic character, appear at intervals, and in that way I am told 
 that the Koran is pretty well reproduced in stone lettering around this 
 astonishing column. 
 
 The whole is a great study, as a grand combination of architectural ideas, in 
 all of which elegance is allied with great strength. The effect on the visitor is 
 according to temperament ; the excitable are full of loud admiration ; but 
 others seem dazed and subdued to quietude by a majesty that approaches the 
 sublime, so far as stonework can represent it. Hours are spent in wandering 
 around and sitting about at different points of view to gaze at what so 
 fascinates one. The ascent is, from the large size of the pillar, made with the 
 greatest ease — the four hundred steps leading one around to the summit with 
 scarcely a feeling of fatigue. The view from that position is over a scene of 
 desolation and ruined greatness that is quite deplorable, amid which the two 
 palace-tombs of the great kings, and this wondrous column stand prominent. 
 
 Descending from this Minar or minaret, I walk amid the trees, shrubs, and 
 scattered stonework, amongst which it stands. Go where I will, however, my 
 eyes wander back to the one thing, which is everything in the scene here — the 
 grand tower that one never tires of gazing upon, and to see which alone is 
 worth the journey to Hindoostan. Near to the Kootub column is the strange 
 Iron Pillar, of which twice as much is below the surface as the twenty feet 
 that now appear above it. It is a solid shaft of metal, a foot and a half in 
 circumference, that was made with a sharp point and driven into the earth. 
 
 One Pithoora, the last of the dynasty of the Hindoo kings of Delhi, con- 
 sulted the priests as to the preservation of his throne. When such folks are 
 consulted, they must say something in compliment for the advice asked. The 
 priests consulted, and made the matter inquired about quite clear to the king. 
 Dynasties are changed by the agency of the god Lishay, who dwells under- 
 ground, lying low and keeping dark for such purpose. It was known where 
 his head lay, just hereabout, and this pillar was to pierce it and pin him down. 
 Pithoora doubted its having done so, and had it pulled up — an operation at 
 which the priests were careful to attend. The end was, of course, found 
 covered with blood, but the king was advised that his want of faith had lost 
 the kingdom to his successors. Lishay had been now let loose to do more 
 mischief. It happened, accordingly, as prophesied, and is all a great lesson to 
 doubters. 
 
 India is the land of the wonderful, and the proper home of all that is 
 imaginative, fantastic, sensuous, and extravagant. Its past has been as the 
 transformation scene of an extravaganza. It is something, I think as I leave 
 Delhi, to have, in so seeing it, realised " Lalla Rookh." 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE TOMB-CITY OF HINDOOSTAN. 
 
 Between the glories of Delhi and those of Agra, the traveller in India comes 
 upon the gloom of a city, that, to British ears, has a name as notable as either 
 of them. Such is Cawnpore — which I now reach — famous for the sufferings 
 of its people in the year '57. The massacres and martyrdoms here memo- 
 rialized have made the city quite a monumental one. It is with British visitors 
 
 U 2 
 
292 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 remembered only by some such title as that by which I have headed this 
 chapter. " Cawnpore !" I heard one such afterwards remark; "that's where 
 we saw all the tombstone inscriptions !" 
 
 The visitors to this city of sad interest go there as one would to a battle- 
 field, or to the grounds of Pere-la-Chaise when at Paris. It is impossible to 
 ignore the great interest of that which is tragic ; and tragedy is to many minds 
 more humanizing in its influence than comedy. Life cannot be all laughter. 
 The clouds follow the sunshine, and bring the rain ; and grief follows joy, and 
 brings tears with it. We go to see Cawnpore as we would see Hamlet or 
 Macbeth. The dark blue sky of India has been terribly clouded for humanity, 
 at many times, ancient and modern ; but, for Great Britain and her family, never 
 more so than in '57. 
 
 At Agra I shall see but the Taj Mahal — that one tomb which is the grandest 
 building that the world can show. At Cawnpore I shall see many — a whole 
 cityful — that are more of personal interest to an Englishman than any monument 
 to an Indian Queen. We visit Westminster Abbey as we do the Crystal Palace, 
 and the sombre sight of the mural tablets is found to be of more lasting 
 interest than the glittering attractions of the gayer scene. All the East is full 
 of wells, from which water is drawn daily, after the fashion we have seen from 
 youth illustrated in familiar prints. I had never looked upon any of these 
 wells but thoughts would come of one well at Cawnpore, of its contents and of 
 its covering, with particulars of which history has made us sadly familiar. 
 
 Travellers in India become intimately acquainted with these wayside wells. 
 The water-carriers, here called " Bheestis," are always going or coming to 
 them, with their goatskins full or empty. From them I drink by the handful, 
 as I must do also at the wells, common drinking from one cup not being 
 the fashion of the land. This well-water, in a thirsty land, is entirely that for 
 which Keats so wished : — 
 
 " A draught of vintage, that had been 
 
 Cool'd a long age in the deep delved earth, 
 Tasting of flora and the country green. 
 Dance, and Provengal song, and sunburnt mirth." 
 
 If water could be ever said to taste of those qualities, this well-water of India 
 must have a claim to such titles, and to the "sunburnt" mirth especially. It 
 is a water that is used only for drinking and cooking purposes, being far too 
 hard for personal washing or for u^e by the laundress. For such uses river 
 water is resorted to, of which there is evidence at every stream. The water of 
 no Eastern river seems to be sought for drinking. The Ganges and the 
 Jordan are sacred streams, but they are muddy ones as well — of the yellowish 
 colour of the Tiber, and look as little drinkable. The laundress of India 
 is always of masculine gender, and known as the " Dhobee." He is to be seen 
 at work at the river side, surrounded with smooth stones, on and between 
 which he is always dabbing and beating the article to be washed — which is his 
 idea of cleaning it. Such is the custom of the country, and the linen so treated 
 comes back to one in strange fashion indeed. It looks dingier than when sent 
 away, seems to be only rough-dried, and has half the buttons smashed that are 
 not knocked or washed off. Between the Hindoo and the Chinee are all the 
 points of gradation in laundry work ; the Chinaman is best of all laundresses, 
 and the Hindoo simply the worst. 
 
 One attraction that the wells have to the traveller, beyond the draught 
 of water which he seeks, is found in the company there assembled. Mounting 
 the three or four steps leading to the platforms around the wells, I always find 
 there, besides the professional water-carriers, many amateurs. These are 
 always young women, who carry now, as seen in the Bible pictures of old, their 
 pitchers in hand when empty and on the head when full. They linger at the 
 
Cazunpore Characteristics. 293 
 
 well to talk, as did the woman we have read of at the well of Samaria. To 
 the sides of the wells are wooden uprights, and a transverse beam, to which is 
 suspended a long pole. To one end of that is a goat-skin bag that serves as a 
 bucket, and to the other end of the pole is a bag of stones. The bucket, or 
 long end of the lever, is pulled downwards to the water, and when filled, the 
 weight at the other end assists in raising it, as also to keeping the bucket 
 elevated when not in use. 
 
 The goat-skins of water carried about everywhere, and used even to the 
 watering of the streets, are made of the entire skin of a large goat. It has 
 been ripped down the under side and sewn up again. The leg skins are 
 shortened by tying up, and this receptacle is filled and emptied from the neck 
 part. When full and carried about, the skins look in the distance like the 
 distended body of a goat that has been for some time in the water, and is not, 
 therefore, a pleasant sight. When I first saw a Bheesti and his water-pack, 
 he was engaged filling that "tub " used all over India for the morning bath. 
 I scarcely fancied the water from such a queer-looking, not to say disgusting, 
 conveyance ; but when seen daily in common use such delicacy of taste 
 is deadened, and one becomes less nice about it. 
 
 At Cawnpore I find the usual large and strongly-built station that dis- 
 tinguishes Indian railways. These stations look out of all proportion to the 
 requirements of the towns to which they are attached. The thought grows 
 upon one that they are intended, when wanted, to serve other purposes, and 
 hence their fort -like strength of building. With the network of railways 
 throughout Hindoostan a series of forts have l)een thus built that may one day 
 be needed. The public buildings had, as already seen, often served for defence 
 purposes, as these might yet do ; and so here were walls of three feet in thick- 
 ness, to carry roofs for which less strength would have sufficed. The city that 
 I have now reached is on a plain, and has from fifty to a hundred thousand or 
 so of inhabitants. Lying on the right bank of the Ganges, it is watered by 
 a canal from that river, which runs through the town. Around it are large 
 plantations of sugar-cane, which seem here to take the place that indigo and 
 opium occupied between Calcutta and Benares. 
 
 On the principle of shutting the stable door when, etc., one-half of Cawn- 
 pore appears to be in military occupation — so large is the barrack accommoda- 
 tion that I see about. The city has, to the traveller's eye, a barren and 
 straggling appearance, compared with walled Delhi, and is altogether, as a 
 city, not worth coming out of the way to look at. Its great canal is of British 
 formation, as I might have guessed from the usefulness of it. It was not the 
 policy of India's other rulers to do anything of a useful sort for the people. In 
 the way of a great work it is second only to the railways, and to that grand 
 bridge over the Jumna seen at Delhi. The gorgeous edifices of slave labour 
 are what India's previous owners have left as evidence of their occupation. 
 England's efforts in the building way throughout India are seen in schools, 
 mission houses. State " Residencies," and other Civil Service buildings of the 
 useful and non-ornamental kind. 
 
 A drive around the European, or "foreign," part of the city occupies the 
 morning until tiffin time. I find quarters at a bungalow-looking hotel, known as 
 " Germany's." The landlord, whom I want to see because I am told he speaks 
 English, is not now to be seen. The reason thereof is one quite in keeping 
 with one's thoughts of Cawnpore. He had been stabbed the day previously, 
 in a quarrel with a native, and was now under surgical treatment. The gentle- 
 man who had been so handy with the knife had been locked up — after whom I 
 inquired, fearing he might be "running-a-muck," as the Malays will do. It 
 was not such a case of madness, I was told, but merely one of jealousy. Like 
 most quarrels between men, a daughter of Eve — a dusky one of this land — had 
 
294 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 been the cause of it. Of that reason I was glad to hear, as I had never, here 
 or elsewhere, found any one in the slightest way jealous about me. The cause 
 for that, so far as I ever learnt, was not complimentary, but here I reap the 
 benefit of it, in travelling India without a fear of the fate of my host. 
 
 My eyes are opened, however, to the full meaning of a notice that hangs on 
 the wall of my bedroom, which is very suggestive when Cawnpore's name is 
 thought of, as likewise my stabbed host. Such notice reads thus : — 
 
 " Visitors will be good enough not to kick or strike the hotel servants, but to complain of 
 any misconduct to the proprietor ; also to lock up their bedrooms (but not the bath-room) 
 before going out." 
 
 The reference so made to ill-treating the natives is not a pleasant reminder 
 to me of the habits of Britons when abroad. I take it as rather rude that I 
 need be reminded in this way how to behave myself. Any want of good 
 manners would not be likely to be shown by me in this quarter. I am about 
 to see, after tiffin, how the vengeance of the natives was wreaked on a host of 
 people who did not personally deserve it. I need little telling, therefore, not 
 to bring any such deservedly upon myself. I am particularly careful to give 
 no trouble to any attendant at Germany's, or elsewhere in this peculiar place. 
 
 A second perambulation of the city takes me into the "chouk," or native 
 town, in the characteristics of which there is nothing to be seen of any note. 
 I pass through its long and narrow streets to what lies beyond, much as the 
 traveller in Belgium hurries through the two conjoined villages that lie on the 
 road from Brussels and Fleur de Lis, to those fields and farms away at the 
 other end, known to the world as the scene of Waterloo. On that field a 
 huge mound, that might for size be built of the bones of the slain collected 
 from the neighbourhood, is surmounted by the stone figure of an angry lion. 
 That to which I now make my way turns out to be a well-planted garden — 
 iron-railed around. A well within — now and for ever closed — takes the place 
 of the mound seen at Waterloo ; and the finely-sculptured figure of a winged 
 angel looks pityingly upon the scene. 
 
 Situated in this garden are many enclosures. The principal one — that in- 
 closing the well — is surrounded by a freestone w^all, having cut interspaces, 
 through which the interior can be viewed. The mouth of the well has been 
 surrounded by masonry, and closed by heavy slabs cemented in their places. 
 On this stands Baron Marochetti's sculptured figure, so often pictured — the 
 angel with clasped hands and downcast eyes, a look of contemplation and sad- 
 ness. In the clasped hands are held two large palm leaves, the stalks of which 
 cross each other over the figure's breast, and bend over either shoulder. These 
 emblems of peace add greatly to the solemnity and sadness with which it is 
 intended the spectator should be impressed. 
 
 The one fault of the monument lies with the architect — either the Gothic 
 stonework screen is too high, or the figure of the angel is placed too low. It 
 should show above the surrounding stonework, and be raised to sufficient 
 height for such purpose by additional slabs laid for its foundation. Looked at, 
 as it must be now, through the cut screenwork, it is seen to disadvantage. 
 Photographers have sought to mend what the architect has failed in, by placing 
 their cameras at a low elevation, and so apparently raising the figure of the 
 angel half-way above the surrounding stonework — in which position it shows to 
 advantage. In the pictured representations this monument therefore appears 
 to better effect than it does here, to the visitor's eyes. The pedestal, on which 
 the figure stands, has this inscription — seldom correctly copied : — 
 
 " Sacred to the perpetual memory of a great company of Christian people, chiefly women 
 and children, who near this spot were cruelly massacred by the followers of the rebel Nana 
 Dhoodopval of Bithoor, and cast, the dying with the dead, into the well below, on the 15th 
 July, 1857 
 
A Mo7iumental City. 295 
 
 It is said that this well contains many hundred bodies — calculated only by 
 those who have been missed. Their remains were never disturbed ; and never 
 it is to be hoped will be so, until the "great company of Christian people 
 chiefly women and children," shall be raised by another angel than the symbo- 
 lical one that now so patiently watches above them. When thought is given 
 to whom this monument is raised, how blamelessly they suftered, and how 
 dreadful such sufferings were, the hope that I have endeavoured to express will 
 be shared by every pitying spirit. 
 
 In this monumental garden another stone-cut record tells further how the in- 
 nocent suffered through the savagery of Asiatic nature, running riot. It 
 reads — 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of the women and children of the late ill-fated ist Company of the 
 6th Battalion of Bengal Artillery, who were massacred near to this spot by the mutineers, on 
 the iSth July, 1857." 
 
 Seldom is it that the wives and families of soldiers so share the fate, and find 
 a similar grave to those of their husbands and fathers. 
 
 Not all of the graves have records above them. Many nameless mounds 
 stand in little groves of tropical shrubs and flowering trees, the occupants of 
 which are only mentioned on the walls of the Memorial Church. The monu- 
 ments are too plentiful, however, and all bear inscriptions that detain attention. 
 I copy from one inscription : — 
 
 " To the memory of the women and children of Her Majesty's 52nd Regiment, who were 
 slaughtered near to this spot on the i6th of July, 1857. This memorial was raised to their 
 memory by twenty men of the same regiment, who passed through Cawnpore, November 20, 
 1857-" 
 
 Such record shows that these monuments were not all erected at Government 
 cost. The soldiers of the regiment named were in pursuit of those who had 
 done this work of massacre, when they so stayed for a while to subscribe to 
 this memorial. It will be noted on these three monuments, that they are to 
 women and children only ; also, it will be seen by the dates — the 15th, i6th, 
 and 1 8th — that this massacre of the innocents continued for days. I come now 
 to a monument on which the name of a man is recorded, who seems, however, 
 to have been only included as one of his murdered family : — 
 
 " To the memory of Judge R. B. Thornhill, Mary his wife, and their two children, who 
 were massacred on the 15th July, 1857." 
 
 The graves of the men who fell in this uprising of the natives are in another 
 part of Cawnpore. Leaving these memorial gardens in which it is seemingly 
 fit should grow only the cypress and mournful yew, as also that rue which Ophelia 
 tells us is " for remembrance," I passed to another quarter of the town, where 
 men murdered men, and not women and children. The enclosure here railed oft' 
 marks the place of "Wheeler's Entrenchment," in which General Wheeler, 
 his regiment, and some European civilians, defended themselves for three 
 weeks. They held their own for that time under the fire of the mutinous Sepoy 
 troops, who outnumbered the besieged British as twenty to one. A fine and 
 large memorial cross here covers another well, that has also served for tomb 
 purposes. This well, during the three weeks' warfare, was that from which 
 Wheeler and his men daily drew supplies, under the fire of the enemy. The 
 inscription above its now banked-up mouth reads: — 
 
 " In a well under this cross were laid bj- the hands of their fellows in suffering, the bodies 
 of men, women, and children, who died hard by here, during the heroic defence of Wheeler's 
 entrenchment, when beleaguered by the rebel Nana, from June 6th to 27th, 1S57." 
 
 Those who escaped from Cawnpore at the time of its surprise by the muti- 
 neers, do not seem to have had better fortune than those who remained. They 
 fell into the hands of the enemy elsewhere, by the evidence that other raised 
 mounds, and a monument, here ofter. 
 
296 The Main Routes Round the lVo?'ld. 
 
 " In three graves within this enclosure lie the remains of Major Edward Vibart, 2nd 
 Bengal Light Cavalry, and above 70 officers and soldiers, who were on the ist July, 1857, 
 murdered by the rebels at Sheerajpoor, after escaping from Cawnpore on 27th June, 1857. 
 
 With Macbeth, when the witches in the fourth act show him the apparitions, 
 I feel inclined to say, — 
 
 "What? will the list stretch out to the crack of doom? 
 Another and another yet? — I'll see no more !" 
 
 I must yet do so, however, if I visit the Memorial Church of Cawnpore, 
 which is but a great collection of gravestones, set in tablet fashion on the walls. 
 Pages might be filled with copies of the sad records that here appear, only one 
 of which I transfer to my notes. I do so, closing the book, and vowing to 
 copy nothing more in the way of memorabilia of this city of sad memories. 
 
 " In memory of Colonel Berkeley; Captains Mansfield, Stevens, Moore, and Power; and 
 Lieutenants Case (eight others mentioned); also 448 non-commissioned officers; also Mrs. 
 Moore, Miss Wainwright, Mrs. Hill, 43 soldiers' wives, and 55 children of the 32nd Regiment 
 Light Infantry, killed a.d. 1857." 
 
 What a record ! The 448 non-commissioned officers are particularly con- 
 spicuous, and equally so are the fifty-five children, in this tombstone inscription, 
 that reads in its miscellaneous enumeration like a ship's list of passengers. 
 Captain Moore's wife seems to have met her husband's fate and that of those 
 forty-three other soldiers' wives who, dying in the same cause, share in some 
 unnamed spot, probably, the same sepulchre. 
 
 I read again at Germany's, with now renewed interest, that notice about 
 kicking or striking the native servants. I come back also to mine host, who 
 lies groaning from neglect of his own notice. I shall be civil enough, and 
 indeed feel as bound over, after to-day. to keep the peace towards all Hindoo- 
 stan. Two jugglers who come to the hotel verandah that afternoon are treated 
 by me with a courtesy only due to operatic prima donnas. I dread even to 
 insult them by the offer of the rupee given amongst others of their class seen 
 elsewhere, and so give these performers one a-piece. As it can hardly be an 
 insult to offer terms of purchase to an Asiatic, I propound terms to one of them, 
 through the agency of Bunda, who has been my guide for the day. 
 
 The object of the offer is to learn at what price, if any, I can buy the secret 
 of taking six stones, each of the size of a bantam's egg, one after another, out 
 of a mouth apparently empty on a previous inspection. The bland-looking, 
 smiling Hindoo who does this miracle before me, shows me, between the 
 taking from out of his mouth of each stone, that the said mouth is quite 
 empty. I see that it is so, and also a goodly length of his throat. To 
 satisfy me that nothing sticks by the way there, he drinks down half a pint of 
 water at a draught. He then rubs his chest three times, in place of muttering 
 a three-worded incantation, or of marching three times round a cauldron, after 
 the witch fashion in " Macbeth." That being done, he opens his mouth to 
 show me a large dark-looking stone lying on his tongue. It is a veritable 
 pebble, as the noise of its fall on the floor fully testifies. He brings forth 
 separately five more in the same way, and seems to have a large reserve 
 somewhere. 
 
 Terms of purchase, and all bribery, are scouted. The professor of magic 
 will keep his secrets. He persists in that, though I get Bunda to offer him an 
 undertaking in writing not to go into business as a magician within a thousand 
 miles of his circuit. He won't either take me as an apprentice at any premium, 
 nor as a partner. His wonderful art has descended to him as an heirloom, and 
 • he will keep it as such, and pass it downwards to son or nephew, who will 
 astonish travellers of another generation as much as this one does me. He 
 will not, therefore, part with this birthright of his for any mess of pottage that 
 I can offer him. 
 
Thirsty Feelings. 297 
 
 Mention o mess of pottage reminds me that this conservative Hindoo 
 declines to drink bottled beer, or anything else that I offer him in the way of 
 refreshment. Bunda tells me that such refusal by one who sits humbly on the 
 floor would be equally made to the Viceroy himself. On that shines out the 
 strength of the customs of the East ! That old Hebrew, Shylock, would, he 
 says, "buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, but will not eat with you." 
 This other man of the East, who deals with stones easily as an ostrich would, 
 goes further than Shylock, and will not deal any more than drink with me. 
 It is not true of all men of the Eastern world, as Walpole said, that "every 
 man has his price !" He learnt much of the world's ways as a politician only, 
 and not as a traveller. 
 
 The mention of that bottled beer offered to the wizard recalls to me the 
 dirhculty I often found in getting it. The few hotels are far apart, and only in 
 the European quarters of Indian cities. To drink water out of one's hands as 
 poured from the goat-skins of the carriers is tiresome, and water is not always 
 satisfying to thirst. A red Indian taken to London thought it a blessed place 
 indeed, "where a man could eat when he was hungry." I can in another 
 way among these sooty Indians comprehend that red one's thoughts. I can 
 understand also what large fortunes Bass and Allsopp have made in exports of 
 Indian pale ale. The surest way to fortune is to supply a great want ; and 
 light beer, and that by the bucketful, is what the thirsty souls long for in the 
 land of India. 
 
 In all the scenes of present and past Indian grandeur — in Dalhousie Square, 
 Calcutta ; in the ancient temples of Benares, and in the palaces of Lucknow — 
 the traveller feels that he could give, about mid-day, any one or half a dozen 
 of the gilded things around him for a drink of British beer. If it be a con- 
 fession of weakness so to say, then it must be remembered that open confessions 
 are good. The climate of Hindoostan is hot and enervating ; the temples 
 have steep steps, and tall, tiring minarets ; and the palaces have endless apart- 
 ments, and all dusty. What wonder then that the traveller feels very much 
 in the way the Scotch call " drouthy !" 
 
 By the end of some weeks of Hindoostanee travel the tourist comes to get 
 acquainted with the troubles of the coinage. Indian coinage begins very low 
 indeed. Eight clumsy little bits of copper, called "pice," make up an " anna," 
 of a third more in value than a penny. A lower representative of value even 
 than the pice is found in "cowries," small sea shells, of which I forget the 
 exact number that make up the equivalent of the smallest coin. Eight annas 
 go to the half-rupee, a silver piece of the size of a shilling. The rupee is the 
 coin of commerce, and is to India what the dollar is to America. It is of the 
 size, and of little more than the value of our florin, and has its silver divisions 
 into half, quarter, and eight pieces. Gold coins are never seen. The mohur 
 is out of circulation, like the English guinea, though the fees of barristers and 
 physicians are still reckoned in it. All calculations and accounts are kept 
 in rupees and annas, as they are in the States in dollars and cents. A "lac " 
 is a hundred thousand, and a " crore " is a million. 
 
 Five, ten, and twenty-rupee notes of the " Government of India" are issued, 
 and in circulation throughout the land. They do very well for Europeans, but 
 are not favoured by the natives. The Hindoo of the lower orders does not 
 understand paper money, and therefore it is, perhaps, that he has never any 
 change to give me for it. To get them to take the notes, endorsements are 
 asked for of one's name and last and present address, and that even to a five- 
 rupee note. As the recipients cannot read English, strange indeed is some of 
 the nonsense found written on these notes. 
 
 Before leaving Cawnpore, one naturally inquires as to one who, in con- 
 nexion with it, occupies the place that Satan does in " Paradise Lost," of which 
 
298 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 he has been said to be the hero. I allude to Nana Dhoodopval of Bithoor, 
 named on the "Well Monument." He acted as chief agent in the many 
 miseries by which Cawnpore is memorable, and made good his escape. It is 
 the general opinion that Nana Sahib, as he is generally called, has long been 
 dead. Now and again some fanatical claimant to his blood-stained name arises 
 and gives trouble. It is not likely, with so large a reward for his capture as the 
 British Government have long oftered, that he would remain with life and 
 liberty and his hiding-place unknown, for so many long years. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 THE WHITE WONDER OF INDIA. 
 
 The world has two tombs that are grander as palace.=; of the dead than any 
 that now exist for the living ! Of all those who have lived and died, and left 
 any record thereof, none lived in such costly dwellings as are the two wonder- 
 tombs of the world. One of these is that built by King Cheops, the Egyptian, 
 and known as his Pyramid, on the sands of the desert, outside of Cairo ; the 
 other is in India, and seen at Agra, as the tomb of Muntaz Mahal, the Queen 
 of Emperor Shah Jehan, grandson of the Great Mogul. 
 
 The tomb of the Egyptian king is better known to the world from its 
 antiquity, and its near neighbourhood to Europe. The Taj Mahal at Agra is 
 in the centre of Hindoostan, and, before the late introduction of railways to 
 that country, was not easily accessible to the world of travellers. The Agra 
 tomb is but two hundred and fifty years old, but is as fair-looking to-day as it 
 ever was. Strength of building has ensured for four thousand years the pre- 
 servation of the Pyramid of Cheops. Beauty alone has preserved, as it ever 
 will preserve, the Taj Mahal. It is the crowning glory of vast India, and 
 under whatever rule that land may fall will be always as carefully preserved as 
 any kohinoor, moonstone, or other wondrous gem that may have formed other 
 part of Hindoostanee treasures. 
 
 My arrival in Agra is on a March evening, and made ominous and most 
 memorable by a gorgeous Eastern sunset of unusual splendour. At a good 
 hotel, kept by two Europeans — the Spiers and Pond of India — and known by 
 name as Laurie and Staten, I find comfortable quarters. Conversation is 
 opened as usual by a reference to the weather, and how pleasant it is to travel 
 in India in February and March. I am told that it would have been 
 pleasanter still in December and January, and that I must hasten through 
 with my journey and be away before April, if I wish to carry away my good 
 opinions of the climate. To my inquiries if it will be much worse then, a 
 look of pity at my ignorance is, for me, enough answer. 
 
 In case it should not be enough, I am enlightened by words, and told that 
 I shall find it as introductory to a reading of Dante's "Inferno," and to the 
 better understanding of the punishments of purgatorial fires. Europeans like 
 myself will be glad then of the coolness of underground cellars, and find sleep 
 difficult to get except under continual fanning and punkah work. I have 
 hitherto seen the unused punkahs hanging in all the rooms, and regard them 
 much as we do mosquito curtains during the winter time. When those days 
 come in which, according to Laurie and Staten, I shall find no pleasure, these 
 punkahs will work day and night, and only by the cheapness of Hindoo labour 
 
Earth's Grandest Buildings. 299 
 
 at such work is life so made worth the Hving. The " punkah-wallah," as he 
 is called, is then more necessary to European life than the " bawarch," as the 
 Hindoo cook is called. 
 
 Passing from the weather to local topics, my host tells me of the removal 
 from Agra to Allahabad of the Government offices and courts. The latter 
 place is a day's journey further on towards Bombay, and thus favoured because 
 it is a meeting place for many lines of rail — a central depot. Agra, so deprived 
 of its pride of place, suffers like brilliant Naples and Florence, from which the 
 seat of Italian Government was removed to more centrally situated Rome. I 
 console my suffering informant by saying that the attractions of the Taj will 
 alone sustain Agra, and that the railways will facilitate the visits of travellers. 
 He tells me thereupon that he will arrange after dinner for my being called at 
 three a.m., when the moon will be up ; travellers, he says, always visiting the 
 Taj by moonlight as well as by day, and many thinking it as best so seen. 
 Scott had similar ideas, I remember, about rightly seeing Melrose Abbey. 
 
 Agra's history is shortly told, and learned by me while dinner is preparing. 
 The Great iMogul had built this city as a supplement to Delhi. They left his 
 dust in Agra, where he died, and where I shall see his tomb at a little distance 
 from the town next day. His grandson. Shah Jehan, inherited his immense 
 wealth, and became a sort of Louis the Magnificent, in his way. His grand- 
 father had done the fighting and conquering, as also the wealth-acquiring, and 
 the grandson obeyed that law of nature which keeps things in order by making 
 the spendthrift to succeed the miser. Shah Jehan was the distributor of 
 wealth, rebuilding Delhi and the palace there, that "Earthly Paradise" to 
 which allusion has been made. He lived much here with his favourite wife, 
 Muntaz Mahal, who had borne him eight children, and died in giving birth to 
 a ninth. When dying she made two requests, the fulfilment of both of which 
 was promised ; that he would not take another wife, and would give to her a 
 grander burial than others — than any other had had. That Shah Jehan kept 
 one promise is evident enough in the Taj Mahal. Begun in 1630, twenty 
 years were taken in its building, and millions sterling expended on it. Twenty 
 thousand men, more properly to be called slaves, were always engaged on the 
 work. Slave labour alone could have done this, as it has done all the other 
 great works of the Eastern world. 
 
 The tomb of Egyptian Cheops is of dark sandstone, in huge, roughly-cut 
 blocks, which were originally cemented over; the Taj of Agra is of finest, 
 whitest marble, and of the most elaborate workmanship that the world can 
 show. The Pyramid represents masculine character — strength, solidity, and 
 stal)ility — the force and coarseness of man. The Taj fitly expresses all that 
 should pertain to our best thoughts of womankind, and such is well shown in 
 its elegance, pure taste, and wondrous grace. Of the two, the Taj will ever 
 command the greater admiration, and thus show Beauty as superior to Strength. 
 As Cleopatra subdued Antony, thus conquering the conqueror, so will this 
 most queenly of tombs subdue the world's admiration for that kingly one of 
 Cheops, and divert it to itself. No rival to either of them can be built now, 
 or henceforward ! Irrespective of the necessary slave labour, the millions of 
 money have to be found, and the Eastern world is no longer rich. If both 
 labour and money could be found for such purpose, there would remain to be 
 found the woman who could inspire the thought of such expenditure ! The 
 converse might be put thus. Women worthy of such honour exist as often as 
 do the millions and their owners; but then — to find the man who could so 
 estimate woman's worth? 
 
 The traveller in India has the sight of this wonder-tomb in his mind through- 
 out the journey. It is ever illustrated before him in drawings and paintings, 
 and is to Hindoostan in that way what the volcanic Fusij-ama is to Japan — the 
 
300 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 best known of all things in the land. In that way it is always brought before 
 one until it is seen, and then it is with one for evermore, and never to be for- 
 gotten ! In the mind's picture-gallery it remains as the chief ornament of all 
 that is artistic in this world, as the best idea that one has yet got of what may 
 be found in a better world. If it be possible for man to imagine a house "not 
 built with hands," the Taj Mahal is the grandest aid to such imagination. 
 
 I am awakened, as per promise, at three a.m., and with my three American 
 companions, driven out for some two miles to the famous tomb. The moon- 
 light has its full effect on the white wonder of a building that, so lighted, is but 
 partly seen. It is as something in the clouds — a mirage, or such a reflection of 
 distant buildings, as is said to be sometimes seen at sea when the reflected 
 objects are themselves invisible. The dark red sandstone platform, on which 
 stands the Taj, is not seen in the moonlight, which illumines only its domes, 
 towers, and pinnacles of whitest marble. In the stillness of night, aided by the 
 magic of moonlight, the scene is a memorable one indeed. The one or two 
 Hindoos who have come with us are silent guides, and we are all silent also. 
 The scene is an Eastern land, night, silence, the queen of night above one, and 
 the queen's tomb, and queen of all tombs before one. The feeling is of being 
 in another world — of having got to the land of Beulah and the City Beautiful, 
 where we are to find the porphyry pavement and jewelled side-walks, and where 
 no sunlight shall be needed. The indistinct light helps to the illusion, and the 
 shadows of the clouds crossing the moon give, for a time, a cloud-like appear- 
 ance to the building, which then seems veritably to float before one's eyes. In 
 that way it is a novel sensation indeed, among all sights hitherto had df archi- 
 tectural wonders. 
 
 Seen thus has been all that we can see of the Taj Mahal by moonlight. For 
 the sight of the interior, we must come by day. Then will be seen also the 
 exterior, glistening in the sunlight, and, as my host tells me, dazzling the eye- 
 sight. Meantime, I can go back to bed, and dream of it, as I do. What I 
 thought of on the return journey was how King Cheops in Egypt, and Shah 
 Jehan in India, have managed to make their names so famous, and so far 
 beyond all their deserts. In their lives they did nothing that can be called 
 great, or good, or any approach to it. Yet they have, by two tombs, the 
 building of which was a robbery on their people, and a great political crime, 
 enshrined their worthless names in fame and popularity. " The world knows 
 nothing of its greatest men," but the barbarous builders of these mausoleums, by 
 their oppression and wrongs on the miserable races they enslaved, survive in 
 the story, and the world goes admiringly to look upon the stupendous results of 
 their crimes. 
 
 I find myself wishing to see the smaller things of Agra on the following 
 morning, before going again to Muntaz Mahal's tomb. Everything will sufter 
 greatly as sights of interest seen after that. Akbar's palace is one of those 
 lesser lions, but the care taken of the tomb is nowise visible there. All the 
 decorations are gone, and it is left to dirt, cobwebs, and decay. The marble 
 walls still remain, but they are stained and chipped, and that in some places 
 beyond repair. The British Government are restoring a curious part of this 
 palace, and one that we should least expect to see restored by such hands. It 
 is the " Shish Mahal," or palace of glass — two marble bathing-rooms, having 
 sunken baths in them, to which steps lead down. The walls of each of these 
 rooms are adorned with hundreds upon hundreds of small concave, convex, and 
 plane-surfaced mirrors of smallest size. These are disposed in various ways 
 and designs. The effect, when these bath-rooms were lighted up must have 
 been very fantastic. It is these mirrors that the workmen are restoring — where 
 curiosity has prompted rude visitors to pick them, in various places, from the 
 plaster. Who is to bathe in this grotesquely luxurious place when all is done, 
 
Eastern Palace-Life. 301 
 
 is a question. By side of each bath are elegant fountain jets, and the whole is 
 illustrative of Oriental luxury. 
 
 In the great hall of this palace are still the empty seats that once were 
 thrones. Outside in the court-yard are yet the black and white marble squares, 
 on which li\e chessmen, appropriately disfigured, did duty as bishops, rooks, 
 knights, and pawns. Here, also, is the enormous tank, now empty, in which 
 the king angled when fisl.ingly inclined. The benches, used as judgment- 
 seats in civil and criminal cases, yet remain. That on which civil cases were 
 decided is white ; and the other, appropriately, black. The latter, it was sad 
 to notice, was most worn. No great stretch of imagination is necessary, here 
 upon the scene, to produce a sketch of a morning sitting — three hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 Present — the Emperor (after a bad night), the Grand Mzier, cook, barber, 
 chief eunuch, physician, treasurer, and Court creatures generally. The report 
 of the sitting might have been of this fashion : — 
 
 Emperor (loq.). — " Let 5000 slaves empty the tank in one hour. Fill it 
 then in another with other water, and different fish. It quite exhausted our 
 patience yesterday — never a nil-ble in five minutes." 
 
 Vizier. — " It shall be done, most mighty lord of light." 
 
 Emperor. — "And let all the women that are, by the chief eunuch's register, 
 now over twenty-one, be taken from the Zenana, tied in sacks, and thrown 
 into the Jumna. Let twenty eunuchs then accompany their chief, with fifty 
 camels and ten elephants, to Cashmere, there to buy, and in three days to 
 bring down, a hundred of the best beauties there. Thy head and that of the 
 chief eunuch shall be forfeited if one of these have a foot longer than our 
 hand, eyes not as black as our beard, and be not also plump and moon- 
 faced !" 
 
 Vizier. — " It shall be done, O light of the world." 
 
 Emperor. — " And another thing shall be also done. Our Zobeide's poodle 
 died last night. Let its white, curled carcase be carefully embalmed by our 
 Court doctor, and let 5000 slaves work day and night in building a marble 
 tomb for it. Our Court Architect will produce the designs to-morrow. We 
 will have a tomb for that pet such as dog never had before. Let it be com- 
 pleted within the year, at a cost of a million to our treasury !" 
 
 Vizier. — "Thy slave goes to see thy orders executed." 
 
 vSomething very like that was the way in which the world of India went on 
 in the days of old, if Court doings had been then reported. 
 
 Leaning against the walls of this Zenana are Lord Ellenborough's celebrated 
 " Gates of Somnauth," about which the world heard so much when he brought 
 them down here from the Afghan campaign that seems but of yesterday, but 
 must be over fifty years ago. These relics are tumbling to pieces now, being 
 only of woodwork. There are three metallic bosses, however, on one of them, 
 which should be taken care of, since they came, traditionally, from oft' the 
 shield of ^lahomet himself — which is as likely as many other things that we 
 swallow as facts. 
 
 The Motsee Musjid, or Pearl of Mosques, is next visited — a religious temple 
 of the Saracenic order, and of little or no ornament. There is nothing what- 
 ever to attract the eye — no altar or sculpturing of any kind. The Moham- 
 medan was here left to his own thoughts and prayers, unaided nor disturbed 
 by any mummeries, kneeling on his carpet with his face towards ]\Iecca. Such 
 simple form of worship, and in a temple of such severe simplicity and pure 
 taste, might be imitated in other religions, when theatrical shows in churches 
 shall have become sickening. If the Taj did not draw to itself, and absorb, 
 all admiration that can be brought to Agra, this mosque might get more of 
 notice. It is, however, out of the race altogether in that respect. 
 
302 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Ascending the minaret of this mosque, I see from thence the Taj itself — two 
 miles in the distance. It is so seen for the first time by daylight. Its great 
 dome looks as a balloon of marble glowing in the sunlight, and it is a treat to 
 the sight at this distance, and not the punishment it is to the eyes when near 
 to it. 
 
 Now that one so sees it, there is no help but to go, as all further resistance 
 to its fascination is ineffectual. It is as if Venus, fresh risen from the sea, had 
 beckoned one to come. It has that veritable womanly power, this temple- 
 tomb. When approached, it is found that on one side, and partly to the rear, 
 flows the Jumna, and that it is all surrounded by a wall of red sandstone, and 
 gardens oi trees and flowering shrubs. In this wall is a superb gateway, which 
 one stays long to gaze at, and which stops the way rather than leads to it — a 
 gateway, marble-built, and surmounted by three marble domes— a gateway only 
 fitting where it is, because it leads to greater grandeur within. 
 
 By this entrance I am led within the walls and up a long avenue, having a 
 paved footpath down it, divided by ornamental water and flanked on either 
 side by tall trees. This pathway leads to the Taj, of which, however, only 
 the grand entrance door and central dome can yet be seen. Even that little 
 satisfies those who have expected great things. Three hundred yards distant 
 from the Taj, the avenue is broken by a flight of steps, ascending to a raised and 
 paved platform, of niany yards wide and broad. The side enclosure of trees 
 here ceases, and the scene opens fully to view. The object of this platform seems 
 to be the affording a full view from it of the whole Taj, and its supporting 
 mosques, which now burst upon one's astonished sight in all their great magni- 
 ficence. The domes, towers, and pinnacles of the grand tomb, are all before 
 one, in their dazzling whiteness ; as also are the two red sandstone temples, 
 that on either side so support it, and with their darker colour and picturesque 
 minarets, help to the complete effect produced — the grandest sight of a lifetime. 
 
 There are three with me on this occasion, but we are each as if we were alone. 
 The sight before us has silenced all, in the sense in which one's breath is 
 commonly said to be taken away. Motion and the wish to move also cease, 
 and we sit down upon that platform, as if agreeing to the need for a long stay 
 there. So seated, every sense within one seems to run all to eyesight. I hear 
 nothing that may be said to me — hearing is gone. No nudgings or shoulder- 
 shakings have any effect — feeling is gone. No answer can be made to any 
 question — the thought that forms speech is otherwise occupied. The enchanter 
 architect who inspired this pile has waved his wand, and spell-bound one. He 
 was a true Prospero, and one gazes as if one would never cease gazing at this 
 " dainty Ariel" of a palace, which he has here called into existence. 
 
 A long look is given now to the majestic doorway, and at the inlaid black- 
 marble work of Koran quotations in Persian language that is all around it. 
 Postponing for awhile the temptation to pass within this portal, a walk around 
 the exterior is taken, and a glance given to the red sandstone mosques on 
 either side. They are, though splendid indeed, but what are theatrically 
 termed "side shows" to the central attraction. A look is given to the river on 
 the one side, and to the gardens on the other, and to the stairs that lead to the 
 roof. Longer flights of stairs are to be seen to each of the tall towers standing 
 at the four corners of the broad pavement surrounding the Taj. That is in the 
 shape of an irregular octagon, the sides facing the four cardinal points being 
 each one hundred and thirty-three feet in length. The height of the gilt 
 crescent surmounting the central dome is two hundred and sixty feet from this 
 pavement. Flights of marble steps lead from the garden level to the red 
 sandstone foundation. Other flights lead from that to the surrounding marble 
 pavement from which springs the wondrous fairy fabric — the palace-tomb of 
 Muntaz Mahal. 
 
The Glory of the Earth. 303 
 
 The grandeur that so dazes one is all grandeur and nothing gaudy ! The 
 purest, highest imagination of the poet's City Beautiful can conceive nothing 
 so heavenly as this white wonder of the world. As a pilgrim from lands afar, 
 you may journey to this shrine — the grandest shrine of divine art that the world 
 can show — illustrating, as it does, mighty artistic efforts in embodying the in- 
 tellectual and imaginative, and rendering fancy into form by the brain and 
 hand of man. For such reasons, and for others, which arise within you when 
 here, and are all unexpressed and inexpressible, you could, if not feeling but a 
 clod of earth, fall down and worship this glory which Shah Jehan the King has 
 set up. 
 
 Entering at last within the doorway, I uncover, as I did when going through 
 the gates of the Holy City — the city of shrines upon Mount Zion. All around, 
 the polished marble walls are seen to be richly inlaid with precious stones to 
 represent, with graceful taste, scrolls and flowers. Again appear, in similar 
 work, inscriptions from the Koran in the most graceful of all script — the Arabic 
 character. The stones used for such ormentation are — ^jasper, agate, cornelian, 
 bloodstone, lapis lazuli, onyx, chalcedony, amethyst, garnet, rockspar, gold- 
 stone, greenstone, carbuncle, and a dozen others that have not English names. 
 
 Not the least of the effects of this wondrous interior of the Taj, is the light 
 which the cunning of the architect has, so to speak, made for it. It is a dim 
 and religious light that here pervades, and as such sensibly affects one. Until 
 the eyes, dazzled by the exterior, have become accustomed to it, the splendid 
 vault of the dome-roof cannot be studied. When such can be ddne all atten- 
 tion is taken by it. It carries the spirit upwards equally with the eyes to 
 something that one might imagine to be seen on the day when the heavens 
 shall be opened. The singular echo which, like a spirit, has been caught and 
 imprisoned there is in fitting concord with all around. The whisper made 
 below is thus answered from above — as by an angel voice. Below this vaulted 
 dome, and centrally situated on the floor, is a marble screenwork, carved as 
 never stone was seen before. Within its circuit, as within the holy of holies, 
 is "the be all and the end all" of this marvellous building. liere, on a 
 central platform slightly raised from the flooring, is a marble sarcophagus, 
 elaborately covered with exquisitely inlaid devices in rare mosaic work. It is 
 approached only with absolute awe and a reverence not felt at any other 
 stranger's tomb in this world. Such result has been worked up to all through, 
 and is the secret of the great architect only. That sarcophagus — the finest 
 the world can show — covers jMuntaz Mahal, at whose dying request this 
 Eastern dream of a tomb was raised by him who now rests in that other sarco- 
 phagus by her side. 
 
 For it has happened that Shah Jehan himself has been placed in this mauso- 
 leum also. He built it solely for the Queen, intending another for himself that 
 he did not live to see built. His successor was of an economical spirit, or had 
 not the respect for his predecessor that would prompt the expenditure. For 
 those and other reasons the king is laid here with his wife, but he is scarcely 
 thought of as an occupant. Her sarcophagus occupies exactly the centre of the 
 floor. That of her husband, to one side of it, somewhat destroys uniformity, 
 and the eye looks for a third one as wanting at the other side of the queen's. 
 
 No inscription appears on the central sarcophagus, and none is wanting. 
 On that of Shah Jehan, and in the Persian language is something that reads 
 very poorly in the translation I get of it. "Illeeyn," I learn, means "heaven; 
 " Firdos " signifies "paradise;" 1076 of the Hejira stands for A.n. 1665; 
 with which preface now follows what is there so written : — 
 
 " The tomb of the King, inhabitant of the two paradises — Rizwan and Khuld. The most 
 sublime sitter on the throne in Illeeyn. Dweller in Firdos. Shah Jehan Padishah I Gazee; 
 peace be to him ; bliss is for him. He died 26th day of Rajah, in the year 1076 of the Hejira. 
 From this transitory world eternity has taken him to the next." 
 
304 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 If that is all that could be clone in the way of epitaphs, I feel glad that 
 nothing is written on the queen's sarcophagus. Language so bald and halting 
 as that put upon the king's would have injured the grand effect which its absence 
 leaves. Each visitor will for himself write such grand epitaph as he thinks 
 fitting for one who has received the highest of all monumental honours paid to 
 any human being who has died upon this earth. 
 
 The effect of it all is such as no other of the sights of the world leaves with one. 
 If you ever thought that the "Arabian Nights" was all nonsense and romance, 
 and " Lalla Rookh" all imagination and fancy, what think you now ? — now that 
 you have looked around upon the scene that has filled the last four hours as if 
 but a few minutes. You have looked upon Lucknow and its palaces — you 
 have seen what Delhi and its surroundings have had to show — and have 
 now come to this wonder of all wonders. Are your thoughts what they were ; 
 or what say you ? You are silent, and silence is the all-suificient answer. 
 Speech from one would be as out of place as would be an inscription upon the 
 queen's sarcophagus. 
 
 The sculptors and modellers of Agra devote their time to producing models 
 of the Taj, which look very beautiful in glass cases in the way of sideboard 
 ornaments. They are things, however, only for careful packing and shipment, 
 and not for travelling portmanteaus. The temptation to take one along is 
 great indeed, but sense tells one that it would be all in pieces and powder when 
 unpacked. Spite of all that I bring one away with me, only to find it after- 
 wards as I knew it must be, and to become quite a "Niobe all tears" in 
 regarding my great loss. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, it were better so ! The Ta] Mahal is a thing to be 
 remembered, and if not remembered, all effigies of it would serve but little by 
 which to recall it. One feels contented when Agra has been visited, and 
 leaves there in a more peaceful frame of mind. Other worlds there may be, 
 or may not — we may attain heaven or paradise, or fail to do so — in those 
 worlds, or in such scenes of the Hereafter, there may be better things for our 
 new eyes than is the Taj at Agra. It is, however, impossible for human 
 imagination so to conceive. In that way Agra is quitted with the satisfied 
 feeling that the glory, the splendour, of this world has been seen — so far as 
 intellect, imagination, art, taste, talent, boundless labour, and limitless wealth 
 could all help to such object. It is something to have such thorough convic- 
 tion that nothing more marvellous, more beautiful, can be seen by the eyes of 
 wondering humanity. 
 
 Some few miles out from Agra is what might be termed another city, rather 
 than a suburb, full of deserted buildings of great pretensions. On the way to 
 this Futtipore Sikri, as it is called, is the tomb of Akbar the Great — one who 
 knew how to conquer and to govern, and when to stop in his conquests and 
 consolidate his power. Under his rule the greatness of India seems to have 
 begun, and in the wisdom, power, and glory of his line — the Mogul dynasty — 
 it appears to have culminated, and thereafter declined. Before the sarco- 
 phagus of Akbar — lying here at Secundra, uncovered to the skies on the 
 summit of its lofty mausoleum — the traveller looks around on a scene of decay- 
 ing temples, palaces, and tombs, and thinks of the utter vanity and wretched 
 uselessness of all man's doings. None the less he must admit that the dust 
 entombed here was that of a great king of men. Lord Northbrook, when 
 Indian Viceroy, lately did that which testified to similar thoughts. He pro- 
 vided a golden kincob-cloth covering, at large cost, for the mound in the 
 lower vault of the mausoleum, which contains all that may remain of his great 
 predecessor in the government of Hindoostan. After 270 years' entombment, 
 such mark of respect to the memory of the greatest of Indias' emperors comes 
 not unfitly from the representative of its new Empress. 
 
The Invisible Rive?-, 305 
 
 It will be noticed hat allusion is made to " the mound in the vault beneath 
 the mausoleum." It is there, in all cases, that the body is interred. The 
 sarcophagus on the floor above is there only in a representative character — the 
 dust is with the dust below. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 nixDOOSTAx's "city of god." 
 
 Allahabad is, in English, "The City of God." It is so centrally situated 
 with regard to British India, that it is being made a focus for Governmental 
 purposes. For its north-western district, a lieutenant-governor is here resident, 
 and to this city have been removed the Government offices, formerly at Agra. 
 The extensive railway reticulation of Hindoostan, so lately perfected, has been 
 also favourable to Allahabad's advancement as a central depot. It is the grand 
 junction of many completed lines, and of others now constructing. A grander 
 junction than that is, however, made by Nature in the meeting here of those 
 mighty rivers of India, the (Ganges and the Jumna. 
 
 The Ganges, it will be remembered, is a sacred river. Its waters cleanse 
 from sin, and its stream floats to salvation the spirits of those whose ashes are 
 thrown into it. vSuch is an older faith than mine, and worthy of respect if 
 only for that reason, and for this other, that it is the faith of twice as many 
 human beings as all of those professing Christianity. Such exordium is just 
 necessary to my next statement, which is this, that a still grander junction than 
 that of railways or of geographically named rivers is made at this Allahabad. To 
 the two streams already named a third one here joins. It is visible, however, 
 only to the eyes of believers of the Hindoo faith, and not to those of infidels. 
 The eye of faith sees many things, as does the eye of the lover, which Shak- 
 speare tells us, 
 
 "Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." 
 
 The third river here joining to the Jumna and the Ganges, so invisible to my 
 eyes, is one that renders the city a pilgrimage-shrine to Hindoos for purposes 
 hereafter mentioned. Hindooism is not, however, the professed faith of 
 Allahabad, which was built on a Mohammedan foundation. It was founded by 
 Akbar some 300 years ago, and completed by his grandson. Shah Jehan. The 
 faith of Mohammed has got a great holding in India ! Thirty-six millions of the 
 worshippers of Allah, and believers in His one prophet, are to be found there — 
 a number nearly equal to the whole population of the British Isles. The new 
 Empress of India therefore rules in India over as large a number of i^Ioham- 
 medans as make up the sum of her subjects in Britain ! They probably read 
 and apply her title, " Defender of the Faith," in their own way — that way in 
 which one of old thought to pass muster as serving under either king when 
 asked to say, " Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die." Each con- 
 queror of India brought his faith with him and has left it there. The Moham- 
 medan faith was certainly a purer one than the worship of images and the 
 belief in many gods, into which Brahminism or Hindooism, originally the 
 worship of the elements, has now become debased. It brought to these caste- 
 ridden people of Hindoostan a doctrine that taught the equality of all men, and 
 •preached to them of the one and invisible God, and his one prophet and high 
 priest. The name " Allah," by which the one God was so taught to them, is 
 
3o6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 chief among the very many by which the Mohammedans designate the Deity. 
 It is folly to travel in a country and see with outer eyes only. My inquiries as 
 to the faith of the people of any land are as many as those made regarding 
 more visible matters. This faith of Mohammedanism is but an off-shoot or 
 bastard son of the Jewish creed. It recognises the Old Testament, but sub- 
 stitutes the Koran for the new one, with Mohammed for its Messiah. It 
 would be more proper to say, as its prophet, for no kinship with the Deity is 
 claimed for him by the Mohammedan creed. 
 
 Allahabad is to be found somewhere half-way between Calcutta and Bombay, 
 and some 400 miles from Delhi, with which it has water communication. On 
 the road from the railway station to Laurie and Staten's hotel, I notice that 
 the Government recognize the trouble that the climate causes to those who 
 have to exert themselves. For that reason the bicycle is here brought into 
 general use for the postmen and telegraph messengeis, called "peons," who 
 thus travel about. Such mention of one name of native servants recalls the 
 fact that a large number of them are Eurasians — the half-castes of the country, 
 which is all of " ca^te " they can here in this conservative country ever claim. 
 The mixture of white and native bloods has for ever shut them out from all 
 connexion with the thoroughbreds, who are as strict in preserving their strain 
 of blood in its purity as they are in observing the duties of their caste. In 
 those matters they are as conservative as Jews, or Gipsies, or the Newhaven 
 and Galway Claddagh fisher folk. 
 
 The advantage of carrying but little luggage becomes very evident to the 
 traveller in India. A portmanteau is opened before me at the hotel here, which 
 has been closed up and lying beneath a bedstead for some three weeks only. 
 Everythir^ within it proves to be covered with mildew, half an inch thick, and 
 of all the colours of Stilton cheese. This stuff has terribly stained all articles 
 of clothing within it. Such is, I am told, a climatic result, and no novelty. 
 It certainly is an unexpected one by a stranger. In damp, foggy Holland, it 
 might have been looked for, but hardly so in bright and sunny Hindoostan. 
 Spoilt clothing is, however, a matter that should be easily borne by sufferers, 
 as but little covering is wanted here, and the loss is so cheaply replaced. A 
 few shillings expended on a grasscloth jacket and coloured print pyjamas is 
 all of expense necessary in that way, in this very poor land for tailors. 
 
 In the matter of dress one of the Governors-General, not sufficiently consider- 
 ing the permanency of all Eastern fashions, tried to effect a reform. He 
 wished the natives to dress to a further extent, and look less Adam and Eve- 
 like. The nakedness of the land, shown in that form, somewhat shocked his 
 notions of decency, or more likely those of his family. No one was in future 
 to be seen about Government House with shoeless feet, bare legs, or a 
 deficiency anywhere in the matter of covering. Success, however, did not 
 attend his efforts. The " one anna suit " which the Hindoo lower class wear, 
 still continues the fashion, as it ever will. An old bed sheet, torn into strips, 
 makes clothing and turbans for a whole family. As such clothing is often not 
 washed until of the colour of the dingy surrounding skin, what there is 
 of covering in this way sometimes passes notice ; and it is, as often as not, 
 as well that it does so. 
 
 This modern Allahabad has, quite in Indian fashion, replaced an older one. 
 All about are the remains of the former city in antiquated temples and tombs 
 that speak of thousands of years past. Of such is a stone column of sixty feet 
 high, the inscriptions on which, so far as decii:)herable, tell of an age of over two 
 thousand years. Near to it I take a rest upon one of two red granite statues, 
 of large size, now overthrown ; the features of that representing a man are 
 nearly obliterated, but time has been kinder to the feminine one, which shows ■ 
 still a pleasant-looking face ; it was of the full-eyed, pulpy-lipped order 
 
The Wretched Ryots, 307 
 
 of beauty, that had its day of admiration in times past, and will have its turn 
 again in the sure revolving circle of fashion. On looking upon these remnants 
 of the past, lying here upon the plain, one cannot but think of the apt imagery 
 of Byron, who has told us that such as these will be all that shall be left of all 
 man's doings, now and to come : — 
 
 " Two or three columns, and many a stone, 
 Marble and granite with grass o'ergrown." 
 
 Outlying to this old city is an agricultural village, or collection of mud 
 hovels, to which I pay a visit. These wretched dwellings have neither chimney 
 nor window. The fuel used is dried buffalo droppings. A handful of dholl or 
 rice twice a day, washed down with water, is all the sustenance that these 
 villagers ever get. A life of hard labour and such poor fare make the men 
 lean and haggard of look, and the women stunted and hard-featured. Pay- 
 ments equivalent to a rupee per week are all that these labourers and their 
 families have upon which to live. Nothing can therefore be saved, not for the 
 rainy day, but for those more dreaded days in which no rain comes. When 
 the windows of heaven are so closed, it is then that the grim genius of famine 
 upraises its shrivelled hand. The rice crops then fail, and the wasted 
 villagers waste daily further away to mere shadows, and so die. Such 
 has occurred periodically, and will always do so — as that which has been 
 ever will be. 
 
 Upon such utter wretchedness, such unhuman-like misery of the Hindoo 
 race, it is pitiable indeed to look. The wretched existence is always too much 
 of a struggle with starvation, in which the spare figure becomes more gaunt, 
 skinny, and shrivelled, until death kindly removes it to the wood pile by the 
 water side. None who see such a miserable struggle for life can grieve at the 
 happy release brought by death. It can bring hardly a worse life, be 
 the future what it may. These poorly paid "ryots," as the cultivators of the 
 soil are called, are ground to death not only by heavy taxation, but also by the 
 money-lender, from whose hands death alone relieves them. These "ryots" 
 of India are but a reproduction of the " fellahs " of Egypt in the condition in 
 which they live — if living it can be called. By any one with sympathetic 
 feelings a visit to the quarters of these inexpressibly wretched people is to be 
 avoided. I did not feel in usual spirits for the rest of the day, and wished I 
 could have given away to these starving beings that for which I had now, for a 
 time, lost appetite. 
 
 Of the natural dignity of the Maori, the Kaffir, or the Red Indian, the 
 majority of Hindoos have nothing. They are soft, feline, and cringing 
 in their ways, and the most persuasive of beggars. As I came along from the 
 railway station, one of them kept alongside the gharry, pleading there in 
 broken English all the advantages of the hotel for which he acted as " runner, 
 That he could run so fast and speak meanwhile was noticeable enough, but to 
 speak as effectively as he did was amazing. The intonations in which he 
 urged his pleas for our going to his hotel, were timed and tuned to arrest 
 attention, and well they did so. He monopolized all our observation, and, in 
 theatrical language, filled the stage. All oratorical aids, gestures, attitudes, 
 actions, eyes and hands were added to the persuasive tongue ; and all that, as 
 he ran at the rate of a trotting horse, with the thermometer meanwhile standing 
 at 98 degs. 
 
 The gharry we occupied and its driver also were, of course, in the interest 
 of an opposition hotel. The eloquent exponent of the superiority of another 
 house had, therefore, to run between the lashes of our driver's whip, which he 
 had always to dodge. When he occasionally got a taste of it, he turned it to 
 account, like an accomplished rhetorician. " See sare ! — See how I sufter for 
 
 V 2 
 
3o8 
 
 The Alain Routes Round the World. 
 
 your good ! — I am beaten for your sake. For your good only I want you to 
 come to the best hotel !" I was glad to see that he did not work wholly in 
 vain. His eloquence and surprising perseverance overcame the lady passenger 
 who was with us, and her husband had to acquiesce and follow. He thoroughly 
 deserved thus to divide the spoil. When he and they were gone, my remaining 
 companion remarked, "That fellow could have talked over Satan himself." 
 
 It was festival time at Allahabad — the time of the pilgrims visiting the city. 
 There are always pilgrimages going on somewhere, which do great good to 
 business, and especially so to railroad receipts. At Cairo I witnessed the 
 entry into the city of the pilgrims returning from Mahomet's tomb at Mecca ; 
 and saw, on the way up to Jerusalem, those returning from the Jordan who 
 had been to bathe there at the spot where John baptized Jesus ; I met in France 
 a crowd from England going on a pilgrimage to some place — Lourdes, I 
 believe — where a church has been newly erected in a lately used grazing 
 ])addock to commemorate the apparition there of the Virgin to a little 
 shepherdess. We are all pilgrims, in fact, and our trouble is to know from 
 whence and whither bound. Travel helps to make us very tolerant. Until 
 the day comes when we shall know who and what are right, whom is he that 
 shall say that others and their doings are wrong ? With which proper thought 
 I go to the river side to regard the doings of the Hindoos. 
 
 The pilgrims to Allahabad go to the junction of the rivers before told of. 
 The Jumna, after its course of 800 miles from its rise in the Himalayas, here 
 joins the Ganges, within sight of the city. The tongue of land where that 
 takes place is crowded daily by devotees, among whom stalk Fakirs and Byra- 
 gees, as they are called : two kinds of fanatics more fanatical than the rest that 
 are here. The junction of the two rivers is as seen only by my infidel eyes ; 
 to the eyes of the Hindoos, however, it is the junction of three waters. The 
 third river, that I cannot discern, runs direct, in their belief, from here to 
 heaven. To bathe in these visible and invisible streams those are now pre- 
 paring who sit upon the banks of the river, there first getting a clean shave of 
 both head and body. The shaved hairs are for the water. 
 
 How wonderful is faith ! For each hair so falling into these waters the 
 Hindoo believes, on the promise of his sacred writings, and the teaching of 
 his priests, that he will get a thousand years' tenure of Paradise. No wonder 
 now at the completeness of the shearing. To insure that no hairs remain 
 adhesive, the devotee then bathes, and returns to shore for a priestly blessing. 
 There is much that is awe-striking in this strength of faith. I look with great 
 respect upon one of these shaved believers — sure of his many thousands or 
 millions of years in Paradise. He is happier in such faith, and readier for 
 death than I am, and for that I honestly envy him. His hairs are now floating 
 away on the invisible river, to where they will in time be counted by recording 
 angels, and carried to his credit in the book of remembrance. 
 
 The glory of faith continues to be thus shown at Allahabad, though that 
 given to it by kings only has long departed. The palace of the Moguls — that 
 built by Akbar — is now here used as a sort of marine store. It is full of 
 cannon and cannon-balls, shells, sappers' tools, swords, guns, ropes, and 
 shot-belts. All the wants of horse and foot soldiery, sappers and miners, 
 can be here supplied. Akbar was a great warrior, and his shade would not 
 chafe perhaps to see the use to which is now put his palace — its grand halls 
 and seraglio. The sentimental traveller may think it a shame so to convert a 
 palace to a hardware store, and it is nothing better than that now, this palace 
 of " Imperial Ctesar, dead, and turned to clay." 
 
 In a vault of the old fort is another thing which the eyes of faith are feasted 
 upon. It is the stump of a tree said to be 1500 years old, and yet to have life 
 in it. Being a sacred tree for some reason or other, it was built around, and 
 
A Novel Experience. 309 
 
 not rooted up, when the walls were erected. It is now shown to me by torch- 
 light — for half a rupee. Around its roots are images of gods — wooden and 
 metallic-made idols — that look as much out of place there as itself does. To 
 one side of this vault is an opening, bricked around like the mouth of a sewer. 
 My guide interpreted thus " This leads, the priests say, to the holy city of 
 Benares " — a place distant many hundreds of miles from this city of Allah. 
 The object of the tunnel, I am told, is as a channel for the sacred stream 
 Sereswaiti ; but what benefit is derived from it I could not learn. It is not 
 good to ask too many questions on matters of faith. When young I was 
 frequently reproved for so doing ; but the true spirit of inquiry survives a deal 
 of snubbing. 
 
 Allahabad believes in the future, as it is proper a city so named should do. 
 It looks, however, to a future in this world equally with the next. Commerce 
 is to float it to fortune, as its invisible river carries its shaved hairs to heaven. 
 The number of its hotels indicate its great expectations. It is a sort of Wash- 
 ington city at present, in its official, as also in its incomplete state. In seek- 
 ing for matters by which to remember it, I am taken to some gardens here, 
 named after one of Akbar's descendants. This poor man was the victim of a 
 family quarrel, on account of which his father Jehangir laid seige to this place, 
 of which the son made a stronghold. He was here subdued, and kept a 
 prisoner until set free by death. Of his vanquished army, a hundred or so a 
 day were impaled in a long line, and their imprisoned late ruler was then led 
 out for a time, and paraded up and down — made in fact to hold a horrible revievv 
 of his soldiery thus cruelly served ! These gardens are entered through an em- 
 battled stone wall, by a grand Saracenic gateway of fifty-five feet high, and 
 about the like thickness — a really noble portal. Inside are to seen well-kept 
 grounds, and three fine mausoleums, having lofty domes to them, the date of 
 the building of which was 1620. 
 
 How blindly we blunder into trouble ! It looks so easy to do things which 
 others seem to do easily, that we never reflect upon their having practised 
 ■what we have not. At the barracks here I am offered a seat on one of a string 
 of camels going out for some two or three miles to bring in fodder. Without 
 the forethought of him who doubted his untried ability to play the fiddle, I 
 rashly accepted the offer, and a serious matter it proved to be, as those will 
 find who try for the first time to ride a camel. It is necessary, as a preliminary 
 thing, to get upon him — a by no means easy matter, as he stands too high to 
 be reached. He has to come down to one, which he does gradually only, until his 
 stomach touches the ground. He descends in three sections. His legs being 
 very long, nature provides for his pushing the hinder ones outwards from the 
 body, so that they stick out behind like two tramrails. To my notice he is 
 singular among animals, in that matter of pushing out his hind legs. 
 
 ,The camel, in bringing his body to the ground, descends first, however, to 
 the knees of his front legs. Then he comes down on those of his hinder ones, 
 and as they are situated near the junction of legs and body, the drop down 
 that way is a great one. The third movement is that in which the front knees 
 are thrown forward, and the whole camel comes to the earth. It is then 
 seen that there is not space under the short body for all his long legs. Lying 
 upon the ground so, waiting his load, and then to arise at word of command, 
 we may take a good look at him. In the face, he is as mild and harmless- 
 looking as is a sheep. He is not, however, to be touched by everybody, and 
 is more snappish than appears likely. His under-lip hangs down, showing 
 thereby unpleasant looking teeth of a yellowish brown. A curious way is 
 adopted for guiding him. A conically-shaped peg is pushed outwards through 
 the side of the nostril, so that the larger end is, barb-like, left within. To the 
 -small and protruding end a string is attached, which, in the rider's hands, is 
 
3 1 o The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 all the guiding power used. To strangers it looks as only likely to be useful 
 on one side, but then everything cannot be understood at once — and I never 
 cared about a camel twice. 
 
 Even when he so lies on the ground the saddle on a camel's back is only to 
 be reached by novices with aid of steps. On thus getting to it, I find it with 
 crossed pieces of wood rising to front and rear. Between these I seat my- 
 self, and when I do so, think that such fore and aft supports are very neces- 
 sary. The like wooden fencing would be better, I surmise, if it went all 
 round. The driver, as I may call him, mounts on a sort of crupper at the rear 
 of the back fence, and pulls at the beast's nose, upon which serious business 
 begins. There are no stirrups, nor any grip to be got with one's legs. The 
 first upward movement of the camel is to his fore knees, throwing one sud- 
 denly backward. Then comes the movement of his long hind legs, and I 
 think that I am about to be thrown over the cross-trees in front, and over his 
 head and on to mine. The driver must, I think, have caught me somewhere 
 about the waistband or below it, to prevent my so going over. The animal's 
 third movement is to the feet of the fore legs, again throwing one backwards. 
 In this backward movement, however, there are the front cross-pieces to which 
 to hold on, which I do with a grip that quite cramps the fingers, of which I 
 shall feel the full effect next day. 
 
 The height to which one is lifted on a tall camel's back is beyond expecta- 
 tion. The feeling of helplessness, however, quite equals that of astonishment. 
 The throwing about, backward and forwards, is now succeeded by a rocking 
 motion from side to side, as the animal rolls along. But for a vigorous clutch 
 of the front woodwork, one would inevitably come to the ground. The camel 
 does not move his legs as the horse does, but is a relic of those antediluvian 
 animals who moved the same side-legs together. It is a painful movement to 
 the rider, and especially so when the height from the ground is considered — 
 and there is plenty of time to consider it up where I am. Those not sailors, 
 slaters, or otherwise used to regarding the earth from all heights, get often 
 confused when elevated beyond that from which they have been accustomed to 
 regard things in general. I had looked at matters usually from a height of 
 five feet eight, and not from fifteen or eighteen feet. 
 
 My camel only walked. Not for dukedoms would I have had him trot. 
 Had he gone that far the dukedoms would have been of little use to me. Any 
 hardened criminal would flinch from such a punishment as that would be. It 
 would shake his bones and nerves, and touch the heart of the most obdurate — 
 and bring it into his mouth. That would only be for the day and the occasion, 
 but the punishment for the following week or ten days would be something 
 dreadful. After such a tremendous shaking, not a limb could be moved 
 except in galling pain ; and any attempt to get up or down stairs, or to dress 
 or undress, would be to a groaning accompaniment or an incessant appeal to 
 one's patron saint. 
 
 All the trouble attending the jerky ascent on the camel's rising up, is 
 repeated in reverse order on his getting down again, and your doing the same. 
 I thought that I had fallen through a window, and was going head foremost 
 into the street, with such a sudden drop did the animal come to his knees. I 
 never felt more glad to get out of any trouble than I did out of that saddle. 
 That happened at end of the journey of two miles or more out of Allahabad. 
 My guide told me that I could only avoid returning on camel-back by doing 
 so on foot for the whole way. I said that I would gladly walk treble the 
 distance. Go back again in that fashion ? Ask the weary bird blown o'er the 
 deep again to quit its shore ! 
 
 I am wondering next day why the balls of my thumbs are so painful, and 
 the fingers so stiff. Such is the effect, I now know, of the hard grip taken the 
 
A Meaiis of Punishment. 311 
 
 day before of the cross-pieces of that camel's saddle. I know now, and not 
 until now, how strong had been the clutch, and how long and unrelaxed had 
 been the strain upon the muscles. Camel-riding, to be enjoyed, should be 
 commenced early in life, and its first lessons taken under careful superin- 
 tendence. As a little of it goes a great way, not too much of it should be 
 taken for the first effort. The novice may otherwise find himself, as I did, 
 unable for nearly a week to move about with any degree of comfort, and feeling 
 as if out of joint all over. 
 
 When in vSyria I learnt that the dromedary riders laced themselves up in 
 tight corsets, after the fashion of a modern belle, when going on their journeys, 
 and I know now the reason why. Much packing up is needed for a continuance 
 of the fearful shaking the rider then gets. Brain fever has been known to follow 
 it, and a loose tooth is removed without any aid from the forceps, before the 
 ride is ended. No one in wig or spectacles, or wearing a chimney-pot hat, 
 would keep those articles on him for two minutes after the camel's trot began. 
 Yet I have read in books of travel of folks who wrote of riding upon a camel 
 as if it were a thing of course. It is, in fact, as impossible to do so on a first 
 effort as it is to swim at a first attempt. Such people would tell of their 
 adventures in snow-shoes, utterly overlooking the fact of the long practice that 
 would be necessary to a successful use of them. 
 
 Our criminal code might be improved in some particulars, and other 
 penalties than the lash be introduced. For heavy oftendeis a tall camel 
 might be kept in the jail, and a ride round the exercise yard at full trot be 
 inflicted now and again as heavy punishment. The Judge, in passing sentence 
 on a criminal, would then, after specifying the term of confinement, proceed in 
 some such terms as these : — "The sentence of the Court is, furthermore, that 
 thrice during the term of your imprisonment you be placed on a camel's back 
 and trotted, for half an hour at a time, around the prison yard, being placed 
 on again each time that you shall fall off : and that you be forced to attend, as 
 usual, to your stone-breaking on the days following." 
 
 Daily does it grow upon one as a wonder in this Hindoostanee travel that 
 little Great Britain can be the master of this bigly big India ! Were all the 
 natives of the caste-divided and non-combatant Hindoo faith, there might be 
 some reason for it all in that ; but the fact is not so. The Mohammedan faith is 
 a fighting one, and of that Church-militant sort that believes in adding to one's 
 chance of salvation by sending others, by the sword's aid, to heaven. Of these 
 Mohammedans there are, as stated, 36,000,000 in India, all of whom believe 
 in spreading their faith, and that by soldiery in place of missionaries. Those 
 of that faith are all of one, — or rather, of no — caste, and could therefore 
 combine for one object. In this dilemma of doubt I have come to the con- 
 clusion, either that no native leader has arisen for these men to follow, or that 
 the climate is inimical to patriotism. 
 
 Ere leaving Allahabad, I had serious thoughts of joining in the ceremonies 
 going on there, as I had hitherto complied elsewhere with the customs of the 
 country. To that end I would have had my hair cut on the river bank, and 
 dropped a handful of the clippings into the water at the sacred junction. My 
 host, however, dissuaded me. The Hindoos might take offence at it ; and not 
 for anything would I cause that feeling, after seeing what I had seen of Hindoo 
 vengeance at Cawnpore. It was a hard thing to tear one's self away without 
 so investing in this •' Allahabad Grand Junction Eternal Life Insurance ;" but 
 I left without effecting the floating policy. We all have our remorse at the 
 lost chances to be seen in looking back over a lifetime, and this so uncompleted 
 visit to India's City of God will be one of such regrets. If, however, I saved 
 choking a few fishes by such neglect, that may balance the account after all. 
 
312 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 WITH THE THUGS. 
 
 Between two and three hundred miles from Allahabad I get tired of the 
 train, and stop at Jubbulpore. It is, perhaps, the grand-looking station that 
 tempts me do so ; or maybe it is the changed character of the scenery, which 
 has become most picturesque during the last hour or so now that I am come 
 into the valley of the Nerbudda — a noble river of this land of India. 
 
 Jubbulpore has an admirably made railway to it. The Indian railways 
 have been constructed by the help of British capitalists, to whom a certain 
 percentage in the shape of dividend is guaranteed by the Government. I 
 never saw such natty stations anywhere as there are on this line. At all those 
 I have been lately passing there is printed the station's name, in pretty 
 flowers, in their well-kept gardens, fronting the line of rails. I withstand all 
 their fascinations, however, until I reach the handsome Jubbulpore terminus, 
 and here I come to a dead stop. There may be better things ahead, but the 
 attractions about here are very satisfactory. 
 
 ]\Iy belief of there being anything to swear by in spelling gets a shock in 
 this word "Jubbulpore." I never saw it spelt twice in the same way. I 
 adopt the spelling I saw at this railway station, because everything here looks 
 so fine that it must be correct. In the last published map I read it as 
 *' Jabalpar," and I can remember about fifty other forms of it. It is all like 
 that. If I knew anything, I thought it was the spelling of "Juggernaut " — a 
 deity of the Madras district, celebrated for his triumphal car and its uses. I 
 find this spelt now as " Jagannath ;" Cashmere is "Kashmir," Delhi is 
 " Delli," or " Dehli," and Mogul is "Mughal." Any Eastern proper name 
 can be used like to that of Mahomet, which you can spell how you like, and 
 with the certainty of not being wrong : Mahmood, Mahmet, Mahmud, are all 
 at choice, with other ninety variations. Spelling is altogether as changeable 
 as fashions. Words have their Roman falls, Alexandrian limps, and Grecian 
 bends — the fulness of crinoline at one time, and the contracted skimpiness of 
 the pin-back mode at another. 
 
 Jubbulpore is under the Sautpore Hills or North Ghauts, which means 
 a high table-land. It is a thousand feet above the level of Allahabad, to 
 which the railway toils through cuttings, and the scenery is all the better for it. 
 It is a city of some 60,000 folks, not reckoning the nine Thugs, the last 
 of their race, who are here in gaol. There is something painfully interesting 
 in the last of a race. How the " Last of the Mohicans " interests one for that 
 reason ! In Hol^art Town I was shown the last of the Tasmanians — a poor 
 old lubra, that looked as wretched as the last apteryx, a New Zealand wingless 
 bird, believed to be extinct, that I saw exhibited once in Melbourne, and 
 which interested me as much as does Campbell's " Last Man." 
 
 I find this city to be a sort of Indian Cheltenham or Bath in its clean and 
 highly respectable appearance. It must have a good city council, I fancy, 
 otherwise I cannot account for its fine and well-kept streets, its perfect 
 drainage, pleasant distribution of greensward, gardens, and trees ; also its fine 
 shops and houses, tastily designed and well Iniilt. It is as well not to believe 
 in the unnatural, and therefore maybe Jubbulpore has no city council at all, 
 but has devised a better scheme for town management — supposing such to be 
 
Martyi'-JMurderers. 313 
 
 possible. There has evidently been some master-mind here who has done for 
 Jubbulpore in one way what Beau Nash did for Bath in another. Colonel 
 Sleeman is credited with much of it, and if I knew other names to whom similar 
 honour of mention is due, they should have it. 
 
 Out of evil springs good. The Jubbulpore School of Industry, now one of the 
 sights of the place, and celebrated for its manufactures of carpets, canvas, and 
 other like fabrics, was originally set up to provide occupation for the imprisoned 
 Thugs and their wives and families. The families can still labour here, but the 
 survivors of their fathers are beyond industrial work — old men living on the 
 recollections of their past lives, and many murders. I will leave the busy 
 scene of this school of industry, to which I can return, and go see these 
 old murderers before they all die. My host of the hotel here inspires me to do 
 so by saying that royalty, when lately here, specially visited these ancient 
 martyrs, so that it must be the respectable thing to do, and settles for me the 
 question that might so trouble the genteel — " Ought we to visit them?" 
 
 The sect of the Thugs was discovered about forty -seven years ago. up to which 
 time they had pursued their religious duties very quietly. They were not a 
 numerous sect, which is well to be understood when the difficulties are all 
 considered that lay in the way of their working out their salvation. It was 
 attended with much fear and trembling, as their goddess, Calicut, was only to be 
 propitiated by human sacrifices. A method of justification by such works as 
 murders led to constant dread of the hangman, and the necessity for secrecy. 
 Every assassination of an unbeliever so made was believed to add his proba- 
 bility of life to that of the Thug's tenii in Paradise, the blood of the victim 
 meanwhile cleansing the sins of the assassin. On the discovery of this 
 exterminating creed, its believers were sought out by the Government of the 
 time, and they were all taken to Jubbulpore, and there shut up for their lives. 
 As they thus suffered for the faith to which they bore witness, they are really 
 and truly martyrs — martyr-murderers ! 
 
 The destruction of human beings for the propitiation of the Deity, is not, 
 unfortunately, confined to the Thugs. More of poor humanity has been 
 sacrificed on that score than any other. It is a grounded belief with the 
 zealous sectarian that those of another faith are better dead. The Moham- 
 medans are especially of that way of thinking. For that cause only they 
 murdered, but a few years ago, about 11,000 of the believers in Christianity 
 dwelling in the villages I passed through in the Lebanon and in Damascus. 
 The mistake of the Thugs was doing assassination in a retail way. Massacres 
 on religious grounds, like those of the Huguenots, should be done, if done at 
 all — which may be questionable — in a wholesale manner. It is always in this 
 mismanaged world the little criminal only who suffers punishment. Murders, 
 swindles, and robberies on a large scale are called by other names, and recog- 
 nized as legitimate doings. 
 
 The hanging of all these Thuggee believers was out of the question. There 
 was no legal proof against them, and they might have been considered as lunatics. 
 They had not also any malice against their victims, which is is an essential to 
 the crime of murder. In Othello's words, 
 
 " Nought did they in hate, but all in honour" 
 
 of their deity. Plence, shutting them up for life was considered the proper 
 punishment for what they might have done in the past, and also a preventive 
 against their future doings. As it was not their fashion to throttle each other, 
 they were allowed to associate, and like to Goldsmith's old soldier, to sit at 
 eve, and tell each other of their doughty deeds, patiently waiting the death 
 that alone could set them free. 
 
314 The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 Imprisoned for forty years or so, nearly all of them have now been liberated 
 by that aid. Of the original stock there are but the nine survivors whom I was 
 allowed to interview. I looked upon these hoary-headed venerable old 
 assassins, and hoped that there were no more of them about outside — over- 
 looked by the Government. As I here learn of their system of sacrifice, I see 
 that I might have been one of their victims as likely as not — might, in fact, 
 have perished by the hands, the blood-red hands, of any of these old martyrs, 
 had they been loose. One of their guardians explains matters to me. 
 
 The Thug, I am told, paid periodical visits to the temple of his deity. His 
 time there was spent in prostrations and prayers. He sought the sacrifices 
 elsewhere. Various little things were considered bad omens, and if any such 
 occurred, such as a bird flying into the temple during his worship, no sacrifice 
 was to be sought. Several visits might be thus made before the Thug de- 
 parted from the temple on the sacrificial mission. Supposing nothing to 
 happen to stay his hand, what would then occur would be this : — 
 
 The sacrifice would be always selected from the male sex. To the 
 Goddess Calicut none of her own sex could be offered. The first man met 
 with on leaving the temple was preferred, if circumstances did not weigh 
 against his selection. If so, another was chosen, and the intended victim 
 closely watched for the fitting opportunity. No patience was too great in that 
 pursuit. Weeks and months were given to it, and many schemes adopted 
 and disguises made use of. The time came at last, as it always does to the 
 diligent, and to those who wait and watch and hope unceasingly — as did 
 these fanatics. On that happening the sacrifice was seized behind by the legs 
 and thrown forward on his face. A looped cord was then slipped over his 
 head and drawn at once tight round the neck, the Thug kneeling meanwhile on 
 the victim's back. He was, in fact, garotted. If the intended sacrifice looked 
 likely to give much trouble, two or three Thugs would join in the adventure, 
 as it was one about which there must be no mistakes. An intended victim 
 conquering his intended assassin, or allowed to escape, might have led, as it 
 probably did lead, to the bursting up of the deadly little sect. If killed in his 
 efforts at sacrifice, the Thug no doubt died, as he believed, in a good cause. 
 
 The Thugs drew the line at murder. The body of the victim was not 
 plundered, but was buried secretly with its clothes and valuables, if any of the 
 latter were upon it. Fifty years ago, and backwards, there must have been 
 many '"missing friends" in Hindoostan for whom all inquiries and advertisements 
 failed. Royalty, when lately visiting here, had proposed to set these old 
 fellows at liberty, as, looking at their age and feebleness, there was no fear of 
 their shedding much more blood. As they would have no refuge to which to 
 go, and were too feeble to work, it was, however, thought best to let them be 
 as they were until the short day that remained for them came to its close, and 
 these sacrificers go to meet their sacrifices. If Calicut come not then to their 
 aid, I have fears for their future. I recall, however, that pleasant idea of 
 Burns, that the devil himself, would he but "take a thought and mend," 
 might yet have a chance hereafter equal, say, to that of most of us. 
 
 As these were the only real martyrs I had ever met with, I thought at one 
 time of getting their blessing as a thing of special efficacy, and also as a sort of 
 supplement to the washing I had in the sacred Ganges, and the water of purifica- 
 tion I used at Benares ; but the idea somehow evaporated, and I came away 
 unblessed in that particular way. 
 
 The "chouk," or town for the natives, has been, in this Jubbulpore, built 
 by the Europeans, or from European plans and designs. It all looks very 
 nice, clean, smart, and as it should be to European eyes, but the Hindoo 
 seems out of his element in it, and not the man for the place. It is question- 
 able if he will not leave it and build after his own fashion for himself, much as 
 
Rival River Jealousy. 315 
 
 birds insist on constructing their own nests— excepting the vagabond cuckoo, 
 and other such bipeds. 
 
 The materials for all these good buildings which I see around have been 
 quarried from a neighbouring buried city that was a great one in its time. It 
 was called Tripoori Poorum, or, rather, it is called so now. Who shall say 
 what names it had, or how spelled ? Its site is at a place designated Kuram- 
 bel. The aborigines of this land were conquered, it is believed, by the race of 
 Gonds, who in their turn yielded to other conquerors, and those also in their 
 turn. It is not rightly known, and no wonder, who built Tripoori Poorum. 
 Its remains look as if the earth had been thousands of years in covering them 
 up. They are now turned to excellent account in building bridges, the via- 
 ducts over the broad Nerbudda, and the goodly stations all along the line of 
 railway, besides what is seen of their use in Jubbulpore. Europe would not, 
 however, like to see the Neapolitans so making use of the stones of Pompeii. 
 Stone or its equivalent must be used everywhere here. The white ants of 
 India are destroyers of all woodwork, and much besides that. They will not, 
 for some questionable reason, touch the jarrah timber of Western Australia, 
 which is accordingly imported for the railway sleepers. On this insect's 
 account, also, all the telegraph posts are of stone or iron throughout the land. 
 An unconquered race are these white ants, that have looked with equal disregard 
 on all the many invaders and conquerors of their rightful land. 
 
 Jubbulpore's neighbourhood is noticeable for the number of granite boulders 
 which lie about at the foot of the hills and half up their height. At the sum- 
 mit of one of these hills a huge granite boulder has been left standing when the 
 convulsion of nature toppled down all its companions. It has curiously enough 
 been seized upon as the site for a Hindoo temple, which is here to be seen 
 perched upon a boulder. The scriptural injunction to build upon a rock 
 scarcely extended to those that, like this one, are loose. The Hindoos choose 
 strange places for their temples. The out-of-the-way position of this one is 
 not more peculiar than that of the many rock-cut temples of Hindoostan, some 
 of which I have yet to visit on my way through this wonderful India. 
 
 The noble Nerbudda has its source in the range of mountains that runs from 
 east to west through India. Similarly as is to be seen in America, the rivers 
 from this range all pursue one course, which is to the eastward, but, as also in 
 America, there is one exception — this beautiful Nerbudda. There is a legend 
 connected with all Indian rivers, and one, of course, to account for the 
 Nerbudda flowing to the west. Another river, named the Soane, which rises 
 near to the Nerbudda's source, proposed a junction with it at the foot of the 
 mountains, and that the two, so matrimonially united, should flow together, 
 sharing the joys and troubles of river life until, undivided in death, they should 
 be lost together in the eternity of ocean. It was not, however, to be so. 
 
 Another river, the Johilla, which starts in the same mountains as the Soane 
 and the Nerbudda, and is an insignificant thing in the way of rivers compared 
 with the other two, ran its stream, however, into that of the Soane before the 
 contemplated alliance could be made. The queenly Nerbudda scornfully 
 resented the intrusion. She would stand no such nonsense. Until the Johilla 
 was utterly divorced she would not only refuse to join the Soane but would 
 decline to travel the same road and so have to look on their hateful company. 
 She carried out this majestic threat by turning herself westward, and thus went 
 flowing westward in singleness and maiden pride, letting the other rivers and 
 all rivers go their own way. 
 
 She got in difficulties in so separating, and by taking such headstrong course 
 became pent up here among the " marble rocks," near to Jubbulpore, in a way 
 of restraint that no feminine nature could endure. The difticulty being one 
 which could not be got through, it was leaped over by the Nerbudda in a foaming 
 
3i6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 fury, that is here to be seen in a waterfall of some forty feet, called the 
 Dhooan-dhar, or Misty Fail. From thence the clear and sparkling stream has 
 cut for itself a deep channel of some two miles through the walls of white rock 
 which line its sides. It should be many hundred yards wide, but is here 
 squeezed into a wddth of about sixty feet. The white walls, or marble rocks, 
 are in many places over seventy feet in height. 
 
 The Nerbudda has a grandly striking appearance as she swiftly glides 
 through these, her marble halls, sweeping along as a proud princess might 
 descend the steps of her palace between a double tile of silver-liveried attend- 
 ants to where her chariot awaits her coming. The result of the sunlight and 
 the reflection from the surface of the river is to make the white walls appar- 
 ently visible for as many feet below the water as they are above it, and this 
 helps to show its beautiful blue tint with wonderful effect. There is a great 
 surprise in store for the visitor to this spot — a very quiet and secluded one — 
 one also that has a fascination about it that cannot be defined, but is distinctly 
 to be felt — in which a sense of awe is mixed up with wonder and admiration 
 that so makes an enduring memory of the Nerbudda's scenery. 
 
 A note from the commissary-general procured for me the sensation of a ride 
 upon an elephant. The mahout, who is keeper, groom, and special attendant 
 on his elephant, is also the driver. An elephant is more a conveyance of 
 many outside passengers than a carrier of one, and therefore requires a driver 
 rather than a rider. At his word of warning the huge beast kneels or rises up, 
 or does nearly anything else that can reasonably be expected. That is to say, 
 he generally does so. The keeper of the cattle-yard explained to me that 
 there comes a time — which is always watched for — when the intelligent animal is 
 seized with a sort of dangerous delirium, and in a Malay fashion "runs a 
 muck," destroying everything if not killed at once, or, with great difficulty, 
 secured. 
 
 This dangerous time with elephants is known to the mahout by a moist spot 
 that makes its appearance between the eye and ear, which wet mark means 
 mischief in a few days hence. The Russian moujik, or peasant servant, is 
 subject to a similar affliction, which is not notified, however, by anything facial. 
 He will go to bed in his senses, and have a bad dream, arising from which he 
 will proceed to murder his master and mistress and all living beings in the 
 mansion. That done, he sits down amidst the ruin he has caused, and awaits 
 the result, which comes in soldiers, handcuffs, and irons. The elephant's 
 first outlDreak is to trample his mahout under foot, and similarly smash up 
 anybody else who may be handy. On the wet spot, however, being noticed, 
 he is forthwith secured round the legs with large chains to a strong tree, and so 
 kept until the brain fever subsides, and danger is past. 
 
 The mahout sits on the bare neck of the elephant — resting each foot behind 
 an ear for Vjoth stirrups and guiding purposes. The other controlling power 
 used is a large iron hook, about five times the size of that which some 
 Greenwich pensioners wear as a finish to their wooden arms. At the other 
 end of it is a sharp point, with which the animal is prodded in the more 
 vulnerable parts of its tough, encrusted skin. Prods with this instrument mean 
 things which are understood only between the giver and receiver — a sort of 
 pointed language of the arrow-headed character. 
 
 On the elephant squatting down, accustomed riders seize its tail, and by that 
 aid alone surmount its hill-like back, and so, scrambling over the rough hide, 
 get to the centrally-situated platform. There is no box-seat to be had beside the 
 driver. The platform, so reached, is about the size of a square parlour-table top, 
 and is fenced all round, save only its one entrance. A dozen folks might stand 
 here, but it is usual only to squat, for which purpose the floor is spread with a 
 mattress. For those who cannot ascend from the rear, or oljject to taking 
 
Elephant-Riding Experience. 317 
 
 such a liberty as it necessitates, a ladder is provided, by which the howdah 
 can be reached from the side. It only wants a flagstaff run up for one to 
 imagine oneself in that "look-out" with which the roofs of modern villas are 
 often topped. 
 
 The Hindoostanee elephants are prodigious animals, the largest of their 
 race. Those of Ceylon look like to pups, or pigs only, beside them. The 
 sensation on the immense animal rising is that the earth moves beneath you — 
 so great is the bulk of matter in motion. The mahout is away down a long 
 way off on the elephant's neck, so that as I sit on the mattress I can see only 
 the top of his turban. The height seems great indeed, much higher than when 
 on a camel's back. Camels pass me on the road, and I can look down upon 
 them. The elephant, however, has an endurable walk, and does not serve 
 one's bones in the shambling, shaking, and swinging way that the camel does. 
 
 An elephant ride is not a thing to take solus. I felt as if left in an empty 
 house — all alone in that howdah, with the earth, as it seemed, lumbering along 
 l)elow me. A whist party would have been quite the thing for the place and 
 the pace. I daresay that I was not the only one who has felt lonely when 
 unexpectedly elevated in the world. But that was all the trouble. On the camel 
 I wished I could have followed the street-boy's usual advice to unhappy riders, 
 to get inside ; but there was no fear of falling oft" here, and no possibiUty of 
 the elephant falling. An elephant, I should imagine, never did fall acci- 
 dentally. The look of his legs and their motions preclude that idea. At the 
 shuffling pace of his noiseless feet he goes nearly six miles an hour. They are 
 used here for moving cannon, soldiers' baggage, and other cumbrous camp 
 requisites. 
 
 With their war castles on their backs, as seen in the picture-books of one's 
 youth, bristling with armed men, flags, and spears, the elephant must have 
 looked in its full glory. The days of its use in that way may not be over yet. 
 This gorgeous and great land, fought for so often, and so often conquered, may 
 be fought for again whether conquered or not. That which has been shall be. 
 The gates of Afghanistan, through which the Mongol Tamerlane entered five 
 hundred years ago, are being daily neared by those Cossacks who are but latter- 
 day Tartars. Having got to where they are by a long and half-silent course 
 of wars and victories, the Russians may stay their onward march, and may 
 not. The object of all that they have been doing does not seem to lie in what 
 they have yet done in that direction. 
 
 CHAPTER LVni. 
 
 India's cave-temples. 
 
 " Don't omit, on your way to Bombay, to visit some of the cave temples — 
 they are the great wonders of India." 
 
 So spoke my host at Jubbulpore, in consideration for my pitiable ignorance 
 of the country, and obvious desire for information about things worth seeing 
 and knowing. I had heard nothing of what he so alluded to and got him to 
 enlighten me and give me a note of the localities of these special lions of the 
 land. I learn that they are cavern-temples or temple-caves, as also terraced, 
 hewn-out and carved rocks — vast affairs hollowed out of one stone. They are 
 not to be called buildings or structures, as those terms imply the piling up ot 
 
3 1 8 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 many stones, and not the honeycombing of one. They originated here with 
 the followers of Hindooism, and the fashion was afterwards adopted by the 
 Buddhists, and later by the dissenting Janes. 
 
 Situated in the most secluded places, they may not yet be all known, but 
 there is a large choice for the traveller in what have been already discovered. 
 The best of them lay off the road to Bombay, to which my travel now turns. 
 The Ajanta caves are reached from the Pachora station, from which a cart ride 
 leads to a wild glen in a lonely situation ; where, in a ravine, in the side of a 
 perpendicular rock, are some thirty caverns cut by the hands of skilled masons, 
 having pillars and galleries and carved figures projecting from the walls, floors, 
 and roofs. Light is in these temples admitted somewhere, so as to fall upon 
 the shrine of the most esteemed of the gods, whose figures are here shown in 
 strangest forms. 
 
 The Kenhary caves lie further on towards Bombay, and are larger in 
 number than those of Ajanta. They are found in the sides of a great hill, 
 and quite hidden by jungle. About a week is, I am told, necessary to visit 
 them properly, which bespeaks a task rather for the antiquary than one who 
 travels for the world generally, and has no special line. At Nassick I can 
 visit the temple caverns of Pandar Lena and Chumar Lena, which might have 
 great attraction to an Alpine climber. Unlike others, which are situated at 
 the foot of the rocks out of which they are carved, those of Chumar Lena are 
 purposely made almost inaccessible, by their great height in a cliff's side and 
 the other difficulties in reaching them. 
 
 At Bedsa, and further on, at Badja, these peculiar temples are also to be 
 found strangely situated at distances of many miles from all existing towns and 
 villages, and from any traces of pre-existing ones. Where the people lived 
 who worshipped in such places is quite enigmatical. Their faith is recognisable 
 enough, but not their habitation. There are monasteries cut in the rocks in 
 Palestine, dwellings in Nubia, and Petra is a rock-cut city altogether, and they 
 are quite understandable things, which these temple-caves, situated as we see 
 them, are not. As monasteries they could not have been well used, for lack 
 of any indications of a habitable and domestic nature about them. But one 
 group of them only is situated near to a fresh-water supply. 
 
 Those situated at Karlee, between Poonah and Bombay, are the ones of 
 which Bishop Heber spoke in admiration ; describing the larger one as 
 " a temple fit for the worship of any faith." The temple of which the bishop 
 thus spoke I am advised to visit, as being the best specimen of these wonders 
 of a land in which men seem to have imitated rabbits, moles, and prairie-dogs 
 in the situation of their temples, pelicans of the wilderness in the localities of 
 them, and the teredo worm in the way in which they bored through and 
 riddled the rocks. 
 
 The Ellora rock-cut temples are something of an exception to that descrip- 
 tion. They are but a mile from the walls of a half-deserted and wholly 
 decayed old town, and are a terrace of temples hewn out all around from the 
 mount at their back, and not, as in other cases, burrowed into the mount in 
 cavern fashion. They may be said to be hewn both without and within. If 
 Karlee has the finest one to show in the way of these wonders, Ellora has 
 many of such excellence as to make up for the prominence of its single rival. 
 The Kailas, or Paradise cave, at Ellora, is considered by many travellers to 
 surpass all others. Regarding the question of the cost of such immense 
 labours, I am told that it is demonstrably more economical to cut a house out 
 of a single stone than to build it up of many. 
 
 The interest of all such works as these temples is increased by the thought 
 which occurs to the western-world man, that mankind have generally dealt 
 with underground work either for gain and profit in minerals and precious stones, 
 
CAVE TEMPLE OF AJANIA. 
 
 Page SI 8. 
 
Brahniinical Worship. 319 
 
 or as abodes for the dead only, and not as temples for worship by the living. 
 The ancient Egyptians hollowed chambers in the rocks and the hill-sides, but 
 it was as receptacles for the sarcophagus of some sacred bull, or bird, or 
 mummied magnate only. In these rock-cut temples, however, nothing was 
 entombed. 
 
 Since the curious worship I saw at Benares, the religion of the Hindoos has 
 <Treatly troubled me. I pick up particulars from some learned and communica- 
 tive Parsees to whom I appeal for all Hindoo information. I am showing my 
 ignorance, of course, but I am always doing that, and especially in seeking to 
 learn why people believe in things repugnant to the senses, and not to be 
 established by reason. I find that the great bulk of the two hundreds of 
 millions of India hold the faith called Brahminism, which appears to the out 
 ward senses in deities, demi and semi-deities, their wives and transmigrated 
 forms, and in image worship, rites and ceremonies. 
 
 The rudiments of the Hindoo faith are found, I am told, in the Vedas, the 
 sacred writings of its believers, the oldest of which, the Rig Veda, is the 
 most ancient piece of literature in the world. By that, however, the worship 
 of the elements or elementary powers only is taught. Countless years before 
 our era, before our antiquity in fact, these writings, in giving place to the 
 elements worshipped, gave the first place to Deva, a name now interpreted as 
 meaning God. The Yedas were to the Hindoos, so to speak, as their Old 
 Testament. Their next sacred writings, the Upanishads, systematised the 
 faith taught by both, and enlightened its believers in matters of worship and in 
 the different qualties of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, or Creator, Sustainer, 
 and Destroyer, the Trinity of Brahminism, as also of Krishna, its Messiah. 
 
 There came then, as there comes to all faiths, a breaking up of Brahminism 
 into sects which occurred in what is called the Puranic period. The third 
 series of sacred writings, known as the Puranas and the Tantras, are to Brah- 
 minism as the text-books of the Sectarians. On them are founded the faith 
 of those who worship as distinct deities Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, or any of 
 their wives. The Goddess Calicut, the deity of the Thugs, is, I find, one 
 of the wives of Shiva. From these writings originated the worship of such 
 deities as Indra, the god of the firmament ; Agni, the fire-god ; Kama, the 
 god of love ; Lishay, the serpent-god ; Surya, the sun-god ; (xanesa, the god 
 of wisdom ; Hanuman, the monkey-god ; Gunputti, of the elephant nose, and 
 a hundred others. Thus the pure source of Brahminism became corrupted in 
 its downward flow until it produced the idolatry I see all around throughout 
 the land, and saw in fullest flood at Benares. 
 
 Buddha came, as a Luther, over two thousand years ago, to teach a purer 
 and simpler faith as a great protest against such mixed and muddled idolatry. 
 Buddhism, however, being only an appeal to the intellect and reason, and not 
 to the senses, failed to get permanent hold on the Hindoo mind. In the 
 worship of the one first great cause, and that in no personal form, it went back, 
 in a sense, to the elementary worship taught by the Vedas, which was too 
 philosophical for sensuous minds, who require a form and personality for that 
 to which they pray. The Brahniinical priests jesuitically dealt with Buddhism 
 by appropriating its teacher as a new incarnation of one of their gods — an 
 ingenious idea, which helped, perhaps, to weaken a faith that might have 
 strengthened and prospered, as faiths best do, by persecution. 
 
 I look around these temples of the rock-cutting faith, and see how it has 
 removed mountains ; I gaze on the enormous pillars, elaborately carved, and 
 on the paintings all around ; on the statues standing out from the sides, or up 
 from above, or down from below, all part and parcel of the rocks around me. 
 One cannot speak of floors, walls, or roofs to these temples, for which reason 
 it is so difficult to describe them. In traversing these great silent halls, rich 
 
320 The Main Routes Round tJie Woiid. 
 
 all about in carvings, stone ornaments, and chiselled decorations, I could not 
 but think of the fact that labour only had been requisite to it all. Not an 
 anna had been spent here on material beyond the paint. Hammers, chisels, 
 and brushes in the hands of slaves had done it all — a crowd of poor Hindoos, 
 naked and starving, but rich in talent and full of the enthusiasm, diligence, 
 taste, and industry of the true artist. 
 
 The cavern and rock-cut temples, in which hundreds of workmen burrowed, 
 like moles, for their lifetime, paid only by daily doles of grain and by the lash, 
 could not well be constructed by other means. Free and paid labour could 
 not be so expended. The monstrous, fantastic, and cruel works of the older 
 world cannot be repeated in the present era, in which the quarry slave no 
 longer goes, in Bryant's language, "scourged to his dungeon" after his day of 
 toil. The painted frescoes which are here to be seen, keep brilliant in colour, 
 probably from the exclusion of sunlight, or perhaps from the lost knowledge, 
 which the Egyptians also possessed, of how to make paint resist time's ravages. 
 They depict festival scenes, in which the feminine figures are gracefully draped 
 and have olive complexions. These are temples adorned by Buddhist artists. 
 In others, decorated by Brahminical ones, the subjects of the paintings are 
 often anything but refined. The stone from which these temples are mostly 
 cut is that called amygdaloid, not so hard as granite, but seemingly as durable. 
 
 The strangest forms are given to the deities with whose figures these temples 
 are crowded. From the four-headed Brahma downwards all the complicated 
 monstrosities had their significance. In these stone records are meanings that 
 we may yet better understand. Strange among the forms is that given to 
 Krishna, and it is curious, indeed, to learn how he got into Hindoo theology. 
 Resemblances in religions are notable things. The precepts of Buddhism have 
 great likeness to the Ten Commandments, and I am reminded of something 
 analogous in hearing the origin and office of Krishna in the Hindoo faith. 
 The legend runs that when one Kansa was in power here, the earth was 
 troubled with many evils, and Vishnu was prayed for help. He promised in 
 answer that Devaki, the wife of one Vasudeva, should immaculately conceive a 
 child in whom he would himself be incarnated, and dwell upon earth. Devaki 
 was thereupon carefully secluded, and the miraculous birth of Krishna came as 
 promised. The mother and child had then to flee from Kansa, who, Herod- 
 like, ordered the murder of all infants, in hopes of killing the God-child. After 
 years of absence the two returned safely. Krishna in his boyhood worked 
 miracles, and of a greater kind in his later years. Whether he did all the good 
 to the world that Vishnu promised is not clear, but he left to India when he left 
 the world that Kamadeva, the god of love, to whom he gave life, and who is 
 the most cherished of its deities. The learned Parsee who tells me this adds that 
 such was the foreshadowing of the commandment to love one another left to 
 the world in years long after Krishna's, and in another land. 
 
 In sending down Krishna upon earth Vishnu made what is called his eighth 
 " avatar," or earthly appearance. He had appeared seven times previously in 
 the world, in shapes of a fish, a tortoise, or some animal or other ; but in 
 Krishna this deity, the great one of the Hindoo trinity, made his first human 
 incarnation. His ninth appearance was ingeniously said by the priesthood to 
 be in the form of that Buddha, whom, as they could not ignore, they thus 
 appropriated. He is to appear once more, when he will destroy all unbelievers 
 and the doers of evil, and bring about the millennium. In these appearances 
 of Vishnu upon earth in curious forms I recognize the cause of much of the 
 strange worship that I had seen in Benares. Each form in which he appeared 
 became sacred. 
 
 The sight of the troglodyte terrace of temples at Ellora is quite appalling 
 in the magnitude of the labour evidently expended upon them. The Hindoos 
 
Cave-Temple Wotiders. 321 
 
 go back as far as pre- Adamite age in dating some of them. They look cer- 
 tainly fit work for prehistoric men, ignorant of bricks, mortar, stucco, white- 
 wash, and leasehokls. If such men dwelt in caves they might have worshipped 
 in them also, and gradually hewn, cut, carved, and developed them to that 
 which is here to be seen. Supposing that one could have any idea what a 
 thing ought to look like when over six thousand years old, these temples might 
 be thought to be of that age or of any other. 
 
 As there is not a joint or join throughout them, there is nothing at which 
 decay can begin, and there is nothing that a traveller can tear oft" and take 
 away, or an invader pull down. They might be mined and blown to pieces, 
 if gunpowder was not too valuable to be wasted by the hundredweight. 
 Nothing short of an earthquake is likely to interfere with their looking much 
 as they do now when the last of the human race shall look upon them, and that 
 unit is more likely for many reasons to be found in India than elsewhere, when 
 the final clearance shall come. 
 
 In looking at all this art wasted in the wilderness, any one not a philosopher 
 would feel grieved that life and time and their proper uses have been so 
 concealed from man. In working here for a lifetime at these temples to 
 r^Ionkey and Mumbo Jumbo gods, the pious Hindoo thought probably that he 
 worked out his salvation much as the old monks did in painting and illumina- 
 ting MS missals. Howe'er it may be, I hope that as work it will be all 
 accounted as worship, and so credited to its doers. 
 
 India has not been so careful as China in keeping written history. It has, 
 perhaps, like to Egypt, substituted stone work as more enduring record, but 
 none of it is inscribed wath hieroglyphics. It had grown to be a mighty land 
 when we get first word of it, and of Menu legislating for it at a date which is 
 5700 years before the Christian era. On that date historians differ to the 
 extent of over 2000 years, which is as a trifle in the history of Hindoostan. 
 
 It is quite mythical by what stages the aboriginals developed to the high 
 state of civilization that produced the Sanscrit Rig Veda, or gave place to the 
 Aryan race that did so. My language and that of the natives of this land had 
 the same origin, though I am paying the man at my elbow two rupees a day 
 and his rice for translating it to me. It gives us an excuse for getting hold of 
 India, and keeping it, that it was the land of those who were our ancestors 
 more certainly than others so credited. 
 
 The Menu of earliest Indian history represented, I find, the Indian Moses in 
 character of lawgiver and father of the Vedic rites. These he stated to be of 
 divine origin, and given by him to the Hindoos as from one commissioned by 
 the deity. Some have thought to identify this Menu with that Menes, the 
 Egyptians' first monarch, to whom Egypt looks back as the English do to King 
 Arthur. 
 
 Much knowledge is credited to the Egyptians which they are thought to have 
 monopolized in ancient days, but that suggestion of the oneness of Menu and 
 Menes "gives us pause." There is greater likelihood, all things regarded, of 
 Egypt learning from India, than India from Egypt. One may have been no 
 better than the other, nor more deserving of fame, but the pride of place is 
 always recognised, even down to the position given in our play-bills to the 
 "first robber." 
 
 I am especially led to think thus about those two lands on regarding, in these 
 cavern temples, obelisks that are larger than Cleopatra's needle, standing on 
 the backs of elephants, all, obelisk and elephant, cut from stone which rises 
 from the floor to the roof, so serving as supports. Many of these pillars, and 
 similar work, at which one may gaze in awe, give one infinite respect for the 
 prodigious labour of those workers of the years long past, who seem to have 
 wrought for all years to come. Here, in the temple of Indra, are colossal 
 
 W 
 
322 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 statvies of that god and his goddess, which in size vie with any that Egypt can 
 show. 
 
 In the temple- cave dedicated to the Mistree, which is not an inappropriate 
 name for a strange god, the Deity is represented as sitting cross-legged, with a 
 hand on each knee, and a puzzled expression of countenance. The Doorma 
 cave, near to it, has an immense hall decorated with fresco work. The sculpture 
 and frescoes in some of these temples could only be properly appreciated by 
 such as Raphael or Michael Angelo. Artists alone know the difficulties of art. 
 I feel the want of a skilled architect with me during the inspection, to point 
 out wherein these great artists had shown their real strength. 
 
 The cavern temples of Elephanta are situated on an island about two hours' 
 sailing distance from Bombay. I am taken there in the yacht of a kindly 
 Australian, who has for many years been, theatrically, quite a potentate 
 throughout Hindoostan. Two hills conjoined at their bases have been here 
 burrowed out for temple purposes. I am introduced at once to rock-cutting 
 where I land, by the sight of a projecting crag on which is carved a huge 
 figure, now much time and tempest-worn. A tiring ascent of steep stone 
 stairs, over a hundred in number, lands me at a barrier, at which stands a 
 money-taker. This gatekeeper is only a deputy, however, acting on behalf of 
 the British Government, which in this matter plays the showman's part. For 
 the rupee I pay here, I get a formal receipt, which I kept as carefully as I did 
 the bill of fare at the Royal Rest-house at Rambodda. It reads thus — 
 " No. 236. Admit to Elephanta Caves J. Hingston. 
 G. Merewether, Major R.E., Bombay Defences." 
 
 This prepayment and peep-show business had the comforting assurance about 
 it that one was approaching more of European civilisation than had been met 
 with in the interior. 
 
 At this gate of the money-taker I found a Hindoo who offered for sale a leaf 
 on which was the prettiest and most peculiar insect I had ever seen. In insect 
 life it might have taken the prize for beauty. On a circular plate, of apparently 
 purest crystal, and of about the size of a silver threepenny piece, nature had 
 inlaid a beetle's form that had body and legs of mixed gold and green. Its 
 feet worked beneath the crystal disc in which it was so fancifully inserted. The 
 head and wings were above the surface. The native who showed it to me — 
 creeping on its native leaf — asked but half a rupee for the little treasure, which 
 he got at once, with an offer to take more on the same terms. I found after- 
 wards that when dead the amber-like surrounding dried up. 
 
 Passing another gate-keeper, who takes from me the commissary's ticket, I 
 come to the entrance of the caves. These are of the Brahminical faith, and 
 enshrine immense figures of the trinity of that creed — Brahma, Vishnu, and 
 Shiva. Around the walls are bas-relief figures of other deities and their train 
 of attendants, some of them of most grotesque shape. I notice that the 
 figures of winged angels, so familiar to European eyes, never appear in any of 
 the temples of the many faiths of Hindoostan. The principal shrine, situate in 
 one of the anterooms to the central hall, is that to Shiva, the destroying deity, 
 who seems throughout India to be ten to one more often propitiated in effigy 
 and shrine than are the other two of the trinity. 
 
 In the anteroom, the great central hall, and the two side halls of the 
 Elephanta temples, what is to be seen is well lighted by cuttings, so planned 
 as to exclude rain, and appear as natural only. In the great hall of this 
 temple a feast had been given to royalty when on a visit here lately. Brahma, 
 Vishnu, and Shiva looked down then on the loaded tables as Gog and Magog 
 do on the feasts in Guildhall. I did not hear how the Hindoos took such a 
 desecration of this one of their temples. Eugene Aram is made, in Hood's 
 poem, to speak of the fear he had of a dead man's looks — 
 
A Curio Island. 
 
 Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone that could not do me ill, 
 And yet I feared him all the more for lying there so still ; 
 There was a manhood in his look that murder could not kill. 
 
 323 
 
 These Hindoo sculptors have put great expression into the stony eyes and 
 features of their figures. You feel uneasy in the presence of some of them. 
 I am not sure that I could have risen, glass in hand, to the toasts given at that 
 banquet with the eyes of those three deities full upon me. That this rock-cut 
 temple is nearest to Europe is evident in the chipped state of the figures and 
 frescoes. Lips, noses, ears, hands, fingers, and toes, have been sacrificed all 
 around by relic-hunting iconoclasts. 
 
 The insect-vendor at the gate fails to get me another gold, green, and crystal 
 beetle, but brings other curios, of which one is the nest of the bottle-bird. It 
 is shaped in appearance as a leathern bottle of the quart size, and made of 
 woven grass fibre, to hang with the neck downwards. What I thus see is 
 only, however, the outer case of the nest, which is itself ; daintily made of the 
 softest down ; in the shoulder of the hanging bottle. To my clumsy ideas the 
 nest looks unnecessarily difficult to get into, and much as it would be to get 
 into a cottage by the chimney if hung upside down by the foundation joists. 
 This mild Hindoo has other natural curios also. These are peapods — the peas 
 in which are of bright red colour, with black tops that would look pretty when 
 strung as a necklace. Another novelty is a petite lobster of many colours, 
 which has but one claw, and that seemingly of ivory. It would be the pet of 
 a parlour aquarium, and show well in a gold-fish bowl. Prospero's isle was 
 " full of noises," but this little isle of Elephanta seemed full of pretty things in 
 a naturalist's way. For those attractions alone it repaid the visit as much as 
 by its wonders of rock-cut temples. The right name of this island is, I find, 
 Garipiiri. It gets the name of Elephanta from a stone elephant of fourteen 
 feet in length, that was considered its most conspicuous object, but which has 
 now been removed to Bombay, to ornament a public garden there. 
 
 In this high-pressure age, those that run may, we are told, also read in their 
 rapid pace. They may, with much better effect, leave the reading to their 
 leisure, and look about them when on the run. On stopping to breathe, the 
 time will come for making notes and inquiries as to what has been seen, and 
 of that kind is what I have been doing in this Indian travel. Much that I 
 have learnt and detailed might be found by wading through many volumes in 
 the search for it, but what I find to be novel I write of as such under that 
 pleasant impression of ihe day — for a pleasant one it really is. The notes thus 
 made may serve as suggestions for further queries at a future time. At the 
 fountain head the water does but dribble, but the dribblings go to fill up the 
 river that runs flowingly further onwards. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 India's metropolis. 
 
 Having entered upon India by its sea gate of Madras on the eastern coast, I 
 now reach that of Bombay on its west, and in the meantime I have gone over 
 about three thousand miles of its territory. I have come down from the 
 Mofussil, as the "bush" is called here, and enter India's largest city. Bom- 
 bay exceeds expectation. It is India's metropolis, and that far before Calcutta, 
 
 W 2 
 
324 
 
 The Main Ro2ites Roimd the World. 
 
 in all senses in which that title should be understood. It has about seven hun- 
 dred thousand denizens of various colours and creeds, and is, as the great sea- 
 port of Hindoostan, a lively, bustling place. Several advantages have tended 
 to that result. The three most prominent ones are its fine harbour, its railway, 
 and the opening of the Suez Canal. The harbour, and its greater nearness to 
 Europe than other Indian ports, made much of Bombay before the times of rail- 
 ways and the canal ; but these greatly add to its good, and always will. Madras 
 has no harbour whatever ; and Diamond Harbour, of Calcutta, can only be ap- 
 proached by a troublesome and tortuous river, that requires, even to a steam- 
 vessel, careful and expensive pilotage, and two days' waste of time. 
 
 All the mails for India are landed at Bombay, and thence distributed 
 throughout the land. Passengers follow that example, and so save time and 
 voyaging round the coast. In this city I look upon fine wide streets and noble 
 buildings. There is something French-like in the appearance of some parts of 
 it. A large frontage of it is presented to the winding of the bay, and on its 
 good hilly ground are private dwellings, which thus get sea-breezes and fine 
 views. The public buildings are of a light brownish-coloured stone — not so 
 sombre in appearance as the brown stone buildings of the best parts of New 
 York — and of a tasty appearance. 
 
 A tramway runs through the leading streets, and is much patronized — 
 chiefly on account of the expense of other modes of locomotion, and the heat of 
 the climate. The floor of these tram carriages is but a foot from the ground. 
 Their sides and seats are of open woodwork, and both driver and conductor 
 are mild Hindoos of obliging natures. The tramway is a speculation of 
 Americans, and, I was told, paid very well. The fare from the Apollo 
 Wharf to Byculla, or from one end of the city to the other, was two annas and 
 a half — about twopence halfpenny. I perceive that a lottery — I beg pardon, a 
 gift distribution — is added to the attraction of the ride on this rail. Passengers 
 taking a ticket have also the chance of a money prize. My ticket reads 
 thus : — 
 
 "012555. — Bombay Tramway Company (Limited). March. — Prize cheque — to be kept by 
 passenger. For 2>^ annas fare, 10 prizes of sr. each." 
 
 I quite forgot during my week in Bombay to inquire if my ticket had turned 
 up anything. Perhaps this notification of its number may lead to something, 
 besides giving a hint to an enterprising omnibus company. The driver is com- 
 municated with in these cars by passengers touching a bell-pull. There was 
 no waste of time in talking to the man at the wheel, as neither driver nor con- 
 ductor spoke English on my car — which saved them answering a world of 
 questions. How the horses understood the strange language in which they 
 were spoken to by the driver I could not understand, as they were, I was told, 
 of Australian exportation, and therefore educated in English only. 
 
 There is only a single line of rail to some streets. At the corner of those 
 a native is seen with a flag. When that is raised the approaching tram-car 
 stops its progress, knowing that the rails are occupied by an up-coming car. 
 The other public vehicles are gharries — brougham-like things — and buggies ; 
 in which latter the fare sits beside the driver, and often — for reasons good — 
 wishes that he didn't. These conveyances never move off their stands, on the 
 shortest drive, for less than a rupee. 
 
 This great Bombay has bebnged to the British since the days of Charles the 
 Second. In that time — over two hundred years — it has had fifty English 
 governors. The salary looks large at twelve thousand pounds sterling ; but re- 
 membering the climate, and at what sum Dean Swift estimated " the sweat's 
 worth of Serjeant Bettsworth," it is not out of the way to look upon half of it 
 as payment for perspiration. In that calculation, the difference between a 
 governor and a serjeant-at-law has to be considered, as also that of the climates 
 
Bombay's ''Bubble'' Time, 325 
 
 of Bombay and Dublin. In its early clays the city was made over to the East 
 India Company at the peppercorn rent of ten pounds a year. Between the 
 rivalry of another settlement named Surat, and the intrusions of neighbouring 
 Mahrattas, Bombay had for years a poor time of it. Soldiery were raised for 
 its defence, and they remained there to conquer and annex much territory to 
 the Bombay Presidency. 
 
 The city which I look upon was, in the last century, only a collection of 
 dirty, swampy islands — a most pestiferous place. Surat was snufted out, and 
 the seat of the Presidency removed here in 1692. Good Governor Hornby 
 attempted to shut out the sea from the swamps in 1784, but was recalled at 
 once for such an effort to spend money that was wanted for the pockets of the 
 Company in Leadenhall-street. Hornby, however, took the bit in his teeth, 
 and kept the letter of recall in his pocket, or used it for a pipe-light. He did 
 for Bombay the good work he had determined upon ; and then, and not till 
 then, retired. The angry company thenceforth allowed no Governor to open 
 despatches, that might be used in like manner as was this one to Governor 
 Plornby. 
 
 Bombay progressed, more or less, until 1862-3-4-5, when the days of more 
 than Eastern romance came to it — days that none of its folk will ever forget, or 
 cease ever to talk about ; though dull, plodding people, like myself, listen 
 incredulously. The minds of all men are not adapted for belief in miracles, 
 and the history of those times has so much of the miraculous in it. The 
 American war then breaking out stopped the exportation thence of cotton, of 
 which trade India then secured almost a monopoly. In those years eighty-one 
 millions sterling of extra profit over that usually realized was made on cotton 
 shipped from Bombay ! With the spring of 1S65 came the close of the war, 
 and then the reaction. Cotton fell here in one month to a third of its price, 
 and Croesus himself collapsed. The city generally went into liquidation, and 
 its merchants have not recovered from the shock yet, and many never wilL 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere was Governor in those halcyon days, and did all he could 
 towards diverting the stream of wealth to the improvement of the city. He 
 succeeded in getting six millions and a half sterling laid out in reclaiming land 
 from the sea, filling up swamps, making wharves and jetties, and Bombay the 
 handsome and healthy city that I see it now. It wants only an hospital for 
 the white folks, a public library, and a decent theatre or two as further im- 
 provements — likewise another climate. The four theatres that are here are 
 owned by Parsees, and seem to have been converted to their present purposes 
 by an afterthought. The charges, too, are not those of ordinary theatres, but 
 something far superior. Australia has been of late years the chief source of 
 theatrical supplies to India, and in that way has left pleasant remembrance of 
 good services. 
 
 The share-lists of the time of the mania are treasured by those who did not 
 happen to burn their fingers in it. Few of these relics are consequently to be 
 found. One which I got a sight of was so interesting that I made a copy of it. 
 I must premise that no less than two hundred thousand adventurers " rushed " 
 Bombay during its three-and-a-half mad years, in addition to its previous popu- 
 lation. Nearly that number are said to have left it on the fitful fever subsiding. 
 That large number of fortune-hunters accounts, perhaps, for much of what I 
 read in the share-list from which I now extract. 
 
 Grabbing at a share of the eighty-one millions so set afloat appear in this 
 list twenty-seven banks. The shares are all quoted at a high premium, though 
 eight-tenths of them had no profits, and but one third had begun business. 
 Seven of these swindles stand at 100 per cent, premium, and others range from 
 that price to 190 per cent, on their shares. I read the names also of seven- 
 teen semi-banks, called " Financial Associations " — all the shares in which are 
 
326 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 at high premiums on fancy profits. Eight Land Companies are here notified 
 as formed to reclaim land from the bay — like to the salt-marsh schemes of Sir 
 Affable Hawk in " The Game of Speculation." One of the schemes professed 
 to have only ;!^400 per share paid up, and yet its shares are here quoted at the 
 price of ;^3O00 ! Ten shipping companies are here advertised as floated, and 
 no less than seventeen wool-pressing companies ; as if India were as wool-pro- 
 ducing as is Australia. I count next three railway companies, ten spinning 
 and weaving ones, and twelve other projected schemes classified as "miscel- 
 laneous " — all of which are stated to have large capital, and their shares 
 quoted at fabulous premiums. I looked in vain, however, for a successor to 
 that daring genius of the South South Bubble times, whose scheme and all its 
 particulars were to be kept secret until its share-list had filled. 
 
 The crash in 1865 was led off by a Parsee firm failing for ;i{^3, 000,000 ster- 
 ling. All the Financial Associations collapsed. The twenty-seven banks 
 followed suit, with the exception of a bare half-dozen, and but two of the land 
 companies struggled on. The collapse of one of the banks — the Bank of Bom- 
 bay — made much bobbery and litigation which the world heard of. The question 
 still agitates the Bombay mind, as to where that ;^8 1,000,000 of extra profits 
 went. All the financiers of the place fail to account for more than a third of 
 it. Sir Bartle Frere appears to have done best in the racket, and what he got 
 out of the fire still remains for the good of the city — one half-pennyworth of 
 bread to the large quantity of " sack." 
 
 "Caste" must, I think, be of climatic influence in India. It affects the 
 white population very much indeed. Their chief amusement here lies in 
 formal dinners, to which all who go have to study tables of precedence and 
 manuals of punctilio. The native chiefs are greatly afflicted in that way. 
 They know to half a foot how far the Governor should advance towards them 
 when they honour his receptions. They pine also for gun salutes. For that 
 sort of foolery, measured by the number of guns fired, these puppet princes 
 will give indefinite money. The Maharajahs of Peasoup and Poohbosh are pining 
 for ''thirteen guns," and willing, for that favour, to raise a troop of horse, or 
 pay half a million away in some way that can be so publicly recognised. If I 
 stay about here much longer I may catch this fever, and feel quite forlorn if no 
 guns be fired when I go. I shall get one at least if I leave by the mail steamer. 
 
 In the cool of the evening I find a great gathering of the population at the 
 bay side. The wives of the Mussulmans are not allowed to show in public. 
 It is, perhaps, quite as well, as the Parsee ladies throw all others into the 
 shade. I see them dressed in red, orange, and green tinted silks and satins, 
 and their daughters resplendent in gold and silver laced caps, with dresses that 
 remind one of stage supers in an extravaganza. Here is the place to make 
 one's choice of a turban — the variety is endless. It is relieved now and then 
 by the sectional chimney-pot hat worn by the Parsees, and by the hats of 
 Europeans, which are all over the world much the same. 
 
 The religious fanatic is not noticed here in Bombay as he once was. The 
 British Government that have put down the burning of widows, and the 
 immolations beneath the Car of Juggernaut, have also suppressed the Fakir's 
 exhibition in Indian cities. As he only lived for admiration — the vainest of 
 men — his occupation was gone when removed from crowds. One of them 
 tried to carry out the Simeon Stylites-idea on the top of a column, but was 
 fetched down by the police, who, in these days, would bid St. Simeon himself 
 to move on. 
 
 The Pinjarapol, as the hospital built by the Jain sect is called, is not for 
 humanity, but solely for the use of sick and vagrant quadrupeds. The Jains 
 are a Hindoo sect that will not take away the life of any created thing. The 
 work of the Creator is respected by them, down to fleas and flies. Neither is 
 
The Towel's of Silence. 327 
 
 this hospital for providing medical and surgical aid to its dumb patients, but 
 only for shelter, food, and kind attention. In explanation of why the doctor's 
 services were not included, I was reminded that it was a debatable question 
 whether doctors did not kill as often as cure, and that the religion of the Jains 
 did not allow them to run any risk of sacrificing life. The patients are there- 
 fore left to Nature and the nurse — a good combination. 
 
 Here w^ere dogs, cats, horses, sheep, goats, buffaloes, and bullocks. Some 
 of these were estrays waiting to be claimed by their owners. A clog who had 
 been run over that morning was here having his broken leg bound up, and a 
 similar kindness had, I saw, been extended to two fowls who were hopping 
 about. Some of the animals that were here had much better have been put 
 out of their suffering ; the kindness shown them only prolonged the torture and 
 torment of incurable diseases. 
 
 Mention of the Jain sect leads to the thought that the government have 
 done much to suppress the fanaticism once shown here among different creeds. 
 Yet the Mohammedans yearly have sad faction fights, in reverence to the 
 memory of Mahomet's sons Hassan and Houssain. In these blood is always 
 shed and lives sometimes lost. 
 
 The Parsees have a walled enclosure sacred to their dead, near the town, 
 which is called The Towers of Silence. It is about four acres in extent, and 
 situated on a hill overlooking the city. There are about 50,000 Parsees in 
 and about Bombay, all of them being dealt with here at their death, and that 
 in a more singular way than the burning of bodies, which I had already seen, 
 and most like to the manner of treeing their dead, practised by the Australian 
 aboriginals. I drive out to these "towers," and find my way stopped at the 
 foot of the hill on which they stand, by a gate having on it this inscription, — 
 
 "The Towers of Silence. 
 This place is for Parsees only, and the entrance of all others is strictly prohibited." 
 
 I could see that the notice was meant for my curious race, because it was in 
 English and in no other language. Looking at it in that light, I took it as 
 ofiensive in so singling out one nationality for exclusion. Being of Danish 
 descent I resolved not to understand it ; and so — leaving the gharry in waiting 
 — unlatched the gate, and toiled up a steep path, which in the heat of the day 
 was punishment enough for any amount of misdoing. Arrived at the top, I 
 found a stone wall of eight feet high all around, in w^hich was a gateway 
 having a similar inscription to that seen at the foot of the winding ascent. A 
 native guardian was standing there, having a staff of office or stick in his hand. 
 Passing him, I walked onwards round the wall, going further up the hill mean- 
 while. On the outer side there is a fringe of palm-trees, and the landscape is 
 worth coming to see, independently of the walled-in mystery. I endeavoured 
 to look as not wanting to see inside the Myalls, but as coming up merely 
 to admire the splendid views from the height, and as going further onwards, 
 away ever so far, on business. 
 
 Having got out of the sight of the gate-keeper, I stopped to consider the 
 position. I had not come to see a stone wall and return so unsatisfied. Other 
 folks had seen these towers, as I recalled reading accounts of them. Thinking 
 that folks who go wandering about the world should be as fertile of resource as 
 was Marshal Key himself, I wandered on until the smooth stone wall broke 
 into a rough rubble one. Further on I noticed a stump of a tree near to it. 
 With the help of that, and the irregularities of the stones, I scramble to the 
 top, at the expense of a broken finger-nail or two. 
 
 A noise in the trees outside makes me look that way before looking inwards. 
 In the tops of these trees, cocoanut palms, all around are congregated groups 
 of ugly-looking vultures. These villainous carrion-eating birds seem to croak 
 
328 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 at my intrusion among them — so much so that I feel glad that I have a stout 
 umbrella with me that I had used as a sunshade. I think that I will put up 
 this protection against the sun while I sit on the wall, and in doing so, 
 I clumsily knock off my hat, which falls within the enclosure. It was a new 
 purchase made that day, cost a power of money, and a lot of hunting up, and 
 was a hat not to be easily matched. Without a second thought I jumped after 
 it, and stood there and then in company with the many towers of silence. 
 
 I wonder now that the vultures did not make a sudden onslaught on me, as 
 all flesh within those walls was theirs by right — or rather by custom and usage. 
 It is conscience that makes us cowards, and I had a clear one in that matter of 
 the hat, as to my right to be there. I nevertheless folded up the umbrella, 
 and grabbed it tightly as I went to look around. The "towers" are low 
 circular buildings of stone, like to small gasometers. They stood at equal 
 distances apart, and at one end, near to the gate, stood a plain-looking one- 
 story building, differently shaped. To each tower there was a door, that was 
 closed in all cases but one. As it stood partly open I looked up the steps that 
 led from it, and saw at the top a grating, on which lay a human skeleton with 
 clean-picked bones, which the birds on the surrounding trees had been lately 
 at work upon. It is as well perhaps to be eaten by birds above ground as by 
 worms below, and such is all a matter of taste and fashion, but I felt very 
 uneasy now, and wished myself out of the place. It would be so simple an 
 operation to knock one on the head, hoists one's carcase on to that grating, 
 and let the l)irds have half an hour at one, when one's identity, even as a man 
 or woman, would puzzle a college of surgeons. 
 
 Of those birds in the trees I now felt really in awe. Considering the 
 nature of their daily dietary, such was no wonder. I had seen quite enough. 
 Curiosity was satisfied with me as it was with Bluebeard's wife among the 
 remains of her predecessors in the forbidden chamber. My only thought now 
 was how to get out. Climbing the rubble wall quite foiled me. I got 
 the umbrella handle to catch on the top, and so thought to pull myself up. 
 The ribs and covering, however, slipped off the stick, leaving the handle 
 hanging on the wall, and myself stretched on the ground, in which position 
 two vultures flew down from the trees to look at me. I threw stones at these 
 sacred birds, so driving them back to their roosting-places. I was not going 
 to be eaten alive unresistingly. 
 
 The matter was getting desperate. Remorse came also to nag me, as it 
 always does to those in trouble. What business had I here — poking my nose 
 into other people's burials ? We are much too curious. What mattered it to 
 me how the defunct Parsees were disposed of? Let the dead past bury its 
 dead, and the dead Parsees too. What could it matter to me whether birds or 
 worms ate them ? We will be nibbling still about that tree of knowledge, 
 true children of our first mother, and getting into the trouble that it still 
 brings to us. 
 
 Desperate cases suggest strange remedies, as necessity breeds invention. I 
 took the now naked umbrella stick from the wall, and walked on towards the 
 gate. I had various cards in a pocket-case, one of which was written in 
 Cingalese character, and looked eastern and unintelligible enough for anything. 
 The guardian of the gate soon saw my approach, and came towards me. I 
 held out the card, and said loudly, "Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy," a name that I had 
 learnt was all powerful with the Parsees. It appeased at once the mixture of 
 surprise and anger I had seen in his face. He seemed to take the card and expla- 
 nation as satisfactory, and so showed me to the gate. Looking again at the 
 inscription on it, I now noticed that Sir Jamsetjee"s name was mentioned as 
 the donor of the ground. On going down the hill I took care to walk pain- 
 fully and slowly to avoid any appearance of a run, which I nevertheless felt 
 
Bombay Notables. 329 
 
 greatly inclined to break into. That gatekeeper was, I feared, looking after 
 me with an undecided mind. 
 
 The first baronet of the Jeejeebhoy line is, I believe, dead; but the baronetcy 
 has, I was told, passed to a son and namesake. The first was the founder of 
 this walled enclosure, who at his own sole cost built the towers and settled 
 the feathered colony around them — presenting the whole of it for the use of 
 the Parsee sectarians. Why the native gugrdian of the towers never inquired 
 how I got into the enclosure was probal^ly due to his not speaking English, 
 and perhaps to some little confusion of ideas for the moment. It was not the 
 only time that a strange card did me good service. 
 
 A Parsee of communicative mind, who spoke English well, as they mostly 
 do, whom I met at the Byculla Hotel, kindly told me all about the towers, and 
 the different uses of each of them. He understood that I had seen them from 
 horseback — just standing in the stirrups to get a glimpse over the wall. One 
 tower is only used for six months at a time. There are different grades to be 
 provided for, whose bodies cannot be allowed the use of the same grating. 
 Others are for women, children, and suicides — each having a tower to them- 
 selves. Families preferring the expense can have a tower for their sole 
 use. 
 
 The chouk, or native quarter of Bombay, is a well-built place compared to 
 that of Calcutta. The houses are of many stories, stuccoed and coloured in 
 blue, white, and yellow. The cleanliness and gay colours are all explained 
 when I learn that the population hereabout are mostly Parsees. The names I 
 see about end generally in " bhoy " or "jee." One, however, stands out in 
 bold difference as " Mr. Annunciation, undertaker of funerals." The " Mr." 
 seemed all out of the way in the front of a name like that. 
 
 I failed to make anything of the drama at two of the native theatres wdiich I 
 visited, and very shortly quitted. In coming from one of them I passed 
 through Commatteepoora — a street full of the most friendly-disposed people I 
 ever met. Seated outside, enjoying the cool breeze of the evening, these play- 
 ful creatures seemed to mistake me for some long-lost relative, and clutched 
 my coat-tail in an unexpected fashion. These were mostly women of 
 European complexion, and their like I had not met with anywhere in 
 Hindoostan. An alarming street, certainly, which for the future I carefully 
 avoided. A native newspaper published in this quarter has the simple and 
 modest title of The True God — a novel but needless way of asserting the 
 universally acknowledged supremacy of the press. 
 
 Two sights of Bombay are its market — the finest that the world can show — 
 and the walled enclosure in which the Dhobies, or washing-men, work — to 
 the number of three hundred, at least. The market is adapted for all states of 
 the weather, and, as an adjunct, has a fine garden with good seats and a pretty 
 central fountain. Each of the dhobies works at a small stone tank, in which 
 the linen is soaked. Afterwards it is taken out and slapped about on a square 
 stone until all the buttons are pretty well broken or knocked off. It is then 
 dried and ironed after a fashion that makes it look yellowish and unpleasant. 
 The Chinaman, as before observed, understands washing and does it well, 
 but the Hindoo is a sad failure at it. 
 
 Bombay is becoming a second Alexandria, as that city once was. The 
 civilisation of the East and the West here meet and ferment. Other cities of 
 India are dead-alive compared to it. They show what India was, and one sees 
 here what it is. There is not here that darkly-shaded Rembrandt-like picture 
 which Benares shows, nor that Paul Veronese splendour which is seen at Luck- 
 now. There are here no fairy-like bubbles of marble floating in the air as at 
 Agra, nor any palaces of alabaster inlaid with jewels and mirrors as at Delhi ; 
 but there is instead Ijusy life and vitality in everything, and samples to be seen 
 
330 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 of all the large packages of Hindoo nationalities which the traveller sees fully 
 opened out elsewhere. 
 
 Here are Hindoo temples with ever-clanging bells ; Moslem mosques that 
 seem never without devotees ; Parsee temples for those worshippers of fire 
 whom one sees in the evening bowing their heads to the setting sun — the 
 most practically powerful of all Indian deities — a sun, too, that is seen in 
 greater glory than the eyes of the western world ever see it. A Jewish syna- 
 gogue is here too, Ptnd the chapel of the Roman Catholic, side by side with the 
 church of the Protestant. Near at hand, the cemetery of both Protestant and 
 Catholic jostle that of the Mohammedan ; and the " ghaut " or ground on 
 which the Hindoo burns his dead is within sight of that in which the Parsee 
 gives his to the birds of the air. A busy metropolis and a very warm one 
 for nine months of the twelve is this Hindoostanee metropolis, the City of 
 Bombay. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 AT APOLLO BUNDER. 
 
 " A VISIT to India has been the dream of my life," said a late visitor there of 
 the highest distinction. He has made the visit, but India will still be as a 
 dream to him. It will be the same to all who make but similar fleeting visits — 
 but though fleeting the travel, its memories will be fixed ; memories which 
 will cling to one of things that gave such varying and wonderful sensations, 
 and were but so little understood. England's very possession of the country 
 seems but dream-like in the daylight of facts. Such an immense territory, and 
 so many hundreds of millions to be under the control of one hundred and fifty 
 thousand only of British here, and but thirty odd millions more on a little far- 
 distant island in the North Sea. In a late work by Colonel Cory, of the 
 Bengal staff", I read thus as I wait for the mail at this Apollo Bunder, which is 
 the steamboat wharf at Bombay : — 
 
 ■' The loss of Canada or of any other possession to England, would sink 
 into absolute insignificance if compared with that which threatens us in the 
 prospect of any decline of the power of Great Britain in India. It is mainly 
 from her that we derive our vast wealth, and the boundless prosperity that we 
 enjoy. It is from her, ' the storehouse of the world,' as Peter the (jreat called 
 her, that our coflers are filled to overflowing. Thousands of British families 
 owe competence and affluence to India alone. She supports half our army. 
 It is not too much to say that it is the possession of India which alone confers 
 upon Great Britain her claim to be a first-rate power." 
 
 It will be noticed that the colonel quotes Peter the Great and that astute 
 monarch's appreciation of India. Peter is said to have left a will, the 
 existence of which is mysterious with directions that are by some believed to 
 be still strictly followed. I wonder whether Russia's gradual advance to the 
 gates of Afghanistan is any part of the great Peter's policy? It is not strictly 
 correct to say that India belongs to Great Britain. There are a large number 
 of states in it of which the British Queen is not at present the ruler. Two- 
 fifths of immense India are still independent and ruled by native princes, 
 "descendants," as Lord Beaconsfield lately said, "of kings who were 
 governing in India when England was but a Roman province." There is 
 great Hyderabad, as large as Italy, whose Nizam governs twelve millions of 
 people ; and among others there are Gwalior, Baroda, Jeypore, and Nepaul, 
 
Siivimarising Hindoostan. 331 
 
 in which latter place dwell the terrible Ghoorkas — a race of fighting-men 
 equal to the Chasseurs d'Afrique of the French army. 
 
 The feeling of the traveller throughout India is, that he is in a foreign 
 land, the land of other people, and liable at any time to be kicked 
 out of it. All the crowds of people that he meets with speak in un- 
 known tongues, and in tongues not always understood by each other, 
 for of different lantruages India has no less than fifteen. They have 
 all of them the most un-English costumes, ways, and manners. All the 
 buildings that one sees, other than railway stations and barracks, are such as 
 are not seen elsewhere. The birds and beasts are new to one, and so are the 
 trees and field produce. The feeling creeps over the right-minded traveller 
 who thinks of what he sees, that he is in somebody's grounds which have lately 
 been the subject of an ejectment suit, and that the decision of the court may 
 yet be appealed against and reversed. Other claimants will then come about, 
 and the feeling of insecurity be greatly increased to the British traveller. II 
 England cannot, for climatic reasons, colonize India, what chance has she of 
 permanently holding it? Even the Mongols that conquered it and did colonize 
 it, and that largely, lost, like the Persians, their power in it. Than Akbar, 
 better king, better warrior, and wiser ruler, never lived. Did he still live, 
 India would be his land only. But he left descendants from whom his power 
 passed away. What has been will be. England may not always keep half her 
 army in India, and the mutiny of 1857 showed her that she cannot always rely 
 upon the sepoys and native soldiers. What Colonel Cory tells us is well-known 
 to the nations of the world, and such a many-times transferred country as 
 India is will be certainly looked upon as fair prey for any Power at variance at 
 any time with England. 
 
 British power has nothing to fear from those that are now in India. The 
 Hindoos cannot combine. Their different religions and terrible slavery to 
 "caste" keep them in isolated bands and abject subjection. I never 
 thoroughly understood what religious training could do for men until I came to 
 Hindoostan. None of my guides through Ceylon and India would eat or drink 
 with me; they would equally have refused a seat at the table of the Governor- 
 General himself. They would lose "caste" by doing so, and losing caste is 
 losing heaven to them. The Brahmins must attend to duties clerical only. 
 The Kshatriyas reserve themselves for military service, the Varsyas for agricul- 
 tural and herdsmen employ only, the Sudras for artisan and mechanical labour, 
 and the sons of each must follow the caste or occupation of their fathers. If 
 he loses caste by any of the many ways of doing so, the Hindoo feels much in 
 the position of a man just out of gaol, and forced to go about, hanging his 
 head, among his friends and former acquaintances. 
 
 In the crowded railway carriages I often noticed, throughout Hindoostan, 
 old Brahmins trying to secure themselves by barricades of baggage from hateful 
 contact with those of lower caste. It was painful to witness their efforts in 
 that way. Surrounded by bundles and packages, they would sit content to 
 perspire and suffocate, rather than touch or be touched by unholy ones. They 
 shrink from and scowl at intruders in a manner that used at first to frighten me 
 — thinking I had got locked up with a lunatic. The time came at last, how- 
 ever, when no nonsense could be further endured. The demand for room 
 necessitated the entrance of the guard, who came like a ha^^k upon a pigeon. 
 The baggage is taken from around the holy man, and pushed away under the 
 seats, or thrust into the rack above, and some dreadful lower-caste folks jostle, 
 shoulder to shoulder, with the exclusive one. 
 
 What penance is necessary to wash away the stain of such contact I never 
 learnt. It must be something as bad as a day spent with unboiled peas in his 
 shoes, to judge by the expression I see upon this good man's features. At 
 
332 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 another station, in the small hours of the morning, the train draws up, and a 
 Brahmin, who had been waiting for it, ran along looking in vain for an empty 
 carriage. In his unquiet state of mind he rushed back again, as if doubting 
 his eyes, but could see no seat fit for himself to take. The bell began ringing, 
 and the guard, who understood such matters, called him to a carriage, to which 
 he ran, and was at once pushed in, where he felt, probably, as unhappy as 
 Ignorance must have felt when pushed in at the door l^y the hill -side of which 
 Bunyan tells us. The question of dealing with caste — by smashing through its 
 forms and l^reaking down its barriers — is thus being settled on the railway. It 
 is with such folks as this Brahmin that the guard deals, as the toper did with 
 the various liquors of his night's drinking bout — " I take them all, and in any 
 quantity, and then leave them to fight it out amongst themselves." A people 
 so divided by creeds and castes as are the natives of India are easy, indeed, to 
 govern. Could they combine, they would then withstand the whole world in 
 arms. 
 
 Caste is a tree of great toughness, ancient growth, and wide-spreading roots 
 and branches. Yet it is marked for falling at some distant date. In addition to 
 what the railways do in bringing all castes together as fellow -passengers, the 
 school system, a strictly secular one, does more. The structure of caste is thus 
 being sapped and shaken, and also in its restrictions on marriage and social 
 intercourse, and on freedom of choice in occupations. These are gradually 
 found to be the hindrances that they really are to the native population com- 
 peting with the European for advancement in social political life. Caste has 
 bred nothing but a false pride in its strict observers, and led to such anomalies 
 as a rich man of low degree having to bow to his poor but proud servant of 
 higher caste. 
 
 A high caste Hindoo — a Koolin Brahmin — fallen to low financial condition, 
 had better die, unless he can live on his pride and descent and intense self- 
 respect. His blue blood gets thin on such nourishment, and yet he cannot 
 work, and is debarred from begging. Caste, by forcing the continuance of the 
 child in the trade of the father, put no doubt a number of square pegs into 
 round holes, and many a Pegasus into harness, but it developed the greatest 
 skill in handicrafts, and made the most proficient of workmen. A little of that 
 I had seen in the wonderful superiority of the jugglers who had from childhood 
 watched their fathers' doings, and learnt all of the art of diablerie before they 
 had learned much else. 
 
 The immense wealth of India, to which Colonel Cory alludes in the words I 
 have quoted, can be illustrated in a few items. According to Eastern custom 
 all land belongs to the state, and pays a rent to the Sovereign. The Maharajah 
 of Burdwan, in the Bengal district, pays yearly, as his contribution to this tax, 
 no less than forty-five thousand pounds sterling. The tax is one rupee for about 
 three thousand square yards, the value of which two years back was for the 
 year twenty-two millions sterling. Opium comes next, which for the same year 
 realised thirteen millions sterling. Indigo and jute produced three and a-half 
 millions sterling value each. The total Indian revenue for that year was fifty 
 millions sterling. The largest items that composed it were the taxes on land, 
 opium, and salt. Of the expenditure — all in India — of forty-six millions for 
 that year, fifteen millions went for the army expenses alone. The land is taken 
 from the Government by what the Irish call a middleman, and is by him 
 farmed out to the ryot or peasant at the largest rent that can be got at a public 
 auction. 
 
 The population may be thus enumerated:— ^Mohammedans, thirty millions ; 
 Hindoos proper, one hundred and eighty millions. The Sikhs — who are the 
 finest men in India or anywhere else — number two millions, including that 
 favoured one who was lately taken by Royalty to England to be exhibited at 
 
An '■^ Aj'ahiaii-Nighfs^^ Dream. 335 
 
 the Court of St. James as a handsome man. May all his gods help him there 
 to keep his caste! Of the "hill tribes" there are twenty millions, and of 
 Parsees one hundred thousand. Three hundred and twenty thousand call 
 themselves Christians, who, white folks here sarcastically say, would call them- 
 selves anything else for a few rupees. Lastly, there are but one hundred and' 
 fifty thousand British-born subjects in the length and breadth of the land. Of 
 Indian-born whites there are but comparatively few — the deadly climate 
 accounting for this. 
 
 An Arabian Night's sort of dream will India be to prince or peasant wha 
 may run through it all, city after city, bent only on seeing everything with the 
 eye of the curious. The recollections of it will jumble in the confused manner 
 of dreams, to be afterwards shown in such exclamations as — " Where was it that 
 I saw that?" "Yes, I saw that, but had forgotten it until your question 
 recalled it." It is impossible to remember the sights of a day — much less of 
 months ! 
 
 " Where was it that the man was selling the Persian cats with distended 
 tails — the cats all secured by pegs and strings?" 
 
 " In Calcutta — near to where the other native was offering the ring-tailed' 
 monkeys and pretty squirrels !" 
 
 "Yes, near to where the palki-bearer slipped, and I fell out sideways!" 
 
 " That was in the chouk — crossing the Burra Bazaar !" 
 
 " So it was ; and it was there, too, that I found the meaning of the strings 
 of dried leaves over the doorway, and the name of the toolsi plant in the 
 stuccoed pot at the window. It was in the gardens at Calcutta that I saw that 
 enormous banyan-tree — the biggest in the world ?" 
 
 "Was it larger than the one you saw in the Peredynia Gardens, near 
 Kandy ? " 
 
 "Did I see one there? Oh, yes ! — that was a large one, too. I had for- 
 gotten that." 
 
 " Where did you see your first fakir? " 
 
 " Let's see — was it at Madras, or Benares, or Delhi? Neither place; it 
 was at Lucknow — the man had claws for nails, and had not been washed for 
 twenty years. " 
 
 " I remember the beast, and can almost smell him at this distance." 
 
 Of such like will be the speedy traveller's hasty remembrances of his Indian 
 journey. 
 
 Of the trouble to travellers the most annoying is the utter inability of the 
 Hindoo to understand a word of English. It may be shouted at him in the 
 manner in which words are always sent at the heads of those who do not com- 
 prehend them, or it may be repeated slowly and distinctly, as was the request 
 for the loan of a gridiron made by the Irishman to the Frenchman, but all to 
 no purpose. The Plindoo is as stupid as one's self, and only knows his own 
 language. One is put to endless inconveniences by it which should have been 
 thought of beforehand. In time I get used to it, as one gets used to everything 
 that is irksome at first. As I go about in the gharries, I sit beside the driver, 
 as the best seat for looking round. He talks to me often enough, and never 
 seems to be annoyed at getting no sensible answers. He is pleased, perhaps, 
 at having so good a listener, and all the talk to himself. He has been told 
 what course to go on starting, and there is no further chance of our exchang- 
 ing ideas— even supposing that either of us happened to have any. We get on 
 very well until the return journey begins, when I perceive that he is going over 
 the same ground travelled before. He has only one notion of doing anything. 
 I therefore clutch the reins and bring about a stoppage until some probable 
 interpreter comes in sight. Generally that arrives in shape of a Parsee, whom 
 I identify by his style of hat. I explain matters to him. and he to the driver, 
 
334 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 and then another road is taken^ and trouble finishes. I do not recall meeting 
 with any Parsee who did not speak English. In that respect they are on an 
 equality with the Dutchmen in Java. 
 
 To please Western-world eyes I had rather that the mild Hindoo 
 would put additional covering on himself, and have respect for his word, 
 or for the memory of others as to what were his words. He is still the man 
 of the East who is regardless of the terms of his bargain. " Did I not agree 
 with thee for a penny ? " has to be said to him now as it was of old, and will 
 be for ever. He first denies any agreement whatever, and secondly the 
 amount agreed upon. When the evidence of others is produced against him, 
 he has various ways, contrary to ordinary common sense, of wriggling and 
 wrangling. Not succeeding in his claim, he is eloquent on the subject to all 
 around ; while I, for want of words, can aj^peal only to conscience for 
 approbation, and don't always find it the help that Shakspeare asserts it to 
 be. 
 
 India is claimed by its people as the oldest of peopled countries. It has 
 always been foremost in the world's history, and, it is likely, will so continue. 
 There is vitality in the ceaseless industry and producing powers of its toiling 
 millions. To get the honey that such a hive of human bees produces will be 
 always a fight amongst the nations of the world. The Egyptians have posses- 
 sed it, as also the Grecians, the Syrians, and the Turks. The Tartar has had 
 it, and the Persian. The Portuguese and the Dutch had a finger in the fat 
 pie, and the Frenchman also. The best of all nations has best part of it now, 
 and is doing the Hindoo inhabitants more good than any of the slave-driving 
 barbarians who have hitherto overrun the land. That England may long keep 
 its rule over India, may be desired in the interests of one's nationality equally 
 with the best interests of the Hindoo. He is less ill-used by Great Britain and 
 its people than he was by any other of the owners of India. He is being 
 educated all over the land. The schools established throughout the country 
 are something exceptionally praiseworthy on the part of a power that can 
 only hold, but can never colonise India. It is adopting the Hindoo into the 
 British family, and providing him with that education which the children of 
 Europeans have, for health's sake, to seek in other countries. He has hospitals 
 erected everywhere for him, and cheap railways to carry him on his many holy 
 pilgrimages. He gets justice, too, and cannot be robbed of his savings with 
 impunity as of yore. He cannot be improperly beaten either, or if he is, he 
 can go to the court for a summons like a European, and that he knows. The 
 notice "Visitors are requested not to strike the servants," which appears in 
 some hotels, is daily getting of less import. When Europeans don't get their 
 requests understood, they are now learning to believe themselves and their 
 ignorance partly to blame. In old days the native's ignorance of English 
 meanings was thought to be improvable by the process of kicking, but that 
 was of the time when other fallacies, similar to that of ill-using mad folks, were 
 indulged in. 
 
 An annoying habit of the Hindoo is that of his utter carelessness about 
 sleeping quarters. He is dog-like in that respect, and so always in the way. 
 Europeans never think of providing sleeping accommodation for a native 
 servant. It is difficult to walk about after dark and not stumble over his dusky 
 body. He has no undressing to do, and any surface suits his convenience for 
 a snooze. Along the footways he sleeps in front of the shops, and is to be 
 dodged in every verandah, and tumbled over in the house-passages and on the 
 landings. Opening the bed-room door in the dark, I fall over one who lies 
 along outside, and on to the stomach of another who sleeps against the door 
 opposite. I envied rather than pitied them, and would readily have 
 exchanged beds with them to have slept as soundly. 
 
Glory ^ Grandeur^ and Ridn. 335 
 
 This believing Hindoo has but as little hold on life as a rabbit. His sick- 
 ness is of the briefest duration, and no attempt is made at a struggle with 
 death. One of my guides did not come next morning at his appointed time. 
 He was quite well the preceding evening, but had died during the night. His 
 body was burned that morning, and his effects administered' in the afternoon. 
 Of that I knew l^y a personal application for cash from the administrator. It 
 is the certainty of heaven hereafter that perhaps makes these easy departures. 
 The Hindoo really has faith in a better world, which we only talk about and 
 show our weak belief in by trying to keep out of it as long as possible. In the 
 East faith is felt and made real, as well as outwardly indicated in observances 
 which are not the tasks they appear to be to Western-world eyes. 
 
 An effort is being made to stop the liberty of the press in Hindoostan, which 
 was more to be expected of a French than an English Government. The 
 native press indulges in free criticism of ofticial misdoings, which those 
 criticised seek to suppress. Officials on salaries of ;!^300 a year often live at 
 the rate of double that income, and retire with fortunes that could not have 
 been accumulated by economy. It is in the exposures of such iniquities that 
 the native press has been really useful, and to try to pass measures for gagging 
 it is opposed to the spirit of British government, and good government of any 
 kind. 
 
 The white population — " Sahib," and "mem sahib" his wife, as they are 
 called — may well be forgotten among the people of India, they are so little 
 seen among the millions of dark skins. They mostly consist of the "coven- 
 anted" and " uncovenanted " servants of the Crown. Those Scotch-looking 
 words refer to civil servants under bonds, or written agreement, and to others 
 not so. The first are the better situated, getting retiring pensions at the end 
 of twenty-one years' service, which the second do not get until thirty-five years 
 are finished. Other white folks are much worse off, and not a few actually 
 begging. Discharged soldiers stay here, as also do servants who have come 
 out with Europeans, and elect to stay in the land. The days of success in 
 India as a land of promise for spinsters are believed to be over, but I had 
 evidence to the contrary in finding that two fair vocalists of the southern 
 hemisphere, who had travelled as far as California and back without meeting 
 their fate, had met with it here, I expressed a hope that they would take 
 their husbands, as the produce of their own bow and arrow, to that better land 
 from which they had ventured. The prizes w^ere in these cases, I was told, 
 well worth so towing into port. 
 
 There is less regret at leaving India after a hurried visit, as it is seen that a 
 stay of months only is useless. It would take years to see this great country, 
 and a long lifetime well to understand the meaning of all that should be seen 
 — the glory and the shame, the splendour and the decay, the grandeur and the 
 ruin, of this gorgeous Eastern land ! The further time that I could give to it 
 is forbidden by its climate. Go I must, uttering that " II faut quitter tout 
 cela " which Mazarin muttered on looking at the world of treasures that he 
 knew he would soon have to leave. 
 
 Panorama-like will be for the future what the mind's eye will focus of all 
 that the past months have shown me. The towers, temples, palaces, and 
 tombs ; the wretched huts, bespattered with discs of dung, drying for fuel ; 
 the men with tortoise-shell combs for head-dress and table-covers for leg-wraps ; 
 the women and children with ringed noses and toes, and white metal anklets ; 
 the shaven-headed men in yellow gaberdines ; the nearly naked forms of 
 humanity which have been to one like a study of "subjects " in the dead-house 
 of a hospital ; the blood-red mouths of the chewers of betel and areca ; the dis- 
 tended goatskins of the water-carriers — looking like the swelled body of the 
 animal itself pulled out of a pond after a month's immersion ; the palkis and 
 
336 
 
 Tlie Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 their heavily-freighted bearers ; the confectionery sellers and the everlasting 
 rice ; the eternal curries and those aromatic, breath-sweetening, Bombay ducks, 
 with that " chota-hazra " of tea and toast at six a.m.; the coin-decorated fore- 
 heads, and those sidewalk exhibitions of domestic life, in which the presumed 
 phrenological examination of the head is so prominent, and that tongue- 
 scraping so needlessly obvious ; the street money-changers ; the endless 
 beggars ; the cocoanut-anointed skins ; the long-haired men ; the never-shaven 
 men ; the half-shaved ones and the no-haired men ; the endless styles of turban 
 head-dress ; the shoeless feet and the sandalled feet ; the half-shoe with the 
 up-curled toes ; the night scenes of street-strewn sleepers ; the public tank 
 washings ; the perpendicular and horizontal caste-marks ; the white-marked, 
 the red-marked ones ; the red and white dotted noses ; the squatting cloth- 
 vendors with their bales ; and the itinerant merchants, with shawl-tied 
 packages. 
 
 
 CLOTH-VENDORS. 
 
 The strangely-named officials may partly be forgotten, but some of them must 
 be alw^ays remembered. Of those are the Wuzeer and the Vakeel — barrister 
 and attorney, names seen so often on the door-posts ; the Hammals, who are 
 the porters; the Ayahs, or nurses, and the string of "Wallahs." Of that 
 number are the Tupal or postman, the Muchee or fish-seller, the Gharree or 
 driver, and the Punkahwallah, the blessed being who does the heavenly work 
 of fanning one. The Ramoussie is my night watchman, and the Hugam shaves 
 me in the morning, after which the Bawarch or cook, takes order for break- 
 fast, which the Kitmaygar or waiter brings to me. Folks who so come home 
 to one's business and bosom cannot be soon forgotten. 
 
 These will mix up in memory with the gods and goddesses seen above and 
 below the earth, in temples in which everything improper was worshipped, and 
 
In Strange Wafers. 337 
 
 with the strangely-titled ones of this part of the world whom one hears of but 
 never sees — the Xawab and the Nizam, the Peishwa and the Ameer, the Rajah, 
 the Maharajah and the Guicowar, with the Begums and the Ranees, all mixed 
 up with the Jemadars, the Nokers, the Bheestis, Dhobies, and a host of others 
 — "a court of cobblers and a mob of kings," as Dryden wrote of the freaks of 
 fancy unfettered in our dreams. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 'tWIXT AFRICA AND ARABIA, 
 
 Ox the way from India into Egypt I pass 'twixt Africa and Arabia over two 
 famous waterways. The one is the earliest and the other the latest that we 
 read of. These two, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, are lately wedded, not 
 as the Doge of Venice was married to the Adriatic, but in a May and December 
 sort of alliance that was attempted of olden time, and is now renewed. They 
 are as strange and as story-full, these watery highways, as the two lands of 
 romance which they divide. 
 
 Of no other waters in the world can we read or hear that high roads of dry 
 land have existed across their present courses. Yet where the " Pekin" takes me 
 along at the rate of twelve knots an hour the Israelites crossed dryshod — if our 
 captain is to be credited ; and where I pass on further down, at the rate of two 
 knots only, all the world of Eastern travellers waddled over the dry sands only a 
 few years back. There is plenty of time to think of all that and much more 
 as our vessel drags over the shallow waters of what a high authority has called 
 " the most glorious triumph of this generation of engineering wonders." 
 
 The thoughts about the Red Sea begin and end with the Israelites. It has 
 been a good thing for them more than once in the way of "spoiling the Egyp- 
 tians." The Rothschilds made, in commission, between one and two hundred 
 thousands out of the sale to England of the Khedive's half share of the canal 
 end of it. For centuries it was, similarly to its outlet, shut up and dead. 
 Waghorn then, and the canal now, have brought it before the world again ; 
 much as the Belzonis bring to light the mummies of its Eg}-ptian shore from 
 their long sleep to the lullaby of its lapping waters. 
 
 The " Gate of Desolation" is right name enough for the eastern entrance to 
 this sea. Such sterility as one then looks at for twelve hundred miles exhausts 
 execration. The very lands it disgraces — Nubia, Abyssinia, Egypt, and the 
 Arabian shore — are so antiquated as to be no longer considered in the swim of 
 the world's tide, but as long ago left high and dry by it. The very waters are 
 but the covering of land-marks, for the sea is as full of wrecks as of recollec- 
 tions. The hosts of Pharaoh and their belongings are but a trifle to what shall 
 be rendered when this sea shall give up its dead. The spot where lie the 
 remains of some wreck or another is being always shown to one. The 
 "Carnatic" went down off that point, the "Nautilus" was wrecked there, and 
 the " Northam" yonder. The "Alma" was lost just about here, and the 
 " Emeu" away over there. Such and such other fine vessels found their graves 
 at other places pointed out in the long course of the voyage. Rocky islands 
 
33§ The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 and rocks, burnt to cinders on the surface, stud the whole length of this sea, 
 both above and below its waters. On those beneath it untold ships' companies 
 have found a dwelling with the sirens and the mermaids on its famous coral 
 reefs. Sailing vessels avoid the Red Sea, as the winds there are as treacherous 
 as the waters, and months might be wasted in getting through it — if got through 
 at all. It is all left to steamers now, and they have multiplied on its waters 
 very much lately. The canal has been the cause of this — making the Red Sea 
 the future Eastern high-road, to the annihilation of all traffic by that old Cape 
 route by which our forefathers took their six months' voyages. The day of 
 sailing-vessels — the old " East Indiamen" — may be considered as closed. The 
 opening of the canal has led to great competition, to the reduction of fares and 
 freight, and to the breaking up of the monopolies of the English Peninsular 
 and Oriental and the French Messageries lines. 
 
 To the numbers that this sea has drowned have to be added those who die 
 upon its waters through " heat apoplexy, "' During the six or seven days of 
 passage down it, life is, in many months of the year, all perspiration, suffering, 
 gasping for air, and groaning for sleep. This trouble is so dreadful at times 
 that it cannot be overlooked, and the object of the journey and time itself 
 become of but secondary consideration. The vessel is turned this way, that 
 way, and the other, in search of any breeze that can be caught, which to the 
 poor passengers is as the breath of life. For hours together the ship will go 
 back over its course, if by so doing life can be made bearable. Deaths to the 
 extent of three or four in one vessel through the heat alone are not uncom- 
 mon. One occurred in the next cabin to mine, and of personal friends I recall 
 two who were in good health when starting on their voyage, but whose bones 
 now whiten on the coraf reefs of these waters. 
 
 As the Gate of Desolation is the tit name for the entrance to this sea, so is 
 Aden the fittest introduction to its wretched shores. This rocky cinder-heap 
 of a place is a garrison fortress and camp town — a sort of Gibraltar in many 
 ways. In 1839, when England took possession of it, the folks who were here 
 lived in old Cornish fashion upon wrecks and wreckage. The miserable hole 
 had but twenty traders in it. It has now, under England's fostering care, got 
 fully forty thousand folks gently baking there. 
 
 So determined is the climate that the woolly hair of the natives is apparently 
 bleached by its aid, or some other, to a yellow colour. These folks, with mop- 
 looking heads of yellow wool, are a sort of cross between negroes and Hindoos, 
 In figure they resemble the Hindoostanee people, but are more lively and spry 
 in their ways and humours. Their diving abilities, which are great, are no 
 wonder when the necessity of cooling one's self in some way is considered — 
 and it is considered very soon after landing at Aden. Stopping in the water 
 altogether seems desirable. 
 
 In their zealous efforts to entertain one, these Adenites offer, in broken 
 English, to do many things, and amongst them to fight for any stakes that can 
 be raised. It is here that I get introduced to the afterwards accustomed word 
 "backsheesh," The Hindoo begs in silence and as a vocation, speaking by 
 his afflictions or deformities only, but these Arabians are like to London street 
 Arabs, and offer to do something worthy reward. They will dive, fight, stand 
 reversed, or form wheels, with legs and arms going round as spokes. All 
 of them cannot have ostrich feathers for sale, which appear — with coals — 
 to be the great article of fancy merchandise here. 
 
 About this place, which introduces me to what some lunatic has called 
 " Araby the blest," I had been much comforted at Bombay. When I com- 
 plained of the heat at that Indian port, and said that there could be but a sheet 
 of paper between it and Pluto's dominions, I was told that at Aden I should 
 find the sheet of paper removed ! In addition to garrison purposes, it is 
 
Aden not an Eden. 339 
 
 used as a coaling station for steamers, for which purpose only is it fit. The 
 two regiments there are to be pitied. They must l)e anxious to fight and die, 
 and so have done with baking. In a hollow of the surrounding and over- 
 hanging rocks are situated a collection of stores and hotels, and good roads out 
 to the jetty and around the bay frontage. The whitened fronts of these build- 
 ings pleasantly contrast with the dark background of rock to this semicircular 
 port-township. That is, however, all that is nice about it. There are not 
 trees, grass, or sign of vegetation anywhere near. The scene is that of a cinder- 
 heap — barren masses of rock burnt bare by the roasting heat of the suns of 
 thousands of years. 
 
 Inland, some distance through the gates, which are shut nightly, is the 
 township, but a larger edition of the port in its aspect. From hotel cards 
 handed to me, printed in French and English, I see that the enterprising 
 Parsees have got as far down, and Frenchmen as far up, as here. " Jamsedjee 
 vSourabjee " tells me of the India left behind, and " Charles Nedey " speaks 
 of that half- French Cairo at the other end of this sea. I interview all the 
 hotel and storekeepers in search of late-dated papers and the news of the 
 Western world. They can keep all the lions' skins and ostrich feathers, if I 
 can but get the Home News, the only number of which obtainable at last 
 rewards my efforts. I become now an object of envy, hatred, and un- 
 charitableness to all on shipboard who have failed in weaker efforts to do 
 likewise. I am now sought and propitiated. With the latest news of the 
 world in my pocket I become of importance, and feel a king, accordingly, 
 for at least half a day. 
 
 It is altogether a pitiable place, this Aden, for any white man to abide in. 
 The poor overbaked fritters that I see here seem to have passed through 
 purgatory, and to be mostly ready for a better world. If not, they have had 
 a fine training for the worse one, and yet they strangely stay here, and battle 
 on bravely where common sense and climate are all against their doing so. 
 Along the tops of the rocky eminences above and around the town are remains 
 of forts and defences of Roman origin, as also the crater of a dead volcano. 
 At one time the Egyptians were masters here, and have left good evidence of 
 their presence in the immense tanks which are the lion-show of the place. 
 There is no need to hurry to see these gigantic aids to water storage. They 
 will look much the same for another two or three thousand years. No green 
 stuff will grow over them. There is not sufficient of that about Aden to do 
 harm, though in the neighbourhood of these tanks nature has made some 
 efforts at vegetation. The fire-resisting Asbestos is in its right place at 
 Aden — among the calcined rocks in which it is usually found. 
 
 Bamboos sunk in the sand are the chief building material used. The town 
 looks best at a distance. A closer inspection is but disappointing. There are 
 horses, dogs, and camels about, and also sheep, for all of whom Providence 
 must provide where nature so fails. Queer things these sheep are. Nothing 
 could look less like sheep than those things so called in India, but these Aden 
 sheep, in singular appearance quite distance them. I took those of India for 
 goats, and these of Aden I mistake for dogs. Their carcases are covered with 
 whitish hair in place of wool. The head and tail are black. It is a large, 
 heavy, and fat tail, like to those of Cape sheep, seemingly drawing to itself 
 all the nourishment belonging to the whole system — a monstrosity, a disfigure- 
 ment, and a trouble of a tail. 
 
 Coals, I think I mentioned as of the staple of Aden's commerce. Before the 
 opening of the canal these were sold at three pounds twelve per ton. They 
 now sell at two pounds five only, but the trade in them is greatly on the 
 increase. For the one or two lines of steamers that formerly were coaled, 
 there are now half-a-dozen all requiring coals in going or returning. 
 
 X 2 
 
340 TJie Alain Routes Round the World. 
 
 In no place that I saw, e>:cept in the similarly barren St. Mncent's in the 
 Cape cle Verdes, did coal look so much in place as on this cinder-heap of 
 Aden. How the place came by a name so much like to the Hibernian 
 pronunciation of Eden I failed to learn. vSome Irishman, perhaps, so 
 ironically christened it. 
 
 Like Cyprus, it was got by Britain from the Turks, who are apt at giving up 
 sterile, unproductive spots, and while in their possession lands very soon get 
 much into that way. It wanted no Turkish neglect to make Aden worse than 
 nature left it, for I was told that rain never descends upon its roasted rocks for 
 years together — a fact fully accounting for the construction of the mighty tanks, 
 in which one may wager that the Turkish Government had no hand. Its 
 present rulers have blessed it largely with condensing apparatus, which 
 renders it almost independent alike of tanks and rain. The camp protects its 
 folks to landward as well as seaward — and they need it. From inland the 
 gangs of wild Arabs have made sorties on the township, and it was not lately 
 safe for Adenites to wander far from the seaboard. 
 
 It is a bad seaboard on both sides of this Red Sea. Those who have escaped 
 death by drowning may find it on shore. We have with us on board one who 
 some years back was wrecked, with thirty others, on the Egyptian shore here- 
 abouts. Only their number, and the probable absence of anything of which to 
 be plundered, saved their lives. They had to walk for two days and a night 
 over hot sand and rough stones before they found assistance. Two of them 
 fell and died on the road. The savage natives, who would render no help, 
 followed the little band as sharks do a ship, for these waifs of dead bodies, 
 which they stopped to strip and plunder. The " Meikong " passengers, 
 I can add by way of a note, had a similar experience on the same coast 
 in 1877. 
 
 The " Pekin," which carries our fortunes, finds its way, however, among 
 all the difficulties of a sea that is as treacherous to the traveller as are the folks 
 of its shores. Mocha, of coffee-aroma, is left to the right, and Cape Gardafui 
 to the left. To that place the blessing of a railway is to run some day in 
 continuation of the line to Suez, when three-fourths of the trouble of this sea 
 passage will be saved. That, however, will depend upon the Khedive getting 
 from some foolish lenders the money to make the line. Passing the Zebayer 
 Islands, some landmarks on the Arabian shore are now pointed out. The 
 whole length of that shore from Aden downwards is called Hedjaz, which I am 
 told means Pilgrims' land. Rightly enough is it so called, as its chief ports 
 are Yambo and Jiddah, leading to holy Medina and holier Mecca. The 
 imports and exports are wholly pilgrims. I might disembark also at one of 
 them if I sought the land of Midian — the gold-diggings of ancient days. 
 
 Our quarter-deck is quite a nursery in its afternoon appearance. British 
 officials, not themselves at liberty to leave India, send their wives and families 
 away. The nurses are all natives, from whom the little Indo-Europeans learn 
 Hindoostanee before they speak English. They are fond indeed, I found, of 
 these black nurses, on the principle, I suppose, that little girls fancy a hideous 
 Dutch doll before all their finer ones. There is little of liveliness about these 
 children, or about the adults either. That sort of thing has been all baked out 
 of them, Reading is the chief occupation ; but the book is a mere excuse for 
 dozing, which, with eating and drinking, constitute the labours of the day. 
 It was an Irishman who wrote of such life in India, that "they eat and they 
 drink, and they drink and they eat, till they die, and ^'//tv/they write home and 
 say that it is the climate that has killed them !" 
 
 Mount Sinai comes into view the day before we expect to reach Suez — ■ 
 shortly after passing the Tivin Brothers, as two singular-looking rocks are 
 called. It is seen through a gap in the wall of barren hills on the Syrian side. 
 
A Watery Hig/nuay. 341 
 
 Every glass is directed towards it. Barren, hot-looking hills, and the most 
 howling and hungry appearances possible, characterize the scenery all round. 
 The anchor is dropped somewhere about the place where the Israelites are 
 believed to have crossed this sea, but that locality can strictly be said to be 
 still open to selectors — so much is it disputed. 
 
 Before Lesseps monopolized all fame hereabout, Lieutenant Waghorn's 
 name had a prominent place as the great opener of the overland route traffic, 
 which has since done so much for steam voyages and mail-carrying to India and 
 Australia. Previously to 1837, the Red Sea and its barren shores were visited 
 chiefly by the curious traveller, until Waghorn so much helped to utilize its 
 waters. The canal company have — to their honour and his remembrance — 
 set up at this end of their great work a monument to this worthy pioneer. 
 
 Our anchor having been dropped after custom-house hours at Suez, there 
 was nothing to do but to wait for those who — unlike myself — had luggage. An 
 Arab dhow, with its bird-wing sail, came off to us with a passenger, and I 
 concluded a bargain with it for landing myself and three others, who wished 
 for shore as weary sea-birds must themselves do at times. The voyage of the 
 dhow was a wet and a long one — so many tacks had to be taken. With the 
 spray that dashed over us we were landed more wet than were the children of 
 Israel when they went from that land on which we now stepped, through that 
 sea that we so gladly quit. 
 
 Every British-born man has now a personal interest in that Suez Canal which 
 here commences. Four millions sterling, some part of which we have all con- 
 tributed, was lately paid by Great Britain for a half-share of it. It was in 
 that purchase the Rothschilds netted the handsome commission before men- 
 tioned. I shall afterwards allude to the good bargain the Khedive made in this 
 sale, in which England was wrongly supposed to be got at much as Moses was, 
 in the Vicar of IVake/iehl, in the purchase of the green spectacles. 
 
 Nothing is new under the sun, and especially so about this part of the 
 world. This new Suez Canal is merely an old one now again cleared out. It 
 is known to have been constructed by one of the old Egyptian Kings, and re- 
 constructed by Caliph Omar. It was probably not an original thing with that 
 one of the Ptolemies who gets credit with the conception of thus making Africa 
 an island. It is soon perceived by the traveller why this canal requires scoop- 
 ing out afresh so often. On my passage a-down it the desert sand \vas blowing 
 into it, and on to our vessel, by the hundredweight and ton. It had to be 
 shovelled off the deck, and that continually. 
 
 Buonaparte proposed the remaking of this canal in 1798. He was in many 
 things a tit successor to Omar, but had not so good an engineer. The one he 
 trusted to falsely reported to him that the Red Sea level was thirty-three feet 
 higher than that of the Mediterranean, so making the scheme look impracti- 
 cable. English engineers subsequently discovered that the difference in level 
 was but six inches. 
 
 Lesseps was, in 1853, connected with the Court of Mehemet Said, the then 
 Egyptian Viceroy, and there started his idea of the canal. The preliminaries 
 were arranged in 1856, and the work began in 1859 and finished in 1870. 
 British Royalty was got to attend the opening of part of it in 1869, and that of 
 France to be present at its full completion the next year. The late Khe- 
 dive, on bribing his way to the seat of Mehemet Said, declined to sanction his 
 predecessor's contracts, and so stopped the works. Lesseps laid his case 
 before Napoleon, who was then almost everybody. The Khedive soon col- 
 lapsed, gave a lease of ninety-nine years, and took up half of the shares in 
 the undertaking, for which he was to pay three and a half million sterling, and 
 borrowed the money to do it with. It was these shares that England purchased, 
 and therein vv-as thought, wrongly, to have got sold equally with the shares. 
 
342 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 The canal from Suez, at the Red Sea end, to Port Said at the other, is in 
 length about a hundred miles. It is of all sorts of widths, owing to three- 
 fourths of its course passing through natural lakes or water-holes. In depth it 
 is supposed to be twenty-six feet ; but the tons of sand which too often IdIow 
 into it have something to say about that. Half-way down it is a new settle- 
 ment named Ismailia, after the late Khedive, as Port Said, at the Mediterranean 
 end, is after his predecessor. It makes pretensions to a town in all the usual 
 features of one, and is at the junction of two canals — a branch one, of forty 
 feet wide and nine deep, running from here to curiously-named Zagazig, on the 
 Nile, from which it brings fresh water for Ismailia. This city much wants 
 water, as also long-handled brooms after the sandstorms. If it were deserted 
 for a year or two, it would get covered up with sand, like other things here- 
 about. 
 
 The canal seems longer than it is, from quarter-speed, or something less, 
 having to be kept during its passage, in which only pilots are allowed to direct 
 the navigation. Pilots are very conversable and informatory. It is of their 
 l)usiness to know more than others, and they are always ready, I find, to show 
 their knowledge. I learn from ours that the income of the canal has rapidly 
 increased since the first vessel, an English one, went through at the end of 
 1869. Three years' statistics show that in January, 1874, one hundred and 
 eleven vessels went through. In the same month in '75 there went through 
 one hundred and twenty-eight, and in January, '76, one hundred and forty-two. 
 The income is derived from tonnage of ships, a tax per head on passengers, 
 pilotage, and tug service, A large item on the other side of the account would 
 be the cost of the dredging work constantly going on. 
 
 Port Said, the Mediterranean gate of this watery highway, like Ismailia, has 
 been called into existence solely by the canal. In its appearance it is quite 
 the counterpart of a goldfields township. The old Egy])tians, who built for 
 all time, would stare at this wooden jumped-up place, all of half-inch deals 
 and quartering. Pilgrims for Palestine stop at it on their way to Joppa, from 
 which it is twelve hours distant. It is not, however, a place for pilgrims, 
 most of its folk being what are called the scum of creation by those who do 
 not happen to call them the dregs. The vessels going up the canal have to 
 wait here for their turn, and when there is much shipping about, morals 
 always sadly suffer. 
 
 Of these inhabitants of Port Said there are said to be twelve thousand, but 
 I should not like to have to take the census. They don't look ladies or 
 gentlemen likely to give truthful answers to all required particulars. What 
 their "last occupation " had been might be guessed at better than answered, 
 and there was not a lady with '• forty " on her painted face who would have 
 declared to more than twenty- five. The foundations of Port Said are of the 
 dug-out stuff from the canal, so that the land, like its folk, is all foreign to the 
 place. It has, however, regularly laid out streets, a quay with over one 
 hundred acres of basin, and a dry dock four hundred and forty feet long. The 
 roadstead of Port Said lies between two immense breakwaters, or moles, 
 running out from it for seven thousand feet. They begin at the shore end four 
 thousand six hundred feet apart, but draw towards each other at their sea ends, 
 by more than two thousand feet. These are something like labours worthy of 
 Egypt. They are seventeen feet in width at the top, and are constructed of 
 blocks of concrete weighing many tons each. These were all made hereabout, 
 and took three months burning under the sun of Egypt — equivalent to about 
 the same time in a kiln — before being placed in the water. It is to be hoped 
 that this artificial stone will stand the wash of the ever-dashing waves, but 
 such looks unlikely. Most probably building up the breakwater will have to 
 be as much cared for as dredsinij the canal. 
 
The Land of Goshen. 343 
 
 At Port Said they actually ask for passports ! I passed through cities which 
 might be robbed, and among people comparatively innocent and needing 
 protection, and was not asked for such a thing. Here it was too ridiculous. 
 In a travelling-bag I had an English life policy, which had a large seal to it, 
 and the figure of a female sitting between a lion and a shield at the top. At a 
 venture I passed it in for a passport. Its imposing appearance carried the 
 day, or rather it carried me into Port Said and out again, for I had to exhibit 
 the ridiculous thing again before leaving. A solemn countenance. I have 
 noticed, goes a long way in humbugging people at more places than Port Said, 
 and in other things than passport presentations. 
 
 England's share in the Canal purchase stands thus. The shares taken by 
 the Khedive had coupons attached for half-yearly payments of interest for twenty 
 years. These coupons the late Khedive, who was a sad spendthrift, realized 
 upon at once, to pay off some pressing claim of his loads of indebtedness. 
 When England agreed to purchase the shares, he proposed to repay the yearly 
 amount represented by these lost coupons out of the revenues of his Egyptian 
 treasury. After the purchase was completed, and not before, his ability to 
 make this payment was looked into. One commissioner sent from England 
 was hoodwinked and cajoled with a set of books composed and cooked for the 
 occasion. His report was withheld from the British Parliament, and Mr. 
 Goschen sent to Cairo to look into matters. He found the late Khedive to be 
 hopelessly insolvent, and his affairs, arranged how they might be, did not 
 show any hope for his creditors. As money at fair interest doubles itself 
 twice over in about twenty years, the loss on the four millions investment for 
 that period is an awful amount. The suggestion that England shall take the 
 management of Egypt's affairs, seems to be the most likely way of getting 
 anything out of it for this matter and the large loans which it has raised 
 through British agency. The increasing value of the shares will, however, 
 doubtlessly make the purchase profitable to England, and give her prominence 
 in its management. 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 IN LOWER EGYPT. 
 
 Unuefinable are the feelings, all so different in their sort, that come upon 
 one when entering famous lands. Those experienced upon setting foot in 
 Egypt were altogether different to the sense of curiosity felt on landing in 
 Japan, China, and India, We know so much about Eg}-pt, and hear it so 
 often spoke of in sermons, and read about in church and school lessons, that 
 one can be scarcely anxious about it. Its characteristics get mixed up with our 
 figures of speech. — " Egj-ptian bondage 1" "as dark as Egypt!" "the 
 spoiling of the Egyptians !" " all the plagues of Egypt !" — and the like, have 
 made the country and its peculiarities a part as it were of our experience. We 
 talk so much about it that we get familiar with it, and begin at last to believe 
 in knowing all about it, as the Fourth of the Georges got, by much talking on 
 the subject, to believe in having been present at the Battle of Waterloo. 
 
 Suez is not a pleasant way by which to enter upon lower Egypt — the old 
 land of Goshen. The scenery about it, however, realizes the Egypt of our 
 ideas in the way of sand, dirt, ruin, dust, and dilapidation. Its accustomed 
 
344 ^^^^ Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 business departed with the opening of the canal, and it is now half deserted. 
 The emptied houses tumble into the streets and roads, and there remain. In 
 time a footpath is worked over them by the donkeys, who are fortunately sure- 
 footed beasts, and are the national conveyance — the palanquin, cab, and car 
 combined. 
 
 The western world wisdom of a stitch in time saving an additional eight is 
 nowhere observed in the East. It is all havoc there. Trees lie where they 
 fall, and so do the insides of the buildings, and in time the outer walls. 
 Perhaps the doctrine of fatalism has much to do with this, and the eastern 
 world are all fatalists. If a thing is to fall, such is its fate, and it is running 
 counter to Providence to prevent it or to put it up again. Said a worldly-wise 
 one of eastern descent, " Have nothing to do with an unfortunate man — if he 
 cannot get up, he cannot keep up." Says an eastern proverb, " Let sleeping 
 dogs lie," and the idea is followed out very often in painfully practical ways. 
 I saw a man who had been knocked down by a vehicle left to pick himself up 
 again, with the little help I could give him. 
 
 Suez at one end of the canal and Said at the other, are fine contrasts of 
 things old and new. It remains to be proved whether the railway and the canal 
 will improve Suez, but that there is much room for it is soon seen. About the 
 most decent place in it is the hotel here, kept by an Englishman. The women 
 of Egypt whom I now see about here cover their faces from the eyes down- 
 wards. The covering is usually black or brown, and the effect quite frightening 
 at first — as a hideously masked face might be. 
 
 There is much to be said about the yashmak which so covers up three-fourths 
 of the feminine faces in the land. Originally it was designed, in these des- 
 potically governed places, to hide good looks that might lead to the stealing of 
 their possessor by anyone who had the power — which is here also the right. 
 In that way Eastern potentates robbed at will. The yashmak, so instituted, 
 helps also to give a kindly equality to all womankind when they appear in 
 public. Pretty creatures have not in the East that supremacy out of doors which 
 so subdues and eclipses the plain ones of the Western world. Where all is 
 hidden but the eyes in a plain brown or black covering, there is not so much 
 of difference visible. Most of what is said in praise of fine eyes in all the 
 ballads made to eyes and eyebrows would not have been said if the eyes only 
 had been seen. In pretty faces all the features help together to the illusion. 
 The yashmak's use saves also much trouble to poor mankind. A thing of 
 beauty may be a joy for ever, but there are drawbacks — *' compensation," 
 some one calls it — to that joy. In some places that I passed through, which I 
 had better not name, serious risks are run of getting a wry neck from 
 so frequently looking back upon the visions of loveliness that one cannot 
 choose but gaze after. That Frenchwoman would have been unhappy 
 all her life in Egypt who expressed her misery, when about thirty, by 
 saying that now the men no longer turned to look at her she knew " that it 
 was all over ! " 
 
 A great change is seen in the matter of clothing between folks here and those 
 seen in Ceylon and Hindoostan, and later at Aden. There an insufficiency 
 was observable, but here more seems to be generally worn that at first appears 
 necessary — not counting the face covering. It is a baggy, clumsy, and cum- 
 brous looking clothing that is assumed by both men and women, I noticed 
 that my boatmen of the dhow wore most unseamanlike and inconvenient petti- 
 coats. It is, I see, the fashion of their countrymen, and about the only thing 
 in which they recall the old custom of the Scotch, but they must have in this 
 warm climate other reasons for it than have those of cold Caledonia. 
 
 At the railway I get a ticket for Cairo — ten hours distant. I am in the 
 ancient world now, where distance is, as it always was, counted by hours and 
 
The Wretched Fellahs. 345 
 
 days only. The clerk and myself can only communicate by dumb motions, 
 but I have got used to such trouble by this, and shall soon think language to 
 be a thing that can be abandoned. Silence is not, however, always golden in 
 dealing with the Egyptians, for I afterwards found that my change was some- 
 thing short. It would have been much the same had a guide assisted, for these 
 fellows always take a good commission. Half a dozen assistants at this station 
 do the work of one, and we start at any time that suits these officials. My 
 little black bag is covered with hieroglyphics by some of them, to show that 
 the equivalent of two shillings has been paid for its fare, for which I insist on 
 having it in the carriage with me. These carriages look primitive and dirty, 
 and so are thoroughly Egyptian. 
 
 The first twenty miles or thereabouts of the journey is over sand, gravel, and 
 general sterility on all sides. The canal keeps in sight, looking like a good- 
 sized ditch, and its water, seen occasionally, is pleasant in the wretched dryness 
 of the surrounding scene. I begin to recall that I am in Egypt, where rain 
 falls not, as I have heard, for a score of years together, and where the overflow 
 of the Nile alone brings forth vegetation. Bless my simplicity ! The scene 
 changes altogether quite suddenly, and for the other eight hours of the journey 
 the eye is delighted with the greenest of fields, brightest of skies, and balmy 
 lireezes. Palm-trees, and fields that promise corn and wine, with grain of 
 every kind, are all around as far as sight can reach. All is fresh, too, and even 
 damp-looking some of it. It had rained the night before ! What, rained in 
 Eg}qDt ? Yes ! It often rains in lower Egypt — four or five times at least in 
 every year — in this pleasant-looking land of Goshen. Not to give up a life- 
 long belief, I will suppose the long droughts to be confined to Upper Egypt's 
 territory. 
 
 The wayside towns and villages are not picturesque, and the houses mostly 
 of the square box pattern, having no chimneys, and mud-made bricks of nasty 
 look. At one of the stations at which we draw up I am watching our engine- 
 driver or stoker, who is performing ^^lohammedan worship on a little mat that 
 he has spread for kneeling. Quite regardless of the infidel presence of such as 
 myself, who are around him, he has turned his face to that ^Mecca I had passed 
 on the Red Sea passage, and is bowing his head towards it and repeating a 
 prayer. If I had the faith he has I should do the same, and be all the happier 
 for it. He is sure of heaven hereafter, and ready always to go, and, says Shaks- 
 peare, " the readiness is all ! " 
 
 The crowds of dusky brown Egyptians are pleasantly varied by the occasional 
 sight of a Copt, the descendants of an earlier and better race than the now 
 prevailing one in this land. These Copts are a light complexioned and good- 
 looking folk. One Coptic woman that I saw might have been taken for a 
 native of Devonshire by her fair looks and fresh skin. There are too few of 
 these Copts to be seen. They are a superior people, clever and artistic, and 
 therefore scarce. The main population of Egypt are of Arab descent. The 
 Fellahs, as the peasantry are called, are the lowest and most wretched of all 
 the world's agricultural labourers. The unmitigated misery in which they 
 have existed for all known time is one of the most saddening things in this 
 miserably ill-governed land of Egypt. 
 
 This country may or may not have ])een settled by one of the sons of Ham, 
 but there is evidence in support of its being so, inasmuch that the children of 
 Ham were to be the servants of their brethren for ever. The population of 
 Egypt has been always illustrating prophecy in that way, which probably accounts 
 for their taking oppression in its worst forms so stoically for generation after 
 generation through thousands of years. Nothing has ever inspired them to 
 revolt and revolution. If such were in their nature, it would long since have 
 been shown ; the cause for it is pitiably palpable. 
 
346 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 At one of the stations where I am forced to dawdle away twenty minutes, I 
 get my first drink of the Nile water. I had heard that whoever drank of it 
 thirsted until he drank again. To me it had a soft and earthy taste— not to say 
 a muddy one. I tasted of it again several other times, but could not acquire 
 the longing for it that I had been so led to expect. Up the country, towards 
 this river's source, some thousands of miles or so, the case and the water 
 may be different. After a long walk or little exertion in the dry heat of that 
 quarter, a thirsty traveller might think ditch-water tasted equal to champagne. 
 Until I happened upon thirsty lands, I had no idea what stuff it was possible to 
 drink, and really to relish. 
 
 Standing about at these stations I cannot but observe that a peculiar fashion 
 of the Egyptian is to consider flies as sacred things. These insects come to 
 my eyes in their thirst and intrusiveness, and get cleared away as often as they 
 come. The Egyptian, however, never interferes with them. A fringe of flies 
 around the eye adds to its expressiveness, like to a blackened lower eyelid, but 
 in the case of helpless infants the flies cover up the eyes altogether, so 
 causing their disease and decay. In no place will so many one-eyed people 
 be seen, and, noticing this horrible treatment of infants, it can be fully 
 accounted for. 
 
 Where I now journey was the dwelling-place of the Israelites when settled 
 in Goshen. Somewhere near to here Joseph died, and Moses was found 
 among the bulrushes ; but that is all history, which this is not. It is more 
 important just now to note that as poultry constitutes the staple food of the 
 land, chickens are here generally artificially hatched. The incubator is as 
 common as the beehive, and that is a speciality of Egypt, as is now also the 
 cultivation of cotton. This industry is due to the enterprise of an Italian — 
 some fifty years ago. It has done much for Egypt, in which the growing of 
 cotton takes the place that wool-growing does in Australia. With another 
 form of government and other rulers, this land, with its new industry and its 
 railways, might become again great as it once was, and no land has been greater 
 for its time than this Egypt. 
 
 The season for visitors to it is from its fine October and finer November to 
 its delightful February and March. The English, dreading the horrors of their 
 winter weather, then find their way here, and hasten from it again in April. 
 Hot winds, akin to those of Australia, but quite elder and stronger brothers of 
 the family, begin to blow in May. The months of June, July, August, and 
 September are those when travellers recall much of what they have read of the 
 plagues of Egypt. The position even of the Khedive, with all his wives to- 
 solace him, is then not to be envied. Much of Scripture may be, I am told, 
 practically comprehended during those months. 
 
 I become acquainted gradually with the native kitchen at these wayside 
 stations. The trouble is that I have to buy in ignorance, and eat in the spirit 
 of inquiry. Something that is wrapped in vine leaves, which I took to be 
 roasted banana, I find to be minced meat — cooked, and cooled, and so 
 supplied to travellers, as a sandwich might be. As this is an old country, the 
 ancient fashion of using fingers for forks is still common. My hostess, where 
 I get my first meal, handles everything with her fingers, which accounts for 
 the presence of water bowls and napkins as conspicuous things at Egyptian 
 tables. But I have eaten with fingers in Japan and China when unable to do 
 so with chopsticks, and so can placidly regard the fashion I now see. 
 
 Below Ismailia I am l)lessed with the company of an intelligent Frenchman, 
 long resident in Cairo, to which we are both tending. I think him to be 
 dropped from the clouds for my benefit, as the information he gives me 
 in English is what I had sought in vain all along the journey. I believe in 
 special providences, and that the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. This 
 
A Khedives Extravagances. 347 
 
 man's advent is one of the proofs of it. Another occurred further on, at 
 Alexandria, in which city I endeavoured to get a bank draft cashed, and was 
 told I must be previously identified. As I knew not a soul in that country, to 
 say nothing of the city, the thing looked impossible, and things generally very 
 dismal. They mostly have that appearance to those in want of money. As I 
 left the manager's room in sorrowful fashion, I was met at the door by one 
 who addressed me by name, and whom the banker heard do so. He had met 
 me in Australia ten years before when in a bank there, and had a catalogue of 
 questions to ask. Before answering any I took him within, and got his 
 signature to that draft as identifying its owner. To tell me that such aid as 
 this was not Providential, and in answer to one's special need, is nonsense — 
 no doctrine of chances could account for it. 
 
 My new acquaintance shortens the journey wonderfully. The hours go now 
 quickly as the quarters went before. I learn all necessary particulars about 
 Cairo and its people — where to go and how and what to visit, and by what 
 means, as also where to find the best guide — a matter on which hinged the 
 whole pleasure of one's time in Egypt. 
 
 The late Khedive is, I find, as a curiosity of Egypt, as astonishing as anything 
 that is in it. He was a grandson of Mehemet Ali, and nominally a viceroy of 
 the Sultan, whom he heavily paid to displace a rightful brother. JMehemet 
 All's rule was consolidated by a similar coup iVetat to that of the late 
 Napoleon. The whole behaviour of the Khedive was that of a burglar in a well- 
 filled mansion. He played havoc with the finances of the country in his Roman- 
 emperor-like extravagancies and orgies. He borrowed right and left, but 
 principally obtained loans from the British, who will certainly never see the 
 principal, and find it difficult to get the interest. John Bull, who has much of 
 the milch cow in his character, lends millions to Turkey and Egypt, with a 
 readiness that to the traveller in either land looks but blind infatuation and 
 sheer folly. 
 
 During the late Khedive's fifteen years of misrule the average cruel taxation 
 of the country realized nine millions annually, and he always yearly 
 dissipated double that amount at least. He has filled Cairo and Alexandria 
 and the surroundings with costly palaces for the housing of his hundreds 
 of hussies. Three splendid steam yachts — finer than the Victoria and Albert, 
 in which England's Queen takes her voyages — lay, but seldom used, in the 
 harbour at Alexandria. Under such a lord of misrule, people felt feverish 
 and unsettled, and much inclined to follow the example of their leader. To 
 be dishonest, reckless, and profligate is the sad result, to be seen all through 
 Egypt, of that example of a bad government. 
 
 This reckless sovereign and hopeless insolvent, being taken in hand at last 
 by England, had to produce his books. Taking them as evidence for what 
 they are worth, it appears that the Khedive estimated his land tax at a little 
 under six millions, annually collected from less than that number of the poorest 
 inhabitants. It was the largest income from land that is anywhere wrung from 
 so small a number of contributors. Every date-tree in the land is assessed, and 
 that tax yields two hundred thousand sterling. The produce of railways, 
 customs duties, and those on salt and tobacco, were set down as bringing the 
 yearly revenue up to ten millions five hundred thousand. The expenditure is 
 put down at just a hundred thousand less for the current year's needs. 
 
 That the candle might be burnt at both ends, and meanwhile melted in the 
 middle, a foolish war was engaged in up to the end of '76 with the Gallas, 
 folks who are neighbours to the Abyssinians, in which war the Egyptian's 
 army was always getting worsted. The Khedive had to pay a heav}- yearly 
 tribute to Turkey, which he supplemented by personal bribes to the Sultan — -so 
 keeping by bribery the position got by purchase. The loans he raised had 
 
348 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 gone throuL^h many hands beTore touching his. He was prol^ably nearer the 
 truth than in most of his statemeats when he said that he never got more than 
 fifty per cent, of what he borrowed — a perfect prodigal alike in borrowing and 
 spending. 
 
 Our train has a breakdown that occasions two hours' detention near to a 
 native village, which, with my new acquaintance, I go to visit. It is the most 
 wretched of sights. A collection of low-built huts— mere pigsties of places, 
 and wholly unfit for human habitation. They appear in the distance, huddled 
 together, like so many mud-made beehives. A space of about two feet 
 separates each of them, which is all of street that there is to these mud-mound 
 villages. To enter one of these horrible collections of dwellings is a sore trial 
 to the eyes and nose, as also to the sympathies of the sentimental. Every 
 hand, down to that of the infant in arms, is held out for begging, and one can- 
 not fail to give where there is such crushing evidence of need. There is not a 
 vestige of furniture in these hovels. The aborigines of Australia are, all things 
 considered, better off. In the lowest depths there is said to be yet a deeper, 
 and so with this poor land-labourer. He is liable, I am told, any day to be 
 driven away to a distance to work, as a slave, on public works at the slave's 
 pay of a daily handful of grain and the lash. Mehemet Ali in 1820- 1 had a 
 canal — the Mahmoodieh canal, which runs for a distance of seventy miles from 
 Cairo to Alexandria — dug by an average hundred and fifty thousand of these 
 poor oppressed wretches, daily employed for nearly two years. They died in 
 hundreds at the work, the total loss of life on the undertaking being thirty- 
 eight thousand. No tools were provided for them. The women laboured 
 equally with the men, and were forced to scoop the earth out with their hands, 
 and carry it away in the miserable rag of an apron that is their chief covering. 
 Taxes are collected at any time that money is wanted. The collection is 
 organised by officials called in gradation Finance Minister, JNIudir, Mamour, 
 Sheik Elbeled, Sarraf, and another official who carries the stick that, applied 
 to the soles of the feet, compels payment, if torture can do so. 
 
 To the honour of the English be it said that in the public works for which 
 British contracts were taken, which were of course paid for by British- 
 borrowed money, the contractors refused slave labour, and paid honestly for 
 the work done. Such was done also in the construction of the Suez Canal. 
 It is impossible to imagine how astonished the Egyptians must have been at 
 such fair treatment. England must get and keep Egypt some day, if only to 
 pay herself back something of her loans, and to protect her dearly-bought 
 interest in the canal. There can be no one in Egypt who has to work and pay 
 taxes but must say the sooner the better. "It is a consummation devoutly to 
 be wished " by all who have the interest of humanity — to say nothing of Egypt 
 — at heart. 
 
 Cairo is reached at last. Its minarets glittering in the setting sun's rays are 
 visible long before it is reached. It is impossible to keep one's seat and one's 
 head inside the carriage, though my French friend tells me that I shall see 
 quite enough of it from the easier point of view to be got from a donkey's 
 back. The station is a large one, and so is the mob of people about it — (juite 
 preparing one for the big city beyond, v,^hich surprises one by its size, as also 
 by its busy and bustling look. All nationalities seem mixed up in it, and the 
 endless donkeys and their drivers help to mix them up still more. The streets 
 get more thickly crowded as we progress, and the noise of the donkev- 
 drivers is a distinct characteristic at once perceptible, and is also the shout of 
 those " avant-couriers " who run in front of most of the vehicles to help clear 
 the way. The importance of the coming vehicle is seen in the number of 
 these forerunners. One thinks of the honours paid of old in giving to some 
 one " a carriage and horses and fifty men to run before him." 
 
Cairo Scenes. 349 
 
 The capital has grown from the half Arab settlement known to our fore- 
 fathers into what I look on now ; and not alone has the city grown ! Its 
 t;rowth has been in keeping with the growth of the country. Though it 
 sounds strangely to talk of old Eg)-pt as growing, such has really been the 
 case. Its domain has been extended far beyond its limits in the famous days 
 of the Pharaohs, the Cresars, and the Caliphs. Its boundaries now run to over a 
 thousand miles from the Mediterranean, and are extending south of the 
 Nubian desert to the country of Livingstone and Stanley — the lake region of 
 the Nyanzas. The Khedive rules at one end of the Nile, and (jordon Pasha 
 away up at the other — or did so as viceroy for awhile. 
 
 And that is not all ! 2000 square miles have been added since the beginning 
 of the century to the extent of its Nile mud — that arable land that was, in its 
 scantiness, always the chief trouble of the Egyptians. The cotton crop since 
 182 1 has been increased to 600,000 bales, and the crops have been yearly 
 increased to eighty-fold within the same period. To this "corn in Egypt," and 
 to the eating of it, over 2,000,000 of population have been added to what 
 the number was fifty years back. 
 
 It is not old Egypt only which is now visited. Some of the millions reck- 
 lessly borrowed by its ruler have gone tov/ards making a new Egypt at the 
 lower end of the land. The Nile looks with wonder at the canals now cut for 
 its waters, and the irrigation of its shores, as also at bridges spanning its 
 width, fit in their fineness for London, Paris, or the days of Cleopatra. They 
 stand where passengers were formerly ferried across in boats, huddled up with 
 the donkeys they would bestraddle when landed. Under Government patron- 
 age an hotel of American palatial pretensions has been put up in the centre 
 of the city. I may go there, as many do, if I do not like the accommodation 
 of the house I am bound to — one that is identified more with old than with 
 new Cairo, for which reason it is chosen. 
 
 "Shepherd's" — from which Shepherd himself has long passed away — is 
 situated pretty well in the heart of the city ; a roomy stone building of wide 
 passages and large rooms with lofty ceilings. A flight of steps leads to the 
 entrance, and on the verandah on each side are those who sit in easy chairs, 
 and smoke and take stock of the motley crowd that is jostling along below. 
 At the bottom of these steps, and outside the footway, stand perpetually 
 twenty or thirty donkeys, all tail on towards the building. As every one rides 
 them, doing so ceases to be ridiculous, but for all that it is not with any 
 dignified feelings that I get upon a donkey in front of all those critics sitting 
 silently just above there under the verandah. 
 
 The donkeys have mostly immortal names. In that respect they are like to 
 the old negro slaves of America. Not only are the great names of antiquity 
 appropriated, but those are also that are upon modern scrolls of fame. The 
 days are over when men gain popularity in the world's story in these parts, so 
 that the western world is laid under contribution for these eastern donkeys' 
 designations. Somebody said that "to be great is to be misunderstood." 
 He might also have added, with equal truth, that to be famous is to give a 
 name to an Egyptian donkey. As it was yet an hour to dinner-time at 
 Shepherd's, and exercise was needful after ten hours on the rails, I went out 
 for a ride with a young American similarly inclined. The animals which were 
 selected by him — he having had experience in the matter — were named plainly 
 enough as Joseph and Potiphar. It was the right thing, however, so to 
 identify one's self when here with something Egyptian, even if only with 
 donkeys named in such connection. 
 
 As elsewhere, these animals are followed by their drivers, and beaten and 
 shouted at much in the way that donkeys are everywhere. As the skin of our 
 feet becomes hardened and thickened by hard usage, so it must be, I think, with 
 
35° The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the skin about the rear of a donkey. It would not be in nature otherwise to stand 
 so incessant an application of the stick. Such seems to be only necessary, 
 however, when another than an Egyptian is upon his back. When mounted 
 by his owner, or one akin to him, the donkey gallops along quickly enough — 
 needing nothing of those attentions behind that make donkey-riding so 
 unpleasant to those disliking cruelty to animals. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII 
 
 THE Khedive's city. 
 
 The title of "Grand" is not inappropriately affixed to Cairo, which city of the 
 Khedive, and in which he is everything, is a most confusing one altogether in 
 its mixture of things ancient and modern. I had read about Egypt much as 
 most folks had, and forgotten it also. Of its modern history I knew that it 
 was a dependency of Turkey, and once governed by a Viceroy, whose descend- 
 ant now strangely called himself "Khedive" — a new title, indicating a 
 position next only to King or Queen, like that of knave. Also that its capital 
 had pyramids near to it from which forty centuries looked down, and a river 
 al)Out one end of which there had always been much mystery. All that I 
 knew about it was, however, as nothing, of which I felt rather glad. 
 
 This Cairo has, I now find, five hundred thousand of folks in it — males, 
 females, and eunuchs — French, Germans, Turks, Arabs, English, Copts, 
 Egyptians, proper and improper, with estrays from all countries. It has no 
 general newspaper and no police to speak of — offering in that way facilities not 
 often met with for the commission of crime, and for escaping the consequences. 
 In aspect it is something like Edinburgh, in having a tall high-planted citadel 
 at hand, from which the city can be overlooked and views impressive in their 
 strangeness be seen on all sides of it. Like Edinburgh, too, it has an old and 
 anew town, and they show equally great differences in characteristics, especially 
 in width of streets. Those of the old town are five feet, or two donkeys, wide 
 only, but those of the new one are never less than a hundred feet, and often 
 much more. 
 
 About the new part of Cairo there is much that is French-like, and, indeed, 
 the French themselves have a good footing amongst the five hundred thousand 
 of its folk. They publish an attempt at a newspaper here in their own 
 language, as they also do at the neighloouring city of Alexandria. The houses 
 are tall and showy, and the cafes everywhere about are quite Parisian, 
 especially so when at night a large number of them resound with music and 
 song. The great square, Esbeekeeyeh, which is more than half a mile in 
 length and breadth, has several rotundas in it, in which bands play afternoon 
 and evening. Its public garden is tastefully laid out. From a rustic tower 
 there, built with galleries to its second and third stories, a good look around 
 can be obtained at the place and the people — the men with the fez, or red- 
 covered heads, and the women with yashmak-covered faces, pink-stained 
 nails, and blackened eyelids. The fez is, I perceive, of two fashions. One 
 is conically shaped, like the cut-off top of a sugar-loaf; and the other, called 
 a tarboosh, has ribbed sides and a flat top. The statue of Ibrahim Pasha on 
 horseback here in Cairo has the fez of tarboosh style, while that of his father, 
 Mehemet Ali, in another place, is finished off' with a turban. The faithful of 
 the Mohammedans object to these statues, as it is against their proper creed 
 to make imitations of humanity in which even Egyptian rulers are 
 included. 
 
Ctirios of Cairo. 351 
 
 The grand hotel initiated by the late Khedive, for crushing those conducted by 
 his subjects; stands opposite this square. Around it are the fashionable drive 
 and best buildings in the city. In front of the new hotel runs the road to 
 Shoobra, a suburb some few miles distant. Driving to Shoobra is the fashion- 
 able thing to do at about the hour at which folks turn out for similar purpose 
 in Rotten Row, London, the Maidann at Calcutta, and Posillipo road at 
 Naples. Adown this drive the acacia, sycamore, and mulberry-trees form 
 pleasant shelter on either side. Between them are to be seen every description 
 of vehicle and people. The example set by the Khedive affects the whole 
 community. The carriages of the occupants of his many palaces half fill this 
 drive of an evening, and it being the correct thing to do, all the fast people of 
 the place, and they are mostly that way given, follow suit. It is well that the 
 Shoobra road is wide. I felt sorry for those who had to wear the yashmak, 
 when so many others, unfettered b)'- custom, or by anything else for the matter 
 of that, could ride barefaced — in all senses of the expression. Such a number 
 of "countesses " I shall never perhaps meet with again. I've forgotten the full 
 titles of half of them. 
 
 The road is made lively here and elsewhere in Cairo by the Syce, who runs 
 before the carriage continually shouting one or the other of his three words: — 
 Shemallook.^ "clear out to the left;" De-mallook, "out of the way to the 
 right ;" or Reglah, which is an admonition to take care of your feet. These 
 forerunners of every carriage wear white tunics with red girdles, and a fez with 
 a long tassel to it that reaches behind to the waist. They carry long sticks, and 
 are really useful in clearing the way of those who walk, as folks mostly do 
 here, in the roadways. Over-persuaded by an American stopping at Shep- 
 herd's, the company at which seem to be half of that nationality, I must needs 
 join in a drive to Shoobra, but when I saw that only one syce ran in front of 
 our carriage, while others boasted two or more, I felt so hurt that I stood upon 
 dignity, and came back on a fashionable donkey. No one runs before that 
 conveyance, and only one runs behind. On that vehicle "the poor man and 
 the man of pride" are equal. Side by side, on that low-level back, ride priest 
 and acrobat, the merchant who sells by cargoes, and he that peddles only dolls 
 and monkeys on sticks. The chief gaiety about the donkeys lies in the cover- 
 ings of their saddles. The vanity shown in that way is not misplaced, as the 
 animals much need relief to the eye from their general appearance. That is 
 mostly a dreary mouse colour requiring the gay trapping if only for distinction. 
 When I wonder at what is endured here under the Khedive, I am told that 
 it is nothing to what was suffered under the Mamelukes. Mehemet Ali 
 improved them off the face of the earth, and the day cannot be far off when 
 other innovators and improvers will do the like with his disgraceful descendant. 
 For to hjin or his predecessor there is no credit to be given — except for his 
 borrowed moneys. The public works have been done with the money and 
 by the skill of the foreigner. The palaces — rare specimens of lavish waste — 
 are but another way of illustrating the old folly of pyramid-building. Cheops 
 built one palace for himself when dead, and the late Khedive half-a-score for 
 himself whilst living ! Both follies have been done by overburdening the 
 miserable semi-enslaved serfs that make up three-fourths of the population, 
 and to whom Eg^^ptian bondage is as it was in olden times. Many of the 
 new industries started have proved as unproductive as the palaces, the proof 
 whereof is to be seen in the untenanted factories left to ruin. 
 
 Modern Egypt is Egypt veneered and varnished. There is neither of those 
 superficialities, it is true, visible in the three-fourths toiling population of this 
 guilded Gehenna, but it is seen plainly in the other fourth that ape European 
 ways and manners and strut in borrowed plumes. Save the fez for head cover- 
 ing, the dress worn is that of a Parisian, and quite in the latest French 
 
352 The A fain Routes Round tJie ]Vorld. 
 
 fashions are the costumes of the ladies. 'Tis, however, but the whitening of 
 the sepulchres. The Egyptian in office, in business, and at home, is as he has 
 always been. The ancient institutions of the land still prevail, and he con- 
 servatively adheres to the old foul system of his forefathers. In his house are 
 the slave-wives of the harem, tended by the slave-eunuchs. In the home there 
 is no domesticity, and in office and business the honesty and honour are such 
 as are only imitated from higher example. As the late Khedive set the 
 fashion of robbing everybody in some way or another, I am not surprised to 
 find that the napoleon a day charged for hotel accommodation is but a 
 mere initial in the charge made. What the sixteen shillings value really did 
 include I never knew, but everything one wanted seemed to bean "extra." Of 
 that kind were such extravagancies as eggs or chops for breakfast, and soap and 
 candle for the bedroom. No i.iiiall bottles of anything appear to be obtainable 
 at a Cairo hotel. " Spoiling the Egyptians" has been practised so long that 
 the lesson is well learnt by them. They now better their instruction, and it 
 goes hard with the foreigner. The bills of fare at the hotels are in P'rench, 
 and the twelve o'clock tiffin is accordingly called " Dejeuner a la fourchette." 
 Had the " extras" been cut out of the menu it would have looked a mere out- 
 line — a skeleton thing. When I came to get my reckoning at the week's end, 
 I seemed to have been living on extras altogether, and was yet looking much 
 as usual. To conclude on money-matters — -the piastre and the para are the 
 Egyptian coins, but Cairo is cosmopolitan in coinage as in company, and 
 French and English money is quite common. The money-changers sit at the 
 street corners, and one can take change according to taste. 
 
 The " bazaars" are the streets of the old town. These narrow avenues are 
 some of them devoted to special trades— the jewellers having one or two all 
 to themselves. They are interesting places in spite of the crowded state to 
 which their narrow limits always subject them. It is perilous work riding 
 donkeys up these slits of streets. When I felt that I was being brushed oft", I had, 
 however, only to catch hold of a passer-by, and so recover balance. After a 
 day or so thus spent, one's shins and knees show many abrasions and bruises. 
 In these bazaars the keepers of the little shops sit cross-legged behind their 
 wares, and mostly beguile their time by smoking. The best of their goods are 
 not exhibited, but kept on the shelves within boxes and wrappings. 
 
 Cairo is all mosques, and their pretty minarets help greatly to make 
 picturesque the city. The call to prayer comes sometimes from the priest at 
 the door, and at others from one higher, situated in the balcony of the minaret. 
 The latter is usually found to be a blind man. In the early morning this 
 " Come to prayer — prayer is better than sleep!" sounds strikingly on the ear 
 in the then quietude of the city. At night it is much drowned by other noises, 
 amongst which the barking of dogs is not the least. In one of the oldest of these 
 sacred buildings I am shown the footprint of Mahomet, which is here carefully 
 preserved among the surrounding tombs. It has got widened and deepened 
 with the kisses of countless believers, and is now out of all foot-shape and size. 
 
 At the foot of the citadel stands the mosque of all mosques of Cairo — a 
 splendid alabaster building, requiring a hundred carpets to cover its floor. 
 Taking oft" one's shoes to enter such a place was a matter of respect nothing 
 out of the way. From the roof hang an endless number of chains, to which 
 on occasions lamps are suspended. Seen without the lamps to them, these 
 chains look strange things in the place, and nowise ornamental. One has to 
 move about very carefully not to fall over the many devotees here to be seen 
 about in prostrate positions. After visiting this Mosque of Hassan and that 
 of Mahomet's footprint, curiosity about mosques is quite satisfied, and the other 
 two or three hundred scattered about the city can be left to other visitors. A 
 shilling is charged for slippers to infidel feet at all these places. 
 
Cairo's Curios. 353 
 
 Near to this Mosque of Hassan is a strange old curio, called "Joseph's Well," 
 that might have belonged to the Joseph of Genesis for its antiquated appearance. 
 It .is, however, called after one of Saladin's names, as also are most probably 
 "Joseph's Granaries," shown to one in another quarter. This wonderful well is 
 over two hundred feet deep, and has a winding footway, or what was once 
 stairs, from top to bottom. On this sloping descent, to what really seemed 
 Avernus itself, I went down for about half way between the black brick outer 
 wall and the black brick inner one of the well. In this latter there are openings 
 every now and then, into which the visitor can put his inquisitive head and see the 
 dark abyss below, and the dark walls around, and the primitive looking buckets 
 which the endless chain is constantly hauling to the top, that looks such a 
 distance away with its bit of blue sky for a cover. Coming out of the hot air 
 above I found it quite chilly here in the darkness and damp. The sight down 
 the well also looks very terrifying in its intense gloom and its depth. It 
 requires strong resolution to persevere to the bottom of this strange place, and 
 few would care to take the journey unaccompanied. The light of day and its 
 sunshine were well appreciated on coming out of this ancient pit. It is as good 
 a test of courage to go sohi'^ to the bottom of Joseph's Well and back as to go 
 to the top of Cheops' Pyramid. 
 
 I have come to the conclusion that, in spite of contrary theories, the 
 Egyptians are gipsies — they are so alike in several characteristics, one of which 
 is neglect of ablutions. The guides are here dignified with the name of 
 dragoman, but, like the rose, would smell as much by any other name. They 
 surround the hotels on the arrival of the trains from Suez and Alexandria, and 
 present their cards and certificates. These certificates are special things with 
 the Egyptian dragoman. He considers the getting of one from every visitor 
 whom he has inveigled quite as essential as is his pay. They are sometimes 
 written in a book, which is carried more carefully than a purse. Two of the 
 three guides whom I got billeted upon at times were not apt scholars in reading 
 English. Of that a mean advantage had been taken by some of their dissatis- 
 fied employers, who had vented their vexed feelings in sarcastically written 
 certificates all innocently carried about and shown by the victims of them. 
 Among the traits of their gipsy character are their swindling and thievish pro- 
 pensities, and that " coming the old soldier" over the simple that is so well 
 exhibited by the feminine gipsy fortune-tellers. 
 
 In toiling up to the citadel, I find the street water-sellers to be of some 
 service. They carry filled goat-skins, or earthen jars cdW^d gollehs, that have a 
 perforated disc across the interior of the neck about half-way down, to keep out 
 the dust. These water carriers clink together metal drinking cups to announce 
 their presence. Water is not much wasted in Egypt. Of course the hotel 
 bath is an extra, and I find it specially charged at the value of half-a-crown a 
 day. All trouble in getting to the citadel is, however, rewarded by the views 
 from its terraces. Here is Mehemet All's palace, a very plain affair compared 
 with those of his degenerate descendants who at present spoil things here. I 
 am shown the spot where Emir Bey, the one Mameluke who escaped the feast 
 of death to which his whole tribe had been invited, leaped his horse over the 
 wall to the depth beneath. The wonder is not in the leap, but that he could live 
 and run as he did afterwards, and not be killed as his horse was. Of the Arab 
 horses there are fine specimens to be seen about the city, the breed of which 
 is to be as easily distinguished as are the eunuchs, whom one can identify 
 after their hairless, puckered, and puddingy faces have been once noticed. 
 
 Here from the citadel, all of Cairo, and far around, is to be seen — as by a 
 bird — all its minarets and domes, as also the tombs of the Sultans, Caliphs, 
 and the endless unnamed of Egypt, whose graves are here strewn about. On 
 one side is seen the green land of Goshen in all its beauty, and on the other 
 
354 ^^^^ Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the far-stretching sands of the desert, with the everlasting Pyramids that are 
 now so plainly visible. Away over there the dragoman points to an indis- 
 tinguishable pillar as the one remaining obelisk of Heliopolis — the "On " of the 
 Scriptures, which was visited by Abraham. Cleopatra's Needles, he tells me, 
 were at one time companions of that now solitary pillar. There are only one 
 or two views finer of the kind than that to be so had from this citadel. On the 
 way back I am shown the house in which the Holy Family dwelt for two 
 years when they fled hither to avoid the slaughter of the first-born. The 
 family which are now here consist only of fleas, that are more alarmingly 
 aggressive than elsewhere. The Coptic Church makes nothing of these holy 
 places. The Church of Rome would have taken care that a fine chapel was 
 erected over such a shrine. 
 
 Near at hand is the old Mosque of Amer, in which are the " Pillars of 
 Salvation." These are two columns that stand about ten inches apart, and 
 have their marble surfaces rubbed to a polish by the visitors who push them- 
 selves between them, as also by those who try to do so. Says the Moham- 
 medan legend, "Whoso can pass himself between these pillars can enter the 
 Kingdom of Heaven." With us the masculine term includes the feminine, 
 but not so with the Mohammedans, who hold that women have no souls to go 
 to heaven or anywhere else. On another look at the sentence it appears that, 
 while giving assurance for ever to "slop-made" folks, it does not, for certainty, 
 exclude stout ones. The language is that of an oracle which can be expounded 
 to suit everybody, as can all language relative to the Unknown. How many 
 interpretations have we not heard of the easiness of the passage of the camel 
 through the needle's eye — all vamped up for the comfort of those who could 
 best afford to pay for such a solace. But very few succeed in the effort to pass 
 between these pillars. Of the three who were with me but one was flat-chested 
 enough, and he had to strip off" coat and vest. The place is not taken care of 
 properly, nor the fees looked after as they should be. They are not collected 
 until after experimenting, and only from those who pass the ordeal. It is about 
 the only instance I ever noticed where folks have not to pay for their failures. 
 I had washed in the waters of the Ganges two months before, and so wanted 
 no such Mohammedan assurance as this of further sanctity or future bliss. 
 
 Every visitor to Cairo goes to see Ghezerah Palace. It is the Versailles of 
 Egypt, and built and used for similar purposes. I made an exception to the 
 rule, preferring attractions of older date, of which this land has such famous 
 variety — everything in that way seeming to have a halo cast around it by the 
 touches and help of Time and Fame. I go to the Isle of Rhoda instead of to 
 gaudy Ghezerah, and look at the ancient Nilometer, by which the Egyptians 
 have, for sixteen hundred years, studied what the Nile was likely that year to 
 do for them — of the three things that it can do — whether it would be fearful 
 flood, grateful fulness and requisite overflow, or low water, and consequent 
 famine. They watch this thing as the Dutchmen do the dykes that keep the 
 sea from drowning their cities. It was here at Rhoda, which is a kind of 
 holiday resort, that I saw a fair Coptic woman, who was to me in beauty as 
 the Cleopatra of the scene, and who looked, I dare say, all the fairer from 
 contrast with the surrounding dusky skins. 
 
 Here, also, I witnessed the infliction of the bastinado on a delinquent boat- 
 boy. The punishment is painful even to look at. He was tied by the ankles 
 and held head downwards, his feet laid on the edge of the boat's side. A cane 
 was being severely applied to the soles of his feet, and it was the poor fellow's 
 yells that attracted attention to the performance. It is the mode of punishment 
 common to the country. As shoes are but seldom worn in Egypt, and probably 
 never by the class that gets bastinadoed, the soles of the feet become much 
 hardened, and so less sensitive to the stick. The wind is in that way tempered 
 
JVondrous Relics, 355 
 
 to the shorn lamb. Hereabout I was shown the plant from which the yellow 
 dust called "henna " is made for reddening the ends of the nails, but until the eye 
 becomes used to it such is not a pretty fashion. To a Western or Southern- 
 world man it looks as if the ladies had all been scratching their skin off, and 
 had so blood-stained their finger-nails. 
 
 Twice I went to visit the Museum at Cairo, and would have gone again and 
 again had time served. I came away from it each day with increased respect 
 for the earlier people of this wonderful Egypt. They knew much more, very 
 much more, than we credit them with, and had a higher civilization and more 
 of the benefits of it than we imagine. Half the instruments we have invented 
 and specially the surgical ones, were common to the old Egyptians. They 
 knew all about navigation, and discovered the Cape route and the land that it 
 led to, some three thousand years before the Portuguese took honours for doing 
 likewise. 
 
 They had scriptures, sacred books, written before Confucius, Buddha, Moses, 
 or Mahomet ever penned a line — of which books there are copies extant to this 
 day. They kept the seventh day sacred as we do, and named, in our fashion, 
 the other six from the heavenly bodies. They had convents and lady superiors. 
 Their priests were ordained by those who acted as do our bishops, and were 
 something similarly dressed. They anticipated Sakya Mouni (Buddha) in the 
 doctrine of transmigration, and in teaching that if our souls be eternal, then 
 they must also have been existent from all time, and that therefore we cannot 
 be the first holders of them. 
 
 It is questionable whether these old Egyptians or the Hindoos first held the 
 idea of a Trinity. Some thousands of years before our era, and I might say 
 before our antiquity, the Hindoos worshipped Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, and 
 in some such way it is said that Osiris. Isis, and Horus were regarded by the 
 ancients of Egypt. They practised many of the things inculcated by the 
 formulas of the Christian creed, and had prayers for the dead for those who 
 could pay for them. Late legal decisions have done much towards taking from 
 us the hope of hell hereafter, but these wise Egyptians held fast to the doctrine, 
 though they drew their devil in different shape from our hoofed, horned, and 
 tailed representative. 
 
 They had preservative elixirs which made things imperishable, and they knew 
 the arts of staining glass and making adamantine cements and mortars that we 
 cannot imitate. They could make all their bright and beautiful paint resistant to 
 their powerful sun, all climatic effects, and to the wear and tear of time. It 
 neither faded nor peeled off from where placed, and is as fresh-looking to-day 
 as it was four thousand years ago. These were the people who made the 
 neighbouring Heliopolis a combined Cambridge and Oxford for learning, and 
 Egypt a land to which even Greece came to learn its letters. Of all which, 
 and a quire-full more, there is evidence in this Cairo museum, as there is in the 
 museums of other lands. Egypt has done largely, indeed, in the way of 
 museum-furnishing. 
 
 Here, among gorgeous mumrmy casings, is the wooden image of a man, the 
 steward of some king's household, that is labelled as six thousand years old, 
 and looking likely to last as long again. It is curious to note the lasting power 
 of wood so shown, to which I have referred in a note on the museum of the 
 Sundanese capital. The eyes of this image are of selected stones, set in rims 
 of bronze. With a little touching up and a wig upon its head, it would still 
 serve for a hairdresser's window ; and yet, reckoning by Hebrew dates, it was 
 carved and laid away in its tomb at about the time of Adam's advent. There 
 are more things in this museum, and still more in this land, that were, by like 
 reckoning, before Adam's time, and others that will not square well with our 
 chronology. 
 
 Y 2 
 
256 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 It is April, and the streets of Cairo are full of travel-stained followers of 
 Mahomet, returned from pilgrimage to Mecca, and proud of their dirty appear- 
 ance. They have properly walked so many times round the sacred spot there ; 
 slain the accustomed sheep, and slept on the holy mountain. They are all so 
 happy ! They bring back with them little articles of merchandise as well as a 
 clean conscience, and an assurance of salvation — thus combining business with 
 reli"-ion, as is done often in other creeds. They are about the bazaars here, 
 trying to trade away their purchases. The birthday of the prophet happens to 
 be concurrent with this return of the pilgrims, and it is therefore a sort of 
 Christmas time in Egypt, and the native element is plenteously about. Booths 
 are put up here and there like to thoee in an English fair, in which dervishes 
 of some sects are dancing and howling. In another part of the city is a veri- 
 table fair, in which I see something like an Egyptian edition of our Punch, the 
 female figures in which are of course yashmaked ; and there are merry-go- 
 rounds, in which, long-bearded and robed, men are riding the little wooden 
 horses. " A mad world, my master^: !" 
 
 I stay over an additional day to see the Dose/i, which means the treading. 
 It takes place near the foot of the citadel, in the Place Mahomet Ali, close to 
 the Mosque of the Prophet's Footprint, and within view of that grand one of 
 Sultan Hassan. Four or five hundred of devotees who have not been on the 
 pilgrimage are desirous of being walked over by the holy-hoofs of the horse — 
 a white animal of largest size belonging to the chief Sheik, who has been the 
 leader of the pilgrims. They thus get the benefit from his hoofs of the holy 
 ground that he has trodden. This horse is unshod, and is led by two attendants 
 who are also without shoes. The Sheik is supposed to be in a state of exalta- 
 tion, and unconscious of all around. He still manages to keep his unsteady 
 seat as the horse picks his way over the backs of the prostrate believers. These 
 lie with their faces on their folded arms, closely packed by holy men, who pre- 
 liminarily walk over them for that purpose, and squeeze them together as joiners 
 do flooring boards. Some of these devotees had been walked over by man and 
 horse many times, somehow escaping death or permanent injury. Others, not 
 so fortunate, suft^'er ruptured hearts, livers, intestines, and sprained spines. As 
 there is no newspaper here, the report of such things does not distress the 
 public. One of the servants at the hotel I stay at has been to the Doseh and 
 been trodden upon, and yet looks well on it. Not being a Mohammedan, I 
 could not have got walked over in this way had I wished it. I endeavoured to 
 comply with the religious observances of all countries as tending alike to one 
 end, but this was a special means of grace that I had to miss. 
 
 Of the things offered for sale at this Holy Fair-time are little bottles of the 
 saffron-coloured henna, also miniature leathern bags of kohl for blackening the 
 eyelids. Here are sugar-canes, cut into two-inch lengths, which every child 
 seems to be sucking who has not got other sweetmeat. For variety there are 
 baked beans by the basketful. The drinks — coffee, sherbet, milk, and Nile 
 water — are announced by the clinking together of the brass cups carried by their 
 vendors. In such a crowd as is now about, the dust renders frequent mouth- 
 rinsing necessary, as does also one's smoking. Folks say that they smoke so 
 much here because the air is full of an ancient and unpleasant smell. Considering 
 the innumerable millions that have hereabout lived and died, and contributed 
 to other dust wdth theirs, such odours are not to be wondered at. For 
 reasons many, and that for one, new countries such as Australia have their 
 advantages. 
 
 Cairo is said to count a thousand coffee-houses. At most of them are the 
 
 evening attractions of music and singing, to which Germans, French, and 
 
 Italians are the chief contributors. The prettiest girl of the company carries 
 
 • round the plate and gives chats for change. I never envied the gift of tongues so 
 
TJie G haw a zee Girls, 357 
 
 much as in Cairo, nor thought so admiringly of the many-tongued Mezzofanti. 
 Of the hundred thousand of Europeans that are said to be always in Egypt, 
 the greater part are in Cairo, and the next largest batch at Alexandria. The 
 dinner-table at the hotel is a veritable Babel for languages. I get among the 
 Americans as often as I can, and they are, fortunately, more numerous than 
 other visitors, surpassing in number even the British. 
 
 " Will you go to see the Ghawazee ? Everybody goes to see the Ghawazee — 
 the famous Egyptian dancing-girls ! " " No, I won't ; I am tired, and shall 
 go to bed. It is, besides, no recommendation of any girls that everybody 
 visits them. You go, see their doings, and report progress to-morrow. There 
 is much that is more famous to be seen yet, and hard work to be done in see- 
 ing it. Dancing-girls are delusions, and not so much better than other girls 
 after all. They shan't keep me from sleep, whatever they are ! " I am tired 
 with exercise of all faculties in sight-seeing, than which there is nothing more 
 tiring, except it be idleness itself. About such sleeping others have yet some- 
 thing to say. One is the nipping but noiseless mosquito, whose attacks are a 
 nonentity, however, to those of rhe fleas. These are specialities of the place 
 — helped by the surrounding sands as a hatching ground, the donkeys as 
 nurses, and Egyptians generally as supporters. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 OLD WORLD WONDERS. 
 
 There were few aids beyond masonry for wonder-making and record-preserv- 
 ing in the pre-printing ages. Fame could not then be noised abroad by tele- 
 graphs and newspapers, preserved in books, and perpetuated in libraries. To 
 tell of great men and famous deeds, or of the sham imitations of both, pyra- 
 mids, vast rock-cut tombs, obelisks, and huge columns were made and hiero- 
 glyphically lettered with the story. The architects, builders, masons, and 
 quarry-slaves then represented our publishers, booksellers, printers, and 
 writers. What is now printed on paper wa:5 then painted or cut upon stone. 
 Those who had power or wealth used both in their lifetime to see records of 
 themselves so built and biographically inscribed, in place of trusting to the 
 chance of a monument to be grudgingly given after their death by those who 
 would then divide their wealth. 
 
 The Pyramids, by which those nearest Cairo are generally meant, were 
 built for wonders as much as for tombs. Four thousand and more years have but 
 added for modern eyes to what they had for the eyes of the old world, and will 
 yet have for the one to follow this. As seen in the distance, they had looked 
 such inevitable things that they had inspired that patient waiting w-hich is fore- 
 most of all the ideas they give one. Though eight miles or so away, they look 
 quite handy to the city as seen from its heights. Two Americans, one of 
 whom had a name as an improver of gunnery, and the other as a barrister, 
 had been out to these stone mountains, and I talked with them about the 
 matter at the hotel on their return. Neither of them had made the ascent. 
 One of them had gone up fifty feet on the surface of the Cheops' monument, 
 and said that it then occurred to him that he had others depending upon him, 
 and therefore it was not right to risk anything. Comforting news so far, as I 
 had none dependent upon me. The other said that he had been up as high as was 
 necessary, and that enough was as good as a feast — a remark that he repeated, 
 seemingly for its originality. 
 
358 ' The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 "How was the ascent made?" I asked. "Could not a rope be put from 
 top to bottom, as something for the hand to clutch ?" I had read that it was 
 like ascending a steep flight of stairs, the steps being from two-and-a-half to 
 four feet high. 
 
 " No book tells anything like the facts !" was my barrister's answer. " You 
 cannot go up in a straight line anywhere, but have to be dragged about all 
 over the side and round to one of the angles in search of practicable stepping 
 stones — known only to the Arab guides. No rope could be made of service, 
 and no one is allowed to go up or try to do so unaccompanied by the Arabs. 
 To get, unassisted, up the five hundred feet, or thereabout, of Cheops is a job 
 only for sailors, slaters, or Alpine climbers — a man might as well attempt to 
 scramble unaided over the dome of St. Peter's !" Such was counsel's opinion. 
 
 I learned further at Shepherd's, from another source, that only about ten 
 per cent, of those that go out to the pyramids ever get to their top, that is to 
 say, to the top of Cheops' pyramid, for none but Arabs attempt, the ascent of 
 the adjoining one of Chephren, or Cyphrenes. Referring to the books on the 
 subject, I found very loose and indefinite language used as to the ascent. It 
 seemed as if the writers wished to be understood as having made it, but their 
 expressions about it were explainable either way. My legal informant 
 added, — 
 
 " If you want to know what the ascent really is like, please to imagine the 
 highest of walls, and against its side to pile up all the trunks, boxes, and 
 portmanteaux obtainable — some tens of thousands ; so made, the inequalities 
 of the sizes of these trunks will represent the rugged stones of the pyramid, 
 and the varying height and width of its steps. The stones afford in the 
 scrambling up nothing for the hand to grasp, and the steep steps to be taken 
 render you liable at every step to fall backwards. At every fifty feet you have 
 to stop for fresh wind. The odds are ten to one when you do so and look 
 about you, if you are not used to the cross royals or to walking the roofs of 
 houses, that your head will swim, and you will be compelled to come down. 
 The stones, too, are worn in many places, by time and footsteps, to a slippery 
 state. If you were by yourself you would certainly slip, and if you did so, it 
 would be only once !" 
 
 That was solid and practical information of a very serious sort for one given 
 to vertigo, and unable to look, comfortably, over the roof of a four-story house. 
 It was a heavy blow and great discouragement to be in Egypt and in Cairo, 
 and to go and see Cheops' pyramid, and not to ascend it. From youth upwards 
 I had looked upon doing so as a thing to be done to a certainty, if the chance 
 ever occurred of doing it. Now that the exploit looked so likely, or rather did 
 so but an hour back, here was all hope of doing it quite dashed. " I can go 
 inside, however," I said — much as drowning folks catch at straws. 
 
 "Yes, if you can crawl on your hands and knees for one-fourth of the way, 
 stoop double for two-fourths, and slip about on an ice-like surface at all sorts 
 of angles for the whole of the way, and in pitch-like darkness and a suffocating 
 atmosphere ! If you are going inside you can practise for it at once by creep- 
 ing around this room between the legs of the dining-tables. The floor here is 
 even, and not slippery, and the room is ventilated, which the pyramid is not. 
 I would not go in again for ;i^5o, and was never so glad as when I got out, 
 with a suit of clothes spoiled and my knees torn and bruised. It took me an 
 hour to recover myself outside, and the outer air — hot as it was — felt chil- 
 lingly cold !" 
 
 The prospect was certainly getting darker, and I again turned to the books,, 
 which I found to be as bare of practical information about getting to the 
 interior as they were about ascending the exterior. The eloquent Warburton 
 and the imaginative Kinglake gave no such useful information as my American 
 
Troublesome Climbing. 359 
 
 friend, and but for what he said I should have gone out to the pyramids with 
 out any of the necessary ideas as to the work to be done there. Ignorance is 
 not always bliss. 
 
 Four of us started on the journey after breakfast, going over the good road 
 that the reckless late Khedive constructed expressly for the convenience of 
 French Royalty when honouring him with a visit on the opening of the canal. 
 The bridge that crosses the Nile on this road is a very handsome, long, and 
 expensive stone-built affair. Previously to 1870 visitors went from Cairo on 
 donkeys, and crossed the Nile in boats, into which the donkeys were also 
 huddled. The road for the last five miles of it is fringed with acacia and 
 sycamore-trees, like that of Shoobra. My company preferred a vehicle, but for 
 many reasons I took the more fashionable donkey way of going. Our guide 
 informs us that after all the bother in making this eight-mile road and the fine 
 bridge, neither the French Empress nor her Imperial son went up the pyramid, 
 or into its interior. He seemed to think that much as an insult to Egypt, or 
 perhaps meant it as a hint to us to behave better. 
 
 The pyramids being show places, like the Falls of Niagara, are infested by 
 sellers of curios which are of as doubtful kind as the sapphires offered one at 
 Ceylon, or the relics of the battlefield which are for sale at Waterloo. These 
 Arab dealers come around us at a couple of miles from the pyramids, and press 
 their wares as the vendors of correct lists of the races do on nearing Epsom, 
 Goodwood, or Flemington. The pyramids, however, absorb all attention — 
 awful structures of dark-looking stones, they now begin to show their over- 
 powering immensity, and to sit heavily upon the mind, stilling the noisy jest, 
 and hushing the shallow glee that had hitherto beguiled the journey. 
 
 At the house of the Sheik who has charge here, the carriage has to be left, 
 and two or three hundred yards trodden over the sand before the foot of the 
 greatest pyramid is reached. It is quite a staggering sight to gaze upon its 
 immense height and breadth, covering no less than eleven acres. The plain- 
 ness and solidity of it add greatly to its heavy effect upon the mind. It is 
 750 feet broad at the base of each of its sides, and was 500 feet high before 
 some stones at the top had been taken off, to make there a platform of thirty 
 feet square. It looks, however, from the sands around, to run to a sharp- 
 pointed apex. One gets qualmish even on looking up at the great height, but 
 an idea occurs to me, that as the base widens out beneath one at every step 
 upwards, it will only be necessary to keep a downward look to avoid seeing 
 any height or depth whatever, as also always to keep one's eye turned 
 towards the pyramid when taking a rest. Never turning round, I should see 
 nothing of the depth, and the mere width of the building kept anything out of 
 sight at the sides. These ideas determined me on going up. 
 
 I pay two shillings, or piastres, to the attendant Sheik, and shall have to 
 pay two more to my two Arab attendants on returning. One of my com- 
 panions elects to go up also — the other two will look on. They don't care, 
 they say, and never did, for such things. It is a tight hold that the sinewy 
 Arabs, one on each side, take of one's wrists. The height of the steps makes 
 it on the average about equal to stepping from the floor on to an ordinary table, 
 Such would be good practice for it repeated one or two hundred times a day. 
 The Arabs go in advance, and pull at one's arms, so jerking me up. But for that 
 assistance there would, except to acrobats, be the clanger of falling backwards, 
 as the surface of the stones is not more than a foot or fifteen inches wide. The 
 agility of these Arabs, who have been running up these stones many times a day 
 from their childhood, gives one every confidence, but it cannot, unfortunately, 
 give one breath, for which I have to stop and to pant every few minutes. The 
 start was made from the centre of one side, and near to the cavern-like 
 entrance leading to the interior. Seven or eight times in the ascent had 
 
360 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 stoppages to be made for clearing the perspiration out of my eyes and fetching 
 fresh wind. All efforts of Abdallah and Hassan to get me to look round at 
 the fine views were unavailing, so that I got up with no feeling of vertigo, but 
 with an inkling that the great number of steps strained at had riearly put my 
 legs out of joint. Towards the end of the ascent the power of stepping up seemed 
 quite exhaused. Leg- weary, I had to be pulled up by the guides, and had 
 half an idea, which later on became a whole one, that my often jerked shoulders 
 and overworked knees would remind me of the pyramid for days to come. 
 
 Before leaving Cairo I had pocketed a flask of brandy and water, and wished 
 when at the top of the pyramid that I had pocketed two, or say half a dozen. 
 A glassful seemed but a thimbleful after such exertion. vSome stones for seats 
 are left in the centre of the space here on the top, and these are very welcome 
 seats. They are carved, as is also every inch of the stones around, with the 
 names of visitors. The professional carvers are present chisel in hand. The 
 fee is a shilling, and any one's names will be cleared off to make room for 
 yours — as yours will be the next day at the desire of somebody else. I saw 
 the familiar name of "Smith" there, and as no pyramid was wanted to 
 perpetuate Ma/, I paid the usual shilling to see it cleared off and "J. H." 
 perpetuated — for a day at least. Yet these masons are good Mohammedans, 
 thinking their trade to be as honest as yours, and so work thus daily with their 
 little chisels in cutting away the tomb of Cheops. 
 
 I kept to these stones in the centre for a rest and a look around. Those 
 untroubled with giddiness might go to the edge for me, and look down from 
 the awful height. The view here is the widest that can well be had from any 
 building in the world. Those I had from Antwerp Cathedral tower and the 
 Kootub Minar at Delhi stand next to it. A view all over Cairo is to be seen 
 on one side. On the other the eyes wander away to the terraced pyramids of 
 Memphis, and to the silver streak and green banks of the Nile on another, and 
 then far over the sands of the desert— a sight to make one feel altogether very 
 small and helpless. Somebody disturbs it by mentioning my name, and here, 
 on the top of Cheops' tomb, I am met by a fellow-villager from a far distant 
 land. One is nowhere safe from recognition — I have got quite clear as to 
 that — if a body is to be recognized on such an out-of-the-way place as this. 
 My welcome friend had brought a larger bottle with him than I had, so that 
 we drank "to all friends below," which, I think, must necessarily have 
 included everybody on the face of the earth. A few mountaineers, or folks in 
 a balloon, if among the clouds at the time, might claim exception only as 
 being higher situated. 
 
 Comes to us as we sit there the one-eyed Abdallah, who had helped me 
 over the stones. lie offers, as is his custom, to run down the pyramid, and 
 away across the sands to the neighbouring one of Cyphrenes — to scramble to 
 the top of that, and there to stand and wave his turban in token of his success, 
 and all in the space of ten minutes ! In cooler weather, three months or so 
 previously, his time would be nine minutes, l)ut the heat operated now as a 
 handicap of an extra minute. In a Ijook by a well-known author I had read 
 of this performance as including the return of Abdallah to the top of this 
 pyramid, but he was quite clear as to that being error, and so were we when 
 we saw what a close thing it was to get only to the top of Cyphrenes' pyramid 
 in that short time. 
 
 This feat was to be done for coins equivalent to half-a-crown from each of 
 us, and to make it a sporting matter, it was agreed that it should be called a 
 bet to that amount. To us it looked an utterly impossible thing to do, as 
 towards the top of Cyphrenes' pyramid the smooth coat of cement was still 
 sticking for forty feet or more downwards. To get upon and over and up that 
 part seemed as out of the question. Cheops' pyramid had been similarly covered 
 
Abdallah's Wager. 361 
 
 at one time, but the cement work has long since fallen, and been mixed with 
 the surrounding sands. The start took place at ten minutes to eleven. If he 
 had flung himself headlong, Abdallah could not have disappeared quicker, 
 but I could not trust myself to watch over the brink how he rolled down. In 
 four minutes his now diminutive, doll-sized figure could be seen scudding away 
 over the three hundred yards or so of sand that divided the two pyramids. 
 
 Something like a black squirrel did our acrobat look next as he now made 
 his way up the side of Cyphrenes' pyramid. It was nine minutes gone by the 
 time he reached the edge of the broken cement, where trouble would 
 begin. "He can never do it ! It is impossible !" said the three or four 
 who here watched him ; but already he was over the edge of the obstruction, 
 and making his way upon it by sticking his hands and feet into cracks and 
 crevices, and probably cut holes, that were not discernible by us. He went here 
 and there to find these footholds, and made quite a zigzag of this part of the 
 ascent. " He has three seconds yet" — and so he had, and on the tick of the 
 last one, he rolled on to the top, and was on his feet at once, waving one hand 
 and unfastening his turban with the other — to wave that also. He waited at the 
 bottom of our pyramid for his bet, so that it looked as if he had had fatigue 
 enough for that morning. He said that he had never done the task more than 
 twice in a day, and was the only Arab about the pyramid that undertook it- 
 it was, in fact, his speciality, and a monopoly not likely to be much interfered 
 with. 
 
 The sellers of the scarabeus and other like things found in the wrappings of 
 mummies, come about us and unwind their girdles in which these curios are 
 carried. The scarabeus is a little bone carved beetle, which was a sacred 
 insect with the Egyptians. On the under side of it are hieroglyphics expres 
 sive of the name of the deceased and that of the king in whose reign he died. 
 This thing was placed in the right hand of the dead, when embalmed, and 
 swathed in those curious medicated wrappings which have kept intact for 
 thousands of years. The dead Egyptian thus slept with his visiting card, so 
 to call it, in his hand. Tombstone records soon wear out, and in a little time 
 the stone falls and gets covered by vegetation ; but here, after countless years, 
 in this scarabeus, so held by the mummy, is the enduring record that will 
 identify the dead. In some things we are mere savages compared to those 
 clever old Egyptians. If a thing was worth doing with them it was worth doing 
 well, and so their mummies were made as lasting as their buildings, and their 
 identity as unmistakable. 
 
 In coming down from the pyramid it was only necessary to pull one's hat 
 pretty well over the eyes, so as to see but twenty feet or so of the way down 
 at any one time. The Arabs, as before, took hold of each wrist and timed their 
 jumps, so that their feet touched the stones just before mine did. These two 
 hundred and more of jumps were a shaking sort of trouble after the first two or 
 three score, but still, easier than the labour of the ascent. Some of the jumps, 
 looked too much at a time, and so were taken gradually, by first sitting down 
 and so dropping to one's feet upon the stone beneath. Such I afterwards found 
 had told sadly on one's clothes, and there was not much left to sit down upon, 
 •on one of the Arab's announcing that the descent was over. Walking out upon 
 the sand for some distance, I then look up, and cannot credit that I have been 
 to the top of that tremendous mound — it looks such an impossible thing for me 
 to do. 
 
 Two of those who had been to the summit were going into the interior, and 
 spite of the madness that the other three or four said that it was, I left coat 
 and hat behind, and with two Arab attendants squeezed, half-double, into the 
 black hole that forms the entrance. The attendants carry each a miserable 
 rushlight, that only makes darkness visible. The Sheik had to be paid the 
 
362 TJie Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 same fee for entering here as on going up the outside. If folks were paid to 
 take the trouble, instead of paying, they would seldom, indeed, undertake the 
 job. It is all stooping for the first 200 feet, and then there is twenty feet to be 
 done on the hands and knees, after which the stooping position is resumed. 
 Some very slippery stones are now descended, wherein footholes have had to 
 be cut, to which the rushlights dimly direct one's steps. 
 
 The Arabs have held the candles in one hand, and myself between them with 
 the other up to this time, but I am now bid to stay, and mount on the back of 
 one of them, who then goes on all fours. In that way a fearful chasm has to 
 be crossed, of which the dim light saves one from seeing the full danger. 
 With feet again sliding about I am hauled up some hundred or more feet of a 
 very toilsome ascent ; doubled down meanwhile in a stiflingly distressing way. 
 My chin is so stuck into my chest that I breathe with difficulty, and am 
 altogether in trouble. A long passage of various heights, and more or less 
 uneven and slippery, has now to be trodden, and then, at last, I am in the 
 chamber of Cheops' sarcophagus, which is here, empty, before me. Had it 
 been full of water, I think I could have drunk half of it, so exhausting had 
 been the scrambling journey, so profuse the perspiration, and so stiflingly close 
 the little-ventilated passages and this small chamber. 
 
 My handkerchief was behind in the coat left at the entrance, and I could see 
 nothing for the stream of perspiration running into my eyes. For the promise of 
 some piastres I get one of the Ara!.>s to tear off half of his cotton turban, and 
 never so highly valued any kerchief as I did that dirty but useful rag. The 
 guides now light a magnesium wire, making the dark vault resplendent 
 with bluish light for a few seconds, which but makes the after-darkness the 
 more dreadful. Something handsome would now be given to avoid that toil- 
 some journey back again. It has to be got through, however, like other 
 troubles, and is one that is not likely to be done again. The exterior labour is 
 but as child's play to this interior toil. Some have been known not to recover 
 their ordinary amiability after it for a full week. 
 
 The queen's chamber, another of the holes in the interior. I left unvisited, 
 and also declined to descend a smothering-loooking and funnel-like passage, 
 that I was told led down to the foundations of the pyramid, and looked as 
 likely to lead down to Hades itself. l"he guide also vainly invited me to 
 follow other fools in writing my name on the stones in the king's chamber with 
 the smoke of the rushlight I carried. There was too much of the sarcastic in 
 the thoughts that would come to one on looking at the names perpetuated for 
 a day in smoke on this mountain pile of stone by which Cheops had so perpet- 
 uated his for all the ages. The record is mournful enough left by one "whose 
 name was writ in water," and the line might be drawn at that. The properly 
 constituted mind must shrink from one written in smoke. 
 
 While such vanities were being suggested to me, I was dying for a drink, 
 gasping for air, and the perspiration all streaming from me ! In my hot hand 
 the rushlight I was invited to write with was, like myself, melting away, and 
 there was that weird appearance about things altogether that made one only 
 anxious to be away as soon as possible. In time, with all the trouble of a 
 second birth, I again emerged to a world that I had. until then, never properly 
 appreciated. Some good Samaritan, who has experienced all my feelings, has 
 piled up some of the stones that have fallen from the corner of the pyramid, 
 and so made a "Cheops Restaurant " where it is really wanted. I reached 
 his welcome shanty in the condition in which Christopher Sly exclaims, " For 
 God's sake, a glass of small beer !" An idea of the moisture that had been 
 lately squeezed out of one could be now formed, from the quantity required lu 
 replace it. 
 
 The foresight I had shown in coming hither on a donkey was rewarded 
 
The Disappointing Sphinx. 363 
 
 by the usefulness of the beast to me in my now weakened state, as it 
 carried me to the neighbouring pyramids, and through the heavy sands 
 to the Sphinx. A very disappointing sight indeed is the Sphinx ! 
 The eye of the poet and the historian combined is required to see any- 
 thing whatever worth looking at in the nearly featureless old rock, which 
 here sticks up out of the sand. Let one know nothing of its story, and not 
 a second glance would be given at the crumbling old stone face and neck 
 here visible. Though over thirty feet high, the figure is dwarfed to nothing by 
 the immensity of the neighbouring pyramids. It is not of granite, as I had 
 read, but of limestone only, of which exfoliating pieces can be picked by the 
 fingers from the neck. From the layers of stone thus exhibited the figure has 
 been certainly cut from a rock here standing. The natural strata of the stone 
 so seen look at first like joints of different stones used for neck and head 
 pieces, but are not so. The figure is a cut rock, of which I had seen many 
 examples in India. 
 
 Of the Sphinx, all that one has read as visible in the half- featureless face must 
 have been evolved merely by imagination. Common eyes like mine look in 
 vain for the " beautiful," as they do for the " terrible " and the " eternal " in 
 a noseless face, where the eyes have been eaten away by time, and the beard 
 has been removed to help stock the curios of a museum. The lover's eye can 
 see, Shakspeare tells us, " Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," and he may 
 have had this hideous-looking old Egyptian face, and the fine things said about 
 it, in his mind when he so wrote. To imagine grand things, and then to write 
 and rave about them, does not make them visible to other eyes than those of 
 the courtier and the lover. Polonius could, at the bidding of the Prince of 
 Denmark, see a weasel or a whale in the shape of a cloud ; and Katherine, for 
 love or fear of Petruchio, saw with his eyes only. But '• we, who have free 
 souls," and can say the thing we will, see with our own eyes only, and may 
 speak accordingly. 
 
 The world, spite of all the wisdom of proverbs, will judge by appearances. 
 I had once, set as a breast-pin, a golden nugget, which I acquired, by digging, 
 in the most romantic manner in which I ever got any gold. Any amount of 
 imagination, such as is given to the Sphinx, might have been exhausted on its 
 history, its genesis, and what 'ologies were illustrated by this treasure. The 
 curious general observer, and I never met others, took it, however, only for a de- 
 cayed tooth, and wondered at my wearing it. To them, all that its past might 
 have brought to mind was as nothing to what its prestnt would realize to the 
 pocket. Other admiration for it could be got from none. Sermons in stones 
 and poems in yellow primroses are mostly read by those whom one never 
 meets with. 
 
 I sat nearly two hours looking at the Sphinx from all points of view, and 
 recalling all that I had read of the much that had been written about it with 
 this result — that there was no visible cause here for such effects ! The dis- 
 appointment was disheartening, but had to be borne, and I have had in this 
 world-wide wandering that I am doing to give up more cherished beliefs than 
 that about the Sphinx. 
 
 On the head of this figure, at the crown, is a deep hole, sufficiently large 
 for a man to hide in — to nestle, in fact, in the brain of the vSphinx. An Arab 
 scrambled up the face of the figure — they can scramble up anything — and 
 hides within it, coming down with pieces of the exfoliated stone, for sale as 
 curios. Near to it has been lately made an excavation, showing a series of 
 stone chambers that might be called the cellars of the Sphinx, which the sand 
 will rapidly fill up again. Some millionaire, with a desire for fame, might 
 gain it by spending a few thousands in clearing the sand away from the lion- 
 shaped body and feet that are now covered, and then walling it around, so that 
 
364 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the full length and the height and majesty of the Sphinx might be seen for 
 the future. In such a way there are about the world many investments for 
 capital, which would bring the blessings of all as interest to the donor, and 
 longer and greener keep his memory than would any posterity be could leave. 
 
 Going about the great pyramid, outside and inside as I had done, wandering 
 around the neighbouring ones, and studying the Sphinx, makes up a day's 
 hard work, which is more felt the next day, and still more the four following 
 ones. One looks back again and again, as one needs must do, very often on 
 the road from the scene so left. About it there is, however, the comforting 
 thought, that one may come back in a thousand years or two, and see all 
 things there much the same. Of the two great tombs of this world — that one 
 of the Indian Queen entombed at Agra, in the Taj Mahal, will be more 
 pleasantly remembered, and more often recalled, by those who have seen them 
 both, than will the rival tomb of the Egyptian Cheops. 
 
 Fanciful stories have been advanced and amplified as to this largest of the 
 pyramids, and the intentions of the builder. The same might with equal 
 reason apply to any of the other score or more of pyramids scattered through- 
 out Egypt. The Great Pyramid, as it is called, is only a larger tomb than the 
 others, and but a wonder of a tomb only. Such will be said of it by all those 
 who have been about in Egypt, and who have journeyed much among the 
 tombs of the Eastern world. In proof of that much was the usually seen 
 sarcophagus, which is too large to be dragged out through the opening by 
 which the interior is reached. The presence here of that stone coffin suffi- 
 ciently upsets all fanciful theories about Cheop's tomb. 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 UP THE NILE BY RAIL. 
 
 To Assiout, or Siout, the capital of Upper Egypt, distant about 430 miles from 
 Cairo, there are three ways of going. One is in the old accustomed way of 
 hiring a dahahieh, or Nile sailing-boat, and slouching along as the wind serves 
 and the boatmen tow ; another is to go by the steamer that now runs upon 
 waters on which it seems quite out of place that steam should intrude ; and the 
 third is to go by the railway which runs from Cairo along the western bank of 
 the famous river. The steamer had been gone up some days before, so that there 
 was nothing left for me but the rail, if I would see something of Upper Egypt. 
 
 I might have joined a party going shortly by a dahahieh, but then it was 
 necessary to bespeak one, and have it previously sunk for two days that the 
 live-stock might be drowned, and the vessel generally purified, and then to 
 wait another week that it might be dried and furnished. Such way of going 
 up the Nile did very well for our grandfathers, and is a two or three months' 
 method of killing time still resorted to by European visitors of conservative 
 notions. Time, however, makes life, and that is short, and the Nile is long, 
 and there are so many other things to be seen in the world. Thus it 
 eventuates that the rail is, of necessity, chosen by me for the journey. 
 
 For that excursion I am, for my sins I suppose, provided with a guide who 
 is the incarnation of much that is detestable. That he never washed was 
 nothing, because to wash is not the custom of the country ; but he was a 
 boundless liar, and thieving is no word for his aggressions upon all portable 
 
Antiguiffs Remua7its. 365 
 
 property. I thought that I was inured to all guides and their vagaries, but 
 this one abused the privilege that they mostly seem to have in making 
 themselves obnoxious. I recalled the greater sufterings of others in this land 
 of Egypt, and so philosophically endured the trouble — that is to say, squabbled 
 and anathematized all through it. I was up before my guide the first 
 morning, and had settled the bed and breakfast-bill before he came to 
 announce that it was just twice what I had paid. "Too late, Abdul ! you 
 must get up earlier to settle bills in that way. It is all done now." lie 
 merely grinned, as if saying that he owed me one, and went away to meditate 
 on how to square things in the sense of working round me in some other wa}-. 
 
 The six shillings a day agreed to be paid to Abdul was like the daily 
 sixteen at the hotel, a mere figurative thing, that was, like things scriptural,, 
 and Egyptian things generally, susceptible of many interpretations. Our 
 conversation was limited by the impediment of language, which gave him 
 more time for thought, and his thought all went to the probability of "pulling 
 oft^" the next little swindle. In similar racing language, he often " landed it." 
 There are redeeming points in the worst of us, and Abdul thought he was 
 doing good in seeking to magnify me in the eyes of others, quite regardless of 
 fact. If he had had more regard for elevating his own character instead of 
 mine, it would have been better. I was, according to his account, a lord, and 
 had spent twenty napoleons in every village and town on the road — twenty 
 shillings being nearer the truth. I was going to Siout, he said, to see the 
 slaves there lately brought down from Darfour, and to make extensive pur- 
 chases. When he should come, at the end of the engagement, to ask for his 
 certificate, as he would do, what should I say for him? P^ortunately I found 
 before the journey's end that he could not read English. 
 
 It is on the very edge of the Nile that this railway runs up, and I learn from 
 the itinerary way-bill that I got at ^Shepherd's that the first stopping-place of 
 interest is at Bedrashayn, seventeen miles on the right-hand side of the river 
 from Cairo. It leads to IMetraheeny, a mere village of mud huts on the black 
 soil left by the Nile, which bounds it on one side as do the sands of the Libyan 
 desert on the other. Mounted on donkeys, we go out over the sands to see 
 the wonders beyond that yet remain of an ancient world. 
 
 On the road lies a Titanic statue of polished limestone, which the guide tells 
 me is that of Rameses the Great. It is unbroken, except at the feet — an 
 injury that could be repaired. It is one of those massive wonders that the 
 ancient Egyptians delighted in cutting, carving, and setting up for our 
 astonishment. It is said to have been given to the British, like Cleopatra's 
 Needle, and is quite as well, or much better, worth removing. As the 
 expense only has prevented this, a fine opening here occurs for a rich man to 
 adorn a capital with the effigy of the great Egyptian King — before which all 
 its other statues would look pigmyish indeed. It is forty-three feet in height, 
 or rather length, and cut from one stone. It lies there on the sands, a 
 splendid statue, with handsome features — a fit adornment for any city. 
 
 Hereabout stood the great city of Memphis, once, as Abdul tells me, what 
 Alexandria was afterwards, and Cairo is now. It lived only to see the rise of 
 Alexandria. Cambyses hastened its ruin, and it sank, shattered, as Thebes 
 had done before it. Cairo, then called Fostat, took in later years its trade 
 and people. The sands of the desert swept in and covered up the dead city, 
 and the desert winds sang its requiem. Its buried wonders lay long undis- 
 covered. An Englishman uncovered its colossal statue of Rameses ; — the 
 covering accounting for its good preservation ; — and a Frenchman not thirty 
 years ago dug up further wonders, that go far to fill the Museum of Cairo. 
 
 M. Mariette, now ennobled as Mariette Bey, is worthy of yet higher title, 
 if only for the discovery, in 185 1, of the singular rock-cut tomb of the sacred 
 
366 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Apis- bulls of old Memphis. This receptacle had been for four thousand years 
 so well secured that its discoverer tells us the footprints were still visible in 
 the dust of its flooring of those who had last trodden there ! The Bull-Apis 
 was probably not worshipped as a creator, but only as one of the Creator's 
 works — the Egyptians thus, as some one has phrased it, " looking through 
 Nature up to Nature's God." What I have seen of Egyptian intelligence 
 forbids one thinking otherwise of those who worshipped an invisible Creator- 
 God, from whom they held that all proceeded and to whom all returned, who 
 would judge them hereafter, and assign punishments and rewards. 
 
 By representations on the walls of this tomb, the sacred bull appeared always 
 to have been a spotted one. With us that which is unspotted is best in 
 character, but fashions vary with the ages. In each of the cells here cut from 
 solid rock stood a ponderous granite sarcophagus. Records on the walls tell 
 the names of the successive bulls, and also of those other animals in whose 
 reigns these bulls had their day, and then died, and were here grandly entombed. 
 They were made more of then than are the sacred cows that I had lately seen 
 in their temple at Benares, but then these are degenerate days in matters of 
 worship. The spotted god-bull Apis was not allowed to be seen by infidel eyes, 
 and only at rare times by his worshippers. There was a method in that, and 
 the familiarity was avoided which helps to breed contempt even of gods. 
 
 Here is an enormous granite sarcophagus that has been left in one of the 
 passages near to an empty cell ready for its reception. The Titanic masons 
 who lived in those ancient days had been called away suddenly, and have left 
 not their like behind. It is impossible to look at such works and not recall the 
 sentence, "There were giants on the earth in those days." As a matter of 
 fact there was nothing of the kind, but merely men in multitudes who worked 
 as one, and as slaves. Those who worked at this cemetery of the bull-gods 
 were the quarry-slaves, whose rations were a daily handful of grain, and their 
 sole reward the scourge. 
 
 The pyramids that are hereabout are far more ancient-looking than those 
 seen nearer Cairo. One of them is terraced, and the cement coating has 
 fallen, which, with the sands of the desert and the dust of countless years to 
 help it, has all filled the terraces u]i so that walking on any of them is impos- 
 sible. Two others of these pyramids are of bricks made of Nile mud, and 
 look inconceivably ancient, though the pointed arches in the interior are said 
 to prove them of a more modern date than the stone one of Cheops. My 
 guide was so knowing about this quarter and its belongings that I suspected 
 that all his knowledge was not Egyptian. He had got most of it, he said, 
 from English travellers. 
 
 Resuming the journey, I have a choice of land and water views from the 
 carriage windows, a variety of which is a relief to the tedious pace of the train. 
 The date-palms about, which are nearly all that is to be noticed in the way of 
 trees, are not equal to cocoanut palms in either appearance, produce, or general 
 utility. There is another, the dome palm, only to be seen further away, in Upper 
 Egypt, which is thought to be a superior tree to the date-palm altogether. Here, 
 at every hundred yards or so, are "sakias," water-wheels, which are worked by 
 buffaloes. Higher up the river the sakia is replaced by the "shadoof," a lumber- 
 ing old leverage for raising water from the Nile by hand power and bucketful. 
 The water thus raised by sakia and shadoof is emptied into little trenches, so 
 graded that it runs slowly all around and irrigates the field. 
 
 All Eastern nations adopt this plan of irrigation, and are thus independent of 
 the rainfall. Here, carried out on a large scale to the fields and farms, is seen 
 all that minute attention which the Chinese give to their market -gardens. The 
 little clusters of mud huts that one sees here and there, with a palm-tree or two 
 in their midst, are the homes of the wretched fellahs who toil in these fields, 
 
Nile-Side Scenes. 367 
 
 as their forefathers have done from the beginning of time. When the train 
 stops at Benisooef there are to be seen on the platform those who have pur- 
 chased and are eating the cold hard-boiled eggs and sour yellow bread which 
 is sold about here, and washed down with Nile water ; also those who spread 
 their little carpets, and kneeling say their prayers amid all the bustle. I ask 
 Abdul why he does not do likewise. I am not sure to this day how to take 
 his answer, but it was, " I pray as English do — nobody sees me !" It was 
 entitled to the most unfavourable interpretation, as he was in five minutes 
 afterwards trying to appropriate the change due to me out of a napoleon on 
 the purchase of a bottle of claret. 
 
 The barber is still the doctor in Upper Egypt. Here at Benisooef he is 
 setting a broken bone. The surgical instruments and appliances go along 
 with the razor and comb. As the train is in no hurry at these stations I get 
 him to cut my hair to fill u)5 the time, while I watch the buffaloes lying in the 
 water and the women washing clothes and girls filling water-jars. It seems to 
 be a farthing or its equivalent for a drink here at the station from one of these 
 goUehs. A girl had gone thrice down to the Nile to fill hers while I have been 
 waiting here, and is astonished by my not taking the change out of the penny, 
 or its equivalent, that I gave her for a drink. Though her warehouse is but 
 an earthen pitcher, her stock-in-trade is all the water of the mighty Nile, and 
 she earns more money than her wretched father, who toils in the fields here- 
 abouts. The railway stations thus furnish to such as her a means of getting 
 money otherwise than by everlastingly crying to the traveller for "Backsheesh," 
 "Backsheesh, Howadji !" I am told that this term, used to every English- 
 man, really expresses contempt, and that the beggar who uses it to me thinks 
 himself to be a superior person and myself but one of a nation of shop- 
 keepers, which " Howadji " really implies. I had thought to be proud of the 
 title, but now dropped it. 
 
 Passing places that are little else but names, and also the depressed valley 
 called the Fyoom, thirty-six miles l^y seven, in which Nile water is retained long 
 after the overflow of the river, Bibbeh is reached, a place that looks 
 picturesque at a distance, but will not bear nearer acquaintance, and sadly 
 needs the care of an inspector of nuisances. After leaving that, we near Gebel 
 Tayr, where upon a hill, Abdul tells me, all the birds of Egypt are believed 
 by the Egyptians to assemble annually and hold a caucus. One is left in charge 
 there until the following year's gathering, when he is relieved guard and 
 another chosen for the duty. It looks a place as likely as not for a parliament 
 meeting of that sort. 
 
 Semalood is passed, and then ]Minyeh, which is worth looking at, as it is 
 market-day there, and that business is again seen which seemed all left behind 
 at Cairo — two hundred or so of miles in the rear. Crossing the river I am 
 taken by Abdul to Beni Hassan, which is simply the side of a hill in which 
 some vaults are excavated in the limestone. But for the works of art upon 
 them they might be called caves or caverns. They are, in fact, tombs, 
 as indicated by the pits in their floors. The walls here were smoothed and 
 polished for receiving the enduring drawings, paintings, and imitations of 
 woodwork, and everything else that look now so intact and unfaded. In 
 the compartments into which these walls are divided the domestic doings of 
 the Egyptians of four thousand years ago are all pictorially set forth. The 
 ancients lavished their money upon their tombs, instead of leaving it, as the 
 moderns do, for dissipation by their descendants. 
 
 On these limestone walls are representations of every phase of ancient 
 Egyptian life and all its fashions. It also offers evidence of the fancy the 
 Egyptians had, with Eastern folks generally, for writing their own epitaphs. 
 In spite of all the proverbs we repeat against leaving things to be done by 
 
368 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 others, we strangely neglect this one, though none can know our many virtues 
 so well as ourselves. The Egyptian was wiser, and left nothing to second 
 hands. In Eastern fashion he built his tomb during his lifetime, and super- 
 intended its often wondrous embellishment, as we do the houses we build, in 
 which others will live and forget us. Here is one of the records from Beni 
 Hassan, which in the mural tablet way may be taken as a sample, and made 
 use of. Abdul has the translation in his pocket-book. The copyright has 
 expired. 
 
 " I will tell my doings. M3- goodness was great, and my affeclion without limit. I never 
 oppressed the orphan or robbed the widow. The fisherman and the shepherd I alike pro- 
 tected. No man did I compel to forced labour. Famine was never near me, nor the failure 
 of bread. All my fields flourished. I distributed food around, and saw that none went un- 
 fed. I aided all alike, widow and matron. When I made gifts I never preferred the honour- 
 able to the humble." 
 
 There is no nonsense about such an epitaph as that ! Than these and the 
 pictured scenes of ancient local life Beni Hassan has nothing to show save the 
 goodly view from the hillside. The fine art within competes well with what 
 Nature has to show without. 
 
 Passing Oshmoomen, the old Hermopolis, where the Ibis was worshipped in 
 the place of the Apis, and alligators were embalmed and entombed, Mellavee 
 is reached, whereabouts the traveller is bid to look for live crocodiles on the 
 Nile — this place being as far down the river as they have for their own reasons 
 been known to venture. Here the Dome, or Theban, palm is pointed out— 
 the first place in the journey in which it is visible. The fruit of this tree 
 resembles in appearance stale gingerbread, and has something of its taste. The 
 interior nut is the hardest known thing of vegetable growth. The cocoanut 
 and the date-palms are of one trunk only and branchless, but the trunk of this 
 tree divides at a certain height, and its branches again do the same. 
 
 Manfaloot is the next stopping place, and curious as being one which has 
 had always to shift back from the encroachments of the Nile. It has, in fact, 
 been more than half washed away within historical time, which in Egypt may 
 be said to go back only to the day before yesterday — much as we think we 
 know of it. On the opposite bank a hill is pointed out in which is a large 
 cavern from which numbers of embalmed, mummified crocodiles have been 
 taken, similarly as mummied kings have been served by modern body- 
 snatchers. A little distance below here Abdul had pointed out in the hills 
 some tombs in which mummies of dogs and cats had been found. It is to be 
 presumed that these were favourites, and so laid beside their owners when 
 dead, as we see effigies of dogs at their masters' feet in the monuments in our 
 old churches. 
 
 The windings of the Nile after passing Manfaloot give one many views of it, 
 and some of them have a claim to the picturesque. An occasional dahabieh, 
 with its birdwing rig, adds to that effect. The life on board these boats on 
 their three or four months' journeys from Cairo to the second cataract and back, 
 is quite of a piece with that of the land through which they travel — a sleepy 
 life in a dreamy land. To put steamers on the Nile and railroads on its banks 
 is killing to all the feelings which should properly belong to those who would 
 see Egypt as Egypt should be seen. 
 
 Assiout, the next stage, is the capital of Upper Egypt, and is like a popular 
 tune from the number of variations played on its name. It is Siout, Osioot, 
 and Osyout, as well as Assiout. Of old, before antiquity began, it was Lyco- 
 polis, "the city of the wolves," which animal was its deity. It is all 
 genuine old Egypt even now, with none of the mixed featur^-s of modern 
 civilization that mongrelise Cairo. It shows black patches of the ancient wall 
 that once surrounded it, ovf, which the palm-trees can be seen that grow 
 
An Old- World City. 369 
 
 promiscuously among its houses. There is not much of streets anywhere in 
 the place, which is about the last in the world likely to be chosen in which to 
 begin business. It looks dreadfully old and dingy, unutterably poor and 
 dilapidated, and awfully ugly. The idea of making a railway to such a place 
 could only originate with one who. like the late Khedive, wanted an excuse for 
 raising and squandering a few more of the millions of his credulous creditors. 
 He was absolutely bent on extending this railway to Thebes that has so long 
 been but a mere name, done with time, and enfeofted to eternity. So doing 
 would have been sheer sacrilege and insanity combined. 
 
 Assiout, this chief city of Upper Egypt, with a Coptic name, did very well 
 in its sleepy trade of supplying the slow Nile boats with what was necessary to 
 carry them onwards to the first and second cataracts, and beyond, and in 
 renewing their purchases on the return journey. Its main branch of trade 
 was, and still is, making itself a depot for the slaves brought down from 
 Darfour in the interior. The white slaves are disposed of in Cairo, but black 
 humanity finds its market here. If such trade can be in any place proper, 
 then Assiout is that place. A reasonable being should feel glad at being sold 
 off, or served anyhow, to get out of that old dirty and depressing town. Here 
 are to be seen a lately-arrived batch, that will afterward be seen all about 
 Cairo as coachmen and general servants. Those with the hairless faces and 
 puckered features are eunuchs, and in nothing, I am told, particularly better 
 than their fellow-men, save in the price they fetch. I am not sure whether it 
 is not as well to be a slave in Egypt as to be called a free man — there is so 
 little of distinction with any difference. The fellahs who cultivate the fields 
 are robbed of every shilling they can earn, being bastinadoed also if they 
 make complaint, and that's as badly as any slave could be used. 
 
 The poor Egyptian serf— most miserable of all humanity — scrambles with 
 the thieves, the locusts, the birds, and the rats for the wretched produce of 
 his patch of Nile mud. That which he rescues from their clutches the tax- 
 gatherer and his myrmidons take by -fraud and force ; and the wretched robbed 
 peasant, after years of such treatment, dwindles away to death, and, as I 
 should think, with little regret at leaving life — a life that has been passed in a 
 dwelling worse than a pigstye without a pig's share of food, and with harder 
 labour than falls to the lot of any other agricultural labourer. 
 
 Slavery, supposed to be put down, is only disguised, and the slave-market 
 none the less lively because concealed. The cargoes of mutilated boys and 
 enslaved girls still go as usual to Cairo, and are distributed about in well- 
 known quarters. They may there be inspected by the commercial and the 
 curious, and bargained for and bought, as of old. My guide had taken me 
 when there to two of these depots, in which, through him, my many inquiries 
 are answered ; and I book names, descriptions, and prices, that I might take 
 a day or two to consider, before deciding on a purchase. 
 
 Something sound in wind and limb and decent-looking in the way of 
 humanity was to be had for £2)S'^' ^ better article, to judge by appearance, 
 was purchaseable for ;^5oo. But appearances were the sole guide, and with 
 humanity, as with horseflesh, more than half must be taken on trust. Dis- 
 crimination appears to be twice as necessary here as in the purchase of yearling 
 racers at a stud-farm sale ; and yet one feels how utterly all physiognomy and 
 phrenology fail to help, and how sadly deceptive exteriors are when a human 
 being has to be bought. These ideas can, fortunately, be realized before 
 closing a bargain. All is dumb show also, as, for want of a knowledge of 
 tongues, there is nothing to be learnt by talk. Something seemingly as good, 
 and certainly quite as unintelligible, as anything here shown, had been offered 
 to me in China, where humanity is cheap from mere plentitude of the article, 
 and I had noted particulars there as I do here. It is best not to be rash in 
 
37° The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 such matters, or one may be, as likely as not, sold equally with the purchases. 
 I may find something yet better further afield, as there is much of humanity 
 yet bought and sold elsewhere in the world. 
 
 It is in theory a fine thing to picture Great Britain as posing in history for 
 her great position — the abolition of slavery — in which greatest of her good 
 examples America has followed her, at the expense even of an internecine war 
 that half prostrated the nation. We are too apt to think of slavery as at an 
 end, until we go about the world and see so much of it existing in some shape 
 or other. In Cuba and Java the whole native labouring population are but 
 slaves, under names which but as thinly disguise the reality as did the serf- 
 dom which Russia imposed on the veritable slaves of three-fourths of its terri- 
 tory, who were bought and sold with the soil. Russia only enslaved its own 
 people, but thf- Dnichm_an and the Spaniard enslave the populations of other 
 lands. This Egyptian dealing in African blacks and Georgian whites is but a 
 mere peddling branch of the business. 
 
 I can get no sleep in Assiout, from the barking of the starving dogs, and the 
 calls to prayer from the minarets all round. These calls are quite needless — 
 prayer comes spontaneously from any one in this place. To say nothing of the 
 dogs and the other noises, the Egyptian plague of fleas is here accountable for 
 wakefulness. Sleep being out of the question, I went out and about — wander- 
 ing into a mosque, and up the steps of its minaret, and out into its lower 
 gallery, passing the blind attendant on the way. I was afterwards told by Abdul 
 that I ought to have been kicked out for such a desecration with shod feet. As 
 nobody who could see me was about, I got thus a view of the ancient city by 
 moonlight, sleeping then but little more than it does by day — also of the course 
 of that winding, mysterious Nile, which has been the sole first cause and after 
 support of all the cities, towns, and villages that I have seen, and of countless 
 others that have gone, as these will one day go — that river which alone has 
 made this land and all that therein is and ever has been. 
 
 This river, which by its surplus mud annually left on the surrounding sands 
 makes the land of Egypt, once bore, Abdul tells me, the name of " Egyptus." 
 The land was called after the river rightly enough, seeing whence it all came. 
 We learn in somewhat similar way from our children to call our wives "Mother. " 
 Though the Egyptian monarch Nileus is said to have rechristened the river after 
 himself, the land held to the old name. There is another stream in America, 
 equally mysterious with the Nile. The difficulty with the Carson there is not 
 to find whence it comes, but whither it goes. At the "sink of the Carson" 
 that river, and another similar one thereabout, sink away somewhere in a 
 manner the most mysterious. 
 
 This Siout has succeeded to Girgeh as the capital and residence of the 
 Governor of Upper Egypt. I ought, according to the practice of toadying 
 travellers, to call on him, and give here an account of little else beyond the 
 immense reception I should receive. I call, however, at the post-office in place 
 of the palace, and learn that it is the last thing in the postal way to where 
 Livingstone and Stanley met each other in the wilderness. I stand, therefore, 
 on the boundary of civilization, if such a term can be applied to modern 
 Egyptian society. I have been beyond newspapers since landing in Egypt, and 
 here, in a step beyond Siout, I am beyond post-offices ! As I am not yet sure 
 of getting further that way by other means, I walk a little way southwards out 
 of the old town to realize the sensation. 
 
 The lion show of vSiout, beyond the slave depot, is the catacombs of the old Ly- 
 copolitans, who cut cupboards for their dead in the rock that makes a background 
 to the antiquated town. These caves and their carvings and embellishments 
 have been spoilt by the use that the natives have since made of them as dwell- 
 ings. In that way they have been smoke-blackened and defaced. In little 
 
Purchasing Ancient Relics. 371 
 
 tombs adjoining the larger ones the worshipped wolf of Lycopolis was also 
 here embalmed and entombed. In this land they preserved everything, and 
 mummified half the mammalia. I can't blame them for deifying wolves and 
 bulls, crocodiles, birds, and beetles. I have seen myself such strange things 
 petted, that betM^een now and then is only a change of fashion, and I know 
 some who would now embalm their pet pugs. 
 
 As a memento of Assiout I got from the headman of a Nile boat lying there 
 a fine scarabeus, found lately in one of the mummy pits higher up the river. 
 These things are found as seldom as pearls are in oyster shells — every mummy 
 does not hold one. I am to pay for it at Cairo, on the Museum folks there certify- 
 ing to its goodness. They do that afterwards, and also translate its ' ' cartouch, " 
 or hieroglyphic inscription. By that aid I learn something of the curious old 
 being who held in his dead hand for four thousand years this strange little beetle- 
 shaped bone, and whose ieet had probably trodden this old Assiout and still 
 older Thebes. Our bones crumble in their coffins, but this little bit has been 
 washed in some cunning Egyptian elixir of adamant, and so denes time. 
 
 Here ended Al Abdul's engagement, as I should now wait for the steamer, 
 or return downwards by the rail. If the former had passed upwards I should, 
 perhaps, miss seeing Karnak and Luxor, and the other sights of the once 
 hundred-gated Thebes. To allay my weeping on that point, Abdul says, — 
 
 "What matters? You are going after this to Alexandria, and thence to 
 Palestine and Syria. You will there see Baalbec, the ruins of which are on a 
 grander scale than those of Thebes. They will be more of a surprise also, if 
 you miss seeing these Egyptian ones. Come here next year, and go on by 
 railway." 
 
 It was so distressing to think of seeing Thebes on a return ticket, that I more 
 than ever wanted to get there before the railroad did, but there seemed no help 
 for it. Abdul's next clenching remarks seemed to finish the matter : " If you 
 catch the steamer, you go by steam : and what difference between steam on 
 water now and steam on land then ? What is to be seen will look much the 
 same whenever you come. There is no hurry to see Thebes. When the rail- 
 way is completed the Egyptian Great Exhibition will likely be held there, and 
 then you'll have to come !" 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 AN AWAKENED CITY. 
 
 The distance, between one and two hundred miles, from Cairo the Grand to 
 Alexandria the Great, can be traversed, like to the rest of Egypt, by land or 
 water. Before the railway connexion now made the choice was mostly in 
 favour of the water-way, but now the rail has no rival, and the camel is incon- 
 solable. It is curious to see what antipathy that old form of conveyance bears 
 to the new one. The camel hates the iron horse, and will not be conciliated. 
 On its approach he has to be tightly held by those whom he often drags for 
 some distance, until the puffing abomination has passed. His dislike to it is 
 the genuine one that I have seen shown elsewhere in the same way by an old 
 stage-coachman. If escape cannot be otherwise made from the sight of it, 
 the animal determinedly faces round and turns its rear to the engine in a 
 grandly contemptuous manner — so remaining until it is out of sight and hearing. 
 
 Z 2 
 
372 The Main Routes Rouna the World, 
 
 In like manner at the opera I have seen a good old dowager, taken thither 
 probably for annoyance by her son-in-law, turn angrily her back to the stage 
 when the pet of the ballet, with little to speak of in the way of dress, came 
 bounding upon the boards. It is the protest of the ancient against the modern. 
 The camel is, however, in Egypt the right thing in the right place. Railways 
 and steamboats, as new things, are not so. For him is the land, and for its. 
 waters are the dahabieh and kangia. It was forbidden hereabout of olden 
 time to " put new wine into old bottles." 
 
 Novel delicacies are offered to one at the stations on this line of rail. Green 
 peas in the pod and salt cream-cheese are two of them. As there are no 
 refreshments worth taking at the stations here, and I only saw them offered at 
 one, the barefooted little restaurateurs who carry about these things are much 
 encouraged. I am beginning to think that Nile water is nice by this time, and 
 have got used to swallowing it out of the neck of the big earthern decanter in 
 which it is carried. By way of washing the mouth of it before a drink is 
 taken, fully half the water gets spilled on the ground. The Nile is, however, 
 proverbially plentiful. On Shakspeare's authority, you cannot "drink up 
 Esil," any more than eat one of its crocodiles. 
 
 The custom-house folks gave me no trouble in entering or leaving any 
 Egyptian port. They are supposed not to allow antiquities to be taken out of 
 the country, but they can be blinded by bribes. Covering the official eyes with 
 piastres one might even walk oft" with an obelisk. In reply to the question if 
 I had anything in my hand-bag, the answer of a half-crown seemed quite suffi- 
 cient, and saved all search for a secreted mummy. I was let pass for that much 
 without trouble, even with such an antiquity as a scarabeus four thousand years 
 old hanging to one's watch chain. It is satisfactory to do business with folks 
 open to reason, and the Egyptians are much that way — these " heirs of all the 
 ages," and their wisdom. They are that, if any people are ; but, as with heirs 
 generally, their inheritance seems to have been wasted. 
 
 Eight stations, mostly with unspeakable names, are passed on the road. 
 The most interesting place between Cairo and Alexandria is Rosetta, famous 
 for the " Rosetta stone," by which the key to deciphering Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphics was found ; and also for the retreat into that village of the British forces 
 in 1807 in their then unsuccessful expedition. There is no station, however, 
 at this place, which is merely pointed out to the traveller in the distance, from 
 which it has, like to many other things so seen, a pleasing look. 
 
 The rail brings one to the modern part of Alexandria, or perhaps it is better 
 to say, as so much is modern, the best-built part of it, where the streets are 
 wide, and the stone-built houses all of latest date. The roadways are flagged 
 everywhere in the fashion of the sidewalks of other towns. Such must be 
 severely punishable to the feet of horses ; and even a fall from one of the 
 donkeys cannot be pleasant on these flags. The tall stone-built houses give to 
 this part of Alexandria a stately, staid, and dull appearance, wanting in all the 
 pleasing astonishments of that part of Cairo in which one is landed on going 
 from Suez. There is much in the effect of a first impression, and that made 
 by what is here seen of Alexandria is of a very negative character altogether. 
 For the which I feel sorry ! There is no city in the world into which one 
 should enter with feelings of greater interest than this awakened old city of 
 Alexandria, to which the name of Great as properly belonged as to its builder, 
 I am not, unfortunately, of commerical instincts, but yet feel intense respect 
 for a city of which, among its many titles to fame, are these, that, ere the tide 
 of the world's traffic was diverted from its shore, it was first of commercial 
 cities, the warehouse and treasury of the produce of all the Eastern world, and 
 also, in its famous library, the great storehouse of the world's literature. 
 
 Alexandria is thus entered by rail at a point furthest from its water-gate. It 
 
Alexandria's Notabilities. 373 
 
 is hereabout called the " Frank quarter," and has much of a Frenchified look 
 about it. Down by the harbour the streets narrow, and things approach an 
 Oriental — an old Alexandrian — appearance. On my way down thither I pass 
 through a large square decorated with an alabaster obelisk, an equestrian figure 
 of Mehemet Ali, banks, consuls' offices, and hotels. Very cosmopolitan is 
 this awakened Alexandria. The tide of the world's traffic, turning again to 
 this quarter, has left a zoological-like collection of humanity upon its shore. 
 There are people here from all parts of the world, and not a few that the world 
 would be all the better for being rid of. About this new part of the city there 
 is a decided emptiness, space, and lack of business and bustle, very apparent 
 to any one who has come to it, as I had done, from busy Cairo. But the newly 
 awakened Alexandria is stretching itself after its long sleep, and growing also, 
 which accounts naturally enough for spareness of form. It will soon fill out 
 rapidly enough, judging by the evidence of the past few years ; and though 
 not yet of half Cairo's population, will yet, in racing language, run that capital 
 hard. 
 
 I get the blessed boon of a volunteer guide in the person of an old 
 Australian friend, who is better help that a dozen hirelings. We exchange 
 notes. I can tell him principally of a city that has no history beyond forty 
 years, and he tells me of this one that is all history itself. Every spot here- 
 about seems haunted ground — redolent of memories more or less pleasant, but 
 all of landmarks in the world's course. St. Mark and St, Catherine were here 
 martyred, which gives something of a scriptural and sacred character to it. A 
 philosophic and classical one attaches to it in Aristotle's having once walked 
 and taught here. To Englishmen comes a patriotic feeling of some questionable 
 sort from their St. George having here lost his life. From Ileliopolis hither 
 came and settled Egypt's great school, to which gathered philosophers and 
 mathematicians from all quarters. It was the abiding-place also of such 
 fathers of the church as Origen and Athanasius, who here warred and worried 
 with the schisms and heresies then fashionable. It was the metropolis of the 
 world — the London of its time. Alexander well deserved, as its founder, to be 
 brought hither from Babylon in the coffin of gold in which he was here buried. 
 Even Rome, with characteristic modesty, admitted Alexandria to be in 
 greatness only second to herself, after which there is no more to say on that 
 head. 
 
 And yet another word or so must be said. That cofiin of gold was not 
 allowed a long rest. A glass case, in place of a golden one, was considered 
 better for the remains of Alexander, and the honour of the exchange — which, 
 I daresay, was held to be no robbery— is divided by historians between two 
 kings. In that old Alexandria of fifteen miles circumference there were 
 as many bond as free, though the slaves did not count in the census, A 
 curious return of its belongings was made by one of its conquerors, who reported 
 of it as "The Great City of the West," and as containing fifty thousand Jews 
 " paying tribute," which is supposed to have been something beyond ordinary 
 -taxes. 
 
 What is more astounding than the large Hebrew population is, that it was 
 said also to contain four thousand theatres, four thousand baths, and the same 
 number of palaces, as likewise the singular item of "twelve thousand shops 
 for the sale of vegetables " — items that are not to be understood in modern 
 times, but which help to an idea of the immensity of the city. London does 
 not contain fifty theatres, and throwing in the music halls would not give 
 even a quarter of the number of theatrical houses so attributed to Alexandria. 
 Folks then would appear to have given themselves inordinately to bathing and 
 •the drama. I thought I had seen palace-building run to a head in Cairo, but 
 ancient Alexandria must have had kings who in that way were of a hundred 
 
374 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 Khedive power. In theatrical matters the modern Alexandria is almost 
 nowhere. 
 
 Nothing remains here now but the locality of that wonderful library of 
 nearly a million volumes, the destruction of which humanity has ever since 
 mourned. That Vandal, Caliph Omar, who thus destroyed nearly the 
 literature of the old world, lighted with it for six months the fires of the four 
 thousand baths of the old city. Although history is said to repeat itself, it is 
 satisfactory to think that it cannot do so in that matter of book-burning. No 
 second Omar can destroy the literature of the present world, though the 
 bigoted reasons given for doing so animate to this day the narrow souls of 
 thousands such as he. To destroy all books save the text-book of one's creed 
 is not the way to increase or strengthen belief in it, though the world is 
 still full of fools and fanatics who would readily demonstrate their folly in so 
 doing. 
 
 Two miles of sepulchres are to be seen near the city, only of late years 
 uncovered. They are hewn out of the solid rock, and show much artistic 
 labour. In these the ancient Alexandrians were pigeon-holed. Similarly 
 lately discovered are the so-called baths of Cleopatra, with which she had 
 perhaps no more to do than with her famous Needle. The ancient city's 
 remains are used as a quarry for the building of the present one. In this 
 utilitarian pursuit of building materials the wonders of Alexandria the Great 
 are being from time to time turned up. In addition to its double harbour, 
 divided by the Isle of Pharos as a breakwater, the city has an immense sheet 
 of water which is mostly to be seen on its other side. 
 
 It is not always on view, as this Lake Mareotis, of a hundred and thirty 
 miles in circumference, is filled only by the overflow of the Nile, and at times 
 dries up. It then leaves on show the salt of the sea-water with which the 
 British flooded it at the beginning of the century. In their then contest with 
 the French, that was done to cut off" land communication with Cairo. The 
 lake was then dry, and had been so for a great number of years — the influx of 
 the Nile having been stayed, and the large bed of the lake spread with 
 villages. As it lay below the level of the Mediterranean, the intervening sand 
 banks were cut through, and the labour of nearly ninety years at once 
 destroyed. Nelson had a few years before done something more creditable to 
 British arms in winning, off" this port, the battle of the Nile. The salt-water 
 has been now shut out, and the lake gets its supply as of old from the overflow 
 of the Nile ; but when, in the dry season, its water evaporates, the salt left by 
 the sea so many years ago glistens again like snow in the sun. It is then a 
 white-spotted reminder to the British, much in the way of the anathematised 
 red spot on Lady Macbeth's hand, of the hundred or so of villages destroyed 
 by their doings. 
 
 The hotel-keepers have the same crotchety ideas as to charges and "extras " 
 as those of Cairo. The manager of one of them is kindly explanatory when I 
 kick at the account rendered, and seek to tax it. He says, — 
 
 "You come to the dearest of countries for a traveller, and to one in which 
 the government robs everybody, and then you complain that we do a little in 
 the same way !" 
 
 There was an honesty about the explanation, if not about the account,, 
 which made me apologize and pay pleasantly. To be robbed on such royal 
 example was soothing, if not satisfactory. 
 
 On the way down to the harbour the city presents a busier appearance. 
 The streets lose all width and regularity in this, which is termed the Turkish 
 quarter. The lattice-work of many of the windows, and the form of the 
 archways seen here and there, with other noticeable points, tells one that it is 
 rightly so-named. The verandahs are thatched with matting which has, in 
 
Pompefs Pillar. 375 
 
 most cases, become decayed, hangs about in strips, and gives a rag-fair look to 
 the frontages. The irregularity of everything here is well accounted for. 
 Alexander had the plan of the city drawn out and chalked down. The chalk, 
 running short, was supplemented by flour, which the birds scattered and 
 messed. The building, however, went on as much as if this muddle had not 
 occurred. It is satisfactory to get such necessary explanations of things. 
 
 Of a very low character, a true water-side and port appearance, do things 
 become as the harbour is neared. The donkeys, donkey-boys, and boatmen 
 are here in abundance — the most importunate, impertinent, and bullying of 
 their class. No negative answer will be taken by them. If you won't hire a 
 donkey, a phalanx of them is placed broadside on to bar your way. An 
 acrobat only could vault over them, and so save himself the trouble that I 
 am put to in walking in and out and around them. I begin to wish that the 
 English, on evacuating Egypt after their victories here in the beginning of the 
 century, had not got from Mehemet Ali that permission, which they did, for 
 all the British to have in future "liberty to ride in saddle " in addition to the 
 free use of the harbour here. Such liberty having been given, its use seems 
 to be construed by the donkey-drivers as imperative on the English. Until 
 my Mentor so explained the matter to me, I could not imagine why I was not 
 permitted the quiet exercise of the dearer British liberty of walking about at 
 will. 
 
 In this harbour lay two of the finest royal yachts that can be seen anywhere. 
 They are as costly as the Khedive's palaces, paid for in similar manner, and 
 equally disgraceful in their cost, misuse, and disuse to their owner and his 
 wretchedly impoverished nation. 
 
 Of the existing remains of the ancient city, Pompey's Pillar takes premier 
 place. Standing on high ground, and being itself a hundred feet or so in 
 height, it is conspicuous by all land or sea approaches, and might be made 
 the trade mark of the city. It is the prettiest of columns that the world can 
 show, though but a toy ornament compared to the majestic Kootub ^Nlinar at 
 Delhi. The shaft is of red polished granite, a monolith of seventy-three feet, 
 and in excellent preservation. The handsome pedestal and Corinthian-looking 
 capital are of grey granite, and the whole effect is one of much elegance. There 
 are no inscriptions or hieroglyphics upon it, although in certain lights one is 
 said to be visible in Greek character, dedicatory of the pillar to Diocletian. 
 Ship tar has been much used about the pillar and pedestal by those who have 
 thus left a dirty record of their visits, and disgraced the ships whose names are 
 here smeared. 
 
 Some ships' officers and midshipmen are here now, beguiling the monotony 
 of ship life in the harbour by making an ascent of the pillar. A kite has 
 been flown, to the thick string of which a rope has been attached. The string 
 has caught in the ornament of the capital, and the kite has fallen on the other 
 side. The rope pulls up a rope ladder by which the summit can be reached 
 by those of seamen-like heads and legs only. The unenclosed top has, they 
 tell me, standing room for a dozen, though it appears in its height only suf- 
 ficient for about that number of squirrels, who alone could feel quite comfort- 
 able there. This pillar has had several narrow escapes from destruction. The 
 curious Arabs dream of buried treasures beneath everything of great character. 
 For that reason a scoundrel of their race caused the great Pharos — the father 
 and king of all lighthouses — to be pulled down in the harbour here, with its 
 wonderful mirror that destroyed ships by burning-glass power, superior in 
 destructiveness to all torpedoes. And for similar reasons they have several 
 times been caught burrowing away at the foundations of this pillar. It is 
 still unfenced, and it is to be hoped will be better guarded as Alexandria gains 
 in greatness. 
 
376 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 And here, on the edge of the sea shore, famous as anything in all the land 
 of Egypt, lay Cleopatra's Needle ; since, thanks to the enterprise of Dr. 
 Erasmus Wilson, and the skill of his engineer, Mr. Dixon, removed to 
 London. It is away, however, from the harbour side of the city, and all 
 the traffic. Near to it is standing the companion column that formerly with 
 itself decorated the water-gate of Caesar's palace when Rome succeeded Greece 
 in occupation here. It is not known what caused the prostrate one to fall. 
 Its companion leans more than a foot out of the perpendicular, and stands but 
 on three bronze claws, the fourth one having been removed. Why it should 
 not rest on its own base, on the broad pedestal beneath, instead of being 
 raised eight inches from it by these supports, is a question, as also why the 
 missing fourth claw is not replaced. If it should fall, may all the Egyptian 
 gods help anything in the way of the three hundred tons of granite, seventy- 
 one feet high, that will then come crushing to earth ! 
 
 These gigantic obelisks were quarried at Syene, away up the Nile some 
 hundreds of miles. It is said that they were detached from the rock in which 
 they were quarried, by wooden wedges inserted in holes cut for the purpose, 
 which wedges were afterwards wetted. The swelling of the wood by that 
 means set free the monstrous block, which was then floated down the Nile 
 between flat-bottomed boats. At Heliopolis this prostrate one now here in 
 the sand was with other three set up by Thotmes the Third — the Pharaoh that 
 held the Israelites in bondage thirty-four centuries ago. It was then ap- 
 pointed to receive "offerings of bread and beer," as if it were a sentient 
 being. In London, it will not need to run short of the latter kind of offering. 
 Heliopolis, though it taught Moses "all the learning and wisdom of Egypt," 
 was a mere nothing to London in the flow of beer. 
 
 In a similar way to that in which Shah Jehan has got pushed in alongside 
 his famous wife in the Taj Mahal at Agra, other kings than Thotmes have 
 crowded their names on this obelisk. Ramses the Second, otherwise Sesotris 
 — for kings and everything else in Egypt have many aliases, and so confuse 
 historians — has added a side line of inscriptions to the central one. These 
 inscriptions, twelve in number, record the usual nonsense, to which nothing is 
 so comparable as the trash that Spiritualists get from the departed great. 
 Ramses, it appears by these hieroglyphics, conquered everybody, which can 
 be believed when one reads further down how easily it was done. It says 
 that his glance sufficed to annihilate his enemies, and that no one dared look 
 on his frown. A man like that would be handy in warfare, but it is perhaps 
 as well for fair fighting that he has left the world. A third king, Sethi the 
 Second, has also added lines of hieroglyphics telling similarly of his wonderful 
 self. 
 
 This obelisk has since received some letters of plain English, wherein future 
 ages will read that they commemorate Dr. Erasmus Wilson, whose exploit of 
 again removing this granite block are duly recorded on it. The fate of 
 these monstrous monoliths — one left at Heliopolis, two on the sands of Alex- 
 andria, one removed to Paris, and the others going to London and New York 
 — remind one of the family that were said to have grown together side by side, 
 and filled one home with glee, whose resting-places were scattered far and 
 wide, o'er mountain, stream, and sea. 
 
 Cleopatra, whose name has been thus appropriated, had as much to do with 
 these monoliths as Pompey had with the pillar, or Amerigo Vespucius with 
 America, or St. George with Britain, or St. Vitus with any dance. Before I 
 could look at the needle, that lay in the sand in a sort of trough that its own 
 weight has made, I must get the dirt and deposits cleared oft" it, which one who 
 carried a water-skin offers to do for a gratuity. He uses his girdle as a broom, 
 and for an additional shilling washes the upper surface of the pillar, using his 
 
The Four ''Needles:' zil 
 
 hog-skin of water for that purpose. This pillar is not so long by some feet as 
 the standing one is in height. It is seven feet wide, and the same deep 
 at the base, and bears on each side three columns of hieroglyphics, 
 of which translations have been made, thanks to the discovery of the 
 Rosetta stone, and the way of reading its inscription, which furnished a key to 
 this curious picture-writing. The last of the twelve inscriptions may be taken 
 as a sample of the whole. It reads awkwardly enough, even in the best trans- 
 lation I can find of it: — 
 
 "The Horus, the powerful bull, son of Ptah-Tanen, lord of the upper and lower country. 
 The King of the South and North, Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, the hawk of gold, rich 
 in years, the greatest of victors, the son of the Sun. Ramessu the Second, the beloved of 
 Amen, leading captive the Syrians and Libyans out of their countries to the seat of the house 
 of his father, lord of the two countries." (The rest will be read as a signature, with the titles 
 added.) " Ra-user-ma, approved of the Sun, Son of the Sun, beloved of Amen, beloved of the 
 Shu, the Great God, like the Sun." 
 
 The Americans having expressed a wish to have an adornment to their 
 capital in one of these obelisks, the solitary one here standing on the sands, 
 away from the city, is, like the last rose of summer, on the point of removal. 
 It is a mere matter of coin with the Khedive, who cannot look upon his hold 
 of Egypt as at all secure, and will be glad, no doubt, to realize on anything 
 portable, and productive of cash. On equitable terms a pyramid might, no 
 doubt, be similarly obtained — there are plenty about in this country which 
 seem but to encumber the land they rest upon. 
 
 The prostrate Needle was given to England by Mehemet Ali as far back as 
 1824, hvXjohn Bull had been too busy adorning his land with railway-stations 
 and factories, to think of such fanciful fads as obelisks cut in the days of Thot- 
 mes the Third. The British were to consider that present as a souvenir of 
 their successes in Egypt, and of that glorious campaign of which the Battle of 
 the Nile formed a part. Britain has found that the paying the costs of these 
 successes has been quite enough by which to remember them, and so let 
 further expenses, in the way of vanity, stand out of the income-tax. The 
 "wealth of patience" has been well shown in so doing, for here has come to 
 the fore the rich man who, for a wonder, sees the proper way of utilizing his 
 riches during his lifetime. 
 
 England, France, and America will, in their capitals adorned with ornaments 
 from this land of Egypt, be still a long way in the raar of Rome. That museum- 
 like capital has a round dozen or more of obelisks purchased or pillaged from this 
 country. Those who go to the eternal city from its western side are not so 
 much impressed with an idea that they have seen everything in it elsewhere as 
 are those who travel to it, as I did, from the east. 
 
 It is impossible to avoid talking of ancient matters when speaking of Alex- 
 andria. All its greatness lies in the past. The old city of six hundred 
 thousand was represented in 1820 by one of six thousand, and the representa- 
 tives of the four thousand baths of the past time can be counted on the fingers 
 in the present. Since Mehemet Ali's time it has suffered a recovery, and has 
 now thoroughly awakened from its long sleep. In 1850 its population was a 
 hundred and ten thousand civilians, and is now set down as over double that 
 number. They are a mixed race from all parts of Egypt, as also from the 
 Barbary Coast — Arabs, Turks, Albanians, Syrians, Greeks, Jews, Copts, and 
 Armenians. A motley and a quarrelsome people. These may all be called 
 the native race, as contra-distinguished from the Europeans, settlers, and 
 visitors. The Arabs are largely the landlords, and the shopkeepers show 
 respect to that Greece which founded Alexandria, and made it glorious, by 
 lettering their housefronts in Greek characters indicative of their trades. 
 
 An immense breakwater, two miles long, has been constructed to give 
 
37^ The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 additional harbour accommodation to the vessels which will use the neighbouring 
 new canal. All British troop-ships on their way to and from Bombay put in 
 here. The shipping in the port is indeed mostly English, and its trade 
 generally is said now to exceed annually twenty millions sterling. Ibrahim 
 Pasha, an infinitesimally small son of his great father, Mehemet Ali, contributed 
 his improvement to Alexandria. On his return from a European visit he 
 showed what great observation he had exercised in the way of reforms for the 
 good of Egypt — he numbered the houses of each street up and down in English 
 fashion ! 
 
 It is worth noticing that Alexandria attained to its greatness when the traffic 
 of the Eastern world went that way, and died out when the discovery of the 
 Cape of Good Hope opened a new route. The opening of the Suez Canal has 
 again reclaimed the traffic, and no more Indiamen will go round the Cape. 
 To and from Australia also, of which land the old Alexandria knew nothing, 
 the favourite way will be by the new canal. Alexandria thus bids fair again 
 to be the great — of which the immense increase lately in its population is some 
 practical guarantee. 
 
 Having looked at the land that gave Greece its letters, I go to glance at that 
 neighbouring one which gave Rome its religion. India and Egypt, though of 
 unknown antiquity, still hold up as nations in the way of the world. That 
 Syria, to which I am bound, has, however, long since given up the struggle, 
 satisfied to repose on its past greatness. As a souvenir of great Egypt, I get a 
 small plaster cast of the famous Needle which so long lay, in rocky strata, be- 
 neath its surface, then decorated for ages two of its great cities, and then, with 
 the patience of all things Egyptian, took a hundred years' horizontal sleep on 
 the sands, awaiting the next move in its life eternal. This model of it goes 
 neatly into a handbag, and in a distant land will serve for a chimney ornament. 
 So to recall great memories may seem puerile ; but then it is by trifles such as 
 a broken coin or bits of hair, as found around the cold necks of our bravest 
 and best, that the dearest remembrances in life are ever treasured ! 
 
 PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 LAND OF THE CROSS AND CURSE. 
 
 To the double title of Cross and Curse thus given to the land of Palestine, I 
 might have added the Crescent that so afflicts it, and is as the outcome of 
 the Curse. To travel in this ghostly country the dragoman provides in a way 
 that savours both of barbarous and of Puritan times. Tents, a canteen, mules 
 and muleteers have to be taken, as also fire-arms, that are worn during the day's 
 ride, and hung up in the tents by night. The other Puritan resemblance, 
 beyond the l^oot, saddle, and pistol, is the Bible, which is carried as the guide- 
 book to this land — a land which is holy in name, thought, and theory only. In. 
 other aspects it is now the unholiest country, and so provocative of additional, 
 curses as to account enough for its wretched condition. 
 
Holy Lafid Travel. 379 
 
 Leaving Alexandria in the early morning, Joppa should, all things favourable, 
 be reached on the day after, if the steamer did not stay a wearisome day at Port 
 Said, so protracting the landing to the third morning. It is almost an insult to 
 a Holy Land pilgrim to detain him a day at such an unholy place as that port. 
 Any one who has been reading up for the Holy Land out of its one and only 
 proper guide book feels in Port Said something as unhappy as Christian and 
 Faithful must have felt in Vanity Fair. 
 
 The sight of Joppa from its seaward side is very picturesque indeed. The 
 stone houses stand close together, and tower up one upon another on the side 
 of a cliff or hill, in a castellated fashion that has an impressive effect when 
 linked to the thought that one is looking at the second oldest city in the world. 
 The landing is difficult. The half-sunken rocks form a sort of breakwater, and 
 there is but one passage between them. In rough weather it is not to be 
 attempted. Through that way I have, however, to go in a passenger-boat, and 
 have a rough time of it over the bar. The water dashing over the side disturbs- 
 my thoughts of Jonah, who passed through this very passage on his famous 
 whaling adventure. They call the town Jaffa and Yafta now, but it is Joppa 
 to everybody who thinks of its history, call it what they may. 
 
 At Cairo I had agreed with three genial Americans who were bound to this 
 Palestine port, thence to go up country to Jerusalem, Jericho, and the Jordan,, 
 across to Damascus and Baalbec, and so away over the hills of Lebanon, down 
 to Beyrout, there to take ship again. Such a journey promised a sight of most 
 of the wonders that Syria has to show. I begged to be added to the party, and 
 so economize expense, and obtain company in a journey where such is essential 
 for many reasons. Palestine, it is needless to say, is that half of Syria which 
 is nearest to Egypt — the southern half — " from Dan to Beersheba." 
 
 A dragoman had been engaged, who was to supply tents and mules and a 
 canteen, and be guide and providore for thirty-seven days certain, and longer 
 if necessary. He had been recommended by our consul at Cairo, and was but 
 just returned from a Nile trip in a dahabieh, with a party of English gentry, 
 whom he had been for three months piloting to the second cataract and back. 
 We interviewed him, finding him to be a very desirable guide, and learnt, — 
 
 1st. That the land of Syria had no hotels in .its towns and villages. 2nd. 
 That it had no roads. 3rd. That it was impossible to take wheeled vehicles 
 through it. 4th. That the modes of conveyance were camels, mules, and horses. 
 5th. That " miles" were not mentioned there, but that distances were measured 
 by hours and minutes. 6th. That it was best to travel on horseback. 7th. 
 That where not safe to travel unguarded, a Bedouin sheik would be engaged 
 belonging to the district and the tribe through which we had to pass. 8th. 
 That every traveller must carry conspicuous side-arms, as otherwise "back- 
 sheesh " would be sometimes demanded and enforced instead of merely 
 solicited. 9th. That we should want green-lined umbrellas and green 
 spectacles, much of the journey being over barren rocks and sandy country 
 that reflected the noonday glare of the hot sun. loth. That we must take 
 but a small bag of luggage each. 
 
 All this did not look very encouraging, but then no good thing was ever 
 got without trouble and difficulty. The good things to be got of the proposed 
 trip were — that henceforth the lands of the Bible would be familiar to us as our 
 own village and its surroundings ; that we should see "the city of the Great 
 King" — Jerusalem itself — and journey onwards through places whose names 
 and characteristics were through the ear and by the mind's eye more 
 familiarized to us than those of our brothers and sisters ; should see the oldest 
 city of this world, the ever-green Damascus, and the ruined Baalbec, and so 
 pass downwards over Lebanon to the sea-gate of Beyrout, and have thus seen 
 Syria. That was something worth taking trouble about, but was as nothing 
 
38o 
 
 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 to the stupendous other attractions which Palestine presented. We should see 
 the holy places — the shrines to M^hich countless thousands of pilgrims had 
 journeyed and worshipped. Amongst such were the manger at Bethlehem, 
 the village of Nazareth, the baptismal Jordan, the Mount of Olives, the Garden 
 of Gethsemane, the house of the Last Supper, the Via Dolorosa, Calvary, and 
 the Holy Sepulchre. That was worth trouble. It seemed almost a pity that 
 anything should be accounted trouble in connexion with such sights as these 
 and the thoughts they engendered. 
 
 Having agreed on the journey, the next step was to agree on our agreement. 
 That was now put into writing, helped by the draft form of such a contract 
 borrowed from the consul. As this agreement with a Syrian dragoman for a 
 Holy Land journey may be of interest, and its information useful, I give its 
 terms : — 
 
 " Memorandum of agreement made at Cairo, Egypt, between Joseph Scott, Nathan 
 Preston, and William Prebble, of Chicago, United States, and James Kingston, of Mel- 
 bourne, Australia, travellers, of the one part, and Hassan Smort, of Alexandria, dragoman, 
 of the other part, whereby the said parties severally agree and mutually bind themselves as 
 follows : — 
 
 " I. The said parties of the first part engage said party of the second part as dragoman, or 
 escort and providore, for a period of thirty-seven days, for a tour through Palestine and 
 Syria, including visits to Joppa, Ramah, Ajalon, Mountains of Judea, Plains of Sharon, 
 David's Brook, Emmaus, Jerusalem, Siloam, Bethany, Bethlehem, Jericho, Jordan, Dead 
 Sea, Mar Saba, Bethel, Jebah, Shechem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Jacob's Well, Banias, Kiafifa 
 Carmel, Hasbeyah, Meisaloon, The Hauran, Damascus, Sirgayah, Baalbec, Zahleh, Sowfar, 
 The Lebanon, and Beyrout. 
 
 "2. This Agreement to commence from the landing of all parties at Joppa, to which they 
 proceed from Alexandria at their own expense, and to continue thence onwards for thirty- 
 seven days certain. Any days of overtime to be reckoned as being included in these 
 conditions. 
 
 " 3. That the said party of the second part shall be paid two and a half napoleons (two 
 pounds English) per day by each of the parties of the first part during the said term, on 
 account of which a sum equal to ilioo English shall be advanced to him on the signing 
 hereof. The balance to be paid one half at Damascus and the other at Beyrout, where the 
 journey and this agreement is to terminate. 
 
 "4. That the said party of the second part shall provide fit and proper camels, mules, 
 horses, tents, and baggage conveyance appropriate for the occasion, and to the approval of 
 the parties of the first part. 
 
 " 5. That he shall provide goqd servants, muleteers, and an approved cook, and be 
 responsible for their payment and good behaviour. 
 
 "6. That he shall furnish all provisions of the best quality, and not less than three sub- 
 stantial meals daily, at hours to be fixed by the parties of the first part, or the majority of 
 them. The breakfast to include tea and coffee, eggs, and meat. All liquors, except home- 
 made lemonade, to be extras. 
 
 "7. That he shall supply four iron bedsteads — two in a tent — sheets, blankets, and 
 washing requisites, but shall not provide for washing of wearing apparel. 
 
 "8. That he shall provide a separate cooking-tent and dining-tent apart from the two 
 sleeping and dwelling-tents, and provide all candles and lights required. 
 
 "9. That he shall throughout the journey pay all charges and demands of every kind, 
 including gratuities at show places, and the rent of any house or hotel (if any) used by the 
 parties of the first part, and the charges made thereat or at any convent or monastery at 
 which a stay may be made, and all backsheesh and other gratuities. 
 
 " 10. That the parties of the first part shall beat liberty to choose resting days throughout 
 the journey, and shall not be required to travel more than twenty-four miles in any one 
 day. 
 
 "11. That any dispute arising on the construction of this agreement shall be referred to the 
 arbitration of the British or the United States consul at the locality nearest to that at which 
 such dispute shall arise, whose decision all parties hereto hereby agree to take as final and 
 conclusive on any and every matter. 
 
 "In witness whereof the said parties have severally hereunto set their hands. 
 
 "J. Scott. 
 " N. Preston. 
 " Will. Pkebble. 
 "J. Hlngston. 
 " Hassan Simort. 
 
 " Received as above specified the sum of ;^ioo in part of above agreement — 
 Hassan Smort." 
 
Goi?ig into Trouble. 381 
 
 " Agency and Consulate-General of Great Britain at Cairo. 
 
 " I, James C. Robinson, Vice-Consul for Great Britain at Cairo, do hereby certify that 
 the signatures at the foot of the foregoing document are true and genuine, and were set 
 thereto in my presence. In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and affixed the seal 
 of the consulate. 
 
 "J. C. Robinson, V.C." 
 
 The list of the places to be visited, which includes Scriptural names from 
 Genesis to Revelations, was kindly supplied by an American staying at 
 Shepherd's, v/ho had lately returned from that journey, on which he wished us a 
 good deliverance. Our dragoman, whom we were to know by his first name 
 of Hassan, wished the choice of the route to be an open part of the contract. 
 As that was not readily agreed to, the following addition had to be made to 
 the articles : — 
 
 " The route above indicated is only to be varied on the written consent of all parties hereto. 
 As all necessaries for the whole journey will have at once to be provided, the cost of it is to 
 be paid as before mentioned, whether done as intended or varied by consent, or abandoned at 
 any part of it, by all or any of the parties hereto of the first part. Any of such parties 
 desiring to retire at any stage, or incapacitated by illness or otherwise from proceeding, shall, 
 in that case, be bound to pay up the balance in full of his proportion of contribution, as if he 
 had gone through with the intended journey." 
 
 There was great need on Hassan's part of that proviso, as was afterwards 
 discovered. It did not appear so likely at Cairo as it did nearly daily after- 
 wards, how necessary it was to hold people to the agreements into which they 
 rush. That truth as to all contracts was especially true in ours, in which we 
 had agreed to something in fancy that proved very different in fact. Our 
 thoughts were on a pleasure excursion, and on travelling as we had been 
 travelling, or something like it. We had, however, really undertaken a task 
 of arduous toil, that lengthened each day most intolerably. We did not know 
 that Holy Land travelling was hard work and purgatorial punishment. The 
 agreement, however, looked like business. When I signed it before the vice- 
 consul, and paid my £2^ proportion of deposit, I felt quite in for better or 
 worse, and much as if I had got married and was going on a honeymoon 
 month's tour with a wife and all her relations. One thing entirely dashed one's 
 spirits. No newspapers could now be seen for full five weeks. I had seen 
 the Home Nezos and Overland Mail throughout India, and even found copies 
 in Egypt, but to Syria such things came not. The dragoman looked aghast 
 when asked about newspapers in Syria. We might as well have asked about 
 railways. So for thirty-seven and perhaps more days we were to be almost 
 cut off from the world. 
 
 " Any post-offices ?" 
 
 " Only Turkish ones that are not connected with the English post. You leave 
 letters with the consuls, to be sent on by them when occasion offers, and never 
 put them in the Turkish post-offices !" A pretty state of things ! We might 
 as well have gone to prison for thirty-seven days. What a number of events 
 happen in that time ! Could we ever possibly pull up those lost pages of 
 history by after-reading ? 
 
 However, it was done, settled, and signed, and we four crossed the sea, 
 and were at Joppa, in Palestine. Our dragoman had got there a day before 
 us, and now escorted us from the landing through the old town, and up and 
 down its seven-feet-wide streets to where four white tents stood in a green 
 enclosure hedged round with cactus. 
 
 " Why, this is a graveyard," we said. 
 
 * ' Yes, a graveyard of the Greek church ; we shall encamp in many grave- 
 yards in our journey — good places they are, too, being always chosen for best 
 position. 
 
382 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 I had not thought of sleeping in a graveyard whilst alive, and it seemed a 
 sort of desecration, until one reflected that the whole of the land must neces- 
 sarily be but a large cemetery. I sat down, therefore, on a tombstone, and 
 took stock of the situation. 
 
 Half a lifetime had gone by like a dream since I had dwelt in a tent at 
 Fryer's Creek Diggings, in Australia. That was in 1852. It lasted five 
 months then, and I thought thereafter that I had done with tent life for ever. 
 It came then after the finish of one's voyage to Australia, and was occurring 
 here now at the middle of a journey to England, to which, as an Australian 
 absentee, I was returning after that long, long time. These tents here seemed 
 so familiar a sight to one's Austral eyes that I involuntarily looked about for 
 the digger's pick, shovel, frying-pan, and pannikin. On a calculation of the 
 sort of life I was going into, I had also gone back to something like the 
 digger's dress — a blouse, belt, and riding-trousers of no fine quality. 
 
 Breakfast, however, undeceived one. There was nothing of diggings 
 character about that. No " post-and-rail " tea, damper bread, or greasy frying- 
 pan chops. It was a better breakfast than any provided by the P. and O. 
 steamers or at the Egyptian hotels, and so was the dinner. Antoine, our 
 French cook, was, it was clear, to be the solace of our journey ; so we pro- 
 ceeded to his tent and saw the cheery little bald-pated man, and made great 
 friends with him as if we had been London policemen and his sex had been 
 female. Our turn-out, or caravan, comprised fifteen animals — horses, mules, 
 and donkeys. The attendants, muleteers, cook, and other helps, made nine 
 in number. It all looked a decent little village when the tents were up, and 
 things spread about for the evening. The worst thing was that we were so 
 «hort of language; Hassan, our dragoman, being the only one of the nine with 
 whom we could chat. 
 
 We go out of camp and into the town, and look and loaf about Joppa, from 
 which the start is not to be made until next morning. The men we see about 
 wear white-and-l;)rown striped ponchos, drawers that reach to the knee, and 
 nothing thereafter until the red slippers are reached — always worn down at 
 heel. The women wear a yashmak, or face-covering, of different shape and 
 material to the Egy]~)tian. Theirs is of one colour, and leave the eyes exposed. 
 It is here a cotton print thing, and quite covers the eyes. The wearer can see 
 through it no doubt, but to me it looks as completely blind-folding. I involun- 
 tarily get out of the wearer's way, as I do elsewhere out of that of a blind 
 man and his dog. 
 
 In the market-place are troops of camels and mules standing about. The 
 owners are in the coffee-sheds all around, seated cross-legged — Arabs, Turks, 
 Egyptians, and Syrians— a very Eastern-looking scene, reminding one of a print 
 out of an old Bible. The coffee is thick black stuff, drunk without milk, and 
 not palatable to us. The oranges of Joppa are veritable wonders for size — 
 the biggest oranges ever seen in this world, and of the size of the largest 
 turnips. They are unexpectedly found to be very good ; but one of them, 
 similar to the egg of an emu or ostrich, is quite enough at a time. 
 
 Here, too, are the Syrian sheep, descendants of those of whom Scriptural 
 readers know so much. They are of the heavy-tailed sort, and none the better 
 for it in appearance or condition. No Eastern sheep that I saw would get 
 favour in a cattle-show, yet I looked at these here in Joppa with more respect 
 than I ever looked on sheep before — these Bible sheep ! 
 
 As a suburb to Joppa is to be seen all that remains of a village founded some 
 years back by religious fanatics — from America, of all places in the world. 
 They actually got it into their heads that the Jews were about to return to 
 Palestine with the Messiah, and that it would be a good thing to get estab- 
 lished at the chief gateway of the country, now that the canal had cut off the 
 
/op pa's Show- Places. 383 
 
 overland route from Egypt. They came hither, and buih a wooden village, 
 and waited about and starved. Dwelling, as they did, amongst a strange 
 people who lived upon next to nothing, it was just what was to be expected. 
 The Messiah came not, and the Jews kept, wisely enough, in better lands. 
 Save for charitable assistance and ultimate reshipment by one of their country- 
 men, then on a visit here, they would have made a sad tragedy of their 
 migration hither. Their deluding prophet's fate I could not learn ; but he had, 
 no doubt, some way of explaining his mistakes, after the style of Dr. Gumming 
 with the prophecies of the ending of all things — periodically made — and of 
 Baxter, in his selection of the late Napoleon as "the destined monarch of the 
 world." 
 
 Joppa belongs to history of all kinds — ancient and modern. In addition to 
 its Old Testament connexion with Jonah is its New Testament one with Peter's 
 visit here and his strange vision. Here handy to me, in one of the narrow and 
 steep streets, is shown the house of Simon the tanner, in which Peter lodged. 
 Here he slept, and heard in his dream that thrice-repeated command as to 
 things clean and unclean that opened up to him a sort of free trade in food that 
 Levitical laws had too much protected. When I came to see afterwards what 
 a museum Rome had made of itself by acquisition of notable things from all 
 lands, the omission to get this house removed to a city sacred to Peter himself 
 seems to be in some sort an oversight. I draw Hassan's attention to this as I 
 do to other things that I don't understand, the which are sadly numerous. He 
 says that the removal would be all the more justified inasmuch as Holy Rome 
 has already got a house, that of the Virgin, down at Loretto, and called there 
 the Santa Casa, which was removed from its foundation and taken supernaturally 
 in one night from this land. I shall see the spot whence the removal took 
 place when I get up to Nazareth. I watch his features when he tells me this, 
 but there is no twinkle discernible in his eyes. He repeats such matters as 
 part of his business, and as a man of business his face is a Ijlank. 
 
 Historians give to this Joppa a date that carries its existence back long before 
 the flood. That is quite conceivable. The Flood would not have hurt these 
 solid stone houses, but only have washed them out, and cleaned the streets of 
 the dirty old place. Another flood is much wanted here just now. To one of 
 those rocks in the roadstead Strabo says that Andromeda was chained for 
 exposure to the sea monster. The chain was said to be visible there in Pliny's 
 time, but it is gone now. These Joppa people take no care of anything — like 
 all Eastern folk. In modern history Joppa is like Acre further up the coast, 
 memorable for Buonaparte's siege of it in 1799. It stood three sieges in that 
 century from Mamelukes, Arabs, and Frenchmen. Buonaparte failed at Acre, 
 but succeeded here, and mercilessly massacred 4000 of the gallant Albanian 
 defenders of the place. It is one of the many blots on the butcher-blackguard 
 part of his history. To massacre a lot of people for heroically defending their 
 lives and belongings is of the vilest of deeds. 
 
 Here is the house where Dorcas lived, the good woman who made clothes 
 for the needy and got her neighbours to help her, and left her name as lady 
 patroness of all such charitable co-operative movements down to our time. I 
 go into the house of Dorcas and into that of Simon the tanner, and see how 
 strangely they are neglected. There is no charge for admission as there should 
 be to such shrines, and as there would be if another faith had power here. I 
 draw up and drink water out of the ancient well of old Simon's house, and go 
 up to its flat roof and look out to sea, and go inside and see the chamber 
 where Peter slept and dreamed. When Turkey's dominions are divided, this 
 land should be put up to auction, and Rome and holy Russia have chances of 
 bidding for it. It is full of places out of which any quantity of saintly shrines 
 might be made, all now wasted by heedless Syrians. 
 
384 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Our camp, in the graveyard, is situated on a hill side, and we sit in the door 
 of our tent and look out at the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and the 
 pretty craft afloat thereon ; at the troops of camels and mules departing on 
 their up-country journeys, and returning thence ; and at strings of travel- 
 stained pilgrims coming in from their Eastern pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and 
 their baptism in the Jordan beyond. Our attention is distracted from these to 
 a funeral that comes to the very side of our tents, where, during our presence in 
 the town, a grave has been dug. It is very awkward having a newly-made 
 grave by one's bedside, and being only separated by canvas from a corpse ! 
 
 We see now the manner of a funeral of the Greek Church, and have our tents 
 so thronged around by the mourners that we begin properly to feel ourselves out 
 of place here, and that our party, dragoman and all, ought to be kicked off 
 the ground as intruders. The Greek priest wears a European-shaped chimney- 
 pot hat, destitute of rim, and reads over the grave a long and broad-printed 
 sheet having woodcuts at the four corners. When finished with the reading he 
 tears this sheet at each of the four sides, and deposits it on the breast of the 
 corpse. No coffin was used. Only thin, white, cambric-like wrapping 
 enveloped tbe body, which was then let down into the ground, and the earth 
 sprinkled upon it by the priest and the relatives of the deceased woman. The 
 grave was then filled up. An oblong monument of rudely-squared stones, 
 about two feet in height, will be soon erected, like to those seen around. We 
 feel none the happier with this newly-made grave of the uncoffined corpse in our 
 midst ; but travellers, especially pilgrims, must be content. 
 
 In this graveyard may repose, for aught we know, Simon the tanner himself, 
 with Dorcas also, who is the same as that Tabitha whom Peter came success- 
 fully hither to raise from the dead. She must have died at last, and been 
 buried somewhere, and in this place most hkely. Peter came to do that 
 miracle across the plains from Lydda, a day's distance off, that we shall see on 
 the up-country journey. We are reminded by the mention of the day's journey 
 that ours of the next day is to be often hours' length. 
 
 The horses which we are to bestride for many days and weeks are brought 
 round for inspection. They look dismally unpromising, but quite in keeping 
 with all surroundings. Decent animals and saddles would be out of place in 
 poor-looking antiquated Joppa. We go for a ride around the neighbouring 
 orange-groves, and make all sorts of discoveries of our ignorance of Syrian 
 horses. We wonder at their continually throwing their heads back, and their 
 unlimited stoppages. Getting ofT to look intD the matter and their mouths, 
 we find that they are ridden with a curb bit that has but one rein to it. That 
 rein has to be held quite slack on one finger, and used only for stopping pro- 
 gress. A slap on the side of the neck is the approved way of turning a horse's 
 head here. The stirrups have plates to them like the pans of old-fashioned 
 fire-shovels. The edges of these stirrups do spur duty, and have plenty to do 
 in that way. 
 
 It is careless-looking riding to have such slack reins, and that over such 
 stumbling roads as I find here. I want another bit than this curb one, but it 
 is not to be had, and I must do as others do, and adopt the fashions of the 
 country. We, therefore, hitch the useless rein to the handle of the more use- 
 ful umbrella, about the carrying of which no instruction is needed — so ever- 
 lastingly is it with one as a sun-shade. 
 
 The orchards to the landward side of Joppa are worth, and well worth a 
 visit. Fish newly taken from the water and cooked at its side, or in the 
 fisherman's boat, have a different and better flavour to anything I ever got at a 
 fishmonger's hands. So have oranges when picked from the tree, and the 
 same may be noted of other fruits. To take a lot of these dehcious small 
 cannon-ball-sized oranges back to our camp would have needed a porter, or that 
 
A Churchyard Night-Scene. 385 
 
 arrangement of swinging them on a stick between two bearers, that we all 
 remember to have seen, in old Bible prints, adopted by the men who were 
 bringing back the big bunch of grapes as a specimen of the good things of this 
 land — or the part of it then called " The Land of Promise." 
 
 The tents of our camp are guarded at night by a watch, changed as on ship- 
 board every four hours — a matter that I discover by wandering out of the tent 
 during the night to look at our encampment by moonlight. Sleep is not of 
 long duration in this locality. There is too much of the barking of dogs and 
 braying of donkeys for that. The horses, stallion-like, fight and bite each 
 other as often as they get a loose leg. In these scrimmages they interfere 
 with the tent-ropes in a way that helps to wake one. The sight of the camp 
 by moonlight is a novel one, and I look at it admiringly from my seat on the 
 edge of a grave-stone. 
 
 In one corner is the little Greek church, with its large porch of three arches, 
 through which glisten the near Mediterranean's moonlit waters. The white 
 tombstones are all round the whiter tents, which look but larger tombs seen at 
 a little distance. The Arab muleteers are sleeping about on the bags of forage. 
 A stillness broken only by the sighing, soughing sea reigns around, and there 
 is that newly-made grave with its scarcely cold tenant in it to give solemnity to 
 the quaint and somewhat weird scene. 
 
 I had thought only to sleep in a churchyard for the long sleep that ends the 
 story, and so got troubled dreams here, and no wonder. In these I find that 
 Andromeda has got loose, and was running off with her chain, as likewise with 
 Jonah. His whale having disgorged him, had swallowed her monster, whom 
 she called her " wretch," in his place. Simon the tanner, and not Peter, had 
 come here to raise a dead woman, who appeared not to be Tabitha, but the 
 one whom he had that afternoon assisted to bury. On being raised she came 
 to the door of the tent to ask, strangely enough, not for covering, but for 
 a coffin, in which to hide from the restless ghosts of the Buonaparte-massacred 
 thousands. 
 
 That awoke me only to find that little snails were crawling in companies 
 over the pillow and counterpane. Our caps, boots, and clothing were covered 
 with their trails. The tentpole had a score or more sticking to it. They were 
 shaken out of the umbrella like peas — pretty white-shelled things, that could 
 only be out of place in a bedroom and in the lining of one's hat, which they 
 particularly favoured. The heavy dew had made the canvas of the tent quite 
 wet, and damped our boots to an extent that made them troublesome to get 
 into. 
 
 The experience of that cold night in Joppa churchyard led to the purchase of 
 an overcoat next day. From its antiquated cut and queer fit, it was generally 
 supposed to be a remnant of the undistributed stock of the late Dorcas, made 
 up by her for charitable distribution. It got the name of "Dorcas" for the 
 rest of the journey. Useful it proved for many purposes — sometimes as a coat, 
 often as a counterpane ; and when a horse got thin, and his girth loose, 
 it served for padding as a saddle-cloth. As often as not it was put on to keep 
 the fierce scorching midday sun from roasting one's backbone. 
 
 Among our four-footed companions were two donkeys, by no means the 
 dullest of our company. The propensity that one of them had for vocalisa- 
 tion got for him the name of "Balaam." He was possibly a descendant 
 of that worthy's famous ass. Half-a-dozen times during the day, and 
 as often during the night, he raised his voice. There was a loud and 
 clear discordance about it that was not the least of our night's troubles. When 
 he began he seemed to be in no hurry to finish. His look and attitude during 
 these orations were most comical, and especially so the curve of his tail. A 
 dyspeptic member of our company was seen to smile on no other occasion. 
 
 A A 
 
386 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 When we came to know our troubles more intimately, and found out what a 
 toil it was that we had rashly undertaken, we looked upon this animal as a good 
 fifth member of our little band, and as its fitting representative. We regarded 
 him then with respect, and his vocal efforts as those of our herald or trumpeter. 
 He was generally in fullest force when he saw company approaching. My 
 horse fell lame on one occasion, and Balaam had to be his substitute. En- 
 cased in Dorcas, and mounted on that braying Balaam, I journeyed all day. 
 He stopped every now and again to hold forth — he always came to a dead 
 stop for that purpose — and then even the apathetic Arabs turned to look at the 
 pair of us with much interest. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVHI. 
 
 IN STEPS OF CRUSADERS. 
 
 No commendation of early rising ever came from the East. The habit there 
 is of the climate, and all folks are early astir, as old folks are everywhere, 
 because no further sleep can be got. As naturally as possible we are all out 
 and about at five a.m., and by half-past six breakfast is over, without a news- 
 paper to help its digestion. Our damp tents and boots and the snail and night 
 troubles are told in place of news of the day. The two sleeping-tents are 
 down, and with their contents, packed on muleback by time the table is 
 cleared. The cooking-tent had similarly disappeared before we were all in 
 the saddles, and even the breakfast-tent was down and packed before we were 
 clearly on the way. 
 
 It looked magical work in its expedition, but I recalled that it was done by 
 Arab hands that had packed tents from childhood, as their forefathers had 
 done for all time. These sons of Ishmael have the knowledge of this tent- 
 pitching and removing so ingrained in their nature that, with the requisite 
 number of mules to help them, they would clear away a tent township in half 
 a day, and have it fixed up again twenty miles away by nightfall. After that 
 morning, I sit at breakfast where I can watch their movements, and see how 
 to unpeg a tent, rope it around its pole, and have it strapped on muleback in 
 that shortest of time known as a "jiffey. " I see now the meaning of a modern 
 poet's metaphor — 
 
 " The cares that oppress the day 
 
 Shall fold up their tents like the Arabs, 
 And as silently steal away." 
 
 And so in a straggling string we leave old Joppa and its steep and narrow 
 streets. In one of these I notice, over a ramshackle-looking building the 
 words " Hotel of the Twelve Tribes," sufficiently reminding me of the land I 
 am in. I don't think I would change tent-life for the probable accommodation 
 there. It looks altogether as if a thirteenth tribe, and perhaps a fourteenth, 
 might be about, that would make up in their nightly activity and attentions for 
 any of the lost twelve. 
 
 Two tents with their addenda of poles, ropes, and pegs, stuffed out also with 
 all sorts of tent furniture, are carried by one mule. He is quite lost amid the 
 load that so sticks out all around him. Another one carries two heavy 
 chests of two hundredweight swung on each side of him, in which the canteen 
 is packed. Antoine, our cook, has a mule to himself, on which he squats, 
 
Mules and Camels. 387 
 
 seemingly crosslegged, with his tent and large array of pots, pans, and kettles 
 all around him. It is something novel to me to see the work that can be got 
 out of a mule. I have now infinite respect for him, as also for his heels, in 
 which there is shown a great reserve of power, neat and small as they are, 
 when he flings them out. 
 
 A mule fetches in Syria six times the price of a horse. Great strength and 
 sureness of foot are primary recommendations, but his powers of abstinence 
 and endurance are hardly to be called secondary ones. I was about to say 
 that these powers were quite superhuman, and so they are. After fifteen 
 miles of jog-trotting in a hot sun, with four hundredweight on his back and 
 hanging to his sides, I see him cross a brook at full jog-trot, never staying to 
 wet his lips. None of our horses — nor their riders, for the matter of that — are 
 self-denying enough to follow the example. A mule always keeps a shut 
 mouth, and therefore a moist throat. From what I noticed of the scattering 
 power of a mule's heels, he could, I think, be made more useful in warfare 
 than the horse or the elephant. Backed gently but firmly into a mob, how- 
 ever riotous, he would disperse them quicker than policemen or grape-shot. 
 There was a mule with us that — from what I saw of him — looked likely to 
 have kept the Roman bridge 3s well as Horatius or the dauntless two who 
 aided him. 
 
 This ignoble animal never falls, be the road ever so bad, and it cannot be 
 worse than in Palestine. He jogs on at a " Chinaman's trot," over sand and 
 shingle, and also boulders that are the size of melons, for mile after mile, at 
 his one unvarying pace, and up and down hill sides, which we, all unburthened, 
 find troublesome. He beats the camel in such work. That "ship of the 
 desert " is good over sand only, and for going long between his drinks. Over 
 stony ground and muddy ways he is nowhere with the mule, and in positive 
 danger for himself. His feet, large as washbowls and sponge-like, splay out 
 as he steps, and are only in place on the sand. For that alone Nature made 
 them. He slips down in muddy spots, and his fall is generally final. His legs 
 are too apt to break. His burthen is in that case removed, and he is pierced 
 in the neck as is a sheep, and left for the vultures, who are always hovering in 
 the East, though they may be, as they generally are, out of sight of human eyes. 
 
 A camel's face is a compound of that of a sheep and of a monkey in spec- 
 tacles. The effect is mild and comical until one gets used to it. He lets his 
 under-lip hang down in an untidy manner not pleasant to the sight. I never 
 saw a clean-looking camel, and conclude that they are never groomed. Their 
 hair either grows patchy, or is worn oft" in all sorts of places. The general look 
 of their exterior is that of a worn-out sheep-skin mat of ancient date. The 
 young camel has a painful appearance of deformity. He is all hunchback, and 
 has, to Western eyes, an unnatural appearance. A stately march is the only 
 pace I ever saw them at. Anything seems to come welcome to the camel in 
 the way of food. He goes beyond the mule and the ass in eating thistles, as 
 he feeds often upon hedgerows fenced with a cactus which pricks through one's 
 boots. 
 
 The dromedary is the running animal of the camel species. He is trained to 
 that, and kept for saddle and not for burden. Some dromedaries have their 
 hunch divided in youth, as I saw being done, by ligatures bound tightly 
 around it. When so served, there is a space between the divided parts for a 
 saddle — the part of the hump before and behind serving for supports. At a 
 distance a camel or dromedary would, but for his four legs, resemble an emu 
 His neck is similar, he looks as ragged, and has the walk and movement of 
 that denizen of the Australian desert. 
 
 As Jerusalem is upwards of forty miles from Joppa, a night's stoppage is 
 made on the journey. We had started in advance of the baggage, piloted by 
 
388 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the dragoman, and made but poor progress. It has been Easter week, and we 
 find the road full of pilgrims on the return journey from the Jordan. Camels, 
 mules, and donkeys are packed up with riders and their baggage. The seat 
 for women and girls seems to be a mattress doubled up and laid on the animal's 
 back. It is Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims procession shifted into the present 
 time. There was no Tabard Inn, unfortunately, to make halt at, which served 
 to show how uncivilized things are here. Camping out under the rocks, and 
 any tree that could be found, had to suffice for Tabard accommodation. One 
 does not need go far in this country to realize the meaning and the blessing of 
 " the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 
 
 In respect that I have had no pilgrimage forced upon me by a creed, I am 
 glad that I am of the country whose prevalent faith requires none. These 
 pilgrims that stop our way are of the Greek Church, which requires baptism 
 by thrice immersion, and they prefer the Jordan as sacred water for that pur- 
 pose. The Catholics, Mohammedans, and Hindoos have also their long 
 pilgrimages 
 
 " To many a shrine, 
 By faith and ages made divine." 
 
 Pilgrimages such as these are no rose-water affairs, and require no peas in the 
 shoes to make greater the sufferings of the pilgrim. Other reward than their 
 being accounted unto one for righteousness would be all too slight. 
 
 There is much that compels thought in remembering that the ground which 
 we shall tread for the next two days was trodden by most of the crusaders. Of 
 the eight expeditions of those famous church militants, semi-soldiers, and 
 robbers, the majority went this way on their march to Jerusalem. How the 
 world changes ! There is the same cause now as there was from 1090 to 1 270 
 for these expeditions to rid the land of the Cross from the curse of the Cres- 
 cent, but religious enthusiasm does not seem to run to warfare among the 
 present European representatives of Christendom. 
 
 It is as likely as not that all great movements depend for stimulus on one 
 earnest soul and subduing spirit. Another Peter the Hermit may be all that is 
 wanted for the preaching up of another crusade. That the pen is mightier 
 than the sword is not more true than that the tongue of the enthusiast un- 
 sheaths the sword, as Peter's did every blade wielded in that long warfare. 
 The movement he so began, which led to a king's leaving the throne of 
 England and forgetting his kingship to join in the third crusade, is but an 
 instance of the prodigious power that religious enthusiasm once exercised in 
 Christendom. Though the rule of the Crescent over the land of the Cross, 
 and over all other lands for the matter of that, should be extinguished, it is 
 perhaps as well for the world that such cannot be again done by religious 
 enthusiasts, or those so calling themselves. 
 
 What there is of road is too narrow in its practicable path for our going 
 otherwise than in Indian-file fashion. It is just as well, because much atten- 
 tion is needed to get out of the way of the sharp corners of the passing bag- 
 gage. Calculations had to be nicely made as to that, and the swing of the 
 camel from side to side in his peculiar walk duly included in it, as otherwise 
 our heads and knees got often punished. It is best, I find, to let the horse 
 choose his own path. He seems to know the road well, and has a knack of 
 finding the best parts of it, that has been acquired by birthright and perfected 
 by practice. 
 
 Bridle-tracks are what the roads of Palestine really are, and all the loose 
 stones about in the land seem to have drifted into them. The horses are shod 
 with plates which cover the bottoms of their feet. Such shoeing prevents any 
 of the many stones being picked up by the hoof, but affords a poor foothold 
 among the loose boulders all about. A stumble looks very probable, and a 
 
A Midday Camping. 389 
 
 broken arm or leg to follow. There is no surgeon near to give assistance, nor 
 any decent place handy in which to lie up for the necessary month or more. 
 Such thoughts will come when the horse's feet slide about much, and they do 
 that too frequently. 
 
 A sort of a Sheik's head-dress is improvised by us in the shape of a handker- 
 chief, so tied on the head that part of it hangs over the neck and ears. Such 
 is found necessary in addition to the umbrella ; but I make it a substitute for 
 that covering, and so follow the dragoman's fashion, and swelter along in the 
 sultry air until noonday, by which time we have been a long five hours in the 
 saddle, and feel as if we had been fifteen. The miserable pace, the barren- 
 looking country, and the state of the atmosphere, all contributed to that 
 feeling. The stop that we have now come to is at Ramleh — supposed to be 
 the old Ramah and Arimathea of the Scriptures — an ugly, wretched old place, 
 which yet looked like Paradise to our half-baked eyes. 
 
 Outside the town we camp on the side of hilly ground, under shelter of 
 some trees. Near at hand is the broken arch of what seems to have been an 
 old church. A glance at the old stones lying about tells the truth. We are 
 stopping in a churchyard again ! Among old tombs we eat our midday meal, 
 as we had supped and slept and breakfasted among them at Joppa. On one 
 side can be seen in the distance that Lydda from which Peter came to raise 
 Tabitha from the dead. This midday snack has been carried along with us 
 by an Arab, whose duty such is to be henceforward, and whose water-bottles 
 we often trouble. It is a very frugal meal, in its way, but we had no idea 
 that any fruit could taste so divinely as those Joppa oranges did to our parched 
 tongues. 
 
 The begging lepers beset us we enter the gates of old Ramleh — a town of 
 Greek Christians and Mohammedans, some three thousand in number. The 
 lepers carry tins tied to their wrists, which we perceive, as they protrude them 
 towards us, is necessitated by their hands being fingerless — part of the fearful 
 ravages that this old scourge of Eastern countries had made upon them. The 
 dragoman had not told us of these people, but the information was not needed. 
 What they were seemed to dawn upon one naturally, as their wretched state 
 was regarded. They beg at the gate of every town, much as they did in the 
 olden days, and will in the days to come. 
 
 Ramleh has a Greek and a Latin convent — the latter a very fine one. Out- 
 side its gates is a walled cemetery, on the door of which I read " Ceniete^-iuDi 
 de tej'?'a Sancta.'' The town itself is an old fossil, having two dirty lanes of 
 squalid " bazaars," the articles in which look as if they had been there since 
 the days of King David. The streets have apparently not been swept or 
 washed down since his time. In some spots I caught myself holding my nose, 
 but I was as yet green in Holy Land travel, and soon learned to drop such 
 squeamishness as nose holding. It got skinned by the sun before the next day 
 was over, and was then too tender to be so squeezed. 
 
 As we got back to our graveyard on the hillside, our baggage nmles came 
 jogging by on their way to our camping-place for the night. The like will be 
 seen in every day's programme. We leave them behind packing up in the early 
 morning, and they pass us at the midday resting-place. The bells round the 
 necks of the mules make a pleasant clatter — partly needful, as their little unshod 
 hoofs cause no noise to intimate their coming. Everything, even a camel, 
 clears out of the way of our mules that carry the two big canteen chests and 
 the tents, which would otherwise have knocked anything short of an elephant 
 off its legs. Our travel afterwards is not at a rate that enables us to catch up 
 our household. They are not seen again until the camping-ground for the 
 night is reached, when four tents will be found pitched ready for us, with 
 English and American flags flying at their poleheads. 
 
39° The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Ramleh has an ancient white-looking square tower, which makes a land- 
 mark for miles around, standing amid the ruins of an old mosque. A good 
 view is got from its hundred-and-twenty-feet summit, which is reached by a 
 winding staircase. We see from here the long snake-like path stretching 
 across the plain that will be part of our afternoon's pilgrimage for another long 
 five hours. We have already come to the conclusion that a little of our kind 
 of travelling goes a long way — in the way of thoroughly satisfying one. Our 
 dragoman's business view of the matter may make it pleasanter to him, but his 
 way of life is not one in which any of us are likely to start in opposition. 
 
 Although these are our early days of Palestine experience, we have seen 
 enough of the country to make us hate for ever the Turks and their mode of 
 misgovernment. Very little land is cultivated here, and for the good reason 
 that the agriculturist would be only working for the tax-buyers and collectors. 
 An eighth of everything is popularly supposed to be taken for tax, but the 
 taxes to be collected in Syria are sold at Constantinople. The buyer resells 
 districts at a profit, and those buyers resell again, so that the last purchaser 
 has to collect or rob nearly everything that a taxpayer has, in order to get 
 round again. Those who may go into Egypt and Syria, for however little 
 distance and short a time, will wonder why England and her statesmen should 
 pet and pamper the Turk in the way they have done. He is the bad son of the 
 European family, and yet gets stuffed with British money and pampered with 
 that support from England but for which Turkey would, in the order of nature, 
 have long since fallen to pieces from sheer decay. The condition of this 
 Turk-governed Palestine shows to the most casual of observers that the system 
 of government is to rob the people of all the profit of their labour, and to do 
 nothing for them or their land in return. The curse fell again and heavily 
 indeed upon this land when the Turks became its masters. 
 
 On a hillside we pass what remains of the once royal city of Gezir, that 
 was given by one of the Egyptian Pharaohs to Solomon as a marriage portion 
 with one of his wives — the dragoman could not tell her name or number. 
 Further on is all that remains of Latron, a place considered sacred from being 
 the traditional birthplace of the Good Thief. Though the remains of an old 
 castle are there to be seen, with other curios, the attractions are not enough to 
 take us off the track. We are kept awake over the sultry plain chiefly by the 
 necessity of avoiding the coming camels, which are loaded up like furniture- 
 vans. They come swinging along, with capacious wooden and wicker baskets 
 to their sides, in which are women and children lately baptized in the Jordan — 
 a washing the like of which is not likely to be got by them for many a 
 month. 
 
 And here, to the north of the plain, lies Nubah, that was of some size and 
 importance when the crusaders passed this way. It is the furthest east that 
 Richard the First ever made in Palestine. He went no farther than here on 
 his way to Jerusalem, on that third crusade in which he joined. Coeur de 
 Lion here gave second and best thoughts to the matter, and returned to Joppa, 
 made peace with Saladin, and remembered that he was King of England, and 
 was wanted there and not here. The lion-hearted one gets much of that title 
 by favour, and in the way in which the first Charles is called a martyr. In 
 youth I innocently believed in both of them, and used to much admire Cceur de 
 Lion, in coloured prints, fighting Saladin on horseback in a battle-axe combat 
 of two which never occurred. Not one of us but thinks that he did quite right 
 here in turning back, and would gladly, perhaps, do likewise, but our courage, 
 so to call it, is superior to our opinions, and so we go further into trouble. 
 
 Emmaus is next passed, on a hillside. It could not have been much more 
 than a village at any time, and is nothing now but ruins, and a remembrance 
 of that memorable walk taken thither of which we are told in the last chapter 
 
The Vakey oj Ajalon. 391 
 
 of Luke. It is the recollection of such like things which alone gives interest to 
 heaps of old stones, ages ago left to the jackal, the lizard, and the scorpion. 
 
 We now descend into a valley to which a little village on the opposite 
 mountain gives a name. It is Ajalon, and the valley is more famous than the 
 village from the miracle by which it is made memorable. In this valley is our 
 camping-place for the night. At six in the evening, as we go down its side, 
 we can see our four white tents already pitched, and the light smoke of the 
 sticks that are lighting the charcoal cooking-fires. The camp, with the mules 
 tethered around it, might have been standing for days by the look of it, but it 
 has been there scarcely thirty minutes. As these tents will be our home for 
 the next five weeks, we begin to regard them with proper feelings. They are 
 pitched in this instance close to a well, appropriately named after Joab. In a 
 valley remembered only by Joshua's great deeds, this well commemorating his 
 great fighting successor seems quite in place. 
 
 Mount Gibeon is among the mountains of Judea to our left as we face 
 towards the Jerusalem road. The valley of Ajalon runs away to the horizon 
 on the right. We all get Biblical at once, and forget the cooking dinner 
 altogether. The tenth chapter of Joshua becomes of absorbing interest. We 
 read how the five kings of the Amorites laid siege to the great city of Gibeon 
 because it had leagued with Joshua and the Israelites, and how the Gibeonites 
 sent for Joshua and his fighting men to come up from Gilgal. How Joshua 
 came upon the besiegers suddenly, after a night's march, slew many and 
 routed the rest, who were pursued by the Israelites, and also by a hailstorm, 
 the stones of which killed more than fell by the sword. How Joshua, de- 
 sirous of completing the Amorites' destruction by daylight, bade the "sun to 
 stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon." How he was 
 obeyed by those luminaries until the enemy was destroyed, and Joshua had 
 found the five kings of the Amorites hidden in a cave, from whence he took 
 them and hanged them all. The record tells us that "there was no day like 
 that before or after it," in which supernatural power was so given to man. 
 The moon is visible to us above this Valley of Ajalon as we look up from our 
 reading, and gaze all round upon the scene of such miracles. 
 
 Joab's well has stone walls to two sides of it, on which a large stone, with a 
 bucket-hole in the centre, forms a roof. It is fully fifteen feet in circumfer- 
 ence and thirty in depth. The water to our thirsty throats is cool and delicious, 
 as, indeed, we found all the waters of this country. After drinking pints, we 
 soused our roasted heads in buckets of it, and filled all our water-bottles. A 
 creek runs through the valley, in which our cattle found good drinking. Our 
 dragoman could not say in which particular battle of King David's great 
 captain this well had got his name, but promised to be posted up in it against 
 our next visit. 
 
 The reading and the talk which we had upon the subject of the scene that 
 evening followed us in our sleep, which, in this valley, was as much disturbed 
 by fleas as it had been by snails the preceding night at Joppa. I dreamt that 
 there entered to our tents the ghosts of the slaughtered Amorites, whose cap- 
 tain spoke for them, asking who we were that pitched war-like tents in that 
 valley — flying flags that were to him unknown. Came we to right their 
 wrongs, that their ghosts might at last find rest ? I asked what troubled them 
 that they could not rest and let others do likewise. I was answered that they 
 would not rest until justice was done to them — that they had gone out to fight 
 men and not supernatural powers, and had been unfairly fought against, and 
 murderously slain ! Could we assist them — we that flew strange flags, and 
 encamped in their grave-strewn valley ? I explained that the flags were those 
 of England and America, two nations to which all the people of this land were 
 but as a handful, and which had now given up fighting battles — referring their 
 
392 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 differences to arbitrations, conferences, and congresses for the settlement of 
 all claims and damaijes. direct and consequential. Something very profane 
 about arbitrations seemed to be said by the captain of the Amorites in reply ; 
 but I was awakened just then by a flea-bite deeper than usual, and so missed it. 
 
 I gave up further attempt at sleep, and went out into the moonlight, and 
 sat upon the slab that covers Joab's well, and so let one's sleepless fancy off 
 the chain. We don't go to Palestine to eat, drink, and sleep. There is no 
 land which has so little that is pleasant to the outward eye, and so much that is 
 visible to the optics of the mind. As there were no fleas about here, however, 
 fatigued nature got a fair chance, and I went again to sleep. The dragoman 
 who woke me afterwards in the early morning, said that sleeping in the moon- 
 light was most dangerous in this country. Moonstruck folks, however, 
 though often spoken of, I have never yet met, and have come to think of such 
 as but myths — talked of but never seen. 
 
 The camp-servants drew water and soused over our flea-bites, and we break- 
 fasted and started on our third day's stage, that would bring us to the walls of 
 Jerusalem. In mounting, we found our legs would not go over the saddle as 
 briskly as on the morning before. Our joints got out of order for some 
 days in our wretched style of travelling, in which it seemed impossible to make 
 much of a break to relieve the monotonous jog-trot. 
 
 We pass through from the plains of Sharon, of which the famous roses seem 
 to be but mere wild flowers, and cross the hills called the mountains of Judea. 
 These were once clothed with trees, but the necessity for fuel has helped, aided 
 by the ancient curse and the modern Turkish Government, to desolate all the 
 land of Palestine. There will soon be not a tree in it. It seems a pity that 
 one of the dominant religions that have been in this land had not made it an 
 article of faith that a tree should be planted where one has been cut down. It 
 would have helped to save treeless, sterile, stony Syria from its present barren 
 state. 
 
 On our right is now a pleasanter-looking old village than usual. It over- 
 looks a valley, and is known as Kirjath Jearim. Just before reaching that, our 
 dragoman points out a brook's bed which we cross, as being that from which 
 David took the pebble that brought (joliath low. We don't question its 
 identity, as we are glad of anything that gives a reason for a rest, and so stop 
 to pick up pebbles and gather the roses of Sharon. This Kirjath Jearim was 
 where the ark was lodged for twenty years, "in the house of Abinadab 
 in the hill." It was taken thence by David from Jerusalem ; and somewhere 
 on the way we are now treading went that grand procession that we all now 
 turn to read of in the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel. Our pocket 
 bibles are always in use. 
 
 We pass a ruin on a ridge of the mountain, that has a most conspicuous 
 minaret for a landmark. Its name is now Samwil, but it was anciently called 
 by that name of Mizpah which some modern rings so commemorate. Descending 
 now to the Valley of Elah, we look to the left down a glen, in which are to be 
 seen some attempts at cultivation credited to the Convent of St. John there 
 situated. The road now leads up a tedious ascent, that is made worse by its 
 stony character, the iron-shod hoofs of our horses ringing at every step. The 
 hot sun now poured down its rays most powerfully. For fully half an hour we 
 were all too serious to talk, but our silence was the more eloquent. 
 
 Toiling to the top of this range, we have come upon a tableland, and our 
 dragoman calls a halt and a rest for the horses. It is midday, but we are not 
 to dismount there as at the same time on the day previously. W^e are to camp 
 shortly for our midday meal, and a week's stay under the walls of Jerusalem. 
 That city of faith and fame is there in the distance, with its minarets and domes 
 glittering in the sun, and the greater dome of the Mosque of Omar particularly 
 
Religious Wrangling Avoided. 393 
 
 conspicuous. We pass along to it through some suburb in which is the strange 
 sight of some newly-finished buildings and others in progress. To the left is 
 the Cathedral of the Greek Church, built by Russia, and on the opposite side 
 a building which I was told was that of " German deaconesses"— something of 
 the convent sort, I supposed. Over its gate I read " Talitha Kumi." We now 
 pass the Damascus gate, and pitch our tents some little distance past a house 
 in which I shall daily see Mr. Holman Hunt engaged in painting " The Flight 
 into Egypt." 
 
 Hassan, our dragoman, improves on acquaintanceship. He knows five 
 languages, and speaks and writes good English. He has accompanied nineteen 
 distinct sets of pilgrims from Egypt to the Holy City. His contempt is great 
 for all books, in which respect he is an Arab and a true countryman of that 
 Caliph Omar who destroyed the Alexandrian library. He has a neat way of 
 satisfying doubts and quelling scepticism. He heard us at Ajalon discussing 
 the question of the sun's standing still, and made the matter clear at once that it 
 did so, and the reason why. 
 
 " You say that the sun stands still now .''" 
 
 To which he was answered affirmatively. 
 
 "Well, you read that Joshua stopped its course, but is it anywhere said that 
 he ever set it going again?" 
 
 Such answer was conclusive, and saved a world of argument on a subject on 
 which there should be none. I had that right feeling on such matters even as 
 a child, when a zealous curate vainly endeavoured for half an hour to prove to 
 me and half-a-dozen other Sunday-school children, that Jacob was not lying to 
 his father in saying that he was Esau. An elaborate essay followed, to show 
 that it was a deception and not a lie, and that deception was justifiable when 
 the end was good, and that it was to the good of Jacob to get what he did by 
 deception ! I lost the run of that curate, but I have good hope that he became 
 ultimately promoted and died a bishop. 
 
 We thereupon thought of referring all matters of similar doubt for Hassan's 
 clearing up, but as such looked too much like helplessness, we took counsel 
 together. As differences about matters of belief have caused more bloodshed 
 and bitterness among men than anything else in the world, we came to an 
 understanding with a view to avoid squabbling. One of us is a good Catholic 
 or High-church man, another a strict Presbyterian — strong upon the Sabbath 
 and swearing, — a third calls himself a Low-church man, and another a no- 
 church man. In such a medley of beliefs and no particular belief, it was 
 difficult to hit upon any course that would please all and insure a truce for 
 thirty-six days. After that time we might quarrel as we liked, and return 
 to those cherished ideas that are ingrained and ineradicable with most 
 of us. 
 
 The matter was discussed during the midday rest, and again brought up in 
 the after-dinner hour. Divers vain efforts having failed at any result, the 
 difficulty comes at last to the knowledge of Hassan, who thinks he has that in 
 his pocket-book which will suit us. It is a relic of another party similar to 
 ourselves whom he had once convoyed. The rules they had drawn up had 
 been given to Hassan, when signed, as custodian or trustee on behalf of all. 
 When the journey was ended, the delivery up of this document had been over- 
 looked. With a trifling alteration, it was much like what we wanted, and 
 served our turn, though I kicked at the conservatism of the second clause of it. 
 Omitting the signatures, I here copy it, with apologies to those who years 
 back had composed it, should they ever see their forgotten rules for peace and 
 quietness thus in print. 
 
394 The Maifi Routes Round the World. 
 
 "Resolved — in the spirit of conciliation and not of criticism — 
 
 " I. That as we are travelling in a country under Mohammedan government, the peculiar 
 respect paid by that faith to all records shall be shown by us to those of this land. 
 
 "2. That we travel only for the confirmation of our beliefs, whatever they may be. 
 
 "3. That as appearances are deceitful, they shall always be so treated, and our senses 
 never trusted when at variance with preconceived ideas. 
 
 "4. That as matters of fact, fiction, and faith are here so interwoven, the three shall 
 be counted as one. 
 
 " 5. That where every authority differs all shall be deemed right. 
 
 " 6. That it shall not matter if they are all wrong. 
 
 "7. That, as a final refuge for vexed minds on any difficult subject, it shall be, as the old 
 lady said of the sermon, presumptuous to attempt to understand it." 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 CAMPED ON MOUNT ZION. 
 
 Our camping-place is on that part of Mount Zion which is outside the walls 
 of Jerusalem, to the south of the city, and on the bank of the Valley of 
 Hinnom. Zion has a heavenly sound about it, but this Valley of Hinnom is 
 also Ge-hinnom and Gehenna, from which recent authorities derive our word 
 "hell." Such a situation makes us serious, quite regardless of the old grey 
 towering walls all around, that, in a sort of harp shape, shut us out from the holy 
 city. We could liken this heavenly-sounding Zion and this valley of hell 
 to what Christian found at the end of his journey in those similar places which 
 took each to themselves one of the travellers — dividing for ever himself and 
 Ignorance. It wanted, indeed, Bunyan's brilliant fancy to mix up anything of 
 the New Jerusalem with that one now before us, but then the dark, rough- 
 looking casket might yet have a " City Beautiful " within its walls. We post- 
 pone going within until we have been around, and seen that which lies without. 
 
 "Jerusalem — mountains encompass her !" — built, though it is, on a moun- 
 tain top. It is on one part of a range that is in length from Beersheba 
 to Esdraelon, and in width from the Jordan to Sharon's Plains. The lime- 
 stone rock runs into peaks and ravines everywhere about, so that this hill-top 
 city is surrounded by hills and dales. Springs, that are here dignified as 
 " fountains," occasionally appear on the rocky hillsides, and wild vines and 
 olives thrive somehow in the triturated stone and dust which is all the earth, or 
 substitute for it, that is to be found in some other places of the hungry-looking 
 surface. On the tops of the range of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales 
 there is a wealth of verdure and scenery that keeps attention alive, and the 
 outward eye delighted. All such is quite wanting here. It is all dearth, drought, 
 and desolation — the mind's eye alone can be interested in that which is seen. 
 
 With which wretched state of things all additions to it agree. Among the 
 mounds of foul rubbish that are everywhere about are half-naked Arabs, 
 beggars of all sorts, whining lepers, and fanatics even from far Australia, who 
 have come here, as the Austral one tells me, to "await the fulfilment of pro- 
 phecy !" Like the Jews within the walls, they think themselves entitled to be 
 kept at the expense of others. To be more holy than one's fellows is too often, 
 all over the world, to be less of a labourer and more of a loafer. 
 
 This Valley of Hinnom, on whose bank are our four tents, runs away to the 
 south and joins the ravine called Kedron, at times a brook, which goes awayr 
 to the eastward to join another ravine called the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the 
 sides of which are more thickly strewn with Jewish tombs than it is possible to 
 imagine. We turn to our Bibles and read in Jeremiah, "They have built 
 
Aroitnd Jerusalem. 395 
 
 Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and 
 their daughters in the fire." Hassan points out the place of Tophet, to be seen 
 from our camp, and tells us that there a statue of Moloch was put up, having 
 a man's body and a bull's head. In the hollow interior was a furnace, by 
 which its brazen-metal was made red-hot. The children offered as sacrifices 
 were then placed in the figure's arms and there roasted, drums being set going 
 to drown their screams. We turn to chapter eleven of the First Book of 
 Kings, and find that this "abomination of Moloch" was instituted, of all 
 men, by Solomon himself. It was, however, in those evil days when the seven 
 hundred wives and three hundred others that troubled him "had turned away 
 his heart." There is no form of madness to which that number of legitimates 
 and supernumeraries might not drive a man. 
 
 And thus we get our ideas of the world hereafter from the dead world of the 
 past ! Our camping ground was part of Zion, and that dreary looking city was 
 Jerusalem, from which Zion and which city, as giving a name to the New 
 Jerusalem, we borrow blissful notions. I shall similarly find the Elysian fields 
 just outside Naples to be now but a miserable cemetery, and the fearful 
 Avernus there to be but a sulphurous pool. This Gehenna, or Hell, on the 
 bank of which we are camped, is but a valley or ravine, into which the bodies 
 of malefactors and others were brought from the city and therein thrown, to be 
 consumed by fires, so often burning as to be thought never quenched. Hassan 
 details all this to us as matters of common information known to everybody, 
 and we receive it with the judicious silence that, to the ignorant only, says we 
 know all about it. 
 
 We go round the walls, which at our limping pace over the stones takes two 
 hours, but can be done in much less, so small is the circuit of the city. The 
 hills are as notable as the valleys. To the east is the Mount of Olives, and 
 overhanging our dreadful Hinnom is the Hill of Evil Counsel, and the house of 
 Caiaphas in which it was taken. The walls of the city are about thirty feet 
 high, and five feet thick. They date back only to 1542, but are of the stones 
 of previous walls. Quite useless against modern cannon, they now only serve 
 for shutting out Bedouins and lepers, and helping to illustrate history. There 
 are five gates pointed out to us, named Damascus, Joppa, St. Stephen's, Zion, 
 and Dung gates. Two gates, Herod's and another, the Golden Gate, are walled 
 up. The Damascus and Joppa gates are those most used. 
 
 Hassan, our dragoman, knows all the story of this native land of his, and 
 condenses history into a nutshell as we go along. Judging from a tomb, which 
 I am to see inside the city, an early settler here, if not the earliest, was Adam 
 himself. It must have been a land adopted by him after his expulsion from 
 Paradise ; as, if he had been here first introduced to the world, and the 
 country was then as we now see it, he would likely in disgust have let his race 
 die out with himself in the veriest charity to humanity. 
 
 The Jebusites have earliest mention as the people of Jerusalem. David came 
 from the country to the east towards Bethlehem, where in his youth he had 
 served as a shepherd, and with the help of Joab took the city, and became its 
 minstrel-monarch. His line lasted to Zedekiah, who was taken in chains by 
 Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon with all the Israelites left alive. Fifty years after 
 came Cyrus and his Persians to Babylon, and set the Israelites free, who 
 returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple, continuing there until Antiochus 
 came and conquered them, dedicating their temple to Jupiter. Maccabeus 
 next arose to restore Jewish power, until the Romans came, and Herod was 
 made king in Jerusalem. His line ended in Agrippa, against whose deputy- 
 governor the Jews revolted. Vengeance for that came in the invasion of 
 Titus, the massacre of a million, and the destruction of the temple. Emperor 
 Hadrian afterwards rebuilt it, and it continued for Jupiter's worship until 
 
396 
 
 The Mai?i Routes Round the World. 
 
 Constantine adopted Christianity, making it a State religion, and his wonderful 
 mother, Helena, came here to work changes of all kinds. 
 
 We wash all this history down with water at the pool of Siloam, to which 
 we descend, as into a pit, from the Valley of the Kedron. A woman is there 
 filling a pitcher, from which I am given a drink, and then pick scriptural 
 hyssop from the well's side before scrambling up again. It is a mere pool, to 
 which a dozen irregular stones serve as steep steps. We can listen further now 
 to Hassan's story how the Romans kept the city until Chosroes and his 
 Persians took it and massacred its people. To the Persians succeeded the 
 Arabs, under that Caliph Omar who destroyed the Alexandrian library. Next 
 came the destroying Druses under their chief. Hakim, another fanatic of the 
 Omar sort, who pulled down all the monuments of the city. To him suc- 
 ceeded the Turks under Ortok, and then came Peter the Hermit, who, seeing 
 Turkish misrule then, as we see it now, went back to Europe and preached up 
 
 VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. 
 
 the wrongs of Syria, and brought to its rescue those crusaders of whom another 
 edition is so much wanted now, and for the same reasons. New crusaders 
 have the old ones to avenge, as the Turks drove them hence nearly seven hun- 
 dred years back, and have since then — alike to the disgrace of Jews, Christians, 
 Europe generally, and the world at large — defiled Palestine, and outraged 
 civilization in its length and breadth. 
 
 Beyond our camp valley of Hinnom are the pools of Gihon, which at rainy 
 seasons overflow into " the brook Kedron," whose dry course we next look at. 
 It runs away from Jerusalem's walls through that wilderness of Judea in which 
 John the Baptist wandered, and then away for fifteen miles to the valley of 
 Jordan, and to that Dead Sea in which, like the Jordan, it is lost. We wander 
 along Kedron's banks and down the valley of Jehoshaphat, picking our ways 
 
On Mount of Olives. 397 
 
 among the tombstones, on which not a description is now decipherable, and 
 so come to the Mount of Olives. Its sides are terraced in some places for 
 planting of grain, and its whole surface specked with olive-trees dark as the 
 cypress, and in appearance antiquated as a camel. 
 
 The ascent of Olivet is steep, and was accomplished by some of our party 
 holding on to the horses' tails. It looked a mean proceeding, and taking 
 advantage of the animal when so unable to kick, but that didn't count. It is 250 
 feet to the top, and being but half a mile from the city walls, a view of the 
 whole interior, in a bird's-eye way, is there to be had. That view is greatly 
 helped by the absence of haze in the atmosphere here. Things look nearer at 
 hand than they prove to be, but none the better for that. Olivet is spoken of 
 in the first chapter of Acts as " a Sabbath-day's journey " from Jerusalem. A 
 good Sabbatarian would notice that only about a mile of travel was thus 
 allowed on that day. 
 
 The summit shows a few stone huts, and a small chapel situated within a 
 paved court, connected with a mosque having the usual minaret. Here, in 
 this court, is shown the imprint of what is said to be a footstep, and the final 
 footstep on earth of One whom I read of in the last chapter of Luke as having 
 journeyed over here to Bethany, at the eastern foot of the mount, before 
 bidding adieu to those with Him, and from there ascending — and not from 
 here. The view from Olivet is very extensive, irrespective of the sight of the 
 housetops of all Jerusalem. Away to the east, beyond Bethany and the 
 Valley of Judea, a glimpse is obtained as of a silver streak. It is the swift- 
 running Jordan, on the far side of which those things like dark clouds are the 
 Moabite Mountains. 
 
 Hassan points out all to us with a knowledge that he has acquired from 
 tradition and experience. He shows us a ruin of a house, a little way down 
 the side of the mount that was used by Him who there told of the destruction 
 of the city beneath, and wept over its fate ; who told here the parable of the 
 Ten Virgins, and one or more others, and who suffered in that Garden of 
 Gethsemane, just at the foot of this mount, and to which we now descend by a 
 way which, I am told, was taken by David when fleeing from Absalom. 
 
 Gethsemane belongs to the Greek Church, which has appropriated the 
 leading shrines both within and without the city. The Romish Church has, 
 however, built a wall outside its fence, in which are alcoves filled with 
 pictures illustrative of the scene in this garden, and those in the Via Dolorosa 
 that preceded the crucifixion. An attendant in priestly attire unlocks the 
 gates in the wall, and another that of the garden fence. It is garden-like in 
 appearance, with the addition of seven or eight olive-trees, of Methuselah-like 
 age. The attendant is necessary to keep visitors from stripping the garden of 
 every green thing in it — a form of sacrilege that we see first practised in a little 
 pilfering way among the flower-covered graves of our common cemeteries. 
 
 On returning we find that another party have come up from the plains in 
 our absence, and have pitched their tents near to ours. A terrible trouble has 
 been so occasioned amongst the cattle. No sooner is the saddle oft" a horse 
 here than he takes at once to fighting the horse nearest to him, and that as 
 naturally as elsewhere he would look for a nose-bag. A free fight of four is 
 going on, and noise enough for a dozen is being made. The way a horse 
 screams when the teeth of another one are well into his neck or shoulder is 
 something quite alarming. We get peace restored at length, and our tents and 
 the horses again tethered, and so to our evening meal, and subsequent second 
 sleep upon Mount Zion. 
 
 We had intended to do ever so much exploration of the Bible after dinner, 
 but the fatigue of the day beat us, and we slept, spite of all the disturbing 
 influences around — the neighing and whinnying of the horses, the braying of 
 
398 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 donkeys, barking of dogs, and biting of fleas. The fleas were particularly 
 powerful here. We disputed often afterwards whether they were part of the 
 curse that had fallen on the land, or were the livelier and stronger from 
 having escaped it. They get cursing enough anyhow at present, whatever 
 they may have escaped in the past. 
 
 There is no occasion for pilgrims to put peas in their shoes in this locality. 
 The stones beneath the sole-leather are quite enough punishment, and we even 
 envy the shoeing of our horses ; though how they manage to keep their feet, 
 with their completely plated hoofs, is a daily and hourly wonder to us. We 
 visit now, still outside the walls of the city, for another day, the grotto of 
 Jeremiah — a huge cave, dull and dismal enough in appearance to have of itself 
 inspired the writing of the Lamentations. Further onwards to the south-east 
 we see a group of buildings with a most conspicuous minaret in the centre. In 
 the upper floor of one is shown the room in which The Last Supper took 
 place, and in a lower building or vault is the traditional tomb of King David. 
 
 The chamber of The Last Supper is a large hall of about fifty feet long, by 
 one-half that breadth, and is accredited as the assembling-place of the apostles 
 on the day of Pentecost. Its four bare old walls look ancient enough to 
 guarantee it as genuine ; but this thing has to be thought of, that none of 
 the writers on the subject of this land and its holy places appear to be unani- 
 mous upon anything further than that the Mount of Olives, the Jordan, and 
 the Dead Sea, are where they always were, and look much the same as ever. 
 Nearly everything else is matter of faith, and therefore, unfortunately, of con- 
 troversy. 
 
 David's Tomb here has been plundered by some invaders who made those 
 early raids upon Jerusalem, Herod was the first robber in that matter, and 
 took away the gold and silver treasures. Nothing has been now left in the 
 vault. Ancient customs were not in accordance with our burial service, which 
 says that we can take nothing with us. The deceased in ancient days had gold 
 and silver in quantities, coined and uncoined, buried with them. Whether 
 this was as a provision for beginning another life is not clear, but it was perhaps 
 as sensible a proceeding as any substitute generally followed in the present 
 fashion of the world. 
 
 Here is Aceldama — " the field of blood " — the land-purchase made by Judas 
 as an investment of the " thirty pieces of silver." A field has a small meaning 
 here, and this is no field now, but occupied by the remains of a building that 
 has apparently been a large tomb. Tombs are all about and around, in fact. 
 They outnumber the houses as fifty to one, and we now come to a village that 
 may be all tombs or houses for anything identifying that we can yet see. It 
 is the village of Siloam. a most singular curio of a place. It is on the side of 
 the Kedron at the south-east foot of Olivet, and embedded in the rock of the 
 mount. Its people may almost be called Troglodytes, and said to dwell in 
 caves. Tombs that have been excavated from the rock here have some of 
 them had a rude projecting stone porch added to them, and so made abodes 
 for the living— in which term I include goats, donkeys, and mules that also 
 find shelter here — as a final use to which the resting-places of former greatness 
 may be put. 
 
 Three tombs of striking appearance, beyond Siloam, and at the foot of 
 Olivet, attract attention, and are said to be those of Zacharias, Jehoshaphat, 
 and Absalom, as also of half-a-dozen others, by those wranglers who must 
 differ on everything or die. The tomb of Absalom is quite a temple, thirty 
 feet high, with a conical roof to it. In memory of his bad behaviour to his 
 father, and as evidence that our evil deeds live after us, quite a stony mound is 
 raised hereabout. It is made up of stones flung at this tomb by Israelites, 
 who thus expressed their opinion of David's bad son. Hassan's theory is that 
 
flllllllllllllllll'l 1 1 ^1 
 
 ^ ;. r^iM^ai 
 
Around Mount Olivet, 399 
 
 it is the pillar reared by Absalom to commemorate himself, he having no 
 descendants, as is detailed in the eighteenth verse of the eighteenth chapter of 
 the Second Book of Samuel — " Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and 
 reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale : for he said, I have 
 no son to keep my name in remembrance ; and he called the pillar after his 
 own name, and it is called unto this day Absalom's Place." 
 
 There are quite mansions of tombs in some places hereabout — "the silent 
 halls of death," where those who had chambers have long since mouldered 
 away, or been cleared out by robbers. Of such excavations are the tombs of 
 the Prophets, on the side of Mount Olivet, and the tombs of the Kings, half a 
 mile to the north-east of the city. The entrance to this last many-chambered 
 tomb was hidden by a door fitted to grooves in the rock on each side, and 
 only to be lifted by a lever. That was to be reached only by a subterranean 
 passage, the opening to which was a concealed trap, discovered by accidental 
 digging. 
 
 Death awaited the Belzoni who might find and explore this underground 
 mansion. Within the sliding door was another, a trick door, that opened on 
 slight pressure, but closed hastily when the hand was taken off. No means 
 available within could again open it. The living being had found here a Blue- 
 beard chamber, and had to pay a life penalty unless assistance came from the 
 exterior. As with the bride spring-locked in the old oak chest, nothing but a 
 skeleton would be left to tell the tale. Everything had been removed from 
 these tombs. The richly-carved coverings of many of the sarcophagi are in the 
 museum of the Louvre at Paris. 
 
 We pass " the Potter's Field" and marks of an old gate that Hassan, who 
 supplies all information, tells us was where Mahomet's winged horse, Baruk, 
 was tied by the Angel Gabriel, whilst the two waited for the prophet, who in 
 this winged company journeyed thence to Heaven. He says " to Abraham's 
 bosom," on which we inquire if the Mohammedans also acknowledge Abraham, 
 and find that they do, and that we shall see inside the walls that the rock 
 whereon Abraham laid Isaac as an offering has been held alike sacred by 
 Christians and Mohammedans. The latter, as we understand Hassan, 
 acknowledge the Old Testament, and only set up the Koran in place of the 
 new one, and Mahomet for their Messiah. 
 
 If " all houses where men have lived and died are haunted houses," that of 
 Caiaphas here must be particularly so, and for many reasons. It belongs now 
 to the Armenian Church, who here show the stone that closed the sepulchre up 
 to the time of the Resurrection ; also the stone on which Peter stood when 
 denying his Master, and that on which the cock stood when crowing ! These 
 things, trifles though they may seem to some, have additional sweetness as being 
 stolen goods — the other churches so accusing the Armenian one. Taking Dr. 
 Watts as an authority on " all that's ever got by thieving," it is to be presumed 
 that the delinquent Church has not since prospered. 
 
 Passing the " Grotto of the Agony," which Hassan says has been excavated 
 merely as an opposition attraction to the Garden of Gethsemane, held by a 
 Church of another faith, we come to the Tomb of the Virgin. It is picturesquely 
 placed among rocky projections at the foot of Olivet. Ancient, worn, and 
 grey, it stands there among antiquated olives, claiming notice for other reasons 
 than those tradition attaches to it. Entering by a doorway over which are 
 Gothic arches, we descend some fifty broad steps leading into a gloomy vault 
 excavated in the rock, and used as a chapel. Our dragoman had given us 
 candles in the morning in view of this visit, of which all but one had, by the 
 heat of the weather and occasional collisions, become soft and shapeless in our 
 pockets. The available one which Hassan had carried, protected by paper, 
 gave " a dim religious light" to this vault. The lamps hanging from the roof, 
 
400 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 as also the altar, are only lighted up on special feast days of the Greek Church, 
 to which this tomb also belongs. I have said nothing about payments at all 
 the shrines visited as that will be understood even by those who have only gone 
 over such a sacred place as St. Paul's Cathedral. A traveller everywhere is 
 looked upon by the people mostly but as a perquisite. 
 
 On the way down the steps of this tomb building I am shown the tombs of 
 Joachim and Anne, the father and mother of Mary. 1 shall see them again, 
 Hassan says, in the Church of St. Anne inside the walls, but that is no matter 
 — tombs, we know, are only resting-places for a time. Further down on the 
 left is the tomb of Joseph, and at furthest end of the cave or "grotto," as such 
 places are here called, is that of the Virgin, whose sole name is given to what 
 really is a family tomb. Quite an array of beggars are about this place, but 
 that was to be expected. 
 
 We go on to Bethany, and stop on the way to lunch under the shade of a 
 large olive-tree. The Joppa oranges — one apiece for us — make the best part 
 
 BETHANY. 
 
 of the meal, and might suffice, in their large sufficiency, for the whole of it. 
 Stones are all about here, and under every second stone is to be found a large 
 prawn-like thing, which, when disturbed, runs about with its tail turned over 
 towards its head in the manner of acrobats who walk upon the palms of 
 their hands. This curio, I hear to my dismay from Hassan, is a scorpion ! 
 One of our Americans has a flat pocket-bottle of whisky with him. He leaves 
 half of it undrunk, and the other half of the bottle we filled up with these 
 scriptural scorpions, who are thus preserved in spirits for division at the 
 journey's end as mementoes of Mount Olivet. 
 
 From Olivet's side we pass down to Bethany, over a road strewed with 
 oblong grave-stones that resemble in the distance a lot of dominoes littered 
 about. The little village is all desolation, ruin, and dirt. Not one of its old 
 stone houses seems in a complete condition, and of the majority but a room, 
 or half a room, is remaining. The squalid inhabitants receive us with out- 
 stretched arms, open hands, and cries of " Backsheesh, howadji !" The 
 
Underground Jerusalem. 401 
 
 latter word .seems in Syria to be always added to the familiar former one, as a 
 polite person would add "sir," for additional respect. To their "Good 
 morning " these Syrians add " efifendi," an equivalent for our "esquire." It 
 is always in expectation of something that these people give even civility. 
 
 We are accompanied through the village by nearly all the inhabitants 
 of little Bethany, who know that the one attraction is the house and tomb of 
 Lazarus. It was here that he was raised from the dead, and here lived Martha 
 and Mary, his sisters ; and it was here that after long years and old age their 
 brother again died, and was buried. The house is now a ruin, filled with 
 rubbish and fallen stones. With lighted candles we do the usual routine of 
 descending into a vault that is called the tomb, the way to which is soon 
 blocked up by the Bethanites that so closely infest us. Beggary has its modu- 
 lations of voice. The old men and women roar out "Backsheesh!" and, in 
 the fashion of a dog or cat when not attended to, twitch at one's clothes 
 to compel attention. The young girls speak the word gently, and, as we 
 seemed not to understand, whispered it to our ears as a soft thing and a secret. 
 As with the influences of sunshine and storm which, in the fable, contended for 
 the traveller's cloak, the gentler one generally wins. A charitable dis- 
 position and a generous hand can derive any amount of pleasure in Pales- 
 tine, where money-giving is about the only dissipation that can well be 
 indulged in. 
 
 We are taken, on the way back, to quarries, or spaces that appear to run all 
 underneath Jerusalem. Hassan says that from this source was taken the stone 
 for building what we shall see within the walls. These excavations have not 
 been here converted into catacombs as at Rome. When the guide said, 
 " You are now underneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and not far from 
 the centre of the city," we though it as well to return, as we had become quite 
 chilled in this subterranean place. For two days, said our dragoman, we 
 might explore these excavations, but an hour is quite enough of them and their 
 intricacies. Had an apoplectic fit seized Hassan, it looked likely that we 
 might have wandered much longer than two days, if life held out even so long 
 as that in these dreadful dungeons. 
 
 In the evening, camped on Mount Zion, we are favoured with a welcome 
 visitor — a consul, of six years' residence here — who sits with us in the tent 
 door. He is a lettered and a learned man who takes this, to us, unenviable 
 position for its official distinction only, and not from that need which we agree 
 would alone drive any of us to compete for the post. From one of the chief 
 centres of the world's'life he has exiled himself to the effete, dead civilization, 
 worse than barbarism, of this Jerusalem, though his general abilities and 
 extensive knowledge fit him well for contesting the world's honours that he 
 thus, all heedlessly, lets pass. The chats we have with him greatly beguile 
 the long evening. 
 
 He does not believe in the return of more Israelites to this land than those 
 now here. That their number has doubled during the past twelve years is to 
 be easily accounted for, and prim<irily because they are one and all here sup- 
 ported by the voluntary contributions of their co-religionists of other lands. 
 They are not liable. like the resident Mohammedans in Palestine, to be drafted 
 away by conscription to supply the want for Turkish soldiery. As much by 
 that means as by the taxation that crushes it, is the depopulation of the land 
 to be accounted for. The deserted villages are robbed of everything in addi- 
 tion to their villagers, and pretty well every tree in the country has been cut 
 down for saleable timber. 
 
 " Not the cedars of Lebanon, I hope ! We shall see them ?" 
 
 "It's just as much as you will, for they are situated on mountain tops, 
 which difficult position has alone saved them. For timber for the Suez Canal 
 
 B B 
 
4C2 TJie Alain Routes Round the World. 
 
 they would have stripped the Mount of Olives, had the wood been of a ser- 
 viceable or saleable sort." 
 
 The Jews at present throughout Syria number, our consul tells us, about 
 thirty thousand. Not only do they do no work nor carry on any commerce by 
 which to live, but living itself is not so much their object in coming here as 
 dying. With a Chinese-like wish to mingle their dust with the first of their 
 race, do they make a pilgrimage hither that we can understand and honour, if 
 not imitate. Buildings that we had noticed in our day's ramble, as also some 
 in progress, are the works of Montefiore's charity, and intended for almshouses, 
 for which the interior of the city affords not sufficient accommodation. 
 
 The Turk has had a long day in Palestine, and we want to know if there is 
 any prospect of its drawing to a close, and the shadow of the Crescent disap- 
 pearing from the Cross in this land of misrule. It is difficult to prognosticate, 
 though prophecy is quite in order in Palestine. A cloud, hardly the size of a 
 man's hand as yet, can, we are told, be seen Romewards ! The Jesuits are 
 there dissatisfied altogether, and would mend matters to their liking by remov- 
 ing hither the head-quarters of the Latin Church. The chair of St. Peter, 
 shown at Rome, is said to have been once that of Mahomet, and to set it up 
 here at Jerusalem would be but as bringing it back to Mohammedan land. 
 
 Out of all question, Jerusalem is more appropriately the place for this chair 
 than Rome ! Where the faith of a Church originated is properly its centre, 
 and in that aspect Jerusalem distances all the claims of an Italian city, in which 
 Christianity merely took root by the accident of Constantine's adoption of it. Our 
 consul-informant has heard whispers that such a removal has been more than 
 talked of. A practical part of the preliminary negotiations has been the survey 
 of the dreary country we have now come through from Joppa, with a view to a 
 railway running over it. We wish, in our aching bones, that we had delayed 
 our journey until that matter of the railroad had ripened. 
 
 If we had, we might, if we lived long enough, have seen the Pope's palace 
 on Mount Zion ! Though their Japanese enterprise came to great grief, that 
 which the Jesuits take in hand does not always fail. The Vatican by the Tiber 
 side has been fluttered lately by reformers who have taken therefrom its tem- 
 poral toys. Such an insult and such a deprivation of power might be well 
 revenged by leaving altogether the scene of it. There would be dignity shown 
 in so answering Italy's attempt at degradation. A few more ruins would be 
 only added to Rome's attractions in that line by the removal to Jerusalem of 
 the seat of Papa) power. 
 
 Such removal would be the escaping other encroachments than those of 
 political reformers. Pome is becoming a second Pa^stum from the dire en- 
 croaches of that malaria which its walls no longer serve to shut out, and 
 against which all anathemas seem to be powerless. Like Ptestum, it will yet 
 have to be deserted in days to come for that reason, and why wait for it and 
 sicken while waiting ? No place so fitting for the transference of its pomp, 
 and that ecclesiastical power which is left to it, as this Jerusalem. The French, 
 who have the protectorate of the Roman holy places here, would probably help 
 to that change. 
 
 " But what would Turkey say to it ?" we ask. 
 
 " Turkey will sell anything if the price be good enough ! To supply funds 
 to the Constantinople exchequer is all that any of her possessions are held for. 
 Palestine in that way is pretty well sucked out, and has been long ready for 
 sale. The old Crusaders took it by the sword, but it cost more money so to 
 do than it would to l)uy it in modern style, and there would be in such acqui- 
 sition the chance of holding it, which the older form of taking possession 
 wholly failed to ensure." 
 
 "What about the Greek Church and its Russian protectors?" 
 
Inside Solomon's City. 403 
 
 " Yes, certainly they are obstacles, and great ones too ! The Greek Church 
 has large possessions here, and Russia has great power. Out of that difficulty 
 the way is not so easily to be seen, but the whole matter is one that has to be 
 carefully handled, and many as seemingly difficult things have proved not 
 impossible. " 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 THE CITY OF SHRINES. 
 
 On the third day of our camping outside the walls of Jerusalem we could 
 no longer keep our curiosity in check, and ourselves from entering the city. 
 We actually dreamed of it, which is more than I had done of Canton or Cal- 
 cutta, Jeddo or Cairo. We hear of Jerusalem earlier in our youth, and read 
 so much of it in the Book that is never forgotten. Such and such like help 
 to make up that glamour which enwraps, as with a halo, Solomon's famous 
 city. 
 
 " The horses can have a rest to-day f said Hassan. 
 
 " W^hat, no horses allowed in the city ?" we said. 
 
 "There is no room for them, or for carriages either — you will find it quite 
 troublesome enough to get along on foot." 
 
 I recalled that another holy city, Benares, and also Canton city, did not 
 admit of horse or carriage traffic in most parts of them. We therefore hoisted 
 our umbrellas, and started on foot for Bab el Khulil, or the Joppa gate. The 
 day was very sultry, and made hotter by the cheerless sterility around, the 
 barren rocks and stone-strewn land. 
 
 Joppa gate is about fifteen feet high and five wide. To indicate the Turkish 
 ownership of the city a crescent and star are daubed on the panels. About 
 the gate stood a crowd of itinerant peddlers and dealers in small wares and 
 sweetmeats. A lively fight was in progress between two of them, the mob 
 attending which surged towards us, stopping the way to the gate. A young 
 Israelite was desperately pommelling away at an old Arab, whom he soon 
 succeeded in getting under foot, and we thought the trouble over. Flushed 
 with victory he could not, however, let well alone, but made for another 
 offender — a dealer in boiled eggs, in pink-coloured shells. This delicate 
 merchandise he scattered all around with a kick, and in half a minute more was 
 lying full length on his back, with the enraged owner of the eggs beating him 
 with the empty basket. The unalloyed interest we took in this battle was of 
 the kind felt when one does not care which side wins. The fight continued, 
 and seemed to become "free," as an Irishman would call it, but it went further 
 afield and left our road clear. We uncovered our heads reverently, as we 
 would on entering a church, and so passing through the gate, stood at last 
 within Jerusalem ! One of us showed the feeling affecting him by kneeling 
 awhile at the entrance to the sacred city. 
 
 We did not exactly stand on getting inside, though I have so expressed it ; 
 our feet slipping about very much on the cobble-stones, here badly laid 
 down. They project some inches above the ground or sink some inches 
 into it, and have unpleasant interspaces, so that one can walk neither 
 between nor upon them. Their surfaces are worn quite smooth and 
 slippery. Nowhere had I found such difficult walking. The first street 
 
 B B 2 
 
404 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 from Joppa gate has the name of Christian Street, and is the leading 
 thoroughfare of that one of the four quarters of Jerusalem named the Christian 
 quarter. The other three divisions are called the Jewish, the Mohammedan, 
 and the Armenian quarters. 
 
 Christian Street is about ten feet wide, with a steep roadway some five feet 
 broad. It is quite a punishment to walk on that, and the narrow side walks 
 to it are even worse. Fifty yards of it are as fatiguing as two miles elsewhere. 
 There is some difficult walking at the end of the Black Valley at Killarney, 
 and it is nasty to get over the waxed floors of Versailles, but they are as nothing 
 
 A JEW S STORE, JERUSALEM. 
 
 to this trouble. On all sides rubbish in heaps and excreta of all kinds are to 
 be seen. The filth of the city is beyond belief. For its dirt and stenches the 
 people deserve that the cholera should come quickly, or. in its stead, one of 
 those plagues that were troublesome here of olden time. Every one who has 
 been in Jerusalem will endorse all that much and with expletive additions. 
 
 People who exist amid such filth, and add to it daily, well knowing that 
 decent folk from far lands are continually coming to see their city, should be 
 cleared off the face of the earth as mere nuisances to it. When visitors are 
 
Jerusalem Street-Scenes. 405 
 
 expected, citizens elsewhere generally put their house in decent order. To this 
 Jerusalem come travellers from all parts of the world, and no part of it receives 
 them so badly. Folks might stay here and enrich the wretchedly poor place by 
 their expenditure, if it were made only bearable. As it is, it takes one's appetite 
 away to walk in it for half an hour. The eyes, nose, and stomach get thus 
 nauseated in a city where one expects the senses to be altogether absorbed in 
 the exercise of the higher faculties. The disappointment is, indeed, too 
 great. 
 
 Jostled about in the narrow lanes by dirty-looking, foul-smelling beings, we 
 make our way, stumbling about, from one dirty alley to another, looking at 
 frowsy stalls in the wretched buildings on either side. To enter such places 
 would have been a contempt of sanitary precautions. In lowest depths there 
 is said to be a deeper still, and the meaning of that is fully realized when we 
 reach the Jewish quarter of the city. Pen or tongue cannot express the beastly 
 filth of that district. Fancy would fail at what the eyes and nose alone can 
 realize. And that only to a small degree, as one's nose has to be tightly held 
 until a clear-out can be speedily made. The concentration of stenches surpasses 
 altogether in strength the number of stinks countable at Cologne. 
 
 Though we washed our boots afterwards, the aroma of this quarter of the 
 city did not depart for days. Nauseating Jerusalem ! In its roadways it is fit 
 only to be trodden by goats, and on its sidewalks by none but pigs — a breeding 
 place for fevers, as we next day find. Writing on the spot, in the tent, of an 
 evening, the day's impressions can be the better expressed, though they are none 
 of the fleeting sort. For that reason Mr. Holman Hunt dwells outside the 
 walls to paint the pictures of his Holy Land subjects. Most likely we should 
 forget in another land, at a distant day, the smaller things that here so 
 impressed us. Says Shakspeare, " Small to great matters should give way;" 
 but, he adds, " Not if the small come first !" Jerusalem is full of great things, 
 but its smaller ones come so prominently, and so thick and very strong, that 
 there is no denying them. 
 
 Stumbling along for a quarter of an hour down one rugged alley after another, 
 we reach a courtyard having a church-like doorway at the further side of the 
 seventy feet or so of pavement. This pathway is fringed on either side with 
 vendors of beads, crosses, chains, medals, and other similar gewgaws, which 
 articles are displayed on the footway in front of the owners as they sit 
 here cross-legged and clamorous for custom. Oranges, nuts, biscuits, sweet- 
 meats, and sherbet are among the things for sale, with numbers of wretched 
 prints of the penny plain and twopenny coloured kind. " The Church of the 
 Holy Sepulchre," or what is so called, is in front of us, and the doorway 
 at the far end of the little fair that we see before us is the entrance to 
 the great Christian shrine. We go down between the rows of wretched 
 trumpery that is held out to us, and so enter that church, the question of 
 the custody of the keys of which caused, Kinglake says, the Crimean war. 
 
 Hassan tells us that the first church here was built by Constantine, super- 
 intended by the Em]:)ress Helena, who fixed upon the site, more than three 
 hundred years after the Crucifixion. She decreed that the spot was the place 
 of the Holy Sepulchre, and her decree was the sole evidence of its being such. 
 Another three hundred years afterwards the church was pulled down by the 
 Persians, and not rebuilt for sixteen years. About four hundred years further 
 on, it was again destroyed by the Caliph Hakim, and not rebuilt for thirty 
 years. Fifty years afterwards came the Crusaders, and made additions 
 of many shrines, and the church remained as they left it until 1S08, when a 
 fire destroyed greater part, and the heavy roof fell in altogether, and made a 
 ruin of it. The four sects that have chapels within this church — the 
 Russian Greek, the Roman, the Armenian, and the Coptic, would have it 
 
4o6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 believed, or so professed, that each of their buildings escaped, and those of 
 the three others only were destroyed. 
 
 A few pounds of the scores of millions spent over that Crimean war, caused 
 by the quarrels of these sectarians, had been well laid out here in brooms and 
 scavengers' labour about the city, and in the cleaning up of this church itself. 
 It is a very dirty and tawdry place, overloaded with tarnished tinsel and 
 finery which is all in a state of dinginess, dust, and decay. As we see it now it 
 is as rebuilt by a Greek architect, some years after the fire, on the long-delayed 
 permission of those Turks whom England so much pets, and who behave in 
 return as most petted things ck). 
 
 From a list, which Hassan carries, of forty sacred spots said to be covered by 
 this one church, I subjoin a few of the most prominent, from which the rest 
 can be well guessed. Chapel of the tomb of Adam. Pillar marking centre of 
 the earth. Rock rent in twain at crucifixion. Mount Calvary. Chapel 
 marking the finding of the Cross. Tomb of Melchisedek, as also tombs of 
 Godfrey and Baldwin, the Crusaders. Chapel of the Apparition, in which are 
 kept the sword and spurs of Godfrey, the Crusader ; things to be looked 
 upon, I suppose, as sacred as anything else. Chapel of the Division of the 
 Vestments. Chapel of the Penitent Thief. Pillar of the Flagellation. Prison 
 of Christ. Well of St. Helena. Stone of the Unction. The Holy Sepulchre. 
 The Shrine of the Holy Fire ; and the Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Coptic 
 Chapels. I have really enumerated only about half, but quite enough to show 
 what a call is here made upon credulity. 
 
 That which is called the Holy Sepulchre is a mausoleum-like building, 
 having a low doorway situated some little way within the church. On each 
 side of the door are candles of all sizes, from twelve feet downwards. Lamps 
 also hang above the door. A small anteroom is found within, and a still 
 lower and narrower doorway leading from it, at which we have to wait our 
 turn, as but one at a time can go or come, stooping, through it. Passing that, 
 we are within a small chamber, about twelve feet by eight. A marble sarco- 
 phagus, the covering-slab of which is cracked across, stands like to a bench on 
 our right-hand side. Pilgrims are kissing it as the tomb of Jesus ! Above it 
 in the wall is the aperture through which the holy fire issues at Easter— a few 
 days before our coming. Above it hang two lamps, said to perpetually burn. 
 Two Greek priests are always within this stiflingly-crowded little place, 
 answering questions and receiving in a bag monetary contributions. The 
 atmosphere is such that we chafe at not getting out so quickly as we wish. 
 Other pilgrims, crowding in, fill up the little passage through which we have to 
 grope. The aperture for the holy fire serves alone to give us air. For that 
 reason we bless it, though three o'i the four churches here anathematize the fire 
 as an imposture. We feel rather faint, not to say sick, or sad, when we emerge. 
 
 Following us comes one from the sepulchre holding a square-shaped, 
 copper-framed lantern, in which is a swing-lamp of ship's cabin pattern. It 
 has been lighted for him at the lamps over the sepulchre. He will carry it so 
 lighted, and carefully tended, some thousands of miles into Russia, there to 
 burn perpetually in the sanctuary of a Greek Church. In his other hand he 
 carries a twisted crown of thorns, which he received from the priests within, 
 and had, in our presence, lain upon the sacred sarcophagus before the lighting 
 of the lamp. 
 
 The Greek Church have the sole charge of this shrine, as they have also of 
 everything in the way of holy places worth having in and about Jerusalem. 
 Opposite to the sepulchre's entrance is the Greek chapel, in which service is 
 taking place. Behind the sepulchre is the little oratory of the Coptic Church. 
 The Roman Chapel, as also the x\rmenian, are of i)lain appearance beside the 
 grandeur of the Greek one. Crowds come from all parts at Easter, and throng 
 
I":.' 
 
 I 
 
 The CJuu'ch of Holy Sepulchre, 407 
 
 this church to see, and to singe themselves with, the holy fire. It is believed 
 that, if practicable, its exhibition would be suspended. The Greek Church 
 as I have said, alone support it of the four that formerly did so. It is the 
 exhibition of a so-called miracle, the counterpart of which is shown periodically 
 to similar crowds at Naples in the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. 
 
 One of the visitors walking about in this church has a face that shows a 
 wonderful likeness to the profile portrait so well known of Christ. I call 
 attention to it, and to the long hair and general appearance of the owner of 
 this remarkable head. Hassan tells me that such features are often seen in 
 this country, and that their owner in this case is a Syrian from some town 
 between here and Damascus. I think that none of us ever stared so much 
 or so long at any man before. To see that face in life — and to see it here ! 
 
 Between the entrance to the church and the sepulchre is a stone slab which 
 I see many stoop to kiss. I am told it is that on which the body of Jesus was 
 laid when taken down from the Cross — " up there." I look up and see some 
 steep and narrow stairs, that prove to be very slippery. When at the head of 
 these twelve or fourteen steps we are on Mount Calvary, and at the scene of 
 the crucifixion ! Those who choose to look can be shown the holes into 
 which the three crosses were put, and put money into them also as an offering. 
 In a vault-like chapel below we are shown where Empress Helena dug for 
 these crosses, and found them more than three hundred years after they were 
 used at Calvary ! The crown of thorns was, I am told, found with them, as 
 also Pilate's inscription. The "true cross" of the three was discovered 
 by the bishop of the time recommending the exhibition of them all to a sick 
 patient. Two thus exhibited had no effect, but the third worked a perfect 
 cure. Over the place where this find was made is the building we now see — 
 curiously called "The Chapel of the Invention of the Cross" — a title admitting 
 of more than one construction. 
 
 It is allowed by all sensible people — and those who don't admit it think it 
 just as much — that Helena and the Crusaders have overcrowded this church 
 with shrines. They provide for too much curiosity — too many of the wants of 
 the credulous pilgrims. Fully a dozen more shrines than the forty now here 
 were shown to travellers of olden days, but have since been removed — dealt 
 with similarly to the rejected gospels and the books of the Apocrypha excised 
 from the Bible. Another revision of the sort is much wanted, and it would be 
 better perhaps " to reform it altogether," as three-fourths of the historians are 
 of opinion that this church covers nothing that it pretends to. The prison 
 down below, the sepulchre alongside one, and Mount Calvary upstairs, is 
 what the astonished pilgrim has to take in. The tomb of Adam, here shewn, 
 is not considered as a joke, though that Crusader must have been a humourist 
 who stuck it in with the rest. As we again passed through the little Bartlemy 
 Fair outside, it looked no longer desecrating, but rather a fitting introduction 
 to all that we had seen within. 
 
 As we make our way to the mosque which now stands on the foundations of 
 Solomon's Temple, we pass the judgment-hall of Pilate, the lower part of 
 which is now usefully occupied by a shoemaker. Entering now upon the Via 
 Dolorosa^ a narrow alley that winds about for some distance, and is in places 
 partly arched, we are shown a number of sacred places — about eight — pictures 
 of which we had seen on the walls of Gethsemane garden. One is the house 
 of St. Veronica, whose holy handkerchief, here once used, is to be seen now at 
 Rome. Here, too, is the house of the wandering Jew — at which we really 
 looked with more interest than on many of the sacred things. After that the 
 house of Dives was of little interest. The Pool of Bethesda shows now only a 
 pailful of water, being choked up with the dc-bris of fallen buildings. 
 
 The mosque of Omar and that of El Aksa facing it fill up just a fourth of 
 
4o8 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 the space that the city walls enclose. As mosques they are but the poorest 
 affairs, compared to what is to be seen in that way elsewhere. They lack 
 minarets, and, wanting such, mosques are but bald-looking, and all as unfinished 
 to the eye as Manx cats. A large dome surmounts that of Omar, which has 
 been greatly disfigured by some cheap and nasty "restorations " lately done to 
 it. Thousands of glazed blue tiles, like willow-pattern plates, have been put 
 about at the base of the dome and other prominent places. Years ago no 
 admission to such as ourselves was here allowed, but the value of money is 
 now more sensibly acknowledged by the Mohammedan attendants. Two 
 francs for admission, and half a franc for slippers to our infidel feet, made 
 clear the way for us, as like payments do at St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, 
 and other sacred show-edifices. 
 
 The great sight to be here seen is a broad mass of bare rock nowhere of 
 more than four feet elevation, but more covered with historical memories than 
 any spot in this world. It was here, we are told, that Abraham laid Isaac for 
 an offering. This was " the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite " — bought 
 by David. On this rock the latter sacrificed, and built the "high altar of 
 sacrifice " for his successors. Here the destroying angel stood when about to 
 smite Jerusalem until propitiated by David. It was covered by the Temple of 
 Solomon, and that second one by which the Israelites replaced it, and over it 
 stood once the Temple that the Romans dedicated to Jupiter. Over it now 
 stands the mosque most sacred of all mosques in the eyes of Mohammedans. 
 The reasons whereof are that there are here as many things sacred to Mahomet 
 as there are things sacred to the Greek and Roman faiths in the Church of the 
 Sepulchre. 
 
 This rock of Mount Moriah, as it is called, has a low railing around it, to 
 which worshipping Mohammedans have tied endless rags for some religious 
 reason. In one corner of the rock Hassan points out the footprint of Mahomet, 
 which is very different in size to that shown at Cairo. It was here that he last 
 touched the earth before making his heavenward journey. Near to the foot- 
 print I am shown the handprint of the angel Gabriel, who attended on 
 Mahomet, and who had to hold this rock in its place by main force as it rose 
 to follow the prophet. An aperture in the roof and one in the floor near to 
 this rock are said to be used by good and bad spirits of the upper and nether 
 worlds, and are much respected accordingly. 
 
 In the stone floor, near the entrance to this mosque, is inlet a square block 
 of wood, into which are driven three nails. Not a good Mohammedan but 
 believes that these nails hold the world together ! There were formerly more, 
 but the others have gone, like the lost Pleiad. The world will also go when 
 these three that remain are removed. Near to this is a little vault, where 
 Abraham, David, and Solomon are said to have prayed, and above is the stone 
 where David sat in judgment, and from whence the Mohammedans believe 
 that judgment will one day be passed on all of us. As our St. George came 
 from somewhere in Syria, I am nothing astonished to be shown here the spot 
 where he also said his prayers. 
 
 The little chamber beneath one corner of the mosques is what has been often 
 seen in chromographs and oleographs, made when it was thrown open to 
 general visitors a few years back. It is reached by three or four steps, has a 
 carpet floor, and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. It is the holy of holies to 
 the mosque above, and to pray here is what Mohammedans most desire. _ In 
 David's time it was the pit into which the blood of the sacrifices was drained 
 and their ashes thrown. The former passed through an aperture leading to the 
 Kedron, which aperture the Mohammedans now believe communicates with a 
 much lower place. This mosque is, by the way, not that built by Omar, but 
 only a renewal of it, and not more than one hundred and fifty years old. 
 
Mahomedan Shrines. 409 
 
 Jerusalem has been built and rebuilt so many times that there is thought to 
 be as much of it below the surface as above. Valleys formerly divided the city 
 between Mounts Zion and Moriah that cannot now be traced, so fully have they 
 been filled up. Before going into the Mosque of Aksa we descend some steps 
 near to the south-east corner of the walls, and find ourselves in an underground 
 world, among old walls and pillars of huge dimensions. There is a vastness 
 about everything here, together with a solidity and strength, that Persians, 
 Romans, and Mohammedans have failed to destroy, and only succeeded in 
 Tiiding for a time. Here are fifteen rows of pillars five feet square, and the 
 floor is thirty feet beneath the level of the courtyard above. What these remains 
 represent historians are not. as usual, agreed upon. As we passed up the stairs 
 we were asked to step into an aperture to see the cradle of Jesus ; but as this 
 was a mere form of collecting more money, we passed on, as we did numbers 
 of other times at similar requests. 
 
 The Mosque el Aksa faces that of Omar, and has in it objects of interest to 
 those of Christian and Mohammedan faiths, as likewise, in a different way, to 
 those of neither. The building has been converted to the present purpose from 
 one built for another by Justinian. The credulous and curious can see here the 
 pews of John and Zachariah, the footprint of Jesus, and the spot where that 
 madman Omar, who destroyed the library of the ancient world, prayed on his 
 ceasing from further works of destruction. Remembering what evil he did to 
 the world generally, we feel inclined to do a little prayer on his account on the 
 same spot, but let the good intention go towards further paving, as we hope, his 
 present quarters. 
 
 Near the entrance to this mosque is a well, down which is a side door, if it 
 could only be now found, that leads to what Hassan calls "Gardens of Delight." 
 A Mohammedan drawing water here dropped the backet. He descended by 
 the chain to replace the bucket, when all care for it was replaced by curiosity at 
 a doorway found there. The door yielded to pressure, and led the visitor to 
 gardens paradisaical in their pleasantness — so finding Paradise situated beneath 
 the earth's surface instead of above it. Why he did not remain there has 
 never been properly explained. Captain Cook returned, however, from some 
 very pleasant places that he discovered, and Bonny Kilmeney, we read in the 
 Queen's Wake, voluntarily returned to her village from Fairyland. So returned 
 this Mohammedan, first plucking a leaf which he put behind his ear as proof 
 positive of his discoveries. He took the leaf to Omar, at that time in power, 
 who, remarking from day to day how green it kept, announced the miracle to 
 "his similarly verdant believers. All trace is now alike lost of the door and the 
 leaf, but not of Mahomedan belief in them. 
 
 In this Mosque, or on a part of its site, was the building in which the Knight 
 Templars created by Baldwin, the Crusader, took their degrees, and were girt 
 with the sword and spurs of Godfrey, now kept in the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre. The present building is said to be the work of the Caliph Abdel 
 Melek, in the seventh century. A very fine pulpit, carved at Damascus, is 
 here to be seen, as also near the doorway the tombs of the sons of Aaron, 
 which visitors are expected to regard with reverential feelings. 
 
 We pass convents erected by churches of every faith ; the Roman one of St. 
 Salvador, the Greek one of Constantine, the Armenian one, the Convent of 
 the Cross, and the Syrian one of St. Mark ; also the Church of St. Anne, the 
 mother of the Virgin, built on the spot where she lived with Joachim, her 
 husband, and where Mary was born. The remains of her father are supposed 
 to lie here, but those of St. Anne were removed by Empress Helena, who un- 
 settled, as much as settled, everything hereabout, to Constantinople. Passing on- 
 wards we neglect minor attractions, because it is the day of wailing with the Israel- 
 ites, and we shall see them in crowds at the Place jf Wailing — part of an old wall. 
 
4IO TJie Main Roides Rottnd the JVorld. 
 
 It is doubtful what wall it is, thcugh believed to be part of that ^^■hich 
 enclosed the Temple, which has, every Friday for centuries, been made the 
 scene of this ceremony. Some of the stones in it are of prodigious size. A 
 crowd here assemble once a week, repeating the first, fourth, and fifth verses 
 of the seventy-ninth Psalm. The scene is a very saddening one. Of the six- 
 teen thousand citizens the Jewish population is ten thousand, mostly of Spanish, 
 German, and Polish origin. All the men assembled seemed to be alike in 
 wearing gaberdines, caps edged with fur, and a single short curl on each side 
 of their faces. Women are here also in plenty, and all, men and women, 
 reading or reciting aloud. These people are for the most part supported by 
 contributions from other countries. News of that fact attracts those similarly 
 inclined, and so the number of these paupers is always increasing. Charity is 
 a good thing, but it is not always that it does good. 
 
 I think that fearless John Knox, had he come here, would have felt, 
 more than usual, that he was where he was " demanded of conscience to speak 
 the truth." The wish to do so comes upon one very strongly indeed on leav- 
 ing Jerusalem. I had entered it as a city of shrines, and found it but a city of 
 shows. None, it is said, leave it with the same feelings with which they 
 entered it. Their ideas have meantime much altered. In Coleridge's words, 
 they might say 
 
 " All such have vanish'd, 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason." 
 
 It is to be hoped that there are yet those born into this world of fraud who 
 are as honest as deep-thinking Bentham, and will have nothing to do with 
 that which is in any way tainted. We read that he resigned his profession of 
 the law and all its expectations because he saw things done therein in those 
 days which were explained to him as but forms and fictions, to say nothing 
 stronger of them. He would have none of it, and left the business to those 
 who could swallow what his honest stomach rejected. What would he have 
 said of the Greek and Latin Churches, as shown in their Jerusalem doings? 
 There would have been another good man lost to them to a certainty, and the 
 world would have profited doubtless by the reasons he would have given for 
 it. What offends in Jerusalem are practical and not theoretical matters, and 
 of such only I write. 
 
 There is a bliss of a certain kind about ignorance which Othello best tells us 
 the true value of, and the loss of which was felt in a lesser degree by one who 
 was rudely undeceived as to the reality of Defoe's Crusoe. It was not the 
 pleasant time that evening in the tents that it had been on the previous one. 
 Perhaps we wanted the Consul's company and chat. Maybe we were tired, 
 and then again we may have been disappointed and vexed. '"A wounded 
 spirit who can bear?" There must have been something in that way felt by 
 one of our party, who was unusually morose, and sought solace in violent 
 smoking. I heard him mutter something about having been humbugged, and 
 his future great respect for some American name that sounded like " bunkum," 
 which may have applied to the day's events or what they had called up. We 
 were thinking of our next stage to Bethlehem and the Jordan, and so were 
 busy reading up for the route. One of the party, however, broke silence at 
 last by addressing our dragoman : — 
 
 " Hassan, what do you think of Jerusalem and its ways generally? 
 
 " I think it stinks — all ways." 
 
 " Ves, that is to the outer senses ; but what is in your mind about it ?" 
 
 " To my mind it wants sweeping." 
 
 " Well, yes, no doubt about that ; but how about its people?" 
 
 "Three-fourths of them would, I think, be all the better for a washing." 
 
Our Cyclical Dragoma7i 4 1 1 
 
 " That is, again, as to the exterior. What is your opinion about their 
 general character ?" 
 
 "I think it would be much improved if they were all set to work. You 
 can't expect a city of idle people to do else but mischief." 
 
 "You won't answer to the point any way. How about the holy places — 
 the shrines that you have to-day shown us ? \Yhat was your opinion when 
 you first saw them as we have done ?" 
 
 " That I could make much more money out of the shows if they were under 
 my management than those fellows do." 
 
 " Yery likely ; but they appeal to the eye of Faith, as well as to the pocket. 
 You only take one view of it." 
 
 " They appeal to soap and water, and much want it. The eye of Faith, and 
 all other eyes, could see more of them if they were cleaner !" 
 
 " You fence every question. By ' those fellows ' I suppose you mean the 
 Holy Roman and Greek Churches, and by ' shows ' you mean the shrines ?" 
 
 "Just so ! You can call them what you like. You won't offend me." 
 
 " Hassan, don't play the fool. You are getting absurd now." 
 
 " It is likely enough. Habits are catching, and you can judge by me of the 
 company I have kept. You should have seen some of the people I have 
 brought up here. You would not kiss that cracked marble slab of the Holy 
 Sepulchre, but I have seen others weep upon it, faint on it, and leave a pile of 
 money on it as an offering." 
 
 " If you had the care of the shrines you could perhaps tell something more 
 about them." 
 
 " You heard quite enough for your money. I could tell more perhaps if I 
 were put in charge in place of others. To tell it now would be telling their 
 business and helping to spoil mine !" 
 
 " And yours is only introductory to theirs ?" 
 
 " Well, mine is to take you to Bethlehem and to Jordan, when you have 
 done sight-seeing in the city !" 
 
 It was as talking "shop" to this man to speak with him about Jerusalem and 
 its shrines. The excuse for so wasting time with him was the good one that he 
 was the only English-speaking person we had to converse with. At times I 
 thought, from his fencing answers, that he was a wasted diplomatist, but he was 
 merely the effect of a cause, and had learned his cynical ways, and the world 
 generally and his great contempt for it, in the City of Shrines— and shams. 
 
 For his callous way of answering to earnest inquiry it was, I suppose, a 
 punishment that Hassan, of all of us, was stricken down by fever before morn- 
 ing. We expected the pestilential atmosphere of the pest-house city would 
 knock one of us over, but this man was thought to be too well-seasoned for its 
 touching him. Disease and death make, however, strange choices. Hassan 
 had therefore to provide a substitute for taking us to Bethlehem and the Jordan, 
 and to lie for five days in his tent until the scales of life and death were turned 
 in his favour, ana much expected trouble so saved to us. 
 
 Other two long days were yet given to Jerusalem. To give full effect to the 
 last one, we divided, and wandered al)out each solus. This good idea, in many 
 respects, resulted in my losing myself, and, small as the city was, vainly trying 
 for long to find Joppa gate — no one understanding my elaborate efforts to con- 
 vey the sound of its name in three different ways. It has been a great relief 
 to see Jerusalem even in our hurried way, and so, in feminine language, to get 
 off one's mind the great City of Shrines. For it is that to the Jewish, the 
 Christian, and Mohammedan faiths. Jews and Mohammedans alike worship 
 where stands Mount Moriah and where stood Solomon's Temple, and Mahomet 
 contends here for reverence equally with Christ, and with a far larger number 
 of followers. 
 
412 The iMain Rotites Round tJu World. 
 
 A philosopher would notice how demand has here created supply, and what 
 followers of either faith wanted to idolize has been found for them in this city 
 of faiths and fiddle-faddles. Satiated and disenchanted visitors, which terms 
 include nine-tenths of those who come hither, might suggest another shrine or 
 two that, to their notions, might yet be added, and which only a visit to the 
 scene can suggest. One expects to find the stream pure at its source, however 
 defiled it may become in its onward flow, and so, looking at Jerusalem as a 
 fountain-head, one's disappointment is great indeed. It is but more scales 
 dropped from one's eyes, and more illusions of a lifetime vanished, which, 
 being illusions, are l^etter gone. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 ON Jordan's hard road. 
 
 The morning of our sixth day on Mount Zion sees our tent struck, and a 
 fresh start made. The calvacade of horses, mules, canteen, and baggage 
 passes away from the city gates — outside which a few miserable lepers are, as 
 usual, sitting — and moves onwards now for Bethlehem, the valley of the 
 Jordan, the Wilderness of Judea, Jericho, and the Dead Sea. Our sick 
 dragoman stays behind in his tent. We are going to an oppressive, unhealthy 
 district, that would but add further trouble to his fever-stricken state. Not a 
 pleasant look-out for us certainly, but then nothing is so to a Palestine 
 traveller. A Scotch clergyman whom we met in Joppa and afterwards in 
 Jerusalem, we passed now on his way back agam, though he had spoken at 
 Joppa of making a month's stay. His enthusiasm had quite evaporated. He 
 said that he preferred something more refined, and " Eh, mon, Jerusalem's a 
 filthy place !" 
 
 Our horses were quite frisky after their three days' rest, and had a great 
 kick up among themselves and the mules before the saddles were all on. It 
 was necessary afterwards to keep a horse-length distance apart between them, 
 or they would be nipping at each other, and a bitten horse shies to all sides on 
 the smart of the moment. As much of the journey lay along the edge of 
 ravines and other precipitous ground, such playfulness was dangerous. The 
 heavily-laden mules, with hundredweights on their backs, attended better to 
 business, scurrying along with never a stumble over the worst road that was 
 ever travelled. It was curious to see how carefully on turning rocky corners 
 they measured their burden and the projecting rock — so avoiding a collision 
 that would have sent them sideways many hundred feet below. A mule hurries 
 along to be rid of his burden, and leaves aside all nonsense until that is effected. 
 It is something dangerous then to come within kicking distance of him. Strange 
 are the habits with which the otherwise unoccupied time of animals is filled. 
 While a mule is playing around with his heels, our Syrian donkeys are always 
 scratching their ears with them. 
 
 An addition of importance has been made to our number. It is in the 
 person of an armed and mounted Arab sheik, who has to be answerable for 
 our safety for the next week. He is a chief of the tribe among whom we have 
 to travel — a lawless set of men who disdain labour, and make raids upon 
 their neighbours and travellers in the fashion of the old feudal barons, and the 
 banditti of Italy and Greece. Another terror was thus added to the excursion 
 in addition to its unhealthy aspect and toilsome road. 
 
A Taciturn Guide. 
 
 413 
 
 In place of our sick dragoman a new guide, one Elias, has been given to us, 
 who proves to be a great falling-off. lie could speak some English, but took 
 a long time to remember it, and the words never seemed to come willingly. 
 He was a man of such silence that it was difficult to get anything out of him. 
 In remembrance of Solomon's assertion about a still tongue and its indicated 
 wisdom, we expected great things from him, but his silence was only a part of 
 his stupidity. His wits were torpid as his tongue, and he was altogether a 
 gross fraud as a guide. When he spoke it was in a chest voice, and his words 
 never seemed to come fully out. The horses had to be often stopped, that the 
 clattering of their heels might not prevent the wished-for reply Irom being only 
 half heard. 
 
 LEPERS OUTSIDE THE CITY GATES. 
 
 " Elias, what is the name of that range of hills seen through that gap 
 yonder ? 
 
 As usual, no answer came, and I was satisfied to go on, but the Americans 
 with me were of more inquiring minds, and wanted their money's worth out of 
 this new oracle. 
 
 " Elias, what is that range of hills yonder? What's their name — those away 
 there ? " 
 
 Slowly at last came the answer, "The mountains of (something)." 
 
4 1 4 The Main Routes Round the World 
 
 " The mountains of what ? — Speak out." 
 
 Then slower still, and with no waste of breath in repeating the whole sen- 
 tence, came, as a grunt from his stomach, the missing word " Moab ! " 
 
 We valued what we got from this source — there was so little of it. There 
 was no changing Elias now, and he was to be our sole means of communicating 
 with the world for days to come, as the sheik, in addition to riding always 
 ahead, spoke only Arabic, as did the rest of those with us. It was a bad look- 
 out for our inquiring minds altogether, to have the sole source of information 
 run so dry. We looked at him riding there silently amongst us as a sullen, 
 sulky being, who could have contributed much wanted information if he 
 had liked. In point of fact he could do nothing of the sort, and was simply 
 stupid. 
 
 Of what little was to be got much use was made. The information lately 
 received trickled away through all the morning's talk, my facetious friends, the 
 Americans, rehearsing the manner and repeating the matter of it in various 
 comical ways. Conversation, never mind about what, always led up to and 
 finished with the fact that the hills ahead were the Moabite Mountains — if it 
 were not interrupted half-way by that interjection as a piece of novel informa- 
 tion. The humour that could be thus got from his scanty intelligence and 
 the imitations of his style of giving it were alike lost upon our stolid Elias. 
 
 Bethlehem, most famous among the birth-places of the world, was to be our 
 midday halt. The badness of the road caused delay, as also the picturesque 
 tomb of Rachel, which is quite a landmark on the journey, " a little way from 
 Bethlehem " as we read of it in Genesis. There is no doubt about its genuine- 
 ness, and it is in good preservation. The fields about here are cultivated as 
 much as the many stones and poor soil will permit. We see men working in 
 the fields, much as Jacob laboured therein for the fourteen long years which he 
 served for her whose tomb we now look at. Nothing is near to it. Unlike tombs 
 hereabout, it is quite isolated, and in appearance might be taken for an anti- 
 quated stone-built hut, and for such purpose it is now used. As it serves 
 better for an excuse for stopping than do many sights, we linger about it as a 
 reason for a rest. 
 
 Nearing Bethlehem, we are surrounded with chubby-faced shoeless girls, 
 who run towards us with stone water-bottles. The drink so tendered is a 
 polite way of obtaining that "backsheesh" which absorbs their thoughts. 
 The trouble is to choose which bottle to take and not sadden the pleasant up- 
 turned faces all around. A little soap and water applied to them, and decent 
 frocks, would make them tidy-looking English girls. Their mountain home 
 has given them a fair complexion, and as Bethlehemites they are of Christian 
 faith. These water-carriers increase as we go onwards, and form quite an 
 escort into the out-of-the-way, poor, little, antiquated, miserable, immortal 
 village. 
 
 Bethlehem, that was called " of Judea," to identify it from similarly-named 
 places, has now a name as Birthplace-Bethlehem, that ennobles as much as 
 distinguishes it. "And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, art not the 
 least among the princes of Judah." And yet this hill-top village, now to the 
 pilgrim second only to Jerusalem, was of note in David's time, and it was in 
 the fields that we look upon from its side that he tended sheep, and, as other 
 shepherds have done, cultivated that minstrelsy for which he was afterwards 
 famous. He knew the sweetness of its water also, and recalled it in that trying 
 hour of death when the best remembrances of our youth ever come back to us. 
 Of his last words, as told in the last chapter but one of the Book of Samuel, 
 we read : — And David longed and said, "Oh, that one would give me drink 
 of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate!" We ask nothing 
 bout the source of the water with which we had been welcomed on our nearing 
 
In Bethlehem. 
 
 415 
 
 from 
 
 the village, that the pleasing illusion might not be destroyed of its cominc^ 
 David's Well, as it very probably did. 
 
 It is a stone-built collection of ground-floor cottages, this Bethlehem, on the 
 brow of a hill having a far-out look over broad valleys in which is much culti- 
 vated land. It is a clean and decent place compared to odoriferous Jerusalem, 
 and, viewed with the eyes that have lately seen ruinous and deserted Bethany, 
 it is quite alive and modern in its aspect. In the yard of a large convent we 
 tether the horses, and are hospitably allowed the use of a good room for 
 luncheon. The convent adjoins the Greek Church, which is built over that 
 manger with the name of which the ends of the earth are acquainted. 
 
 The Empress Helena, of course, built the church over the supposed Grotto 
 of the Nativity here, as she did over that of the so-called sepulchre at Jerusalem. 
 
 BETHLEHEM. 
 
 A "grotto," it is explained to us, is, in Syrian meaning, a hole in the rocks, a 
 cavern such as the one we had pointed out to us near Jerusalem as that in which 
 Jeremiah wrote his Lamentations, and as others known now by many names 
 around the foot of the Mount of Olives. As we saw there about Siloam, these 
 caverns are used for sheltering cattle and horses, and hence may be called 
 " mangers." It is over one of these holes in the rock on which Bethlehem 
 stands that the Church of the Nativity has been raised, embedded, as it were, 
 in three surrounding convents belonging to the Greek, Roman, and Armenian 
 Churches. Accompanied by two monks, we pass down the steps leading to the 
 manger, now dignified as a grotto, and look upon a cavity perpetually lighted, 
 and gaudily overloaded with ornament. An altar-piece stands in front of this 
 Shrine of the Nativity, service at which we are told is of special efiicacy — or 
 believed by some to be so. 
 
 The Greek Church has got this Shrine of the Nativity in a sort of limited 
 partnership with the Armenian one, which has but a small share in it. The 
 Roman Church, not to be outdone, has built adjoining to it a chapel of another 
 shrine, that of the hiding-place of the mother and child for forty days from the 
 
41 6 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 wrath of Herod before the flight into Egypt. The Greek Church has trumped 
 or supplemented that with "The Ahar of the Innocents," beneath which are 
 said to be collected the bones of 20,000 of the murdered firstborn, and over 
 which is a daub of a painting illustrative of the tragedy. Everything is made 
 sacred hereabout. I am next shown, of all queer places, the " Chapel of 
 Joseph," another grotto of a place, to which the nurses enforced his retirement 
 on the eventful occasion. 
 
 The tomb of St. Jerome is next shown to us, as also the apartment allotted 
 to him in the church here, in which he settled soon after its founding, and is 
 said to have written those works that constitute him the first of the Fathers of 
 the Church. The subdivisions of the holy places hereabout are jealously 
 guarded, and quarrels occur about the use of doorways and the keeping of 
 keys. It requires such a fact as that, which Kinglake records as the cause 
 of the Crimean War, to convince one of the stupendous importance of these 
 seemingly out-of-the-world old shrines. 
 
 The three thousand people of Bethlehem are chiefly agriculturists, but a few 
 devote themselves to memento-making. The olive-trees supply a good carving 
 wood for crosses, crucifixes, and other memorials of the place. Mother- 
 of-pearl shells are also cleverly cut with representations of raised figures — that 
 of Leonardo da Vinci's " Last Supper " being the favourite. Their cheapness 
 does not deteriorate from their goodness. Commercially considered, a trade 
 might seemingly be done in these elegancies. 
 
 To go down the stairs, following the steps of the monk, and gaze upon a 
 gaudily bedizened hole in the rocks, is seeing Bethlehem's great attraction; but 
 the greater one, to some eyes, lies outside and around. Bethlehem stands upon 
 the far end of a branch of the great range on which stands Jerusalem, and 
 along which we have travelled all the morning. It looks down in front and 
 both sides over terraces of vines and olives to cornfields beyond. These vine- 
 yards and cornfields look now, there is but little question, much as they did 
 when all the events occurred connected with them that we now turn to read 
 about in the four chapters of that little pleasant idyl called the Book of Ruth, 
 placed as a light interlude between the grave historical reading of Judges and 
 Samuel. 
 
 It was in the way that we have journeyed that Joseph came up from Nazareth, 
 as we read in the second chapter of Luke, "to be taxed, with Mary, his 
 espoused wife," on that lately issued "decree of Cresar Augustus, that all 
 the world should be taxed," told of in the first verse of such chapter, and 
 which decree seems never to have been repealed. Hither coming for such 
 cause, they here tarried until that event occurred which was angelically 
 announced to the shepherds in yonder fields, and heralded by the star over- 
 head here in the sky that led "wise men from the East" to Jerusalem 
 and thence hitherwards, inquiring into its cause. The inhabitants of Bethlehem 
 that we now see are doubtless many of them descendants of those dwelling 
 here when those events occurred. Any change in Bethlehem's characteristics 
 seems impossible. It is out of all the world's course — a little hill-top corner 
 on the road to nowhere, and even out of our way as we take it on the journey on- 
 wards to Jordan. 
 
 From Bethlehem our course now lies down steep inclines and over loose 
 stones that seem perversely to lie thicker in the bridle tracks than elsewhere. 
 Buonaparte said that in Poland he had discovered a new element — that of mud. 
 He might have found an additional one here, and throughout Syria, in the loose 
 boulders that crowd the surface. Riding becomes irksome — not to say sleepy 
 —work at last, and so I get down from the saddle, and stumble about among 
 the stones, with the bridle on my arm, until such stumbling exertions bursts 
 the sides of my boots. 
 

 liiiiili;,,, 
 lliii 
 
 11 
 
 I: 
 
 I „^^_^^^^, 
 
 liiiiiilillliiili! 
 
 Ijiiiilli 
 iliii 
 
A Punishing Period. . 417 
 
 The valley of the Jordan, into which we are descending, becomes very 
 oppressive in that heat which we had not so much of on the hill tops. All 
 verdure begins to leave the scenery, and the whitish glare of the limestone 
 surface all around becomes painful to the eyes. I imitate the sheik's head-dress, 
 by putting a handkerchief partly within my hat, and letting the balance hang 
 down over neck and ears. Now the green-faced goggles bought at Cairo come 
 into use, and afford real relief. Jordan's Valley is really hard travelling, and 
 brings the stoutest to terms. Even taciturn Elias spoke out, as feeling himself 
 forced to interest us. 
 
 "Here," said he, pointing down a deep ravine, "is the Brook Cherith, 
 beside which Elijah was fed by birds !" 
 
 We did not get at the matter all at once, as he uttered it only by instal- 
 ments. The water was not visible as yet, which confused the statement ; but we 
 should see it further onwards. It looks, all about, the sort of district in 
 which if a man could live at all, he would require supernatural sustenance. 
 Naturally he would die, and the sooner the better, in this howling wilderness. 
 As we got deeper into it the heat became more palpable, and the declivities so 
 steep and stony that out of respect to our necks we preferred the labour of 
 scrambling about on foot and leading the horses. 
 
 Others had suffered on this road, and thought kindly of those who might 
 follow them. A Russian lady, whose name I did not learn, but hope that 
 Heaven will not forget, had six years before made the pilgrimage we are 
 doing, on her way to that baptismal place at which John the Baptist made his 
 greatest baptism on Jordan's bank. .Such is customary with the devotees of 
 the Greek Church. On her return she had caused two thousand pounds to be 
 laid out over the improvement of this hill and valley track. She might as 
 well have left it in reduction of the national debt, for any permanent good that 
 it has done. Any believer in the efficacy of good works has here a splendid 
 opportunity to follow suit to that generous Muscovite. Some thousands laid 
 out here would take first rank among those deeds that we are taught are 
 remembered, even to "a cup of water," in the great Hereafter. 
 
 Elias becomes again vocal at the sight of an opening in the surrounding 
 hills. He leaves the side of the sheik, and comes back upon us, pointing to a 
 glittering spot to be seen through the gap. 
 
 " The Dead Sea" is all that he says, or rather grunts, and then falls again 
 into file. 
 
 We are dl by this time — the oppressive afternoon — beginning to thoroughly 
 understanc the worship of Baal in these parts in olden days. He was a Sun 
 deity. In this country, as also in Egypt, stood an Heliopolis, or City of the 
 Sun, with a great temple for its worship as chief building. We know now, to 
 the full, ill this April day in the valley of the Jordan, why the ancient Syrians 
 worshipped the sun-god. He makes his great power so supremely felt alone 
 here in the wilderness that he is everything above and about one in the awe- 
 inspiring silence and stillness that reign around. As he crushes you, as it 
 were, in his awful power, your thoughts are filled with his immense might, to 
 the exclusion of all else. Bowing to that might, and trembling before such 
 majesty, what wonder that men prayed for his pity? 
 
 A poet whose words are known better than his name, has said that "Jordan 
 is a hard road to travel." He had been this way, no doubt, and, as another 
 poet said, had learnt in suffering what he taught in song. There is suffering 
 enough got on this journey to satisfy any poetical soul. If it cannot find 
 vent in song, it is apt to do so in swearing ; but poetry is better than profanity, 
 which again may be said to depend upon its quality. We are all now as silent as 
 our Elias — quite baked and done up with excessive heat and weariness. We 
 began to perceive the wisdom of our sick dragoman in getting sick, and stopping 
 
 C C 
 
4i8 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 behind in his cooler tent on Mount Zion. Talleyrand always would have it 
 that there were diplomatic reasons for sicknesses of every sort. When we 
 afterwards dilated on our troubles to him, Hassan was as practical in his 
 remarks as he had been about Joshua and the Valley of Ajalon. He merely 
 said, " Didn't you know that hard work wasn't easy?" 
 
 We begin to notice now for what purpose our sheik was provided. Several 
 most villainous-looking men have been met, with ugly weapons which increased 
 the doubts begat of their dangerous looks. They were of the sort that one 
 does not like to meet out of handcuffs — a kind of half Bedoueen, having none 
 of the good qualities of either citizen or savage. The people of the Jericho 
 district, upon which we are about entering, are of the vilest to be found in 
 Palestine — lazy vagrants who are utterly demoralized. In such we see that 
 climate helps to make man's nature. These people live in the locality where 
 stood Sodom and Gomorrah, " Cities of the Plain." All the evils character- 
 izing those suppressed cities still survive among the inhabitants of their former 
 neighbourhood. They are in appearance twice as dark-looking as the 
 Bethlehemites, but the heat of this valley would bake and blacken ariyone. 
 
 Two of these ill-looking vagrants, carrying long guns, now join our sheik, 
 and march by his side. We appeal to Elias as to the meaning of it. After 
 due rumination he digests our question, and from his stomach slowly comes — 
 
 " Guards for the tents to-night, to assist the sheik !" 
 
 "Are three armed guards required ?" 
 
 " Yes ! Jericho bad place ! all bad people !" 
 
 The day's trouble had been enough, and no need for this dismal prospect of 
 the night. The unalterable character of everything in the East was well illus- 
 trated in this instance, as it is in a dozen others daily. It is all here now the 
 same as it was two thousand years ago, when " a certain man went down to 
 Jericho, and fell among theives." One of our inquiring friends hazards a 
 query — 
 
 "Elias, can you show us at Jericho where the Good Samaritan got into 
 trouble ?" 
 
 " Good Samaritan, sir?" 
 
 " Yes, the man you read of in the New Testament in connexion with Jericho 
 and thieves !" 
 
 "New Testament, sir?" 
 
 " Go to — Jericho ! Go on !" 
 
 And this man was to be our guide to holy places, and to have food and 
 lodging and seven and sixpence a day ! 
 
 We get to the end of the hills and ravines at last, and come out upon a wide 
 stony plain, having some scattered and dried-up tufts of coarse grass about. 
 A large mud-coloured grasshopper is occasionally to be seen here. We shake 
 up Elias on the subject, and he says, at last, after the usual rumination, 
 "locusts!" 
 
 This is, then, the insect of which we read such mysterious and terrible 
 things in the first and second chapters of that entomological book of Joel. 
 "The land is a garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate 
 wilderness — yea, and nothing shall escape them !" Reading thus, the desola- 
 tion hereabout is well accounted for. Nothing has escaped them, and they keep 
 around to see that nothing shall. " The sound of their wings is as the sound 
 of chariots — of many horses running to battle. ... On the tops of the 
 mountains shall they leap. . . . They shall run like mighty men, and 
 climb the wall like men of war !" 
 
 These locusts are the edible insects upon whose ancestors John the Baptist 
 fed when here, and not upon the beans of the carob or locust-tree, as we have 
 heard expounded. That tree did not grow in Syria. Its locality at that time 
 
The True Value of Water. 419 
 
 was confined to its native South-western America, a country not then opened 
 to visitors from Judea. They neither had everything, nor, as an American 
 poet has remarked, did they know everything, "down in Judee." 
 
 The "wild honey " that helped out John's repast was obtained from the 
 caves and clefts in the rocks around, as it is similarly found in India. Where 
 the bees could have got it from, hereabout, in the desolation, is another and 
 an insoluble query. Nature, to protect these terrible locusts, has coated them 
 of the colour of the dried-up earth on which they hop. Beneath that covering, 
 however, are all the colours of the rainbow, and wings which the butterflies 
 cannot excel. To uncover one is like to taking a homespun cloak from off a 
 ball-room belle. The Arabs dry them, rub their remains into powder, and 
 bake them as cakes. As they are — similarly to the grasshopper — as clean 
 feeders as sheep, there is no reason against their edibihty. I put one of them 
 into the tin goggle-box and stamp a hole in it for ventilation. If it has lived 
 on the nothingness seen hereabout it can live just as well on the emptiness 
 there, as indeed it appeared to do. 
 
 The sheik faces about now to point out a larger view of the Dead Sea, and 
 to tell us, through Elias, that we are now on the spot where one Sir Fred. 
 Henniker, who attempted this journey unprotected, was robbed and half- 
 murdered. That was only told us to make us proud of our escort, but we learnt 
 afterwards that it was quite true. The men whom we have passed on the way 
 looked indeed capable of murder or of anything else short of washing themselves. 
 
 It is now six p.m., and we have been twelve hours in the saddle, allowing 
 thereout the time spent at Bethlehem. It had been, by badness of road and 
 oppressive heat, altogether too much for those accustomed only to eight hours' 
 labour. We know, however, on Shakspeare's authority, that "The labour we 
 delight in physics pain." It had physicked us, at all events, and there was yet 
 much pain left about. When those who had stuck to the saddle all the journey 
 tried their legs again, it was comical to notice how they waddled. 
 
 A few stunted bushes are to be seen ahead, and we become aware of the 
 delicious music of bubbling water. It is soon in sight — a glorious rushing 
 stream, crystally clear, that comes, cascade-like, leaping and dancing over a 
 shallow stony bed. To our eyes, bleared with heat and inhospitable stones and 
 rocks, it was a heavenly prospect. Our half-dumb oracle tells us what it is — 
 
 "The Brook Cherith, Elijah's brook!" 
 
 The mules have crossed it, never staying to drink, as is their fashion, but no 
 whip or knocking of the fire-shovel stirrups to their sides could get the horses 
 over it. and they rushed into it before we could dismount. As it seemed likely 
 that they would never cease drinking, and we could wait no longer, we got otf 
 and joined them, the water, reaching not quite to our knees, cooling our feet. 
 We subsequently put our half-baked heads into it, and had great ideas of lying 
 down in it altogether, so delicious was the taste of the water, and so exquisite 
 the sound, sight, and feel of it. We four strangers, in a while to be scattered 
 in distant lands, found " this brook Cherith" as great a blessing as did Elijah. 
 For him it dried up, but in our memories it never will. We did our best to dry 
 it up, though, in the quantities we drank of it, upon the amount of which we 
 could never agree as to a gallon or two. 
 
 Before any one lectures on temperance and the virtues of water, he should 
 journey in southern Palestine, and get to Cherith, as we did, and at about the 
 same time of the year and the day. He could there drink in inspiration and 
 water combined. What can one know of the goodness and graciousness of 
 water when ever within arm's length of it ? Let a body journey for long hours 
 under a Syrian sun, never seeing or tasting what he so longs for, and then let 
 him loose in it ! It affected our dumb oracle. He grunted out " Very good," 
 which was for him a prodigality of English altogether. Our great thirst was 
 
 C C 2 
 
420 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 probably intensified by the atmosphere being loaded with the evaporation of 
 that neighbouring chemical composition called the Dead Sea. 
 
 By the time we get on again, our mules have disappeared over a ridge, on 
 reaching the top of which we see our very welcome camping-ground. Our 
 tents are pitched by the side of another crystal stream issuing from a neighbour- 
 ing rock, and called Elijah's Fountain. It were better that these two water- 
 supplies had been further apart, but we are glad to get them anyhow, and feel as 
 if we could, in fashion of other and older days, stay about them altogether, 
 and settle a township here. 
 
 Before us lies a mile or more of bush and scrub. Beyond that are the tops 
 of the huts of the people of Jericho. Away, a mile further from their locality, 
 runs the Jordan, and those hills which so obscure all view beyond, and wall in 
 the far side of the famous river, are what we had heard of all the morning, 
 and are not likely soon to forget — the mountains of Moab. Every hill and 
 declivity all around have names which we learned next to those in our spelling- 
 books. We seem, in thinking of them all, to have got back to some old home 
 of ours, and look about for the white heads and spectacled eyes of the good 
 grandfathers and grandmothers which these names, so early learnt at their 
 knees, seem also to recall. 
 
 In the waste that is all around, this encampment of ours makes quite a 
 rival village to little Jericho. On a hilltop to our immediate rear our pro- 
 tectors have already mounted guard. They have made a mia-mia, in 
 aboriginal Australian fashion, of three poles surrounded with branches and 
 sticks from the scrub. Their dark figures stand out boldly in relief against the 
 evening sky, and they will remain where we see them until we break up camp 
 in two days' time. They draw their nourishment meantime from our canteen, 
 where, by the way, the sheik is to be seen much oftener than upon the 
 hill. 
 
 Our cook was at his best this evening, and got greater praises than usual. 
 How he managed to do so much with so little aid was not easily under- 
 standable. I saw once a conjuror producing omelettes from the interior of my 
 hat, so that I know that the art of cookery has mysteries. Our Antoine could, 
 I believe, do much more in a similar way, and call it cooking and not con- 
 juring. Our tea tasted deliciously, but the cups seemed to our thirst to hold 
 but a spoonful. It was necessary to restore by much absorption the quantity 
 of moisture evaporated during the day, so that this incessant swilling of the 
 tea kept us all pretty silent that evening. To avoid the heat of noonday in 
 this oven-like valley, we are to start at three next morning, and so steal a 
 march on the sun on our way to that Dead Sea which is the next item in our 
 programme, and called Lot's Sea by our Arabs. 
 
 That is to say, we shall do so if the descendants of the Amalekites, the 
 grandchildren of Esau hereabout, will but let us. And yet our Consul at 
 Jerusalem would have it that travellers in Syria might trust better for kindness 
 to others than Christians. The latter will not, he said, as hosts be always 
 found the most honest or hospitable. The Turk, he tells me, observes his 
 religious teaching, and shapes his doings to the approval of his conscience. 
 For that reason he will not drink wine or steal, and though he may have worse 
 faults, he is patience itself in his good-humoured endurance. The word of a 
 Turk may be taken more generally than that of others. Such is due to re- 
 ligious sincerity, which also, alas ! drives them to sad hatred and aggression on 
 those of other faiths. 
 
 The Koran directs that any religion having written records of its faith 
 claiming inspired authority shall be respected, which would seem to give the 
 Jews and Christians a good right to dwell unmolested among Mohammedans, 
 especially as they all alike take the Old Testament as a text-book. That is 
 
World- Famous Waters. 421 
 
 the theory, but in practice human nature is found to be stronger than religious 
 instruction, and those not wholly of one faith do not make a happy household 
 anywhere in the world. It comes to a cat-and-dog life, and ''the dog of a 
 Christian" gets often sadly scratched sometimes by the claws of the velvet- 
 pawed Turk. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 BY THE DEAD SEA SHORE, 
 
 Judging by the hour of the early morning at which we had to turn out, we 
 might have been going to see the University boat-race on the Thames instead 
 of the famous Biblical waters of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. Getting up in 
 the middle of the night to dress for anything is one way of adding to the 
 novelty which increases its importance. And yet these waters — the sacred river 
 and the accursed sea — could not be called novelties. They were antiquated 
 indeed, to judge only by the time that we had been acquainted with their 
 names — from the earliest days of infant-school. It was a case of dressing by 
 candlelight at three a.m., and it remained to be seen if, in French phraseology, 
 the game was worth the candle. 
 
 Outside the tents we stumbled about over their ropes in the darkness. 
 These ropes were always a trouble after the sun went down. They were peg- 
 ged so much one within the lines of the others that quite a network awaited 
 our feet. As no moon rose to help us, I protested against a roadless journey 
 in the outer darkness. The travelling was difficult and dangerous enough 
 when the way was visible, and needed no absence of light to make it more so. 
 It was a bad neighbourhood also to have to stay in if one happened to get a 
 fractured limb. With such thoughts, our breakfast was got through in a state 
 of gloom in which we could scarcely distinguish the sugar from the salt. 
 Being out-voted on the question of waiting for daylight, we all started at four 
 a.m. on a journey that added darkness as another terror to the name of that 
 Dead Sea, which we learn from Elias might reasonably have an addition made 
 to it, implying condemnation in addition to death. 
 
 The services of some of our Arabs not being required for the day, as we shall 
 return to this camping-ground again for the night, they sleep peaceably on, in 
 which repose I am tired enough to envy them. After the fatigue of yester- 
 day's toil I feel as wanting about a week's rest ; but I have signed the bond, and 
 am in the land of covenants and of penalties for breach of them. As a warn- 
 ing against going back from such, there is somewhere hereabout the remains of 
 that pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned for that looking back which 
 might have had good feminine reasons other than the one for which she was so 
 summarily judged. It is not always, as lago says, to "see suitors following" 
 that the look behind is given ; oftener than anything else it is but to see the 
 set of the pannier or the trail of the skirt. 
 
 The scene of this transformation of Lot's wife we shall expect to have shown 
 to us. If not, the locality is open for selection anywhere hereabout, and the 
 spot can be decreed by any of us as certainly as three-fourths of what has been 
 none in that way by the Empress Helena and the subsequent Crusaders. It is 
 noticeable that many of our Arab attendants sleep upon Jacob's pillow — a single 
 stone beneath their heads. Such gives them, let me hope, similar dreams, and 
 
42 2 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 that these heirs to a hard life mount Jacob's ladder nightly to that heavenly 
 sleep which Shakspeare tells us only those who so work can enjoy. The most 
 wondrous imagination ever given to man failed to find out a pleasanter reward 
 than this for the hard labour of him who 
 
 "Toils all day in the eye of Phosbus, 
 And sleeps in Elysium." 
 
 By day-dawn, in two hours' time, we find ourselves no further advanced on the 
 way, apparently, than we had been at the start. Distances are deceptive in lands 
 of clear atmosphere, and this sea is a large sheet of water forty-five miles or 
 more in length, and so visible very far off. Where we now rode along was in 
 a valley nearly thirteen hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean. 
 Forewarned by the experiences of yesterday, it was noticeable how each of us 
 was particular to stick bottles of water about him in convenient pockets. Such 
 care was found to be not wasted. 
 
 It was nearly nine o'clock when we dismounted on the shore of that 
 mysterious sea that is popularly believed to entomb for ever Sodom and 
 Gomorrah. The distance to it from our camp must have been much greater 
 than represented. Two white-skinned men were bathing at one part of the 
 shore, who should, in the order of things unlikely that always happen, 
 have turned out to be known to some one of us, but were not so. We had 
 reached that end of the sea in which, to one side of us, the Jordan empties 
 itself, and so had a full view up the length of it so far as eyesight could reach. 
 It lies from this point of view walled up, east and west, between high barren 
 hills of grey limestone as far as can be seen southward. We stood at its northern 
 and narrowest end, and looked at the beautifully clear and cool water that 
 wooed us, siren-like, to its bosom — very siren-like, as I afterwards found it. 
 
 Everybody that comes hither bathes in the Dead Sea, and there were reasons 
 for our doing so after our yesterday's ride, quite apart from merely following 
 fashion. I had heard at Jerusalem of the powerfully curative properties of this 
 water. One of the consuls there had told me of a cure worked by it on the 
 chronic sore throat of a relative. Affections of the joints and the spine, as also 
 sciatica and rheumatism fled before, or rather after, its use. If the first bath 
 failed, a course of six was infallible. Reason seemed to say that such was 
 not unlikely. The Jordan's sacred and cleansing waters ran into it. It had 
 itself, in popular belief, been heaven-sent as a completion of the destruction of 
 those cities that the " fire rained down " had not finished. 
 
 Part of the curative powers of this sea might be attributable, therefore, to 
 the waters of the Jordan, to which Naaman was sent to be cured of his 
 leprosy. If to " wash and be clean " could there be realized in his fearful and 
 humanly-incurable disease, its healing powers must have been great indeed — 
 judging by what we had seen of Eastern leprosy lately. If we had sought more 
 reasons for the medicinal value of these waters, they might be deduced from 
 their otherwise useless and pernicious character. They serve no commerce, 
 produce no fish, feed no birds, float no boats, grow no coral or vegetable pro- 
 duct. No shells adorn their shores. The one purpose of these waters in this 
 world could not have been to cover up "the cities of the plain," and thence- 
 forth lie useless for ever. It was too great a means to so small an end, and in 
 nature we are learning that nothing is useless, though much may seem to be 
 prodigally wasted. 
 
 Among the shingle and sand on the shore are some pieces of blackened drift- 
 wood that in the rays of the fierce sun glitter with salts. Of the clear, tempting- 
 looking water before one, no less than 25 per cent, is salts in solution. To fill 
 a tumbler with it is to obtain, when left to settle, a quarter of a tumbler of salts. 
 I taste of it, as I take it up by hand, and I find it of intense combined 
 
Strange Bathing. 423 
 
 sal+ness and bitterness. Its flavour can be realized by mixing a tablespoonful 
 of Epsom salts and one of common salt with a pill of pitch and a teaspoonful 
 of magnesia in half a tumbler of any other water. The result will be a glass 
 of clear water to the eye, and to the taste it will be Dead vSea water, and 
 simply detestable. 
 
 The umbrellas have to be hoisted as we look at the scene around, and there- 
 with compare those readings which have qualified us as scriptural lay readers for 
 the rest of our lives. The exhalations from the salt lake hang in the heated atmo- 
 sphere, and there seems to shimmer and scintillate. From yonder hills Abra- 
 ham looked down upon the plain of the Jordan, and saw it as the fairest of 
 gardens. That was before the destruction of the cities which stood in the 
 place of this Dead Sea. I had always understood, and so had my travelling 
 companions, that this sea covered the remains of that Sodom and Gomorrah, 
 the destruction of which, with other equally curious matters, we read in the 
 nineteenth chapter of Genesis. My American friends are practical men, and 
 not satisfied easily with what they have heard and read of this scene — and what 
 they now see. The Dead Sea, as we now look on it, is walled in by rocks on 
 either side, and lies for its whole forty-five miles or more of length in a pit 
 forming a large inland lake. The rapid rolling Jordan feeds it daily with a 
 supply which the powerful sun is for ever evaporating. 
 
 The Dead Sea and the Jordan, as we now see them, are presumably as they 
 have been from the beginning of the present geological formation of the world. 
 The Jordan always ran into this sea, and could run nowhere else, and Sodom 
 and Gomorrah must, by all reasoning, have been floating cities on the Dead 
 Sea surface, if they now lie beneath its waters ! We are not clear where we 
 all got the idea of these cities lying buried here, but it has been a point of 
 belief with all of us which here gets a very rude shock. Unfortunately for us, 
 Hassan, who so cleared up our difficulty at Ajalon about Joshua and the sun, 
 is left behind sick at Jerusalem. Had he been here, the seemingly crooked 
 thing would have been set straight in a few words that would, perhaps, have 
 had as much sense in them as anything else that could be said on the subject. 
 Until we meet him, we have put the question to a suspense account in a list of 
 notes and queries which one of us has opened on that blank sheet of our Bible 
 separating the two Testaments. 
 
 We now undress and stumble over the shingle, and so into the water, carry- 
 ing our umbrellas as protection to our heads. Elias pumped out words enough 
 to tell us that we must do so, as we shall not be able to get more than half of 
 our bodies covered by the water at any one time, so unnaturally buoyant is it. 
 We find it to be so, and all efforts at swimming in it are thrown away. To 
 flounder about is all one can do. We try to "tread water," balancing our- 
 selves with outstretched arms, but our feet are soon thrown up to the surface, 
 on which we have to lie on our backs. One of us tries to ride a horse into the 
 mixture, but nothing can induce the sagacious creature to come within a yard 
 of this water. We learn afterwards that horses cannot swim in it any more 
 than men, but roll about and drown. 
 
 An ailment in the left shoulder had bothered me for the past six months. 
 Finding I could, as one of our party said, " make no sense of the water" in the 
 bathing way, I used it as embrocation to the affected shoulder, sitting down in 
 it as I did so. I had not been able to lift that left arm more than half way, or 
 lie on that shoulder, for the rheumatic stiffness that had for months troubled it. 
 A false step or jerk of any kind gave it an aching pain. In thus using Lot's 
 sea for hydropathic purposes I was following advice given elsewhere, and 
 stopped for more than half an hour soaking in the strong chemical mixture of 
 salt, soda, bitumen, and sulphur, which, with magnesia, make up so much of 
 this Dead Sea water. 
 
424 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Some of the water splashed into my eyes whilst so engaged, and that finished 
 everything. I thought for the moment, from the fearful smarting that followed, 
 that vitrol at least must have caused it. For a few minutes I could see nothing, 
 and sat howling in darkness. Elias came at last with one of the bottles of 
 water, and I washed out, with that fresh from Elijah's fountain, the briny, burn- 
 ing salts of this terrible sea. As our skins dried in the sun we found that we 
 were all glistening with whitish powder, which Elias said we could only wash 
 off when the Jordan was reached. We were really half-pickled, and our skin 
 smirched all over with patches of chemical deposits, white as if dabbed on from 
 a flour-dredge. We needed scraping down and currying, as is done with 
 horses, and a washing for clearing off the gummy stickiness that had been left 
 on us by this queerest of waters. 
 
 We made use of the sheik by getting Elias to send him, whilst we were 
 bathing, to get a "Dead Sea apple." We had read of them as an eatable- 
 looking fruit that grew hereabout, and when bitten found to contain nothing 
 but emptiness and dust. The sheik brings us three puff balls of a dirty yellow 
 colour, and most uneatable look. The rind being broken, nothing but dust 
 and a seedpod are found within. We put one of these " Apples of Sodom " 
 away in the tin goggle-box, alongside the locust picked up yesterday, and don't 
 care if he eats it. If created for the food of any living thing, this fruit must 
 have been made for that of this all-devouring insect, and those of its kith and 
 kin. 
 
 The Dead Sea was, I thought, a wondrous sheet of water for its historical 
 and chemical characteristics, until I came to see its larger resemblance in the 
 Salt Lake of Utah. That lake is fed by a similar stream of fresh water to the 
 Jordan, which the Mormons have appropriately christened by the same name. 
 Both lakes are of similar saltness and other characteristics, and if we seek 
 further resemblance, it is to be found in the records of the religious sects by 
 which both these waters have been made known to the world. The wilderness 
 journey of the Israelites from Egypt to this neighbourhood was reproduced, in 
 a lesser degree, by that disastrous desert journey made by the Mormon body 
 from Nauvoo to Utah, where they have founded their Salt Lake City. Be- 
 tween the character of the two journeys there is but little to choose in the way 
 of difficulties, dangers, and distance — the American desert journey being, if 
 anything, the worst. Everyone may see that much by a map ; but there are 
 many who have seen, by improved modes of transit, something of what must 
 have been the troublesome realities of both routes in past days. 
 
 This sea has given a deadening influence to all around, though the scene in its 
 stern wildness is very impressive. The tales about its malefic and mephitic 
 exhalations are fabulous. Birds fly across it as they do over other waters, spite 
 of stories to the contrary : but vegetation all about has been burnt up by the 
 heats of the long, scorching summers. The exhalation of the water caused by 
 this heat is said to account for the millions of gallons of water daily emptied 
 into this sea by the Jordan, and also to have promoted the great saltness of it. 
 The water has been drawn up in vapour, while the salt has been left behind, 
 and so accumulated in the countless years. Of the original source of this salt 
 some mounds are visible, Elias tell us, at the further end. 
 
 The greatest width of this rock-enclosed salt lake is nearly eleven miles, and 
 its narrowest, away at the further end from the Jordan, is made much less than 
 half that by a peninsula called the Tongue, which projects half-way across the 
 width of the water there. Some of the peaks of the rock-barriers that wall in 
 this ever-seething sea, as in a cauldron, rise to a height of fully two thousand 
 feet. The silent waveless water so shut in presents a strange, not to say a 
 saddening, sight as a mere spectacle. Its stillness may be helped by its weight, 
 which is said to be heavier than that of any other known water. 
 
I 
 
,^^1M^ 
 
On Jordan's Banks. 425 
 
 Asphalte and sulphur are found washed up on its shores, as jelly-fish and 
 fish-shells are on other sea margins. Ignoring ichthyology altogether, the pro- 
 duce of its chemical waters in place of the fish seem to be salts, brimstone, and 
 bitumen. The strange pickle that suchlike make of it does not prevent the 
 liquid looking as clear and bright to the eye as any of the world's sweet 
 waters. In that respect it is, as I have said, of siren-like seductiveness, and 
 as delusive to man as the mirage which deceives the desert traveller with a 
 promise of watery sustenance which he is never to find. 
 
 The Sea of the Plain, this Dead Sea, or the Salt Sea, as the Scriptures call 
 it, lies in the lowest part of Palestine, at the end of the long ravine-like vale 
 called the Valley of the Jordan, and, as I said before, twelve hundred feet and 
 more below the Mediterranean. It has yet a further twelve hundred feet to 
 many of its depths, and an average of a full thousand throughout. This 
 Asphaltites Lake, as the Romans named it, is puzzling in its aspects alike to 
 the geologist, the geographer, the theologian, the analyst, and the philosopher. 
 There is that in its position, traditions, qualities, and purposes which they can- 
 not get square with all their theories. To mere runabout travellers such as our- 
 selves it is simply the greatest curio among the waters of the world — with which 
 generalizing thought we proceed to bottle it off— by the phial-full. 
 
 Covering our necks with handkerchiefs, sheltering our heads with umbrellas, 
 and our eyes with green goggles, we journey on to the Jordan, the perspiration 
 meanwhile opening the pores of the skin for the freer admission of the exterior 
 pickle. The sea has at sometime overflowed the ground we traverse, as it is 
 all encrusted with saline matter, which cracks beneath the horses' feet. For two 
 hours we go along, our sheik leading, and making for that one camping-place 
 on Jordan's banks which all pilgrims go to — where the traditional baptism of 
 Jesus by John took place. 
 
 To this spot come yearly, in Passion week, pilgrims of the Greek and other 
 churches of Asia and Europe. Here several thousands bivouac for three days, 
 baptizing and bathing, and from here they take away those sacred shrouds 
 soaked in this Jordan water in which they will be buried. They form a pro- 
 cession that is headed, of all people in the world, by the Mohammedan Gover- 
 nor of Jerusalem, accompanied by his guard of honour. It is the only likely 
 spot that we saw for bathing or baptismal purposes — a shelving pebbly bit of 
 beach, sloping gradually beneath the water. A terrific, but very excusable, 
 rush is, we are told, made by these pilgrims to be first in the river, often 
 occasioning fatal results. 
 
 The famous Jordan is about ninety miles in length, springing from Mount 
 Hermon, and running thence to the Lake of Tiberias, or Sea of Galilee, which 
 is merely an expansion of the river, to this inland Dead Sea. It is a fresh- 
 water connexion between these two inland seas, and of the unpleasant colour of 
 the Tiber, but of somewhat greater width and a far stronger current. We saw 
 no navigation on it, and should take it as not used for that purpose from the 
 rapidity of its flow, its fall being eighteen hundred feet from its source to its home 
 in the Dead Sea. Its banks are of soft clays and earth on the side from which 
 we see it. On its other one are the barren rocky sides of the Moabite hills, 
 presenting a contrast to the jungle-covered bank on our side. Further away 
 towards Tiberias this jungle is said to hide wild boars, leopards, and hyenas, 
 who must, judging from the general barrenness of the land, have a hard time 
 of it. 
 
 We sit beneath a shady sycamore on Jordan's banks, in a bend of the river, 
 and eat our midday meal, washing it down with Jordan's water. This famous 
 liquid, taken to England for royal baptisms, has a very earthy taste, and 
 decidedly needs filtration before drinking. Not a man of us but takes away a 
 phial of it, however, for talismanic purposes, and as something hereafter to 
 
426 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 swear by. Those who first finish hincheon go in search of suitable walking- 
 sticks among the saplings on the river side, and there is no trouble in finding 
 such among the willows, oleanders, and other shrubs growing hereabout. 
 That done, and the eating and drinking over, there remained but to wash off 
 the coating of chemicals left on the outside of us by the Dead Sea water. The 
 uneasiness of the itchings and twitchings it has caused has become too plainly 
 observable. We are all rubbing ourselves as if freshly bitten by a myriad of 
 mosquitoes. 
 
 Near to where we now are took place the thrice performed miraculous 
 division of the river — for purposes similar to that of the parting of the waters 
 of the Red Sea. The first division occurred, we read, on the passage of Joshua 
 and the Israelites ; the second on the command of Elijah, just before his 
 apotheosis ; and the third on Elisha's smiting the stream with the fallen mantle 
 of the departed prophet. As the water rolled on too rapidly for any swim- 
 ming, we had to content ourselves with the usual bathing-place — the side of 
 the river all along presenting only steep, ragged, earthy banks, covered with 
 bush to the water's edge. 
 
 Our endeavours to find another bathing-place had been from a laudable wish 
 not to desecrate the sacred spot used annually for baptisms by the churches, 
 and formerly by John the Baptist. It was not, however, to be, and we had to 
 take credit only for good intentions, as wash we must, and that quickly, or 
 become as red herrings are. The depth of the river we found not to exceed 
 twelve feet. In the rainy seasons it is three or four feet higher. It does not 
 overflow, we are told, now, though we read of it as of olden time " overflow- 
 ing its banks all the time of harvest." It was fortunate that we had visited 
 the Dead Sea first, as otherwise we should have gone in want of the washing 
 here for which we were so grateful. A bath had been never so much needed, 
 nor likely to be again. 
 
 On going back to our late camping place under the scyamore for sticks and 
 bottles accidentally left there, I felt something fall upon me, and heard a scream- 
 ing scrimmage among the branches. What had fallen was a little chick of a bird, 
 imperfectly feathered, and too youthful to fly. It had not been too young, 
 however, to fight, and hence its fall. The quarrel I could hear still going on 
 in the nest above, among those which remained. This one, however, would 
 fight no more. In spite of our mutual agreement to take as gospel all that we 
 had ever read, Dr. Watts, in this matter, had to go to the wall. " Birds in 
 their little nests " don't agree, and as a matter of fact their quarrelling and 
 fighting is more frequent than anything I can instance. 
 
 The Dead Sea, the mountains of Moab, the Jordan, and the neighbouring 
 Jericho, connect the scene with the Scriptural account of Lot, and those 
 strange children of his, the Moabites and the Ammonites, among whom the 
 land beyond was divided. We wanted to question our Arab sheik about 
 them, but language failed us ; and the task of translating through Elias was 
 altogether too hopeless in the then state of the atmosphere. If he was in place 
 anywhere, however, it was about here. He was just the dead-alive sort of 
 being that was in consonance with all around. 
 
 It was for this reason, I suppose, that we were taken back over the route 
 by which we came, as if the track had been a high road fenced on either side, 
 instead of a width of wilderness in all directions. It is not Eastern fashion to 
 do anything in other ways than that in which it has been done before. It was 
 not to such people that the Scriptural warning was given which we read against 
 entering the sheepfold otherwise than by the door. The "climbing up some 
 other way " would be an innovating Western-World notion and none of the 
 Eastern. 
 
 The afternoon was, if anything, hotter in this valley of the Jordan than we 
 
Among the Ishmaelites. 
 
 427 
 
 had felt it yesterday in the Wilderness of Judea. We were lower down in the 
 world, and more shut in — especially by these mountains of Moab and the 
 range of hills that walled in the Dead Sea. The heated atmosphere was 
 encumbered with the exhalations from that sea and the Jordan, which made 
 the heat of a moister nature and more enervating. All the Jordan water was, 
 for such reasons, drunk up by the time we reached the camp. We understood 
 by that time poor Hagar's trouble, when thrust forth in this quarter with little 
 Ishmael, some bread, and a bottle of water. We read the record of it now 
 with new sense — " And the water was spent in the bottle ; and she cast the 
 child under one of the shrubs, and went and sat her down over against him a 
 good way off, for she said, ' Let me not see the death of the child.' And she 
 lifted up her voice and wept." 
 
 A BEDOUIN. 
 
 Two men have just passed us, with their coarse black hair twisted around 
 their heads above their piercing restless eyes. They carry each a long gun, 
 and salute our sheik in passing. 
 
 " Moabite Bedouins !" says Elias, pointing to them. 
 
 These Bedouins, we are told, are the Ishmaelites of the Scripture — the de- 
 scendants of that Ishmael whom we read was thus left to die under the bushes 
 when " the water was spent in the bottle !" — an event the awfulness of which 
 those who travel here and in such like places alone can know. 
 
 We sat late that night in the tents, hunting up Bible-history, and picking 
 the dead bodies of the moths and insects out of the candles, into the flame of 
 which they flung themselves in quantity. It was impossible to close up the 
 tents on account of the heat, and to sit in them with candles was to have 
 plenty of exercise if we would keep the lights in. The Bible is to us in this 
 
428 The Main Routes Rou7id the World. 
 
 land what Dibdin's book is to the sailor — a whole literature. It seems to sup- 
 ply the place of newspapers, as containing the latest intelligence relative to 
 the scenes all around. Of most of the places pointed out we have heard 
 nothing later than what our Bible tells us. A reference to it settles all our 
 disputes — if not our doubts. We feel already that we could take parts in the 
 next Passion Play at Ober Ammergau, all unaided by book or prompter. One 
 of our Bibles has an index and concordance to it, which gives us great help in 
 looking up all atrthorities on any special point. 
 
 We get tired of thus gaining knowledge and seeing the immolation of the 
 insects, and so let them extinguish the lights for us as we turn in for the night 
 — our second night in this valley. I could not for a long time get sleep. 
 Pimples and bumps seemed springing up all over one, and demanding 
 unpleasant attention. Even pimples sleep at last, however, and when they 
 did so, I got rest. The cook and Elias were called into council in the morn- 
 ing on our mottled condition, and their verdict was — 
 
 "The Dead Sea rash ! It will show worse yet, but you will be all the 
 better for it afterwards." 
 
 What was so prophesied followed. The powerful chemical bath I had taken 
 caused the unpleasant skin eruption which lasted for days, and occasioned 
 incessant attention to its presence. We never found tree trunks so useful, 
 and blessed the few that we came upon for much the same reason that certain 
 Highlanders did the posts erected for their service by the thoughtful and 
 kindly Duke of Argyle. Day by day the rash showed no abatement, but the 
 stiff rheumatic shoulder got better, and by the time we ceased troubling the 
 woodwork that came in our way, its pain had gone altogether. 
 
 I had so tested the curative powers of Dead Sea water, and found that a 
 great medicine, provided by nature, lies there at the end of the Jordan Valley, 
 more adapted for many of the ills of poor human nature than one-half of the 
 physic of the pharmacopoeia. 
 
 Elias brings us some scraps of gummy substance, got, he says, from the 
 tamarisk bushes on Jordan's bank. According to him, it is the Scriptural 
 manna. Such natural production is something similar to the gum exuded by 
 AustraHan trees, and is found, for a few weeks of the summer only, on the 
 stem and branches of this shrub. It is collected and kept by the Arabs as a 
 delicacy. This could not well have been the food of the multitude pf Israel 
 during their forty years' wanderings. For quantity and quality it would 
 not sustain life either for the period of time or the number for which it was 
 needed. 
 
 We send one of the attendants to the Jordan again to fillour little reserves 
 of its water, which we now cork up in phials, and tightly tie down. One of 
 our Americans is prodigal in this way. He has brought a little store of 
 smallest bottles from Jerusalem, to the collection of which his consul helped 
 him on that one day which he had there to himself. It seems to be quite a 
 march stolen on us as we watch him labelling a package of such for home pre- 
 sentations. One of them is especially, I note, addressed for his particular 
 parish priest, and another for the scientific institute of his town. His two 
 companions, thus overreached, resolve to be even with him in sacred bottled 
 waters at the Sea of Galilee, Jacob's Well, the Abana or the Pharpar, or 
 some one or other of the Biblical waters which we have yet to see. He has 
 also due warning given to him here that should any of the thirsty experiences 
 of yesterday again arise, his water reserve will have to yield to general want, 
 however sacred, in any character, he may consider it. 
 
A Deputation from Jericho. 429 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIII. 
 
 STRANGE HOLY LAND LIFE. 
 
 The sinful Jericho and saintly Mar Saba yet remained to be seen at the finish 
 of our third day's encampment in the valley of the Jordan. We take the hut- 
 like village of what Elias called " all bad people " on the way to the rock-cut 
 monastic castle. In thus giving the sinners precedence of the saints in our 
 visits we take things properly, for philosophic as well as for topographical 
 reasons. Poor raddled vice has but a short time of it in the world compared 
 with self-preserving virtue, which being of eternal qualities, can well wait, 
 Jericho the vicious, or what now occupies its site, and called Riha, had been 
 before us for days and nights where Jericho in some shape had stood from the 
 days of Abraham. We had, however, looked upon the necessary visit as coldly 
 as upon a call on poor relations, and so postponed it. 
 
 Now that it had to be done, we were still quite tardy about it, and stayed 
 attending to the calls of the Dead Sea rash — polishing thereby with our backs 
 the several tent-poles, as being what lawyers call "easements." The wretched 
 old place that Jericho appeared to be was unattractive to every sense. We 
 knew by experience of Jerusalem and Bethany how many senses were likely to 
 be offended there. We did not wish to add, either, to our cutaneous trouble, 
 and to go into Jericho was to do so beyond doubt. It was likely we should 
 want a tent-pole apiece on our return, or may be one of the potsherds with 
 which Job scraped himself for similar ailment. 
 
 A surprise awaited us, however. The inhabitants of Jericho had noticed our 
 tents, and also that we had not visited them. Noticing things constitutes all 
 their apparent employment, as we afterwards found. They spend a life of 
 observation and reflection, varied by a search for vermin. In this last occupa- 
 tion they have not far to seek. It would otherwise most likely be given up by 
 them, as are all other useful industries. As we went not to them a deputation 
 of the citizens most presentable had been determined upon, which now came 
 up, introduced by our sheik, who, during the interview and subsequent per- 
 formances of the troupe, officiated in the fashion of the " chorus " to a Grecian 
 play. 
 
 The deputation turned out to consist wholly of females. It was not possible, 
 however, to say at first of what sex they were from their personal appearance 
 and style of dress. The most noticeable thing about them was, next to their 
 ugliness and dirty look, their blue-coloured lips and tattooed chins. The dress 
 was of but one article — a tattered gabberdine, that had once been blue, and was 
 partly twisted around the waist, and where not so used a girdle of entwined 
 grass supplied its place. One of these unprepossessing women carried a sword, 
 used as a theatrical "property," as it afterwards appeared. They introduced 
 themselves by standing in a row, and bowing three times. The sheik then 
 explained that they were about to give us a dance. It scarcely seemed the 
 thing for a forenoon entertainment, but suited our lazy humour that morning, 
 and afforded further time for that polishing of the tent-poles which had now be- 
 come our chief exercise. 
 
 The ' ' corroboree " was then begun, and lasted for half an hour. There was 
 no accompaniment to it, save that made by the vocal efforts of the dancers. 
 There was more of hoarseness than music perceptible in that, and viewed as a 
 
430 The Mam Routes Round the World. 
 
 drawing-room entertainment the afifair was a failure. We wanted Elias to 
 translate the shouts to which the steps taken were timed, and by the help of 
 Antoine, the cook, I got it down in writing, and was assured that I pronounced 
 it rightly. Spelling it as pronounced, it was " Nackerley Aho !" — only that, and 
 nothing more. The variations played upon it in modulations of voice, from a 
 whisper and a squeak to a shout and a roar, made all the more of it. The 
 performance was not encored. We learned that the expression we so heard 
 and copied had reference to some botheration caused by insects, and was the 
 Arabic original of the American " Shoo-fly." 
 
 Those two words of the dancers, with the additional ones of "Neharac 
 syade," which is Arabic for " Good morning," constituted, I think, all that we 
 learnt of the language. We made it, however, go a wonderfully long way. 
 With our Americans, one or the other form of words henceforth answered the 
 appeals for "backsheesh" that we had to listen to a dozen times a day. 
 Hitherto we had had to pass the outstretched hands without a word of sym- 
 pathy, for lack of language ; but now a polite greeting could be satisfactorily 
 substituted — satisfactory to us, at all events. Charity depends upon one's 
 means and feelings, but politeness costs nothing. It was fortunate that either 
 of the two expressions suited just as well. A neat intimation not to bother one 
 was as satisfying as the good-morning greeting. 
 
 The troupe now sat round, while one of them went through a wild dance 
 with the property sword. It was used in every conceivable way for which it 
 was never intended. She danced above it, in Scotch fashion, as it lay upon 
 the ground, and under it as held in either hand, and sometimes both, over her 
 head, and around it as held in one hand, and then inside its circle as she passed 
 it from hand to hand with great rapidity. It was occasionally thrown up in 
 the air, but always cleverly caught, and then flourished in triumph. It was a style 
 of thing that should properly have been done by a man, and not by one of the 
 sex more accustomed to fans than swords ; but the folks of Jericho are like to 
 the French in leaving much work to the women. With this sword performance 
 the entertainment ended — Elias distributing the backsheesh, which was, 
 of course, " the be all and the end all " of that business, as it is of most 
 others. 
 
 As illustrating prophecy and applying to this dance, one of our party has 
 happened upon the 13th chapter of Isaiah, in which the curse upon Babylon 
 is likened to that passed upon the cities of that plain on which we now look. 
 He reads the 19th verse — "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall the 
 Arabian pitch tent there nor shepherds make their fold there. Wild beasts of 
 the desert shall be there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and 
 fowls shall dwell there and satyrs shall dance there ^ 
 
 Elias wants us to start for Jericho with the returning troupe as an escort, but 
 they were as objectionable for company as were FalstafTs regiment of his own 
 raising — and for similar reasons. When they had got out of sight, however, 
 we started for their wretched village, that we might see nearer, and therefore 
 more unpleasantly, what now represents the cities which have stood upon its 
 site, and tread ground so memorable in Biblical story. 
 
 As what is before us is so little worth looking at, we let our mind's eye 
 wander on the way to what has gone before, and in which all the interest of 
 Jericho lies. The valley we are crossing is that one upon which the Israelites 
 looked down, after their wilderness wanderings, from yonder mountains of 
 Moab. To this place Joshua, in M^hose book we read the story, despatched 
 the spies from the other side Jordan, whom Rahab so well received and coun- 
 selled. Elias tells us that he will show us where her house stood, but we don't 
 ssem anxious about it. From the good report of these spies the Israelites came 
 over, and made that singular siege, by seven circuits of the city, and that 
 
Wretched Desolation. 431 
 
 blowing of trumpets and shouting at which the city walls fell, and the invaders 
 took possession. 
 
 Joshua put a curse against the rebuilding of Jericho, that retarded its restor- 
 ation for five hundred years. It threatened the builder with the loss of his 
 whole family, which is said to have happened to Hiel, of Bethel, who rebuilt 
 it. It was here that Herod, greatest of the name, had a palace, an amphi- 
 theatre, and other notable buildings, and here he died. The general mourning 
 that he desired to be made at his decease would not, he feared, be a genuine 
 one. He determined, however, to make it so by imprisoning his nobility and 
 directing their death concurrently with his own. As he died in the happy hope 
 of the execution of his orders, and as they were never carried out, all parties 
 were equally pleased. He is only one of some millions who have died, and 
 will die, deludedly happy about the effect of their testamentary directions. 
 
 In that second Jericho which the New Testament speaks of, stood the house 
 of Zaccheus, said to be now marked by the still standing wall and tower, in 
 which was performed the miracle of giving sight to the blind, told of by St. 
 Luke. The city continued in Roman possession until the time of the Turkish 
 conquest, after which general decay seems to have set in there, as elsewhere all 
 over the land. Syria's sun may be said to have then set, her day closed, and 
 her part and lot in the world became henceforth, as now, only the memories of 
 a great past. We think of some lines of a modern poet, in which is sketched 
 a picture of desertion, desolation, and death — 
 
 "And let the doors ajar remain, 
 In case he should pass by anon : 
 And set the wheel out verj- plain, 
 That he, when passing in the sun, 
 May see the spinning is all done." 
 
 The spinning of Syria was then done and ended, and all the wheels were 
 stilled. The doors remained ajar until they fell from their hinges, and the 
 deserted wheels fell with them. Those that, like ourselves, "pass by anon," 
 see it all. The Crusaders, to their credit, made an effort to resuscitate the 
 dead place, by introducing the plantation of sugar-cane hereabout, during some 
 of their eight crusades and years of occupation. When their day was over, and 
 Turkish power again became, as it continues, dominant, no cultivators were 
 found silly enough to go on planting simply to satisfy the grinding oppression 
 and endless robbery of Turkish tax-gatherers. Yet sugar and other cultivations 
 might have done as much for the valley of the Jordan as cotton has lately done 
 in Eg>'pt for the valley of the Nile. 
 
 The few scattered dwellings that stand now on the site of the former 
 Jerichos are built of stones and mud, and might be all mistaken for cowsheds 
 or piggeries. They are thatched with branches and sticks interwoven with 
 dried grass. An open hole on one side serves for door, window, and chimney. 
 The stones used were those of the former city, and, perhaps, some of them 
 were those used in the first one that probably remained hereabout. They all 
 preach, to those who can hear them, the "sermons from stones " of which 
 Shakspeare wrote. These can surely do so if stones ever could, and their 
 present wretched position, compared with their past one, is sufficient to make 
 them cry aloud. 
 
 Jericho is so utterly neglected, that none of the churches have thought of 
 seizing upon the house of Zaccheus as a holy place, and making a shrine and 
 silver-collecting depot of it for pilgrims. Things may probably mend in that 
 matter, however, as the Russian Church is building a convent in the neigh- 
 bourhood. When we came to see afterwards in what cool and comfortable 
 locations many of the monasteries and convents of Syria were situated, we 
 pitied those who will have to live in this stewing and suftocating valley. Such 
 
432 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 is a way of making life miserable which few monastics have adopted — not ap- 
 pearing, it would seem, to believe in it. 
 
 The most remarkable ruin about Jericho is what Elias calls the Old Castle. 
 It is the remains, we afterwards find, of some monastery, that has been allowed 
 to fall into that decay which seems hereabout to have waited upon all efforts 
 of builders, and will happen most likely to the Greek convent still standing 
 here, and to the other one in course of building. It is probable that those 
 recluses who come to live in such quarters do so without any previous inspec- 
 tion of their intended home. ]3id they take that common precaution in house- 
 hunting usage, it is unhkely that a residence in this horrible holy locality 
 would be chosen by anyone, except as an additional way of doing penance, 
 and helping to shorten a mistaken life. 
 
 No people in the world are worse off than these pariahs which exist in Jericho. 
 Barley-bread is a luxury they seldom see ; roots and sorrel are their principal 
 food, with any fish they may be industrious enough to get from the Jordan. 
 They chew and smoke dried herbs in place of tobacco, and pursue no 
 industries whatever. Their means of existence, and its object, are as puzzling 
 as are those of numbers whom we meet in higher grades of civilization. They 
 are just the dregs of the world, and very stale dregs too. Joshua's curse hav- 
 ing done its work on the inanimate material here, is now expending itself upon 
 the few remaining people. They have become thereby a little lower than the 
 apes in all that one would look for in decent imitations of humanity. 
 
 Overlooking this valley, and that hill on which our Arab guardians have 
 made their quarters, is a mountain which we have been glancing at many a 
 time since our coming hither. There is something like a building, or the 
 remains of one, to be seen on its summit. Elias tells us that it is a most not- 
 able mountain, and that the chapel on the top is built to commemorate that 
 temptation by the Devil which there succeeded to the baptism by John the 
 Baptist on Jordan's bank. It is too high and too steep for any of us to attempt 
 an ascent in our limp state, and that of the atmosphere. There were great 
 grounds also for doubt in the matter. There could [have been so little to be 
 seen around here that would tempt any one to do anything — save to clear out 
 as soon as possible — that the supposition of some mistake in the locality 
 seemed highly probable. 
 
 The mountains of Moab shut in everything in front. The Cities of the 
 Plain had been long before destroyed, and their site, if we are not misled, 
 covered by the Dead Sea. In the Jordan Valley, at the foot of this mount, 
 there was but Jericho in its second state, and, at the side, the wretched wilder- 
 ness of Judea and the barren hills beyond — a poor look-out, indeed, and nothing 
 of what our great epic poet, seeing it only in the mind's eye, has described 
 it with true poetical licence. Everything that is written from home imagina- 
 tions cannot be classed with the descriptions in Moore's "Lalla Rookh," which 
 have been admired for their accuracy, when coming from one who had never 
 visited the scenes of his poetical fancies. There has been some mistake 
 probably about the position of the famous mountain from which "all the cities 
 of the world " are said to have been seen. The Prince of Darkness has had 
 many designations, in addition to King Lear's one of " a gentleman," but if 
 he chose the view from this hill-top as one from which to give a tempting view 
 of the world, he must have been something antithetical to anything he has 
 been yet called, and quite deserved the failure that followed on his efforts. 
 
 As we cannot ascend this mountain, we take from the tower called, for want 
 of other name, the house of Zaccheus, a last look around over the scene that 
 we are not likely to look upon again — shall never wish to do so — and never 
 regret seeing it, or forget the sight. When the outer world of eye and ear that 
 make life so pleasant shall fade, as it must, there are inner eyes and ears to the 
 
A Strange Retreat. 433 
 
 mind which survive the outer senses, and are lost only with life. To such the 
 scene we now look upon especially appeals. The uneducated natural eye finds 
 nothing here that fixes attention or detains its gaze. Surrounded as it all is 
 with the halo of sacred story, we see it only with such recollections, and much 
 as we look upon saints' heads glorified by that aureole in which they are always 
 pictured. So looked upon, the rolling Jordan and its silent Dead Sea home are 
 most memorable sights I 
 
 Our tents are now struck, and the three days' camp broken up. The next 
 stage, over an execrable road, is to a celebrated rock-hewn house of sanctity — 
 the famous Greek monastery of Mar Saba. None of womankind are allowed 
 to set foot therein. It is quite a contrast in position to its equally if not more 
 famous rival, which I shall afterwards visit on the summit of Mount Carmel, 
 being situated in a ravine rising from the bed of that Kedron which runs down 
 here from Jerusalem. A strange, wild-looking, and altogether out-of-the- 
 world place, this Mar Saba, some five hours' distance from Jericho. It is over 
 a road, however, that much increases the feeling of distance; and the traveller, 
 whatever his faith may be, is well content to stop at the monastery when he 
 happily gets there. 
 
 This monastery has been hewn and scooped out of the rock in a projecting 
 turn of the ravine. Its sides thus command two views of the wretched, sterile, 
 stony surroundings. In addition to the cells, chambers, and galleries cut from 
 out the rock, the stone so taken has been used for exterior building upon 
 natural projections or those cut for the purpose. A church, with minor chapels 
 attached, has been so built up, with turrets and a dome to it. All the build- 
 ings are, however, indistinguishable from the rock to other eyes than those of 
 masons. The interior of the monastery cannot be explored unassisted by a guide 
 — it is such a maze and network of cells, chambers, and narrow staircases, that 
 have been cut just where practicable, and not on any preconceived plan. The 
 idea of this monastery had been probably taken from the rock-hewn temples 
 and dwellings at Petra, to the south of the Dead Sea, where the remains of a 
 city of such places as this Mar Saba are yet to be seen. 
 
 The monastery is intended to be as inaccessible as it is. The monks dread 
 the hands of the Bedouins on their sacred property as much as they do the feet 
 of females there. The proprietors are known to be very rich, and the 
 Bedouins have about as much respect for monastic church property as had 
 Henry the Eighth. They have to fear also from other religions worse treat- 
 ment than from those of none. The Druses and Mohammedans of this 
 barbarous land take sudden fits to make raids upon other sects, and kill them 
 by thousands, as they did lately the Christians of the Lebanon. The entrance 
 to this holy house is, therefore, only made by a heavy iron door at the bottom 
 of the rock. The applicant is well inspected by those within from a safe 
 position overhead. If he does not look feminine, and there be nothing else 
 apparently dangerous about him, he is admitted as one claiming hospitality, 
 where, from the sterile scene all around outside, he appears so particularly 
 likely to need it. 
 
 The founder of this house of holiness was one Sabas, now dignified as a 
 saint, who existed about fourteen hundred years ago. His life was passed in 
 that self-denial which, like all other human eccentricities, finds its imitators. 
 He travelled, collecting funds and followers for the building of this place of 
 retirement and contemplation, which had a small beginning, insuring it from 
 all interference in the then poverty of the little community. That infatuation 
 which drives men away from the attentions of their relatives, helped to increase 
 the number of the disciples of Sabas, who was soon made an abbot, and smiled 
 upon at Catholic headquarters. The formation of such communities has not died 
 out. The Agapemone, formed in our time near to Bristol, was one such ; and 
 
 D D 
 
434 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 another7exists on the shores of Lake Erie, not far from Niagara, of which 
 Laurence Oliphant, a tztih-ateur of note, became a member. Many who go 
 into society are glad to go out of it, finding, as Dickens' dwarf did, that it goes 
 too much into them, and that, as Cornewall Lewis said, "life would be 
 tolerable but for its pleasures." 
 
 There is the usual record of miracles attributed to St. Sabas, in addition to 
 that of originating this building and collecting the money to support him- 
 self here with his followers. The fountain that is shown in a cave within 
 the building issued forth at his command. To discourage invasions, it is told 
 
 ROCK-CUT MONASTERY OF MAR SABA. 
 
 to every visitor that some heretics from Antioch, who attempted such 
 a thing, were driven back by his anathemas alone, though the said invaders 
 were supported by soldiery— something in the fashion in which Richelieu drove 
 back those who would touch his young ward, according to the stage version of 
 that incident. From the good supply of fire-arms now on the premises, 
 anathemas seem not now wholly to be relied on for protection. Trust may 
 still be, as Cromwell wished it, put in Providence, but as he also desired, the 
 powder is kept dry. 
 
 '.The Persians, after their other conquests in Syria in 634, came hither and 
 stormed Mar Saba, and murdered half of its monks. Sympathy was occasioned 
 
The Last of Elias. 435 
 
 by that, and was shown in its more solid form of increased contributions. It 
 had other sufferings in the Crusaders' time, but like to a healthy child it 
 survived the ailments of its earlier years and is all the stronger for it. Visitors 
 are shown the cave, or lion's den, at the foot of the rock, which was the 
 original retreat of the saint — the nucleus from which all that I see has arisen 
 around. It is one of the miracles attributed to him that he lived in that 
 retreat peaceably with the lion. Faith in those days worked wonders, as it 
 does now, but in very different ways. 
 
 A fine library has been collected here, as also a collection of manuscripts, of 
 which the monks are very proud. Considering the fourteen hundred years 
 that this monastery has existed, rarities are likely to be found in it. Travellers 
 are provided with meals and a bed, on that principle of hospitality for which 
 voluntary contributions are expected. We generally find that we have to pay 
 most for that for which we are charged nothing. Ladies can be accommo- 
 dated in an outhouse, a sort of tower away from the main mass of building. 
 Here they are shut up for the night, and locked in by an attendant, a sort of 
 dreary solitary confinement, of which one night is always found to be quite 
 enough. 
 
 At Nuremberg is shown a religious house, to the monks of which a fortune 
 was bequeathed for feeding birds upon the donor's place of burial. Those of 
 Mar Saba do something in that way over the graves of their deceased 
 brethren. Birds have been encouraged and fed until they make a home of 
 the buildings, and attract others there to be similarly petted. To eyes accus- 
 tomed to the work-a-day world and its ways, the life of these men at Mar 
 Saba looked a strange waste of existence. Until the object of life shall 
 become better known and decided upon, it cannot, however, rightly be called 
 so ; and if it brings peace of mind, it gives more of happiness than is always 
 to be found elsewhere. 
 
 Hassan, our dragoman, whom we had left sick behind at Jerusalem, joined 
 us now upon the road. When we met him he was engaged in the good 
 Samaritan work of assisting a French lady, who had, on the bad track, most 
 excusably fallen from her horse. The fall had, unfortunately, been upon her 
 face, and upon some sharp pieces of stone. Much damage had consequently 
 been done to eyes, nose, forehead, and mouth. Her swollen and bleeding 
 lips were a piteous sight, and much of the contents of our water bottles were 
 used upon them and on the poor bruised face. The same thing might have 
 happened to any of us, and probably would, before we got upon any road of 
 common safety. 
 
 The return of Hassan enabled us to part with Elias, which we did without a 
 pang. Henceforth we should learn more about the scenes by the wayside, 
 and have less necessity for reading. Elias had been good, however, in pro- 
 moting a search for knowledge, which in our case had to be got from our 
 Bibles, and not from him. As what we hunt up for ourselves is most valued 
 and the longer remembered, our dull guide had his value after all, in the 
 incessant searching of the Scriptures which he had thus promoted. There is a 
 bright side to most things, and something good in everything, if we only look 
 sufficiently for it. 
 
 From the darkest cloud comes the lightning, and from our dull Elias came 
 one brilliant flash of information ere he became to us extinguished for ever. In 
 the forenoon of the day's journey he called a halt, and made this unasked-for 
 proposition — 
 
 " Will you go and see the tomb of Moses ?" 
 
 " The tomb of INIoses ! Why, all the world is aware that no man knows 
 the place of his burial !" 
 
 " Yes ; he buried over there. I show you his tomb if you go !" 
 
 D D 2 
 
436 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 We consulted a minute or two, and found that the tomb was under Moham- 
 medan care and covered by a mosque, and was a mere excuse for collection of 
 coin from followers of as many creeds as were willing to countenance the 
 attempt. We told Elias that another time would do, and that we might call 
 on the way back. Having seen the tomb of Adam in Jerusalem, we were less 
 curious about tombs of anybody which could be shown to those willing to pay for 
 seeing them in this land of shrines and shows. 
 
 Finding that the Mohammedans divided the shrines in Jerusalem with the 
 Roman and Greek or Christian churches, I have been seeking to know some- 
 thing more of their faith, on which I find that Hassan can happily enlighten 
 me. He is of Arab, or half- Arab, parentage, and though he never appears to 
 read anything, he is well acquainted with both the Bible and the Koran, and 
 has a head like an almanac. I find him this evening away from the muleteers and 
 his camp superintendence. He is not quite well, he says, as he sits at his tent 
 door, smoking the mild Turkish tobacco. So we sit together and chat. 
 
 The Koran is, he tells me, a volume of something over a hundred chapters, 
 copied from several revelations made to Mohammed in an unknown tongue, 
 written, for his reading alone, on such singular tablets as palm leaves and the 
 blade bones of sheep. He read these inscriptions to scribes, who wrote from 
 such dictation. The matter of these hundred and odd chapters follows no 
 order, system, or chronology. To others than Mohammedans they are an 
 incoherent jumble of story, fable, philosophy, poetry, and prayer. 
 
 In this medley of scraps from the books and ideas of other creeds there is 
 mixed but little or nothing original. The history is of a piece with the 
 chronology and the mythology. The one God whose existence is taught 
 throughout is conceived of as a living, breathing being, and not as a spiritual 
 creative power, or abstract idea. The human senses of hearing and seeing, as 
 also of labial speech, sitting and standing attitudes, and sleep, are accredited 
 to him. Yet with such personal attributes, an impossible power of invisibility, 
 and of being everywhere present at one time, is also mixed up. 
 
 A day of judgment is promised by the Koran, in which also the devil appears 
 as one Eblis, described as a fallen angel, who went into rebellion on refusing 
 to worship Adam as the son of God. The existence of angels, and of super- 
 numeraries called genii, is also taught. It is a pretty conceit inculcated by the 
 Koran, and shines as a grain of gold in the dust heap of its dry stuff', that two 
 o-enii attend every human being upon earth, from the cradle to the grave. A 
 modern poet has told us his dream of two such attendants coming at his birth — 
 
 " Two beings of a brighter land adown a moonbeam gently glide 
 Until they halted, hand in hand, my infant couch beside." 
 
 That idea of the invisible attendants through life is as old as Socrates, who 
 held a similar faith that he was so attended. The Koran, however, extends 
 their duties beyond life. It makes the office of these ministers that of recorders 
 during existence, and the custodians of the soul after death, and thenceforward 
 until judgment. Very poetical is this idea of our spirits not being left to find 
 their own way to an unknown world when we yield them up, but to be taken 
 care of by those who have hovered around through life, and kept the record of 
 our deeds and our biography as carefully as they will thenceforward keep our 
 souls. The Mohammedans believe that these faithful trustees so act until the 
 final doom be pronounced, and their trusteeship then ended. 
 
 The Irish expression, that a man is "all alone with himself and the devil," 
 tends to drive into society those who might wish for solitude. The Moham- 
 medan, however, thus attended by his two genii through life, is, in all senses, 
 "never less alone than when alone," which forces upon one the pleasant thought 
 that so to be always with angels here is a happy preparation to forever keeping 
 such good company. 
 
The Grandest of Monasteries. 437 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 ON MOUNT CARMEL. 
 
 Represented by sickness or death, there is a silent and unseen party to all 
 our engagements, and to every agreement that we make. The presence of that 
 "unknown quantity" in all our calculations was asserted at the end of the 
 third week of our pilgrimage. One of our little quartette then broke down, 
 and after a day's deliberation declared himself done up. It was necessary now 
 to diverge from the route as laid down in the travelling contract, and take him 
 to the seaside. As our lots were thrown in together, we went with him, and 
 so found ourselves in our fourth week at the Syrian seaport of Caipha, on our 
 progress northwards to Damascus. Above Caipha (spelled also as Kiaffa) 
 towers magnificent Mount Carmel, crowned with the finest of all existing 
 convents — the home of the historical barefooted and bareheaded Carmelite 
 Friars, or of the monks now representing them. 
 
 A general sort of indisposition — the inaladie du pays — the affliction of the 
 land, begins to affect all of us by this time of our Holy Land travel. We have 
 become by the deadening influences of all around us as solemn as the Arabs, 
 and as little lively as one would feel in a cemetery. Save squabbling about 
 Bible interpretations, and hunting up the marginal references for explanation, 
 we have but little occupation, which is perhaps as well, being suitable to the 
 climate, and it certainly less affects my American friends than it does me. 
 Absence of all news assists our dulness, as it does on long voyages, when the 
 want of newspapers tends to make folks soon run short of conversable topics. 
 Our mules and horses persist also in filing off as we go along, which also helps 
 to our isolation, and to keeping to ourselves of any ideas either of us may happen 
 to have. 
 
 We get gradually careless about half the things that are pointed out to us on 
 the road. They are nothing to the eye, and it would be only a labour of read- 
 ing and remembrance to hunt up their story and to discuss it. The tiredness 
 we feel at this daily hobbling over the stony sterile land is only refreshed by 
 the thoughts of better things to come. We rightly believe, in this land of all 
 faiths, that we have left the best of it to the last. Jerusalem has been a sore 
 disappointment, and that which has been seen since has required a stoic's 
 endurance to take one through it with a belief that it really interested us. The 
 glory of the East, Damascus, is now to be our reward when we get to it, after 
 seeing Nazareth, and so to think is the "will-o'-the-wisp" which turns our 
 eyes to that distant view in which lies our enchantment. We shall see Lebanon 
 also, as to which paradise we perceive Bible-praise to be never ending. These 
 be the thoughts that cheer us, as Bonnivard, in the " Prisoner of Chillon," tells 
 us he cheered his prison-brothers with similarly depicted good things which 
 made momentary miseries forgotten. 
 
 The highly decent-looking town of Caipha is a well-built and modern place 
 of much respectability. Its prosperity is, we find, due to its being a German 
 settlement of recent date. There is wood and water in abundance about this 
 presentable little town, which shows stone houses, of one and two storys, 
 standing in well-kept gardens, with neat railings in modern villa style. Our 
 eyes stare with wonder at the made and paved streets and roads, at which we 
 are almost as scared as the desert Bedouins are frightened of entering a city. 
 
438 
 
 The Afain Routes Round the World. 
 
 The " Hotel of Mount Carmel " looks one in the face, and we, who have 
 recently drunk of the waters of the brook Cherith and of Jordan, dismount in 
 quest of bottled British beer — to be expected within where such plain 
 English is to be seen without. Caipha has two thousand inhabitants, and is 
 bidding for the calls of steamers as a seaport. It can be reached by the shore 
 line through ancient ruined Caesarea from Joppa, and on the other side is but 
 three hours of a beach ride to Acre, here called Akka. The Christians are in 
 the ascendant at Caipha, and the Mohammedans nowhere, which accounts for 
 much of what is seen, though it is by no means so apparent on what industries 
 any of either sect manage to live. To account for how people live in Syria, or 
 why any one lives there under such misrule as that of the Turks, is what I have 
 concluded to give up, and to seek something easier of solution. The Germans 
 who have settled Caipha are, like the rest of their nation, philosophers, and 
 believe in that saying of one of their countrymen that " to him to whom God 
 is a father every land is fatherland." 
 
 After refreshing at this Western-World-looking town, we go out to ascend 
 Carmel, which is a bulwark to the pleasant little place which nestles at the 
 foot of it, as Hobart does at that of Mount Wellington. This verdure-clad 
 well-wooded Carmel is something like two thousand feet in height, and much 
 of the journey up it is a toilsome one to the short-winded. Those so troubled 
 found good excuse for stopping, in the varying panorama that every ten 
 minutes enlarged to our view. Our escort on this excursion was Antoine, our 
 French-talking cook, and he proved to be the best one wx could have taken. 
 For some time of his very much mixed life he had served as cook at the 
 monastery on Carmel's top. No wonder, now and henceforth, that he was 
 such a good cook ; but greater wonder why the monks, who know and so 
 cleave to what is good, ever parted with him. 
 
 Antoine knew every man whom we met on Carmel's side, and exchanged 
 with them the customary kiss that Frenchmen, or those so brought up, keep for 
 each other. I for one was not sorry for these stoppages and greetings, as it 
 gave one breathing time which was much wanted, as I had come away from 
 Caipha on foot, and the sides of Carmel were steep. Before me rode two very 
 stout Italian ladies, bestriding wretchedly small donkeys. Sympathy for the 
 poor animals was irrepressible, though it was quite evident that their riders 
 could never have got up the mountain on foot, and a wheeled vehicle was 
 out of the question. It took a good hour to reach the top from the time of the 
 start — the second half-hour seeming much longer than the first. 
 
 Carmel, which, translated, is, we are told, "the garden of God," is the sea 
 end of a mountain range, differently estimated at from eight to sixteen miles, 
 running north and south from the plain of Esdraelon to the ocean, and dividing 
 that plain from those of Sharon and Acre, The whole range lies like a 
 crouching lion, to which Mount Carmel is a magnificent head, illustrating what 
 we read of it in Solomon's Song, "Thine head upon thee is as Carmel." It 
 is the more conspicuous, as the only promontory in the long length of the 
 level Mediterranean coast of Syria. Its sides grow olives, laurels, oaks, and 
 pines, interspersed with grazing flocks and herds — a fruitful and pleasant 
 prospect. 
 
 The prospect, looking from its sides all around, is one to which an historian 
 would delight to play showman. Standing, as Carmel does, at the southern 
 end of the Bay of Acre, that famous sea-fortress, distant only a few miles along 
 the shore, seems from Carmel's heights to lie just below it. To its rear runs 
 historical Kishon and Esdraelon, with Nazareth in the distance ; and, far away 
 to its other side from Acre, lies the once famous Cresarea of Herod, where Paul 
 preached to Festus, and answered so effectively to Agrippa — now a heap of 
 ruins. In the far distance also is seen a seeming cloud-bank, which is the 
 
Sights Around Carmel. 439 
 
 mountain range of Lebanon, that we shall have to cross on our way from 
 Damascus. In front a grand expanse of ocean opens up to us at every 
 additional fifty feet of the ascent. Such alone gave cause for stopping on the 
 way up Carmel side, had there been no landward views telling those stories of 
 themselves of which the recordless sea is so silent. 
 
 All the which leads pleasantly to Carmel's summit, as famous a spot in story 
 as any of the many upon which it looks. A monastic residence for the Car- 
 melite friars can be traced back as having been here for seven hundred years, 
 and legend supplies, as it does with everything else, all the previous story. 
 The famous monastic order was, we are told, founded by Elijah, and even the 
 Virgin Mary herself is claimed as the first Carmelite nun. When driven from 
 their mountain home by the Turks, five hundred years ago, the monks wandered 
 the world as a mendicant order, and got in some places a bad name, as mendi- 
 cants too often do. They claim all the prophets as having belonged to their 
 bod)', from Elijah downwards, and include in their list such a strange medley 
 of members as Jesus Christ, Pythagoras, and the Druids ! Such reminded one 
 of the incongruity of the shrines, including the tombs of Adam and crusader 
 Godfrey, clustered together in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 Antoine has found for our aid one of the monks with some knowledge of 
 English, and a greater desire to impart all his knowledge to others. He proves 
 a real blessing, as half the grand views around from Carmel side would have 
 been as lost, unaided by one to whom the story of all on which we look is 
 familiar as household words. He introduces Antoine to begin with, who proves 
 not to be, as supposed, a Frenchman, but by birth a native of Bagdad, and 
 probably a foundling also, from his surname proving to be also that of his native 
 city. His years of service here had been but an interlude in a life spent in 
 many lands, in which it seemed strange that, knowing so much, as he did, he 
 had learned no English. 
 
 Under tuition of our new friend we take a long look at Esdraelon Plain — the 
 battle-field of all worlds, ancient and modern, and of all story, sacred and 
 profane, real and symbolical. It looks verdant and pleasant to the eye for the 
 miles that we can here see of it, united as it is to the Plain of Acre, and is all 
 as unencumbered with villages and signs of civilization as it is loaded with 
 scriptural and historical records, and covered with better known landmarks 
 than are the plains of Troy. There are villages on the hills surrounding it, 
 but habitations seem to have fled from the seemingly fertile plain to its sterile 
 sides. Such is not readily understandable, save on the thought that what has 
 been so often a battle-field may be considered by common consent as set apart 
 for such " running amuck" of nations, and so reserved as is a racecourse. 
 
 In looking around and listening to the names given to the objects in view, 
 we perceive, especially in this land, what blessings hills and mounts are to the 
 antiquarian and historian. Fully a third of the scripturally mentioned places, 
 if not half of them, cannot be now identified. " Yonder is where Cana of 
 Galilee is supposed to have been situated, but the evidence is uncertain." 
 Such and suchlike doubts — as told to us — extending even to the sites of great 
 cities, give to what can be identified beyond dispute the greater value, and 
 foremost among such valuable spots are " the eternal hills." 
 
 Esdraelon's Plain, we learn, is the Biblical Megiddo and Megiddon, and the 
 scene of that famous battle reported in the fourth and fifth chapters of Judges 
 — the last of which contains the grand song of triumph, the first of recorded 
 duets, by Deborah and Barak. As I turn to it here, with monastic aid at my 
 elbow, it reads with a new music, and in better metre in sight of its scene, of 
 the Kishon, which played so great a part in its story, and of that Mount Tabor 
 yonder from which the prophetess watched the warfare, and gave to Barak the 
 signal for battle. 
 
44° The Maifi Routes Rotmd the World. 
 
 That great battle ! — in which the ten thousand of Barak routed the tens of 
 thousands of Sisera, "captain of the army of Jabin, King of Canaan," and the 
 "nine hundred chariots of iron" which we may suppose sheltered as breast- 
 plates the archers who filled them. " The stars in their courses fought against 
 Sisera," by such atmospheric influences, probably, as are still known in Eastern 
 meteorology. A tropical storm of hail and sleet fell upon Sisera's army, 
 blinding and confusing them with a noise in which no orders could be heard — 
 the waters growing quickly to a whirl and a torrent in their hitherto shallow 
 courses. Entangled and flooded in the suddenly swollen rivulet at which we 
 now look — then become a turbulent river — that fate had come to them of which 
 we are told, in trumpet-triumph notes, in Deborah and Barak's soldierly 
 song,— 
 
 " The river of Kishon swept them away, 
 That ancient river, the river Kishon !" 
 
 A very quiet-looking stream, and an insignificant one, is this Kishon — this 
 terrible destroying river of the great name, as it runs peaceably away by 
 Carmel's side from its source in yonder Mount Tabor, and its course through 
 Esdraelon's and Acre's plain, to its home here in the Mediterranean. Some 
 of us, I am willing to wager, will be found getting phials in Caipha, and 
 bottling off those waters of Kishon which should make the only fitting music 
 to Deborah's song. Such is a form of relic-taking and souvenir-preserving 
 leaving no loss — which cannot be said of all travellers' doings in that way among 
 the much-injured memorable things of the world. 
 
 Woman was the evil star of all the stars that fought that day against Sisera. 
 He escaped the fate of his army, and Deborah's invocations, only to find it 
 among the tents of the neighbouring hills, where he missed even the hospitality 
 he might have expected from the Bedouin, to fall ignobly by the hands of 
 Jael. We had forgotten all about the story, which is now as new to us, and 
 we turn to read it with all the interest of latest intelligence. It was a battle 
 altogether fitting for such a poetical celebration, if we are to take a poet's 
 authority on the subject ; and what Barry Cornwall rightly tells us is the office 
 of poetry, we see plainly enough in the scriptural description of this memorable 
 combat, — 
 
 " Song should train the mind to duty, 
 Nerve the weak and stir the strong ; 
 Every deed of truth or beauty 
 Should be crown'd by starry song !" 
 
 This plain is now but a camping-ground for the Bedouin, whose low black 
 tents are not at first easily distinguishable in the landscape. Destitute of villages 
 as Esdraelon is, it has yet the remains of a settlement, and of the ruins of the 
 castle erected in one of the many expeditions of the crusaders. Near to that 
 spot Buonaparte had his day upon the great battle-field. In the last year of the 
 last century Kleber came hither, across country, from Nazareth, to attack 
 the encamped Turkish army at the "Battle of Mount Tabor." Buonaparte 
 arrived in another direction in time to meet in the rear those who shrank from 
 Kleber in the front, remaining victor over an army that outnumbered his forces 
 as ten to one. The victory was great as Barak's, and won without supernatural 
 aid, but lacked a Deborah to immortalize it in song, for which, as it was a 
 victory over the detestable Turks, we feel sorry. 
 
 A marginal note takes me to two other Biblical references to events on this plain 
 — one past and one to come. The past one I take from the thirty-fifth chapter 
 of the Second Chronicles, telling how Josiah, King of Judah, sought here to 
 stay the progress of Necho, the Egyptian monarch, on his way to give battle 
 to the Assyrians. Going into this skirmish without call or cause, and against 
 all protestations, he met the fate said to await those who in others' quarrels 
 
Good Quarters at Carinel. 
 
 441 
 
 interpose, and fell by Necho's archers. The mourning which his death caused 
 was, we see by a reference note, that sadness in Israel told of in Zechariah as 
 " the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon." 
 
 The scene yet to be in this plain of Megiddo or Megiddon is spoken of under 
 its other name of Armageddon. For that battle the monks of Mount Carmel 
 may watch and wait as they do, and for that, also, the plain of Esdrafclon, in its 
 strange clearness, may be yet waiting. The language relating to it is as obscure 
 as that of an oracle, in which I read, in the sixteenth chapter of Revelations, of 
 those who are to be "gathered together in a place called in the Hebrew 
 tongue Armageddon," and of what will then await them — a seemingly great 
 strife and destruction. These references to passages of suppositious relation- 
 ship add quite a trouble to our Bible readings, and are not, we find, always 
 enlightening upon the subject. 
 
 ^ 
 
 BEDOUIN CAMP. 
 
 Touching most of the caves with which Carmel's side abounds, there are 
 legends of more or less authority and interest ; but the cave which absorbs 
 all attention is that covered by the superb monastery that we now reach — the 
 Crown of Carmel, and the king of all monastic and conventual houses. 
 Courtesy of all kinds is here extended to us visitors, as if it were the hospice of 
 Mont St. Bernard, and we had been brought in by the famous dogs of that 
 monastery, instead of by the former cook of this one. It was quite a desirable 
 place to live in for the creature comforts which we see on their way from the 
 table, apart from its desirably healthy position, in which respect it would be 
 difficult to match this well-chosen spot. 
 
442 The Main Routes Roitnd the World. 
 
 The cave alluded to is the whole reason — the sole first cause and support of 
 the building. It is shown to us beneath the altar, in the chapel of this 
 " Monastery of Elias," as that in which the prophet Elijah lired when he 
 wrought the miracle which has made this mount most famous. A philosopher 
 might infer from what he here sees that prophets live in caves, and their 
 successors in palaces. To the one is the dish of herbs and the vinegar of life, 
 and to the others its wine, honey, and corn. These thoughts especially occur 
 to one as I look at the stall-fed monks of this courtly monastery, and find that 
 I am unfortunately too late for dinner, and have to be contented with a scrappy 
 lunch. 
 
 I learn about the dinner from Antoine, who has been to the kitchen to 
 fraternize with his successor. He comes now to show me over the stately 
 building, accompanied by the English-speaking monk, as the more appropriate 
 showman. The mountain is full of good things — nearly all that is required 
 for the daily table being furnished by it, save the fish obtained from the sea at 
 its foot. The building itself is of oblong and plain shape, built of the grey 
 limestone of which the mount is composed, and sixty feet in height. It is of 
 modern date, and is a monument to the zeal and industry of one monk. The 
 old convent, hundreds of years old, was destroyed, for the second time, by the 
 Turks in 182 1. Its ruins lay uncleared for twenty years. During the latter 
 fifteen years of that time a monk of the old foundation, Jean Battista, went 
 pilgrimaging the world, begging funds for the rebuilding of what is now here 
 to be seen. In fourteen years he collected half a million of francs. He rests 
 deservedly from such labour in the chapel of the convent, and from a plate 
 above his tomb I take notes of the record given. 
 
 My kindly guide of the morning showed me what a well-provided life can be 
 led in a monastery. The bedrooms for the accommodation of travellers would 
 tempt any one to stay for a time in the fresh air of this healthy mountain. 
 Antoine assures me that the board is as good as the bed, and he ought to 
 know best about that. In addition to other items of the story of this mount, 
 we learn that before the days of the monastery an oracle had a temple here, whom 
 Vespasian, as recorded by Tacitus, came to consult. It is altogether the place 
 for an oracle, as the trouble of the ascent made the information obtained after 
 such toil seemingly of much more value. The oracles and prophets of old 
 understood this sort of thing, and kept, therefore, for such good reason, in 
 out-of-the-way places. 
 
 Outside the monastery and its walled garden and cemetery, I am shown the 
 supposed scene of Elijah's miraculous triumph over the priests of Baal, in 
 calling down fire from above to consume the sacrifice, and in raising the cloud 
 from the neighbouring sea which brought that rain which the sacrifice was to 
 propitiate. The sacred spot is marked off by a fence of cut stone. It was 
 from here that we read in the First Book of Kings that the four hundred and 
 fifty priests of Baal, and the four hundred " prophets of the groves " who came 
 with them, were taken down by the multitude to be slaughtered at the "brook 
 Kishon." How they got down Carmel's side is easily understood, but not .so 
 easily how Ahab hurried down in that chariot of his of which the record tells. 
 The steepness of Carmel precludes wheels being now used, and all trace of a 
 zigzag cut road has disappeared, if it ever existed. 
 
 The fairer complexion of the people dwelling about Carmel's base is due, 
 doubtless, to the sea air, and to our weary, sunburnt eyes they seemed comelier in 
 appearance than those dustier, burnt-up beings hitherto met with in the interior. 
 To this, perhaps, the better dressing of the women greatly contributed ; but 
 apart from that there were faces and figures to be seen about, worth all the 
 glances they got from us. We were not holy monks of the mountain, and 
 could therefore look upon such without sin. We came to the idea that if we 
 
A Secret Packet. 
 
 443 
 
 stopped on Carmel for a month, as at a sanatorium, we might not all of the time 
 be found at the monastery. Some of the beauties of nature, it thus appeared, 
 were equally to be seen as to its lower land. We wanted to ask Antoine a lot of 
 questions about monkish life, as to which he, as an old servitor to the convent, 
 could have opened our eyes to any extent ; but with him we were stopped by 
 the want of language. To have started the subject with our English-speaking 
 monk of the mount, might have led to something from him which would have 
 been certainly doubtful, and might have been dangerous. 
 
 The Mohammedans, adopting the Old Testament, venerate Elijah, whom 
 they called Elias, equally with the Christians. Their eyes are also opened to 
 the value of shrines, so that we are not surprised when, at one part of the 
 mount, we happen upon another cave of Elijah, which is here covered by a 
 Moslem building for sanctuary, worshipping, and other purposes. As a build- 
 ing, it is nothing equal to the grand pile crowning Carmel's summit, which 
 must tend to arouse the jealousy of the Turks to a third demolition of it some 
 day. In that respect they are as they ever were in feeling. "The Lord is a 
 man of war " to them, and to be propitiated by soldiers in place of missionaries 
 and aggressions in place of conversions. 
 
 Near at hand from Carmel, and but a walk across the sands around the bay, 
 is that Acre, or Akka, which stretches out to sea on a tongue of land, and 
 stands boldly exposed in a sort of lighthouse position. It is a curious instance 
 of how distance lends an enchantment to everything, that we don't visit Acre 
 because it is so near to us ! This rocky sea fortress, the invulnerable Acre, 
 had fame enough and to spare to warrant the visit ; but unfortunately, the 
 Bible told nothing about it, and the various sieges it had so well withstood ; 
 for which reason I believe it was that I could get no company to a proposed ex- 
 pedition to it. It was not a holy place, and seemed, in the distance it stood 
 out from the shore, to have almost got away from the Holy Land. I felt sorry 
 for Acre, as a slighted place ; but though not mixed up, that we know of, in the 
 biblical story, it has one all its own, and what is as well, one that has no ques- 
 tion made about it. 
 
 Before taking leave of Carmel we again partook of monastic hospitality. 
 Cakes and wine were spread for our farewell refreshment, and we leave to 
 Antoine to suggest the equivalent that should be dropped in the "Poor's Box." 
 The kindly Monks come in quantity to say adieu. I give my hand to one who 
 extends his towards me, and find, after shaking it, that he has left with me a 
 sealed paper packet of three inches long and two wide. It has a printed 
 superscription reading thus : 
 
 Ex ScHOLA Prophetarum 
 In Sacro IMonte Carmelo 
 
 Carmel 
 
 Syrie 
 
 Vic. S.M. 
 
 The lower of the two inscriptions is that on the waxen and yet unbroken 
 seal of the packet. The contents of it are still all unknown to me, and will likely 
 so remain. What it contains is of a granulated nature, and rattles within the 
 paper, as seeds would do, when shaken. In its present mysterious state it is a 
 temptation to one's curiosity, and has a charm about it which satisfied-inquisi- 
 tiveness might serve only to destroy and supply nothing to substitute. 
 
444 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV 
 
 NAZARETH AND THE NAZARENES. 
 
 In the sense in which America's popular poet honours Nuremberg for one who 
 had dwelt therein, we must all reverence sacred Nazareth ! Of all the cities, 
 towns, and villages of this world which shine forth by the reflected light of those 
 who have for a time lived therein, this little Syrian township takes the first 
 place. The ideas with which we visit such quiet, out-of-the-way corners of 
 the world, cannot be better rendered than Longfellow has done for us when 
 telling of Nuremberg's call on our attention — 
 
 " Fairer seems the ancient city, 
 And the sunshine seems more fair, 
 That he once had trod Its courtyards, 
 That he once had breathed Its air." 
 
 Two painters of world -fame have made Nazareth the scene of the great 
 efforts in oil painting which have helped to their renow^n. It is now something 
 more than forty years since I gazed with fascinated interest at the first 
 pre-Raffaelite pictures which I had seen — if not the first of the revival in that 
 way occurring about that time. Such painting was Millais' " Christ in the 
 Carpenter's Shop." It was the picture of greatest interest in the Exhibition of 
 its year, and even as an engraving had that indefinable something in it fixing 
 the attention of those who saw it. 
 
 " I know what you are turning back to look at !" said my brother to me, as 
 I reached out again for the Illusti-ated London Nezvs that another who had 
 taken a turn at it had just laid down. 
 
 ■' How do you know?" I asked. 
 
 "Because I did the same thing yesterday; I looked then at that picture 
 three or four times, and shall never forget every figure in it. You are going 
 to turn to ' Christ in the Carpenter's Shop,' at Nazareth !" Such was quite 
 true, and though a long time has elapsed since then, and I have gone through 
 the world, and much of the world has gone through me, I can still close the 
 outer eyes and see the better by those of the mind, and in the picture gallery 
 of the brain, that strange-looking effort of the genius of the great painter of the 
 revivalist school. 
 
 It has been well supplemented lately — that painting of Millais — by one of 
 Holman Hunt's, the engraving of which has met most eyes. " The Shadow 
 of the Cross " is once more the representation of the carpenter's shop at 
 Nazareth. The central figure is again the young working artisan, and the 
 side figure is again the Eastern-looking woman, whom we identify as promptly 
 as we do the other. In Hunt's picture her face is turned from us, that our 
 attention may not be taken from the third and primary object of the painting — 
 that shadow of the cross which the outstretched arms of the wearied young 
 workman casts, in the light of the setting sun, on the workshop window. 
 
 At Bethlehem had been shown me the birth-place of Jesus, and in Jeru- 
 salem that of His burial. In Cairo had been pointed out to me that which is 
 there accredited as the Egyptian abiding place of Himself and parents when 
 they fled with Him to that country from the destroying pursuit of Herod. 
 Bethlehem lies on the road to nowhere, and those who visit it take a day for 
 
On Plain of Esdraelon. 445 
 
 that especial object, returning from Jerusalem, to go thence again on their way 
 to the Jordan and its Dead Sea receptacle. As much or more interest should 
 attach to Nazareth, as the scene of the longest but obscurest part of that youth- 
 ful life of Christ of which we learn so little. In Nazareth Mary had received 
 that visit from the angel, announcing to her that which was, in the future, to give 
 her pre-eminence over all womankind. Her leaving it had been caused only 
 by that previously quoted decree of Ccesar Augustus of which St. Luke tells 
 us in his second chapter — the decree " that all the world should be taxed." 
 We read that " all went to be taxed, every one into his own city," for the tax- 
 ation appears to have been assessed on the natives only, and not upon the 
 settlers, of particular towns. Joseph, we read, for such reason " also went up 
 from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto the city of David which is called 
 Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed 
 with Mary his espoused wife." The other kingly influence — that of Herod — 
 obliged her to refrain from returning to the old home. When safe to do so, 
 however, Nazareth, which but for such incidents would otherwise have had 
 also Bethlehem's honours as well as its own, was eagerly sought by the Holy 
 family. 
 
 On Mount Carmel, accompanied as I was by a priestly guide from the 
 monastery of that mount, the outlying country, far as eyesight and optical help 
 to it could avail, had been pointed out to me. In that way all the plain of 
 Esdraelon, geographically now called Ebn Omer, but never thought of as such, 
 had been seen at a glance. At its eastern end it is not more than six miles 
 across. From there it widens out westwardly, showing to the curious eyes of 
 those who glance over it from Carmel's side four conspicuous points of interest. 
 The first is in the isolated, conical-looking Mount Tabor, from whence 
 Deborah watched the war between Barak and Sisera, so read of in the fourth 
 chapter of Judges — -a war that was terminated by the unexpected influence of 
 that agency which is the second object of interest within one's field of vision. 
 That is the famous river which, as before stated, equally with the stars, fought 
 that day against Sisera and his host. It is the " Mekanna " now in the Arab 
 language, but otherwise and best known to all the world by the Song of 
 Deborah and Barak, descriptive of the doings of "that ancient river — the 
 river Kishon." 
 
 Thirdly. The object of interest on this famous plain is that remnant or 
 ruin of a fort built by the Crusaders in one of their many incursions hither- 
 ward. Fourthly of the number, are the hills distant some sixteen or so of miles 
 across the widest part of Esdraelon's plains, and on the sides of which nestles 
 Nazareth. The attractions of that little village are so great that those of the 
 nearer Akka, known better as St. Jean d'Acre, almost alongside Carmel, and 
 but at the other end of its bay, are utterly ignored. In surprise at that I said 
 to my company :• — 
 
 " What ! Not go to see Acre the invulnerable — the famous place that with 
 stood all the sieges, repulsed the twelve assaults of Buonaparte's besieging 
 force, and was only taken by combined British and Turkish efforts ?" 
 
 " Are we not Holy Land travellers, and is Acre anywhere mentioned in the 
 Bible ? It is not in our agreement with the dragoman, and is no part of the 
 programme, as is Nazareth. Besides which, just look at the place from where 
 we now see it ! It stands out so far to seaward as to be seemingly away from 
 the Holy Land altogether. Our course must be for Nazareth, and thence to 
 Damascus !" 
 
 These arguments were unanswerable, and those who so argued were also the 
 majority, whereby being outvoted as to Acre it had, for any nearer sight of it, 
 to be given up. It certainly did seem, standing out to sea as it does, to turn 
 its back upon the Holy Land in the way my travelling compeinions had voted 
 
44^ The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 as a reason against visiting it, but it still went hard with me so to leave 
 untrodden a town at once so famous and now so near to one. Such and such 
 like are of the drawbacks of travelling in company. For the sake of society 
 how much of our will and many of our wishes have we not to sacrifice ? If it 
 were possible to travel in the Holy Land solus the regret thus felt at not having 
 one's own way and going one's own way might have been great, but in the 
 case of Syrian travel there is no help for it — one must keep company for 
 society and for safety. 
 
 We all therefore set our faces inland and started for Nazareth. Everything in 
 the way of weather favoured the journey. It was the best season also for 
 crossing that verdant plain of Esdraelon. Its verdure, as also its strangely 
 unpopulated appearance in length and breadth, were due, we are told, much to 
 the action of the Kishon and other like streams. Brook-like as they appear to 
 be now, they become, in the rainy seasons, swollen and turbulent torrents, 
 sweeping along with resistless force. In that way much of the surrounding 
 plain becomes inundated, and left in a swampy state for a long time after- 
 wards. Scripture speaks in a similar way of the Jordan " overflowing its 
 banks during all the time of harvest." 
 
 Our escort is a professional one, to whom this plain is well known in his 
 capacity of a local guide. He tells us of its fertile character, of the large size 
 of its cattle to those fed elsewhere, and points out all objects of interest. 
 Occupied by such talk, by enquiries as to ruins by the wayside, and informa- 
 tion about places with unpronounceable names, our horses get over the dis- 
 tance in three hours from the start, including stoppages. We are then at the 
 foot of the hillside on which lies what our guide calls *' Nazara," for such is 
 the Arab name of modern Nazareth. 
 
 It lies fronting a flat valley on the slope of a hill that is again surrounded by 
 hills that are higher. Geographically it was of old in the Galilee district, and 
 in that division of vSyria which is marked in Bible maps as the land of the tribe 
 of Zabulon. It is now in an agricultural district, and occupied by tribes that 
 know not Zabulon, and scarcely know, so much mixed are they, to what tribes 
 to attribute themselves, K% we looked upwards at the little town, there is 
 something in it that reminds one of Bethlehem — a similarly agriculturally sup- 
 ported place as seen to one side from the fields below it. Bethlehem is, 
 however, on a hilltop, while Nazareth is built only on the face of a hill, and 
 among the rugged seains or ravines of its side. 
 
 The ride to it as we have come has been a very pleasant one. All the 
 desolate character, all the arid sterility that distinguished the journey from 
 Jerusalem to the Jordan had disappeared in this one. Our way had lain within 
 view of green pastures, hills and hillocks, springing grass, bubbling brooks, 
 and evergreen trees. 
 
 The last villages or traces of habitation passed ere Nazareth was reached had 
 such names as Zebdeh, Samunah, and Malul. This latter is a little heap of 
 ruins about which the records are indistinct and no fictions have yet supplied 
 the want of facts, which is a strange thing for this part of the world. That so 
 little is known of some places that we have passed is excusable when our guide 
 tells us of the many Scripturally mentioned places yet remaining to be identified. 
 
 There is no trouble as to the identity of Nazareth, which is seen now much 
 as it always was — a blessing indeed, considering the cavils existing as to the 
 holy places in this land. A few additions have been made to it, but it has 
 escaped much of the destruction and rebuilding that have so destroyed the 
 ancient Jerusalem, and effaced even the landmarks of many of its famous 
 places. From its hillsides we look upon the planted fields and green valley 
 that have been ever as they now are. It is in such a pleasant situation, and is 
 so decent a place, being in that respect the counterpart of Bethlehem, that 
 
The Nazarenes. 447 
 
 expectation is satisfied. One realizes a better opinion of it than had been 
 formed from its negative character of olden times, conveyed in the words, 
 " Can anything good come out of Nazareth ?" 
 
 It is not, perhaps, a desirable position for townships to cleave to a hillside as 
 do Siloam and Nazareth, but such situation helps to save building back walls 
 to the houses, which in such cases find a substitute in the rock to which 
 they cling. The position of many parts of Nazareth renders not all of it easy 
 of access. The houses, like those of Bethlehem, are stone built, of the square- 
 box order of architecture — mere cottages in fact, flat roofed, and destitute, like 
 Eastern houses generally, of chimneys. It was all an unvisited, and in that 
 way unhonoured, spot for the first five centuries of the Christian era. The 
 Empress Helena, who did so much for the discovery and building up of the 
 shrines at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, altogether neglected Nazareth. No 
 Christians are said to have visited it until the sixth century, when the first 
 pilgrimage to it took place. Pilgrimages in that time of difficult travelling 
 were pilgrimages indeed, and not the pleasantry so called in our days. 
 
 The population of Nazareth now is said to be between three and four 
 thousand — three-fourths of whom belong to the Christianized Greek and Latin 
 Churches. The Maronites also, I believe, acknowledge Christian authority, 
 but the seven hundred Mahomedans are quite a discordant element in the 
 little place. The Latin Church in Syria makes use of the Roman Liturgy, and 
 acknowledges as its head a resident patriarch at Jerusalem. A like patriarch 
 of the Greek Church resides at Damascus, and the head-man of the Maronites in 
 some town of the Lebanon range. The Arabs are not all Mahomedans, 
 and those not so are called Chaldeans, and have the head-quarters of their 
 faith at Aleppi. There are a few of other sects, among whom are the 
 Druses, also resident at Nazareth, who help by religious dissensions to make 
 it what our friends the Americans call a " live" place. It is in the Latin 
 monastery here, as at Bethlehem, that we might, if we needed it, find that 
 hospitality which elsewhere would be sought at inns. 
 
 In this little place, in these pathways upon the hill side, and at its foot, we 
 tread, without doubt, ground trodden by Jesus for all that long period of His 
 lifetime from youth to manhood. He here walked with those semi-brothers and 
 sisters of His, the children of Joseph and Mary, of whom the New Testament 
 Apocryphal Gospels make such special mention, but whom the Churches have 
 not chosen to keep much in remembrance. The hand-book proper to Nazareth 
 would be those Gospels of James, Thomas, and Nicodemus, the "Gospel of 
 the Infancy," and " History of Joseph the Carpenter," which were popular in 
 the second century of our era. Of wide circulation in the following ages, and 
 largely translated, these narratives of the domestic life of the " Holy Family at 
 Nazareth" were deeply interesting and instructive. Though referred to by 
 Origen and other Fathers of the Church, they never obtained canonical recog- 
 nition, such helping, probably, to greater attention being given to the later 
 life of Jesus. Events of the school-days of Christ, and the workshop life of both 
 Himself and Joseph, are detailed in those old chronicles that are to Nazareth 
 and its story as Boswell's biography is to Johnson and his life. 
 
 Our days of Holy Land travel had shown samples of its peoples from Joppa 
 to Jerusalem, and thence to Bethlehem, and further onwards to Jericho and 
 Jordan, and across country to Carmel. Of all that we had yet seen of its 
 womankind, however, those we now saw at Nazareth were the only ones which 
 called for any attention. To that result their better dressing, perhaps, contri- 
 buted. It might be that to our sunburnt vision they seemed as comelier in 
 appearance than they really were ; but there were certainly large and bright 
 eyes and graceful figures seen by us in Nazareth that were, as said of their 
 sisters about Carmel, worthy all the admiration which they got from us. 
 
44o TJie Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 The maidens of Nazareth may have, probably, a greater respect for themselves 
 than have other village maidens, knowing how much their native place is 
 reverenced for the one who was most favoured of all her sex. Artistic aids 
 to adornment are therefore, it is to be noticed, not neglected, though, least of 
 all the women in Syria, is such aid needful to them. These village belles, with 
 their coin-circled foreheads and bangled ankles, are seen at their best when, 
 crowned with their pitchers or chatties, they go forth for water to "The 
 Virgin's Fountain." Being the only source of water supply to Nazareth, it is 
 without doubt, this fountain, rightly enough named. Many at a time are to be 
 seen clustered about it, diffusing the gossip of the day, around a stone trough 
 beneath a small arch that serves as a half shelter. Here, to this well- 
 frequented spot, near to an olive plantation, and but little distance from the 
 village, I went to drink more than once, that I might see, if I could not also 
 hear and understand, the "good things," that, in this sense, "come out of 
 Nazareth." 
 
 Place aiix dames having been so properly given, attention may be turned now 
 to " the memorials and the things of fame," that give to Nazareth all of its 
 renown. The Latin Church has charge here of the leading one — the Greek 
 Church, for once, taking second place. Such leading shrine is that of the 
 Annunciation, over the traditional place of which a convent has been built, 
 similar to the one erected over the birthplace at Bethlehem. Where this 
 building stands we are told that the angel stood when announcing to Mary, in 
 her own dwelling, formerly here standing, that miracle by which she was hence- 
 forward to be known to all the world. In the interior the visitor descends 
 from the Church floor by a few stairs to an apartment of ordinary size, in which 
 an altar is seen placed, where, we are told, stood Gabriel when announcing his 
 mission to the Virgin. The spot, marked by a cross, on which the Virgin stood 
 is also shown. The shrine, like that of the Nativity at Bethlehem, is bedecked, 
 and not decorated, with tawdry hangings, lamps, and paintings. One leaves the 
 place with none of the elevated thought proper to the great supernatural event it 
 should recall. As at Jerusalem and at Bethlehem so at Nazareth, all dis- 
 heartening and dismaying in what one so expects and hopes to be otherwise, 
 to which ill-feeling the subject of the next paragraph much helps. 
 
 From the roof of the building appears, as hanging down, part of a broken 
 stone column — over the other or bottom part of the same, the column resting 
 on the floor. The middle part has been, the attendant priest tells me, broken 
 away in a vain effort to remove the whole column by some Mahomedans, who 
 once hoped, by so destroying the support, to cause the downfall of the building. 
 The roof not only miraculously held up, but more miraculously held up the 
 lai'ger part of the pillar that was intended for its support ! Such portion of the 
 pillar so hanging is here more palpable than Mahomet's coflin, and its so-called 
 supernatural suspension leads one's thoughts to that greater though less visible 
 wonder. 
 
 As this Latin convent covers the site of the dwelling-place of the Holy 
 Family, the house itself and its removal are accounted for by a miracle more 
 wonderful than the suspended pillar, and as strange as anything in this lard 
 of the miraculous. The house, the guide tells me, and that, too, in the pre- 
 sence of a priestly attendant, who listens quite approvingly, was angelically 
 removed hence to Italy five hundred years ago ! Proof positive of such exists 
 in that the house may now be seen in Loretto, on the shores of the Adriatic, 
 which I shall skirt if I call at Venice on the overland route homewards. In the 
 Cathedral there is now standing this " Casa Sancta," or Holy House, repre- 
 sented by a rough stone hut-like building of about thirty feet by eighteen, en- 
 cased in richly-carved and ornamented marble. 
 
 The Holy House, so removed from Nazareth, stayed awhile, we are told. 
 
Notabilities of Nazareth. 449 
 
 on its journey, at Tersato in Dalmatia, for what reason is not said. The same 
 miraculous agency moved it again onwards, intact as it was and not stone by 
 stone, to where it now rests. My guide from Carmel has played many parts 
 in his time, and that of a courier among them. He has been at Loretto, and 
 adds to the information given about the " Casa Sancta " there, that he wishes 
 that he had a share of the immense wealth in gold, silver, and jewels that have 
 been left within it. He thus alludes to the propitiating gifts to the Virgin by 
 the thousands of devotees visiting the shrine of " Our Lady of Loretto." To 
 that much of information the priestly attendant here now adds more, and gives 
 a reason for the removal. The Crusaders had but lately, he says, been driven 
 by the Mahomedans from Palestine, and those protectors of the holy places 
 being gone there was danger for that which was left. The hands of angels, 
 therefore, removed what the arm of flesh could no longer protect ! When 
 reasons are thus given even reason itself should be satisfied. 
 
 The Greek Church has also its shrine of the Annunciation — the Latin and 
 Greek Churches competing throughout Syria and Palestine for the shrines, as 
 places to which pilgrims or travellers will go and pay for going. In and 
 around Jerusalem it is the Greek Church that has the most popular, the most 
 visited, of the holy places. Here, however, the Latin Church, having, as 
 before stated, secured the site of the house of the Holy Family, and showing 
 its kitchen and parlour to the pilgrims, has made it necessary for the Greek 
 Church to throw a new light on the subject. To do that they have gone back 
 to a tradition of as old a date, if not older, than that of the other church. In 
 the old " Protoevangelion " of James — one of the Apochryphal New Testa- 
 ment gospels above referred to, it is told that the salutation of Gabriel to Mary 
 came when she was found at the fountain that now bears her name. 
 
 Over the source of this fountain, therefore, have the Greek Church built 
 their " Chapel of the Annunciation." They ignore altogether the legend of 
 the removal of the house to Loretto, and treat the pretensions of the Latin Con- 
 vent, and that which it covers, with all contempt. Both these churches pro- 
 fessing Christianity, it seems sad that they should so, by rivalry, help to raise 
 doubt and distrust as they do, causing one to exclaim for that reason on such 
 matter as Mercutio did on another one, " A plague on both your houses." 
 
 Wandering further about this village of eternal fame, we happen upon 
 another holy place, also in the possession of the Latin Church. It is said to 
 mark the spot where stood Joseph's workshop. The chapel standing upon this 
 site is said to cover fragments — bits of walls of the veritable old building that 
 stood here. This, then, is where stood the scene of the famous picture of 
 Millais' "Christ in the Carpenter's Shop," and the later one by Holman 
 Hunt, of "The Shadow of the Cross." It would be heresy for me to doubt 
 the pieces of old wall, here protected, as being genuine relics, though I 
 am not allowed to take the old Gospels, the Apochryphal ones of the New 
 Testament, and read as truthful all their stories of the doings of the two work- 
 men — Jesus and Joseph — in this spot. On a side wall of this chapel hangs a 
 large picture, painted by an Italian artist, representing the workshop as it 
 appeared to the mind's eye of the painter when in workshop use. Such paint- 
 ings are common in suchlike shrines, being usually presented to them, as are 
 memorial windows to churches elsewhere. In the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre at Jerusalem I had seen a large tapestry picture, covering one wall 
 of the Latin Chapel within that building, representing "The Last Supper" — 
 the costly gift of some devout donor, whose name appears upon a corner of it. 
 
 The chapel of the Mensa Christi, or " Table of Christ," is another of those 
 special attractions for the traveller on sight-seeing bent which Nazareth offers. 
 In this building I am shown the table at which Christ sat with his friends 
 when eating. There is something about an ancient-looking table that dares 
 
 E E 
 
45 o The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 all dispute, and this one appears old enough to have been in the Ark itself, to 
 judge only by marks of age. To what time, or seeming eternity, woodwork 
 will last, I had seen evidence in the Boulak Museum, near Cairo, where a 
 wooden figure, in good preservation, is shown to all, labelled as being some 
 six thousand years old. The mere probability of the duration of the table, as a 
 table, for eighteen hundred years, was, therefore, no matter for doubt ; but as 
 Nazareth, for its shrines, was not sought by visitors to the holy places until 
 about the sixth century, the identity of any portable articles of no intrinsic 
 value after that long period would be difficult matter indeed for proof — if proof 
 about such matters need be demanded. 
 
 Of other things at which the pilgrim is expected to look with curious, if not 
 reverential eyes, is the hill-top which legend says was that to which Jesus was 
 led out by the enraged people of the Synagogue to be cast down. The event 
 is detailed by the Evangelist Luke, in his fourth chapter, thus : — 
 
 "And all they in the Synagogue, when they had heard these things, were filled with 
 wrath. And they rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the 
 hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong." 
 
 This spot now bears the name of the " Mount of Precipitation," and is as 
 likely to be the Tarpeian Rock of this locality as is any similar eminence. 
 Situated, however, as it is, nearly two miles from Nazareth, few travellers go 
 to visit it. There is nothing whatever told by the quoted notice of the 
 occurrence by which to identify the place of it, which would likely have been 
 not so far distant from the town. If we walk thither it is not in the spirit of 
 curiosity or enquiry, but as an occupation of time, and as an excuse for an 
 excursion, having an object for the walk taken. We are more certain of the 
 ground so trodden upon in such walk being holy land as sanctified by His foot- 
 steps, than we are of anything else that has been shown to us hereabout. In 
 that respect this Nazareth part of the country should be to all travellers in it 
 as the Holy of Holies. 
 
 The Synagogue from which He was so ejected is, as matter of tradition, also 
 made a memorable building in Nazareth. A visit to it, however, is one of the 
 minor matters that are usually by pilgrims postponed and passed over. In 
 Palestine and Syria the eye becomes satisfied with seeing and the ear with 
 hearing sooner than might be expected. The feeling experienced is something 
 akin to that felt in the picture galleries of the world's capitals. There is too 
 much shown in one place, and the heart is satiated with the increase, and wishes 
 it were less. Where much is crowded together there is the less admiration of 
 what should engross attention. 
 
 Nazareth is the last of the places, visited by us in this journey, with which the 
 events of the life of Jesus is connected. At Bethlehem we had seen His birth- 
 place, and at Cairo that which is there accredited as the dwelling of Mary, 
 Joseph, and Jesus during the time of their stay in Egypt. On Jordan's banks 
 had been shown to us the traditional place of His baptism, and we had traversed 
 the wilderness of that temptation to which He was afterwards subjected. High 
 above it, and looking down upon Jordan, we had seen the " exceedingly high 
 mountain" told of in St. Matthew's fourth chapter as that up which the Evil 
 One had taken Him. 
 
 Outside of Jerusalem we had been shown the Garden of the Agony, and, away 
 in another direction from Gethsemane, the chamber of " The Last Supper." 
 At Bethany, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, we saw the house of Lazarus 
 and the scene of the miracle of His raising from the dead. On the sides of 
 that mount we had walked in the steps He trod when telling more than one 
 parable, and also foretelling the destruction of that city on which He then looked 
 and over which He there wept. Finally, in that city we had been shown His 
 
Leaving New-Testa7nent Land. 451 
 
 tomb, and on Olivet's summit the traditional place of the Ascension. We had 
 thus seen, in the land of Jesus, the most prominent spots connected with the 
 short record of His life and death. If travel be worth anything whatever in 
 the way of giving one new ideas or enlarging those we have, then such journey- 
 ing as ours had lately been stood as pre-eminent in value. No land, save that 
 " Better Land," of yet treading which our faith gives us a hope, could equal in 
 interest this cradle-land of Christianity. 
 
 We are still to tread biblical land, however, for some time, though our course 
 will now take us to Old Testament scenes only. We shall see Damascus, the 
 first-born of all cities, and Lebanon, most famous of the mountain ranges of 
 this world ! That we shall look upon a city which we have been told is, at one 
 and the same time, the oldest and the most beautiful of all cities that be, is 
 quite bewildering to us — who have never yet seen blended the ideas of age and 
 
 A PROVENDER CARRIER. 
 
 beauty. We are to see, however, that unity in another day or two with its 
 twin streams of Abana and Pharpar, and its hosts of ideal people with which 
 memory will fill Damascus, should not a living being be found in its streets. 
 In this Holy-land travel these thoughts cheer us, and in our dreary time of the 
 tiring afternoons help to stimulate our flagging spirits. "There is Damascus 
 yet before us !" is a speech more than once heard amongst us. 
 
 And beyond Damascus there lay Baalbec and Lebanon, to which our course 
 downward to the sea must take us. That we shall see the " Cedars of Lebanon" 
 and all the famous things, the record of which we hunt up in our Bible 
 references, is as something to live for. Our tents are busy nightly in biblical 
 researches, and in the noting down of references, and copying out the notab 
 
 E E 2 
 
452 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 things which will serve us as guide-book memoranda when there will be less 
 time for looking it up. Pilgrims indeed, we are filled with a zeal that grows 
 upon us in this old land of our youthful readings — a land that in some 
 sort in that way seems to have been that of our grandfathers and grandmothers, 
 to whom, and bless them for it, we owe most of early Bible knowledge. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 "the pearl of the east." 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord God! ... the head of Syria is Damascus!" 
 This declaration by Isaiah, in his seventh chapter, rings with a clarion-like 
 clearness, and all a new meaning, as we look now upon its great subject. 
 Such grand title and special mention ennoble it to the ear, but not more than 
 the sight of it surprises our widest-stretched of wondering eyes. The quoted 
 supernatural declaration of its superiority is fully sustained by its supernatural 
 beauty, as we look down upon it from its surrounding hill sides. There is in 
 the world a law of compensation that, in many cases, regulates the reward we 
 have for the trouble we experience in getting at a good thing. The toilsome 
 journey, the half stiff and aching limbs, crooked fingers, feverish skin, and 
 irritable feelings, were all forgiven and forgotten now. We had gone through 
 difficulties that were to us of the kind that Bunyan imagined for his troubled 
 wayfarers, and here was the City Beautiful at last, as seen from hill-sides that 
 were to us the Delectable Mountains in giving us that wondrous sight only. 
 
 And the " charmed city " has earned that name, and all its others, 
 deservedly. It is the one city of the East which has lost nothing of a great- 
 ness that is as impressive as it is eternal. The traveller who has been over 
 the world, chafing at disappointments, or surfeiting with surprises, finds his 
 greatest astonishment in the hill-side sight of Damascus. I think that I have 
 my surprise too much to myself, but find that my American fellow-travellers 
 equally share it, and have just then more than their usual desire for that 
 silence which is often more eloquent than words. Not but what I find 
 eloquence in their few-worded expressions, brimful of meaning, that I hear 
 occasionally, and have by this got so well to understand. One of my 
 friends is now thinking half aloud, and utters his thought thus — "Well, this 
 overlays everything ! " 
 
 This first of recorded cities, as thus seen from its hill-sides, is the freshest- 
 looking and the fairest of all cities that be. The traveller wandering in 
 Quixotic searches for perfecter beauty, like the knights of old, might rest 
 satisfied with this sight of Damascus. Man's fancy cannot picture anything 
 superior. Martin's grand painting of the Plains of Heaven is as nothing to it 
 as a delight-giving sight. Only Turner could have painted it, and he would 
 have left to the world his and its finest picture had he succeeded in the effort. 
 Jerusalem may be holy but it is also odious, seen afar or near, and but for its 
 sanctity and shrines would have long since been deserted and be now unvisited. 
 Damascus has but one shrine, at which all creeds alike worship — one that is 
 beyond doubt and disputation in the world's debates — its all-powerful and 
 unchanging beauty. 
 
 All our antiquity is but modern, compared with that of this desert oasis. 
 We can go back no further than Genesis in its history, but there find its 
 
Sight of the City Beautiful. 453 
 
 existence recorded as of a long-settled city. Earlier records, did any exist, 
 would doubtless show the same result. We read in the fifteenth chapter of 
 that book Abraham's statement, " And the steward of my house is this Eliezer 
 of Damascus " — evidence enough of its being then a place of note, and with 
 a population to spare as emigrants. Solomon sought to rival its importance in 
 that " Tadmor of the wilderness," otherwise Palmyra, which he caused to be 
 built at a three days' further journey across the desert towards Persian 
 territory. 
 
 Palmyra well illustrates the fate of Man's efforts when he strives to achieve 
 the successes made only by Nature. Solomon, with all his wisdom, did not 
 see that where water and wood were in plenty, men would crowd and there abide, 
 whatever king might reign over them. His new city had none of the natural 
 advantages with which l3amascus is endowed, and all its artificial ones had 
 but their hour. Palmyra had its time and is gone ; had its day of splendour 
 under Zenobia, its mighty queen ; had its might and its millions, ruling all 
 Syria and Palestine, and stretching its hand into Egypt — and is now a heap of 
 ruins. 
 
 Baalbec, city of Baal the sun-god and the Syrian Heliopolis was another 
 and a nearer neighbouring rival to Damascus that lived but a longer day than 
 Palmyra, and is as utterly extinguished. The few wretched villagers who now 
 crouch among the stones of these mighty cities are as ghouls haunting the 
 graveyards which the ruins now are — deserted graveyards, the huge monuments 
 in which lie about to be utilized as quarries. For the rest, 
 
 " The owl, the jackal, and the lizard keep 
 Their courts where monarchs gloried and drank deep." 
 
 On either side of her, thus laid low, are the kingly-built Palmyra and Baalbec 
 — the efforts of empires that dared attempt to rival, artificially. Nature's own 
 greatness in Damascus. 
 
 Damascus, young and beautiful, then as now looked on at the feverish exist- 
 ence of her petted rivals, and knew that the gay life would be — as are all arti- 
 ficial lives — but a very short one. That which is everlasting can well be 
 patient. Palmyra's life as a city and that of Baalbec were but as a day in the 
 countless years of the existence of Damascus — the real "eternal city," to 
 which Rome is, in comparison and competition for such title, but a young 
 pretender. 
 
 Isaiah has been quoted for the grandest of the titles of Damascus, and that 
 which Mahomet said of it may not unfitly follow. None who see the multi- 
 tude of his followers spread throughout the East but must respect the words of 
 one so potent. Of fifty millions of the Hindoos, and of all Egypt, Turkey, 
 Syria, and Persia, he is the great prophet and high priest. The few of other 
 creeds in those four countries last-named scarcely count against his immense 
 majority. Here, on a mount overlooking Damascus, stands a small temple of 
 five columns and a dome, open to the winds, marking where stood Mahomet 
 looking on that scene of wonder which then dazzled his eyes as it now does 
 ours. 
 
 " It is Paradise !" he said ; " I shall not go into it. Man can enter but one 
 Paradise, and I will not choose the earthly one !" 
 
 So saying, he contented himself with what he saw from these hillsides, and 
 went not into the city. He had no selfish cause for such adulation of Damas- 
 cus — it was then no possession of his to deal with. He spoke but in a shorter 
 form than others have done, what were his sensations at the sight — speaking 
 as one having a God-like gift of ruling men, and of so addressing them in 
 " few words to fair faith." Standing where he did, it is not difficult to read 
 
454 ^^^^ Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 his thoughts; but we are not so sure, as he was, and as are all Mohammedans, of 
 the expected Paradise hereafter. So we shall be wooed by the siren-like beauty 
 around to know more of this one, and, fools as we are, will be led next day to rush 
 in where the prophet feared to tread. It would be well if the world would 
 learn from the experiences of others, and not suffer so much, as we do, in learning 
 everything personally. We have only that feeling towards Mahomet that Dr. 
 Pangloss had for Dido, but in this matter of Damascus we see in what he said 
 and did a wisdom which commands respect. If the prophet never found the 
 paradise he expected, he got the idea of one here, that must have made his end 
 all the happier, and brightened the prospect of the Hereafter. 
 
 " The head of Syria is Damascus," according to Isaiah ; and the head is the 
 beauty, ornament, and adornment of the body, as the capital is to the column. 
 As we sat on Mahomet's Mount, and looked upon the scene below, all that we 
 had read and heard of this Damascus the Beautiful came back to us, and seemed 
 but poorly to portray it. In rare care of its darling, the desert girdles it 
 around. As a further guard to it, nature has surrounded it with hills. Within 
 their circuit our sand-blinded eyes gloat on broad bands and belts of verdure. 
 Three circles, therefore, enclose it as a casket — desert, hills, and woods. 
 
 The trees that thus surround Damascus for miles in breadth show every shade 
 of green — the bronze of the walnut, the duskiness of the cypress, the lightness 
 of the poplar, the grey of the mountain ash, and the blue tint of the pome- 
 granate. In the inner centre the sun shines on what, in its whiteness, seems 
 to be a city of silver, set in circles of emeralds. Enlivened also by the sounds of 
 rushing waters and bvibbling fountains that are everywhere to be seen and heard, 
 and in their cooling influence pleasantly felt. Such is Damascus, seen from its 
 hill-sides — Eastern and dreamy — the very spirit of all that is poetical. 
 
 It is the pet child of the desert. The wild, howling wilderness is all around 
 it, accursed of God and man, barren altogether but of this one child — this 
 Esmeralda. It lies there like a disc of pearls on the dark bosom of its 
 dusky mother, Hagar's children are the Bedoueen, — the sons, naturatsons, 
 of the desert ; but Damascus is its true, legitimate child — its one fair daughter. 
 It has drained its bosom to furnish the Abana and Pharpar that flow to nourish 
 Damascus. It has gathered within it all the life and verdure it could yield, 
 every green thing that could grow upon its surface, and given them all to 
 beautify it, with the prodigality of a loving mother lavishing everything, life 
 included, upon her one pet child ! 
 
 It tells thus the story to all that have eyes to see and ears to hear, as it fondles 
 Damascus on its bosom. "This is my daughter, my one fair child ! Come, 
 ye fertile lands, dowered with many cities, and show any that can equal this 
 one of the poor, outcast, despised, and accursed desert ! I am prouder in its 
 possession than of the fairest and most fertile of lands* My ' Pearl of the 
 East' is that also of the west, north, and south — the gem of the whole world ; 
 worth, in its rarity, all the collected beauties of the cities of other lands ! God, 
 who gave her to me, pitied my condition, my sterility, my loneliness, and my 
 reproach, and so gave me my Damascus — giving to her the heavenly gifts, 
 elsewhere denied, of a youth and beauty that are never fading. Your children, 
 ye favoured lands, grow old, your cities ruin and rot, 'tarnished with decay.' 
 Mine remains as in the first morning of time, as young, fresh, and beautiful as 
 at its birth. Look on it, listen to its voice ! It smiles on you, sings to you, 
 woos you ! Other cities are forsaken by their lovers, are deserted and forgotten. 
 Mine is full as ever to overflowing, and the best remembered of all by those 
 who may for a time leave, but can never forget her!" 
 
 Shakspeare has given words to Romeo when he first sees Juliet, which force 
 themselves upon us as we here see a fairer sight by far than eyes of young lover 
 ever looked upon — 
 
The Deserfs Dainty Daughter. 455 
 
 " O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright. 
 It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear — 
 Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. 
 So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, 
 As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows." 
 
 Substituting "city" for "lady" in the last line, no more apt description could 
 be penned of this emerald-set " Pearl of the East." 
 
 This dainty daughter of the desert sits, queenlike, in her unclouded atmo- 
 sphere, working her gold and silvered silks and her valued cloths for the world's 
 admiration. Fitting work for the fairest of cities ! Of others the world can 
 get its ploughshares, but Damascus disdains for such use to make its peerless 
 steel. The working-dress of the wcrk-a-day world can be had where it maj-, 
 but its bridal silks, interwoven with golden threads, its boudoir furnishings, 
 and its holiday attire are found at their best here. The embroidered narghilies 
 are here, and here is the golden tobacco, and the scented cigarettes made of it 
 for fair Eastern lips. Here also is the perfume of all perfumes, the attar of 
 Damascus roses — the preparation of all which, and the like, are the fitting work 
 that this fair city finds or selects for itself from all the labours of the world. 
 
 There is little in Damascus that Time the destroyer can lay hands upon. It 
 can never be in ruins like its stone-built neighbours Baalbec and Palmyra — 
 each but a short journey from its tree-girt walls. Its houses we shall find, 
 when inside those walls, to be mostly of perishable material, and of the wood 
 that is so plentiful around. As they decay and fall, their dust is washed into 
 the earth from which they came, and they are replaced by other similar ones. 
 The waters that have made the wild garden in which the city stands are 
 untouchable by time, and will keep Damascus as they have made it, as it is, as 
 it was, and ever will be — an oasis in the desert, to which all travellers cannot 
 choose but bend their steps. It realizes altogether Byron's imagery — 
 
 " In the desert a fountain is springing. 
 
 In the wild waste there yet stands a tree, 
 And a bird in the solitude singing 
 Whene'er I am thinking of thee." 
 
 Time can lay hold on nothing within Damascus. It is all, as Pope describes 
 something else of Nature's beautiful work "matter too soft a lasting mark to 
 bear." 
 
 Coming down from this hill-side sight of it, the appearance of Damascus 
 may be otherwise described as a large irregular triangle of dense verdure, 
 covering forty or more miles in circumference, enclosing a city composed of 
 what, in the distance, resembles some thousands of ivory Chinese-made chess 
 pieces, the kings, queens, castles, knights, and bishops of which would fitly 
 represent the templ'e-domes and minarets that are to be seen, crowned with 
 their shining crescents, amidst the glittering mass of buildings, most prominent 
 among which are the great central mosques and the towers of a castle. Let 
 one angle of the three be tapered out to eight miles or so of green length 
 between the enclosing hills, and place a silver tape along its centre, to repre- 
 sent the flowing Abana — here called the Barada. Those eight miles will 
 represent the main entrance to Damascus — the finest approach by which any 
 city in the world can be entered. It is an entrance-hall or pathway that might 
 fitly lead, so far as mundane minds can imagine, to Paradise itself. The view 
 from the hiils is quite matched by this magnificent approach, along which the 
 rushing river sings by one's side, crossing and recrossing the road and forming 
 endless cascades of beauty. It is the gorge of the Abana, with which, by the 
 way, the Pharpar is amalgamated many miles before their united waters reach 
 the city. They might be mistaken for a dozen rivers in the endless branches 
 
456 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 thrown off by these united streams when reaching Damascus, in and about 
 which the water seems to dance and revel as never water did elsewhere. 
 
 We lingered about Jerusalem before going within the walls, and have better 
 reason, in Mahomet's example, for doing so here. There is so much of interest 
 to be seen outside Damascus in views that change with every fifty yards or 
 so. A caravan of Mohammedans has just returned here from their pilgrimage 
 to Mecca, as I had seen a similar one do to Cairo when lately there. Each 
 nationality might be known to practised eyes by the dress of the wearers ; but 
 Anatolians, Persians, Kurds, and Turks are nearly indistinguishable in the dust 
 and dirt of their long march. Going and coming, they have been altogether, 
 I am told, ninety days on the road. 
 
 These " Hadjis," as the pilgrims from Mecca are called, combine business 
 with religious duties, and nearly each has his big or little pack of goods for the 
 interior bazaars. The Bedoueen encampment seen outside another gate is a 
 very different affair. It is on its way, when it again starts, for Bagdad, by 
 way of Palmyra and other intermediate places. Fully a hundred camels are 
 in this company. A wandering photographer has been wisely securing a 
 picture of the scene, and kindly allows me a copy of his photograph of the 
 picturesque assemblage. 
 
 Awhile ago I might have seen the caravans of the merchants that thrice a 
 year left Damascus with armed escorts on their month's journey across the 
 desert to Bagdad. That enterprise has been, however, crushed by the 
 Bedoueen — a people who seem to be a mixture of the savage with the freebooter, 
 the higliwayman, and the gipsy. Some few years back these children of nature, 
 freedom, and evil, felt themselves strong enough for a larger robbery than usual. 
 For the first time within remembrance they attacked, with success, the traders' 
 caravan midway to Bagdad. By that raid the Damascus merchants lost fifty 
 thousand pounds, and have not yet recovered the blow, or heart enough to renew 
 the risk. Some years later those other children of nature, the Red Indians, 
 tried to do similarly with the caravan that crosses their desert from the Pacific 
 to the Atlantic. They actually tried to " lasso " the mail train by ingeniously 
 tying themselves to the hide-made cords in long strings on both sides of the 
 line — so pitting their strength against the locomotive's. The engine was, sure 
 enough, caught by the lasso, but unexpectedly carried it along at undiminished 
 speed. The tied strings of Indians meantime gyrated on both sides, in a style 
 of enforced tumbling never before seen, until the ropes slipped beneath the 
 wheels, and so left panting those that yet lived. 
 
 These men of the desert, the Bedoueen, are a numerous and powerful people 
 — one tribe alone numbering, Hassan tells me, nine thousand or more horse- 
 men, and eighty thousand camel-drivers and assistants. They prefer their black 
 tents to any house shelter, and are never comfortable within the walls of a city. 
 It is told me that they have a district of many thousand square miles as a sort of 
 squatting run for themselves, their camels, and famous horses. For dress they 
 wear a blue tunic or blouse girdled around the waist, and over the shoulder 
 hangs a goatskin cape. What is on the head is not definable — it is generally 
 so old and dirty, nor is it clear whether the rope of coarse hair twisted 
 around over the ears is that of the 'horse, the camel, or the wearer. The 
 Bedouin is a middle-sized man, of sullen, forbidding countenance, and restless 
 wild-beast eyes, that roll about in the head in a way that betokens the ever- 
 watchful nature of their owner — an Ishmaelite, " whose hand is against every 
 man." Unless he first attacks, he is said to prefer flight on his fleet mare 
 to fighting, on which some one has writtten — 
 
 " Good horse should he have whom all refuse 
 To aid or help in his need ; 
 By my troth, I think one whom the world pursues 
 Has a right to an Arab steed." 
 
^^ Arabian Nights'^ Localities. 457 
 
 The Bedouin carries a lance over ten feet long, of a sort of bamboo cane, 
 finished with a steel top and bottom, and having a fringe of feathers at the top 
 part where the wood and metal join. This spear, so iron-shod, is dangerous 
 at either end when held by its owner above his head and thrown at that of an- 
 other. These weapons of war are here all around at rest — with their lower 
 steel ends stuck into the sandy soil. The Bedoueen are particularly careful of 
 their horses, which are never used but for saddle purposes. Every horse- 
 man has an attendant camel or dromedary to carry other burdens, the 
 canteen, and any plunder which the horseman may happen upon in his day's foray. 
 As I hear all this explained, and look on the wild-looking men, and am told of 
 their way of life, I think of Burns' Highland lassie and her song to her infant, 
 expressed in his words : — 
 
 " Blessings on thy bonnie craigie, 
 An' thou live thou'lt steal a naggie, 
 Plunder the loons of the low country, 
 Then to the Highlands home to me I" 
 
 One's thoughts run naturally all to poetical expression when on the subject 
 ■of Damascus. 
 
 Some such lullaby as that is what the feminine Bedoueen must croon to their 
 babies. They are hard-featured women, and the burden of life and labour 
 seems to lie heavy upon them — their vagabond lords disdaining all work. The 
 younger girls, upon whom trouble has not yet come, look as bright and lively 
 as young gazelles. Like the men, these women have a fancy for dark blue in 
 the way of dress, and the way they load their heads, ears, noses, hands, arms, 
 and ankles with trinkets is most noticeable. They are said to dye or tattoo 
 the lips, but their skin is so dark altogether that any tattooing done is not a 
 striking feature. Much more so are the strings of coins at their girdles. 
 
 Going about, I take note of some of the city gates, and of their fanciful 
 names, as Hassan gives and translates them : — Bab el Faraj, the Persian gate ; 
 Bab el Salam, the gate of peace ; Buwab el Allah, the gate of God ; Bab el 
 Faradis, the gate of the gardens; Bab Shurky, the east gate; Bab el Hadid, the 
 iron gate ; Bab el Sagha, the little gate ; Bab Tuma, Thomas' gate ; and 
 another closed up, which the pencil seems to have stuttered over, so inde- 
 cipherable is its name. 
 
 All sorts of liberties have been taken with the plentiful waters of the Abana. 
 In the road leading to one of the gates it is carried away in two miniature 
 canals, cut at different elevations. In another road three conduits of that 
 kind are to be seen, by which distant land is kept irrigated. The trees around 
 the city that looked so thick from the hill-sides have, I now find, cleared spots 
 here and there among them, in which are little semi-villages and English- 
 looking greensward. It is to be noticed that on some parts of the old city wall 
 houses are standing, the windows of which served other purposes in bygone 
 days than that of admitting light. From such apertures those who went not 
 out through the gates, and probably often came not in through them, were let 
 down by cords. In a basket from one of them we read that St. Paul so made 
 his escape from the city. 
 
 The guide points out in the distance the convent of Saidnaya, situated to 
 Damascus much as Mar Saba monastery is to Jerusalem, and a rival to it in 
 points of age, situation, and rock-cut peculiarity. It has an attraction which the 
 monastery does not possess, drawing pilgrims to it from all parts. For 
 six centuries it is known to have had a miraculous image of the Virgin, that was 
 once all stone, but is now half incarnated. The fleshly part perspires holy oil 
 into a silver basin placed beneath it. This unction is the aid sought by the 
 afflicted. The cures it is said to work, when well rubbed in, resemble those 
 
458 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 effected by the wonderful medicines that we see so much advertised. This 
 rock-cut convent of Saidnaya belongs to the Greek Church. I had been too 
 late, by a day or two, to see their holy fire miracle at Jerusalem in the Church 
 of the Sepulchre there, and so would, as a compensation, have gone to see this 
 one if I could have got any company. My American friends, however, say 
 that they are "full on miracles," and will let this one pass. 
 
 We see here shepherds leading and not driving their flocks, and pass 
 recesses in the hills — tombs of those who have in Scriptural words "hewn 
 them out sepulchres on high, and graved an habitation for themselves in a 
 rock." To come now from Scripture to the " Arabian Nights" is all apropos 
 of Damascus. Our guide points out the scenes of two of the thousand and one 
 tales, and might, perhaps, point out another dozen. Nothing could be thought 
 of more appropriately in connexion with all one here sees than those novelettes 
 of Mohammedan life, scenery, and adventure. 
 
 The evening's sunset showed another view of Damascus, as it did "o'er 
 Linden when the sun was low." The effect was grandly magnificent. 
 The silvery-looking city and its emerald surroundings were beautified 
 in all colours, as by a celestial lime-light. A goodly pink hue was given to the 
 buildings on which it shone, and a fine purple one to the shadows they threw. 
 More than ever now did it look not as a city of this planet, but as one belong- 
 ing to a far better, as a city left behind by the gods of old to show us w^hat 
 this world was before sin and sorrow came upon it, and what the next world 
 may be. 
 
 Two notabilities of the place are passing in at one of its gates. The first is 
 the Pasha who here rules as governor of the political headquarters of Syria. 
 To him are subject the lesser Pashas of Jerusalem, Acre, and Beyrout. We 
 are told that he is a bigoted fanatic, and one quite capable of encouraging 
 another such Mohammedan outbreak and massacre of the Christians as that of 
 i860. That things may not again come to so bad an end as on that occasion, 
 the government of all the populous villages of the Lebanon range has been 
 taken from him, and placed under Christian rule. The Turks are exasper- 
 ated at this, and moodily sit groaning and grumbling at what they regard as an 
 injury. It is a sad thing to see spots of earth so beautiful as Damascus 
 and all the country from here across Lebanon, and down to seaside Beyrout, 
 under the control of such semi-savages — men opposing all improvement and 
 destitute of honour and humanity. 
 
 As evidence of that, we have passed two large villages on the road hither, 
 in one of which a thousand Christians, and in the other eight hundred, were in 
 i860 massacred, after surrendering their arms on a promise of protection from 
 the Turkish Governor, Osman Bey. This infernal wretch shut them up to the 
 torment of seven days' hunger and thirst, and then let in upon them a murder- 
 ing horde of his brutal soldiers. The base cowardliness of this villain was 
 shown in first disarming those who so innocently trusted in his word, and then, 
 still afraid of them, weakening them by seven days' starvation ere he ventured 
 on their slaughter ! These be the Turks that England fondles, pampers, and 
 lavishes the blood of her armies and the millions of her treasuries upon — in 
 return, getting that by which the bad ever reward their benefactors. 
 
 The other notability who has so passed us is a curio of a Bedouin — one 
 Miguel, whose business was formerly that of acting as escort to travellers from 
 here to Palmyra — a three days' journey. His duties in that way were similar 
 to those of the ornamental sheik who took our party from Jerusalem to the 
 Jordan Valley. Such mild doings would not necessarily have made of Miguel 
 the little hero that he is now looked upon. Fame and Fortune, however, 
 favoured this dark man of the desert in an unlooked-for way. One of those 
 for whom he so acted as dummy guardian was an English lady of rank and 
 
The End of a Romaiice. 459 
 
 title — a blue-blooded patrician. Whether he witched her with noble horse- 
 manship, or by what other witchery, I am not told. Perhaps it was tent-life 
 that had a charm for one wearied of the West-End of London. Much rather it 
 may be that having got away from the forms of civilization and its fetters, she 
 asserted herself and chose to her liking, and seemingly as foolishly as another 
 London lady, who married in 1844 one of the Ojibbeway Indians then on show 
 in that city. "The gentle lady married to the Moor " lived here with her 
 Bedouin, and it is to be hoped has not, like to the other one pining in 
 American backwoods, repented a choice that to some might seem a rash one, 
 to say nothing else of it. 
 
 The gardens of Syria are not of the sort that the Western world understands 
 by the name of gardens. There is no regularity, no laying out, nor anything 
 apparently planned. It is all, therefore, the more really artistic — art being so 
 concealed. The shrubbery, the plantation, the vineyard, the orchard, and the 
 grove, are all mixed up in these gardens with the ilowering plants. In this 
 seemingly wild and natural state lies their great charm. 
 
 Note. — The following notice of the death of the English lady of rank referred to at end ot 
 foregoing chapter, may be interesting to readers. It is extracted from a Melbourne paper. 
 "an adventurous lady. 
 
 " It was a saying of Disraeli's that 'adventures are for the adventurous.' Of that we may 
 note the truth in the story of one whose life was adventurous — as she made it. In the account 
 of Damascus told by Mr. Kingston ('J. H.'), in the ' x\ustralian Abroad,' he tells us of one 
 of the living curios of that curious Eastern citj- — 'One Miguel, whose business was formerly 
 that of acting as escort to travellers from here to Palmyra and Bagdad. Fame and fortune 
 favoured this dark man of the desert in an unlooked-for way. One of those for whom he so 
 acted as guardian was an English lady of rank and title. Whether he witched her with noble 
 horsemanship,or by what other witchery-, I am not told. Perhaps it was tent life that had a charm 
 for one wearied of the West End of London. Much rather it may be that, having got away 
 from the forms of civilization and its fetters, she asserted herself and chose to her liking. 
 " The gentle lady married to the Moor," lives here with her Bedouin, and it is to be hoped has 
 not repented a choice that to some may seem a rash one, to say nothing else of it.' 
 
 " So far our ' J. H.'s,' narrative. In the papers to hand by last mail we read the ending of 
 the story thus told of this sentimental lady. From time to time reports have reached this 
 country' of the death of Lady Ellenborough, the lady who eloped with Prince Schwartenzberg 
 nearly half a century ago. Once more the announcement of her death is positively made, and 
 as she must have been of a very advanced age, there is no improbability in the statement. 
 .She was the beautiful Miss Digby whom Lord Ellenborough had just brought from Dorset- 
 shire. Subsequently to her elopement she shone like a meteor at Paris, Rome, Munich, 
 Florence, Carsruhe, Constantinople, and Athens, where she married a brigand whom King 
 Otho had transformed into a general. She settled down in Syria, a widow of Damascus, 
 where she married the handsome athletic Arab Sheik, Midjouel, the most powerful sheik of 
 Dengistan. Rumour told a romantic tale of her having been attacked by robbers on the road 
 to Palmyra, and rescued by Midjouel. She rewarded him with her hand, a noble gift, as she 
 was still beautiful and had a large fortune. It was agreed that the female issue of the mar- 
 riage should be Protestants, the male Mussulmans. Midjouel should live at Damascus for six 
 months every year with her. The remaining six months he was allowed to pass in the desert 
 with his harem, to which his European wife paid a monthly visit. The compact was loyally 
 kept on both sides for twenty-five years. She took much interest in European affairs, and kept 
 her husband in excellent order. She witched the Arabs with her noble horsemanship; and, 
 though she had acquired the Oriental habit of smoking cigarettes, her salon was strewed 
 with all the elegancies and luxuries with which European ladies surround themselves." 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 THE OLDEST OF CITIES. 
 
 Though the tumbling walls of Damascus are but poor defences to it now, its 
 remaining gates are yet regularly closed by night. Entering by one of these I 
 pass within the famous city and find its roads and footways nearly as bad as 
 those of the majority of Eastern towns. There is but one hotel to be found — 
 
460 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 kept by Demetri Caro, who is known generally by his first name only. The 
 entrance is by a dingy door in an old rubble wall, and leads by a few further 
 steps to a marble-paved courtyard. In the centre is a circular basin, having a 
 central fountain jet, shaded by some lemon-trees. On each side of this yard 
 two steps lead to an open apartment— sitting-rooms for visitors. They are 
 surrounded on three sides by cushioned benches. Three similar courtyards are 
 to be found further on. Staircases at the corners lead to an upper story similarly 
 planned as to the surrounding apartments. 
 
 Demetri's hotel is full of people, so that we are crowded out. I am, however, 
 led over the flat roofs of two adjoining houses, and down a staircase into the 
 courtyard of a third one, round which our party are bestowed, and bid to rest 
 and be thankful. I am doubtful about finding my way back again to the hotel 
 should I want to do so, and see no way, by bell or otherwise, of calling for 
 assistance. To clear my ideas upon that and other matters, I souse my head 
 in the cool water of the central basin, feeling all the better for it. Any liberty 
 can be taken with water in Damascus — there is such plenty. It is so laid on 
 all over the city by nature that no rates need be paid, and it is wasted on 
 principle — there is so much to make show of and to spare. 
 
 The rooms open to the courtyards have, in addition to the cushioned side 
 benches, abundance of footstools, but there are no chairs. A central table is 
 adorned with narghili pipes, and boxes of mild light-brown tobacco. Getting 
 again on to the house-tops, I look about on like flat roofs all around. These have 
 each a small limestone garden-roller lying upon them, and it bothers me why. 
 When Hassan comes the matter is cleared up, and I get the roller off" my 
 mind. The roofs are laid down in white clay, which the sun helps to crack. 
 On a shower of rain coming and wetting this clay, they have to be speedily 
 rolled over to close up the cracks and make water-tight the apartments below. 
 These roofs, like all roofs in the East, have no chimneys through them. 
 
 Demetri himself now comes upon the scene, having a ponderous album- 
 looking volume under his arm. It is the "Visitors' Book," in which we have 
 to inscribe our names, whence from, and whither bound. There is a spare 
 place for " Remarks" that are here invited, as they should be everywhere, and 
 not repressed as rudeness. The book is a public one, and I am given per- 
 mission to read and copy, which I do. Turning back, I find such visitors' 
 names as Sir Tatton Sykes and Gordon Gumming. Travellers from distant 
 Australia have left their names and opinions of Demetri and his hotel manage- 
 ment, but the Americans outnumber as three to one those of other lands. It 
 is comical, in the heat we are suffering from in the beginning of May, to read 
 some shivering Australian's record of other experience, as thus : — 
 
 " 1869, January 21. We found this hotel comfortable with the exception of the want of a 
 fireplace— a want that has been the means of making our stay less pleasant than it would 
 otherwise have been." 
 
 Then follow the signatures of the observant husband and wife — probably on a 
 wedding tour. I can only think of a fireplace as a means of ventilation. 
 Since leaving Australia I don't remember seeing, and certainly never felt the 
 need of one. An ice-house has been the thing that dwelt more in one's desires. 
 The most noticeable record that Americans have left is one that I now copy 
 as interesting to the world at large, and the reading world especially : — 
 
 " Damascus, Sept. 14, '67. 
 
 '■ We the undersigned belonging to the excursion party aboard the American steam_ j-acht, 
 
 Quaker City,' from the United States, have been stopping at the Hotel of Demetri Caro, 
 
 Damascus. We cheerfully state that during our pleasant excursion, We have met with but 
 
 few hotels better where the entertainment everything duly considered than we have met at 
 
 the said Demeiri's. 
 
 " Wm. Gibson, M.D. Jamestown Pen. U.S.A., and Special Commissioner for State and 
 Agricultural department at Washington, Dist. Columbia, U.S.A. to Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa.' 
 
Inside Damascus Walls. 461 
 
 I have copied precisely as written. There follow seven other names below the 
 one given, but they are as nothing after that. It is not difficult to identify the 
 composition of "remarks" with that of the addition which the great man 
 appends to his own name. I think it is to be easily understood why he who 
 wrote the log of the " Quaker City's " voyage did not subscribe to this note. 
 He was not "Innocent" enough for that, nor sufficiently "Abroad." In 
 Chapter II. of the amusing record of that excursion, the great commissioner is 
 alluded to in the first paragraph, but though his lengthy titles are given, his 
 name does not appear. In copying the extract, I have necessarily rescued him 
 from that seeming injustice. It is a wonder that one ship could have held such 
 a Latter-day Cjesar and his fortunes. 
 
 Our dragoman provides us a special guide for the city, whom we find to be 
 a great improvement on that Elias we had for the Jericho and Jordan part of 
 the journey. Abram, for such was his name, spoke English well, and was the 
 only one that we found so gifted during the days of our stay. I got him to 
 wear an Indian-made cap which I happened to have, for better identification, 
 as among the crowds, all capped with the red " tarboosh," and wearing pretty 
 much the same dress, identification was not easy. So intricate are the streets 
 of Damascus, that to have lost Abram would have been something too dreadful 
 to contemplate. He was really a zealous guide, taking an interest in our 
 seeing much that we should never have thought of. We are taken by him into 
 private houses of different nationalities, through curious gateways in the 
 bazaars, up seemingly private stairs, and out upon roofs of buildings and all 
 sorts of strange places, where and from which anything that should be seen could 
 be seen. 
 
 These Turks, who seem to desecrate all things, calling the Abana the 
 Barada, and the Pharpar the Phege, call this euphoniously-named Damascus 
 by the odious name of Sham. The word has, of course, a different meaning to 
 ours of same spelling, but to tamper with the title of such a place is an offence 
 against history, to say nothing of good taste. The two rivers, always to be 
 thought of by their scriptural names, having united to do wonders in Damascus, 
 expire ignominiously in a marshy lake to the east of the city, in which they are 
 lost as some rivers are in a similar way in the American desert. Their course 
 hither from the Lebanon ranges has been rocket-like in its onward force. In 
 Damascus they, again rocket-like, burst out and finish in cascades and other 
 water splendours, and then fall in dead-stick fashion into the miserable, 
 unknown marsh — a sad ending, indeed, to a glorious career ! 
 
 Damascus proper, which was confined within the walls, was not over seven 
 miles in circuit, but some suburbs have now, by decay and disappearance of 
 the wall here and there, become as part of the town. The same great contrast 
 holds good in another way within the city that was so observable in the inner 
 and outer appearance of it. The exterior of all the fine dwellings — and there 
 are fully five hundred that merit the term — is but a dull wall of mud-made 
 bricks, more depressing to the sight than a brick wall is on a wet Sunday in a 
 London bye-street. This wretched-looking exterior is like that of the mud- 
 coloured locust I had picked up in the wilderness of Judea, concealing beauties 
 of all kinds under such homely-looking sheathing. It is probably for the same 
 reason — that of escaping notice — that the homes of the Damascus people are 
 thus secluded. From our place on the hill-sides yesterday we had taken a 
 bird's-eye view of the city, and so escaped the dull sight that its mud-walled 
 streets present when within it. 
 
 Entering by a door as rough-looking as the wall that surrounds it, the 
 change of scene within is great indeed. We have now removed the mud- 
 coloured casing from the locust, and see the gorgeous and gauzy wings and the 
 rich pink and blue colours before concealed. Here is a marble-paved courtyard, 
 
462 The Main Routes Round the World, 
 
 round which grow orange, lemon, and citron trees, with a circular marble 
 tank in the centre, which a tree or two help pleasantly to shade. We look 
 thence on two sides at apartments which, though without the furniture to 
 which our eyes are accustomed, are yet pleasantly furnished. The walls and 
 roofs of these rooms are in arabesque work. So shut in as these houses are, they 
 seem the more thoroughly home-like, and domestic life here to be seen has 
 a happy look. 
 
 The Great Mosque, as it is now called, has, like the Vicar of Bray, served 
 many masters. Every power that has had Damascus made it a place of 
 worship. For heathen deities at first, then for Hebrew worship after King 
 David's successful siege ; subsequently for Christian Church purposes, and 
 then and now as a Mohammedan Mosque. It is the finest structure in that 
 way which Damascus can show. Its large floor of four hundred and fifty feet, 
 by half as much in breadth, is covered with a multitude of carpets which may be 
 in number equal to the hundred that cover the floor of the great mosque at 
 Cairo. Into this one we are not, however, allowed to walk, shod or unshod. 
 The Turk asserts himself more here than he does in Cairo, and so is more 
 obnoxious. 
 
 This mosque suffered severely, as did all Damascus, from Timour's invasion. 
 That terrible Tartar nearly destroyed this oldest of existing cities. "The 
 hands that slew till they could slay no more," took for change to burning what 
 could not be carried away as plunder. Blackened ruins, unburied and half- 
 burnt bodies, then remained to frighten men away from a scene of destruction 
 and desolation. Elsewhere they might have done so, but Nature's attractions 
 and her friendliness to the wants of humanity are all-powerful around Damas- 
 cus. The trees budded and blossomed, verdure smiled on every side, and the 
 flowers bloomed as before to gladden the survivors. To that end also the 
 waters aided with their music, danced in their fountains and courses, and 
 glittered in their cascades. Sorrows so consoled, and the heart thus cheered, 
 man turned to the blessed necessity of labour for relief from grief, and so 
 Damascus was again re-built. Abram points to a pinnacle on this mosque upon 
 which the Messiah is to alight, in Mohammedan belief, on his coming to judge 
 the world. 'Tis "a consummation devoutly to be wished," as it will possibly 
 earliest take effect on that nearest to hand, and those may be cleared off the 
 face of the earth which seem here to exist only to disgrace it. 
 
 We here see our first Khan, the name of which is so familiar to students 
 of Eastern subjects. It happens also that this, the first of Khans seen, is also 
 the finest of all such buildings. It has a pointed-arch gate and its floor is of 
 alternated squares of black and white marble. The purpose of it is similar to 
 that of bonded stores elsewhere — a reception-place for the goods of wholesale 
 merchants. The mercantile affairs of Damascus are not, we are told, what 
 they have been. Before the massacre of i860 it had 3000 looms at work to 
 the 1200 or so that it can now only show. As with everything else in Syria, I 
 hear that Turkish taxation kills all the enterprise of manufacturers. 
 
 That massacre of i860 appears to have begun in the Lebanon range, and 
 spread over Syria to other places than Damascus. Abram tells us that some 
 thousands of houses were destroyed, as also six thousand victims, in the Christian 
 quarter, for no cause but bigoted religious hatred on the part of the Moham- 
 medans. The six thousand, he says, did not include the women and girls who 
 were taken away as prisoners and sold as slaves. These Christians in Damas- 
 cus had no protector to whom to look, and were but a poor eighth of the 
 number of their murderers. It was a sort of Huguenot massacre — a horrible 
 three days' robbery, burning, and murder that then occurred. 
 
 "Put your hand in my pocket," said Abram; "feel what is there, and 
 leave it there !" 
 
Avengi?2g Fast Murders. 463 
 
 I did so, and felt a revolver. 
 
 " They killed in that massacre my grandfather, father, and sister. My 
 brother and myself have since been wiping out the score. He has killed 
 seven, and I have killed five !" 
 
 There was a glitter in his eyes that showed a Corsican hate and vendetta- 
 like vengeance still unsatisfied. I was glad to shake his hand, reddened as it 
 had been, and hoped that he might go on with the good work. Indeed, I 
 thought that I should like to help him at it — such is the effect upon human 
 nature of some weeks of travel in this Turk-oppressed land. I felt towards 
 him, so avenging the murdered Christians, as Scott did to the old woman 
 shopkeeper in the border town, who sold laudanum and calomel in any 
 quantity as cures for all ailments. 
 
 " Why, you'll kill all the people !" he said. 
 
 " Eh, sir, but it will tak' a many to make up for Flodden !" was the reply, 
 and one that warmed the heart of patriotic Sir Walter to hear. 
 
 The bazaars, or shopkeepers' streets of Damascus, are the finest in the East 
 — superior in every way to those of Cairo and Constantinople, and twice as 
 long and as many. All are covered in at their lofty tops with rush matting laid 
 on wooden rafters, and make a mazy network of what, in the Western world, 
 are called arcades, to which they also correspond in their narrow breadth and 
 having but one common pathway. Men and women, camels, horses, mules, 
 and donkeys jostle each other indiscriminately, in a manner that will be better 
 understood by imagining the passage of any of our populous streets to be 
 limited to one footway only for both two and four-legged travel. Vehicles, of 
 course, are in such case out of the running. 
 
 These shaded streets called bazaars have each their own trades, and in that 
 character are market-like. We pass through the tailors' bazaar to that of the 
 shoemakers, and the more fragrant smelling one of the tobacco dealers. In 
 the fancy work bazaar we find the druggists' stores, and the famous attar of 
 roses. The cabinet-makers' bazaar is pased through on the way to those of 
 the tinsmiths, coppersmiths, and the vendors of sweetmeats. The bazaars of 
 the two smiths are very noisy affairs ; but much quieter is that of the silver- 
 smiths, to which we have to mount several steps, as to an elevated position, if 
 not a superior trade. 
 
 We pass into the silkworkers' bazaar, and see how well these Eastern artists 
 understand colour, and how to blend it with best effect, and then to that of the 
 seed-sellers, and the one devoted to the sale of agricultural implements, near 
 to the square set apart as the horse-bazaar. What is called the Greek bazaar 
 would be called the hardware market elsewhere ; and here are to be seen things 
 fashioned as they were of olden time, and by no means recalling to one's 
 memory the work of Sheffield. 
 
 We walk into Turkish baths, and try their quality, and stand at corners with 
 the crowds that are listening to recitals from one who seems to have stepped 
 out from the covers of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment." We cannot 
 understand a word he says, and yet scarcely feel that we want to do so. I 
 listen to him and look at him as I did at Ristori, and seem quite to forget with 
 him, as I did with her, that he is talking to me in a foreign tongue. It is not 
 an incomprehensible one though, otherwise I should not stay to listen with the 
 interest with which his story somehow detains me. The people around me 
 are, as the dramatis persona; of his narrative, illustrating all its imagery, and 
 supplying specimens of its characters. 
 
 In the carpenters' bazaar we look at workmen employed in cutting out soles 
 for the wooden shoes which are afterwards perfected in the shoemakers' bazaar. 
 They sit, as I had noticed the carpenters did in Japan, so obtaining the use of 
 their feet for holding the plank which their hands are helping to plane. The 
 
464 
 
 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 carved work shelved and hung about in this bazaar bears evidence of a love of 
 art in wood-carving, that the Western world began to neglect when it gave up 
 carved picture-frames, for stuccoed ornaments glued to the surface of rough 
 woodwork as a substitute. 
 
 Abram now takes us to the Greek Cathedral of St. Mary, which he tells us 
 was the scene of one of the greatest of the Turkish barbarities. At the time 
 of the last massacre this church, or that which stood in its place, was sought 
 for sanctuary purposes by the Christians, and when quite full was set fire to, 
 and its starving and stifling thousands so martyred. We reserve the swearing 
 with which our hearts are full at this narrative until we get out of the sacred 
 scene of it. 
 
 A SYRIAN CARPENTER. 
 
 The great mercantile bazaar-street of Damascus is over a mile in length, and 
 is that one of which we read in the Acts as " the street which is called Straight," 
 to which Ananias was bidden to go by the angel to find Saul of Tarsus, after- 
 wards called St. Paul, "in the house of one Judas." Notwithstanding any 
 and all remarks to the contrary, it is the straightest street of its length to be 
 found anywhere in the city, and is the only one in which a stranger can walk 
 for a mile in Damascus and not mistake his way. Elsewhere all is labyrinthine 
 and mazy. It must be tolerably straight to give one the view which is there 
 to be had from one end to the other. The buildings do not all keep to a foot 
 or two of the same side line, but such is the only interruption to its straightness. 
 It is shown, too, as a straight line on the maps of the city, and the name is not 
 so much a misnomer as is to be found in the so-called Bfoadw3.y, of New 
 York. 
 
 On the unsounding earthen pathways of these bazaars it is impossible to hear 
 the soft footfalls of the spongy-footed camels and unshod horses and donkeys, 
 
The Wine of Lebanon 465 
 
 or to know of rheir presence behind until their heads are on one's shoulder. 
 For that reason I am able to state, authoritatively, that a camel's breath is not 
 so sweet smelling as is a cow's, and that a stallion's bite, if only playful, is yet 
 sharp. Mules and donkeys merely push one out of the way as ol:)Stacles with 
 their noses. We soon get used to it all, and stay to gaze with undistracted 
 attention at the wondrous contents of the large semi-market warehouse which 
 one of these bazaar-streets seems to represent. The unknown multitude that 
 jostle by are made up of Turks, Syrians, Arabs, Persians, Christians, and 
 Jews. Of the latter Damascus has some six thousand, and altogether, 
 visitors included, some two hundred and thirty thousand in number, or more 
 than fifteen times that of Jerusalem's population. 
 
 Rich and rare, indeed, are some of the articles here on sale, and in such 
 quantities that one wonders where in this out-of-the-world place sufficient 
 customers can be found for them. Silks from the neighbouring villages of the 
 Lebanon are here in plenty, woven into scarves in stripes of all colours. With 
 one of these square-shaped scarves, adorned with little tassels all round, every 
 man who can afford it decorates his head, with great help to his good appear- 
 ance. These silks are to be had interwoven with gold and silver thread, like 
 the kincob cloths of Benares. Their appearance is by such means much 
 enhanced — as also their price. In lavishly-decorated shoes Damascus bazaars 
 have wonders to show ; but then no long dresses are worn in the East, and 
 when the feet are covered at all, what is done in that way is done well. 
 Sandals mounted on heel and toe pieces seemed almost made of mother-of- 
 pearl, so much are they covered with it. 
 
 Every now and then our guide pushes the donkey's head towards a doorway, 
 and I seem to be riding into a warehouse. It is merely the way to some grand 
 bazaar hidden away at the back, as are some of the best warehouses in other 
 parts of the world. Abram here takes us upstairs and through galleries of 
 goods that want the wealth of Croesus for buying power. We get our scarves 
 here, and little phials of attar of roses at a guinea apiece. It is a congealed 
 honey-looking stuff, which liquefies when the bottle is for a time held in the 
 warm hand. One drop of it then put into a phial of spirits of wine perfumes 
 it sufficiently for all scenting purposes. A drop of this attar in the course of 
 its decanting falls on an envelope, which I thereupon pocket, and am thereby, 
 while possessing it, perfumed for ever— so powerful and lasting is this queen of 
 all odours. 
 
 Our throats are athirst, and we talk of the ale that is afar off", and wish it 
 were nearer — the which Abram hears, and his quick wits are aroused to our 
 wants. 
 
 •' I can get you the wine of Lebanon here, better than all your ales, and 
 cheaper !" 
 
 "Far to go for it?" we ask, with the dearly-bought experience that good 
 things are not to be got without trouble. 
 
 "No; just handy here !" and we are taken through two other doorways 
 towards a third, in which are casks and benches, the fragrant smoke of the 
 golden tobacco, and the aroma of the wine of Lebanon. Of this wine Abram 
 is proud, as he well may be, and will not let us pay anything for it. He acts as 
 entertainer, and in the wine of his country we drink his health and pros- 
 perity, and more destruction to his enemies — the Mohammedans. The wine 
 was good and we were thirsty, and so drank again. As an old traveller, with 
 thought for the future, I also take away a bottle of it. It may go alongside 
 that other mountain wine, the Lachryms Christi, grown on the sides of 
 Vesuvius, and of the wine of the hill-sides of that mid -ocean mountain called 
 Madeira — liquors that there drunk are nowhere forgotten. 
 
 The traveller imitates the Christian population of the city, and keeps within 
 
 F F 
 
466 The Alain Routes Round the World. 
 
 doors here after dark. Damascus has no newspapers or police, and dead men 
 are put away quietly if found about in the morning. The "hate of hell " is kept 
 up steadily by the Mohammedans towards the Christians for the terrible retri- 
 bution that France and England made for the Huguenot massacre of i860, and 
 for such small additions in the way of vengeance as the like of our Abram have 
 since made. The Christian who settles in this city should be of the church 
 militant only — those of the Puritan, Oliver Cromwell kind, who prayed sword 
 in hand, and went to military practice as often as to prayers. 
 
 Of such sort are those who should rightly handle the blades of the famous 
 Damascus steel, which are here being hammered and shaped, and for which 
 much work is yet making. Swords and fire-arms are in Damascus more in 
 request than walking-sticks. No knives, or razors, or such trumpery, are 
 made here. The world may go to Birmingham for the like : Damascus in 
 the steel way makes but swords and daggers. These look to want the polish 
 and finish of British cutlery, but they are not made only for sale and show. 
 The city is an old curiosity shop in the way of armoury and other weapons. 
 Such is to be expected when we think that seven different races are known to 
 have had, in their span of time, possession of this eternal city. That known 
 number is perhaps a part only of the number not known. 
 
 Damascus among its many owners reckons the Hebrews, who captured it 
 during King David's monarchy. The Assyrians next had it, and then the 
 Persians. The Greeks succeeded, for whom Alexander conquered it, to lose 
 it to the Romans, who lost it to the Saracens under Saladin. The Turks had 
 their first day here in taking it from the Saracens, and from them the terrible 
 Timour wrested it. After him the Egyptian jNIamelukes came as conquerors, 
 and then came the second Turkish time in 1516. since which, to the disgrace of 
 the world, its finest-placed city has been under their cankering curse. Its super- 
 natural vitality enables Damascus to survive everything — even Turkish rule 
 cannot desolate it. Perhaps such fate for it may be stretched, by those who 
 insist on fulfilments of prophecy, to be the realization of Isaiah's sentence in 
 his seventeenth chapter, " Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, 
 and it shall be a ruinous heap." 
 
 The coinage of most of its dynasties is to be picked up in its bazaars. An 
 antiquary might delight himself among the curios there to l)e found, and where 
 else more likely ? Rambling about the city. I am taken to the house to which 
 Paul was led in his blindness, and also shown the window over an old door- 
 way by which he was let down in a basket, so escaping from the city and the 
 persecution of those who then sought his life there, as the Turks would do 
 now. Also to the house of Naaman, the leper, who thought, excusably 
 enough, that the Abana and Pharpar, which through Damascus commingle in 
 one stream, were better for purifying purposes than the muddy waters of the 
 Jordan. Naaman's house is now most appropriately used as a leper's hospi- 
 tal. Inside I am surrounded by a crowd of patients clamorous for charity, 
 with outstretched hands, or what remains of them, leprosy having eaten off 
 the fingers. Finally, as is fitting, we go to the cemetery. 
 
 It is a walled enclosure with closed doors — this Christian burial ground. 
 Were it open and the keys not kept by the British Consul, the graves would be 
 dishonoured by the Mohammedan mob. Here are notable tombs in this 
 cemetery — one to the only daughter of Lord Langdale, who, by the record, 
 died here of fever in 1872. The most notable is, however, that of the author 
 of "The History of Civilization." I read thereon — 
 
 " In memory of Henry Thomas Ruckle, only son of the late Thomas Henry Buckle, and 
 Jane his wife, who died of fever at Damascus on 2gth May, 1862, aged 40 years. This stone 
 is most affectionately dedicated by his only surviving sister." 
 
An Object in Life. 467 
 
 Then in Arabic characters, which might as well have been in EngHsh, like 
 the foregoing, follow these words, which I copy, and get Hassan, our drago- 
 man, to translate : — 
 
 " The writings of the writer will live, though the writer of the writings be in the grave I" 
 
 There is one inscription in the cemetery which alludes to the sad massacre 
 of i860, that is so much on one's mind here. It is over a common grave to 
 the remains of a large number of massacred Christians, reminding one much of 
 the corpse-filled Well of the butchered women and children at Cawnpore. 
 We read the inscription, to the prayer of which we give a loud " Amen :" — 
 
 " This is what the people of Damascus have done unto us ! 
 Oh Lord, let Thy justice be done unto them !" 
 
 Our politically petted Mohammedans — these brutal, tigerish Turks — have 
 actually made a target of this tablet ! It is all battered and broken with their 
 bullets. I called Abram's attention to that, but as it covered relatives of his, 
 no reminder of mine was needed. It is well to have an object in life, and he 
 has something to live for, that gives life its zest, sweetens its labours, and 
 makes him look with pleasure on tlie close of it as but bringing to him a greater 
 reward. When we parted we wished, in Irish phraseology, " More power to 
 him," and, what was better than mere good wishes, we gave him something 
 extra wherewith to buy powder. 
 
 On our way to a notable private house in which I am to see the inner life of 
 Damascus, we pass a pottery manufactory, for which article Damascus 
 has a good name. Here are made the fine-coloured and well-glazed tiles 
 with which the courtyards and walls of the better class of houses are decorated 
 — a perpetual plaster and pretty substitute for paper that might be well 
 imitated elsewhere ; one also that helps greatly to the cooling and sweetening 
 of an apartment, as such can be washed all over at will, and as often as is a 
 dairy. 
 
 Entering by a quite unnoticeable doorway in one of the plain-looking walls, 
 I pass through a narrow passage and mean apartments into one of the usual 
 marble-paved court-yards, surrounded by trees and flowering shrubs, with the 
 accustomed central fountain. In a side apartment open at the front to this 
 court. I am introduced to the hospitable proprietor, a kindly Jew, who invites 
 the visits of strangers, and gives them cakes and wine. He offers me a nar- 
 ghili pipe-stem, to draw the fumes of the mild tobacco through the wine-glass 
 of water halfway up its stem. It is quite mild enough without such distillation, 
 and comes up, according to my American friends, as "very poor stuff." 
 They have, however, been reared on " Barrett's twist" and other strong 
 American tobaccos, and have little taste for the weed in this etherealized 
 form. 
 
 The floor of this apartment is carpeted, and cushions lie all around in pro- 
 fusion. With the help of the sofa-like side benches they conduce greatly to 
 lazy attitudes, and the dreamy state of the mind and dozy one of the muscles that 
 afiect Eastern folks, and would similarly affect us, if we ignored, as they do, 
 the use of chairs. The ceilings of the apartments on each side of this court 
 are of fine height, and lavishly, yet chastely, decorated. While we sit talking 
 with our host, and Abram interpreting, we are objects of curiosity to the ladies 
 of the house, who inspect us from the saloon on the opposite side of the court- 
 yard. Lamps of the most ornamental kind hang from the ceilings, and screens 
 are plentifully handy. At the touch of a bell we are served with coffee, and 
 at last part from our host with an easily-made promise to comply with his 
 interpreted request to us to " call again when next at Damascus." 
 
 F F 2 
 
468 The Main Roiites Round the World. 
 
 One of the ancient philosophers held and taught the behef that our souls 
 made periodical visits to the earth in some form or another every two thousand 
 years. Our next visit to Damascus may occur on one of those re-incarnations, 
 and not probably till then. There is the certainty attending such thought 
 that whenever we may come again, this eternal city will still be here, as it has 
 been since the civilization of man, and will be until the next stage of develop- 
 ment occurs, and better beings shall regard men much as we now look upon 
 monkeys. This city will likely be the first inhabited by the reorganized and 
 developed being ; and, cleared of those who now mostly defile it, there can be 
 no better dwelling desired. 
 
 An enormous tree, of over forty feet in circumference, that we have continu- 
 ally passed in going from Demetri's hotel to the bazaars, has made an impres- 
 sion on our memories. It is of some antiquated age which might be called old 
 in any other city than Damascus. It is but a young sprout here, even if it 
 dates back for a thousand years. Abram tells us that it is a sacred tree, and 
 that he cannot get us those walking-stick branches from it for which the hands 
 of my American friends so tingle. There are, however, no difficulties to the 
 determined mind, and I am not surprised to find, after we have left the city 
 far behind, that sticks of this memorable tree are produced by my friends from 
 curious places chosen for secreting them. As for me, I have got purses of 
 woven gold, bearing coloured devices of strange shapes ; also silk scarves 
 through which run silver threads, ending all around in out-hanging tassels. 
 Such vanities count not, however, compared with a wooden lock of a primeval 
 pattern — quite the thing to remember Damascus by, as also to show the ideas 
 of the first man of the Chubb genius. My friends have bottled off the water 
 of Abana, and carry away more phials of it than they do of the famous attar. 
 Every one of us has a Bedouin's tobacco-pouch filled with the golden-looking 
 tobacco. 
 
 We are too late in the world for many things which we may regret not having 
 seen, but there is solace to be found in thinking that it is safer to be in 
 Damascus in this year of our Lord than it would have been some years earlier. 
 Before the English consulate was established here, no Christian or Jew could 
 claim a right to tread the side-walks of the city. The wall side had to be given 
 to the Mohammedans, who otherwise rudely took it. There is not much that 
 can be called side-walk upon which to tread, but from what there is of it such 
 " infidel dogs" as ourselves would have then been kicked into the company of 
 the other animals in the roadway, and shot right away if any fight had been 
 shown in return for such Turkish treatment. ; . 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVIII. 
 
 ACROSS THE LEBANON 
 
 Passing out from Damascus, our course lies from its hills over another range, 
 beyond which we cross the pleasant valley of the Lebanon to its equally 
 pleasant mountains in the distance. The very name has given one a precon- 
 ceived respect for it. Lebanon is nowhere named but in terms which extol it, 
 from Solomon's Song backwards and forwards through the Scriptures. Its 
 
Tombs of Abel and Noah. 469 
 
 cedars, its flocks, gardens, and vintage, its grateful verdure and the fairness of 
 its snow-topped mountains, now so distinctly perceptible, all now crowd upon 
 one's memory. 
 
 The hills that we now descend are called Anti-Lebanon, which finish at their 
 south end in the peak Mount Hermon. The valley beneath is but a few miles 
 across, but the stretch over Lebanon's mountains beyond it reaches for nearly a 
 hundred picturesque miles, and which is increased by their intricacies, until they 
 run down to the shores of the Mediterranean. They are a similar mass of hills 
 to the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, but far less rugged in scenery, 
 mostly under cultivation, and filled to their full length and breadth with 
 pleasant little villages. These, but for religious differences, might be though!. 
 to be, in their great healthiness" and specially pretty locations, the most desirable 
 of homes in which to rest and be happy. They are in fact the very reverse of 
 that picture. 
 
 The natural scenery all around is so attractive that we disregard miniature 
 ruins here and there towards which Hassan points, and to which he gives some 
 unpronounceable Arab names. In a land so scattered over with remains of 
 bygone days as is Syria, the great landmarks only of which one has heard, 
 and which we read of and remember as we run the world's course along, can 
 be noticed. For that reason we think it unnecessary to leave the pleasant 
 valley we are traversing, and to turn to visit Abila, to which the tomb of Abel 
 the First has given a name! Having seen Adam's tomb at Jerusalem, this one 
 of the second of his large family seemed to have small attraction indeed. 
 We had been looking lately at too many of the tombs of the great Adamite 
 race. Hassan suspects our laith, and we have to assure him of our orthodoxy. 
 "Perhaps you don't beheve that it is the tomb of Abel ? " he says, but is 
 comforted as much as words can make him that our lack of curiosity lies in our 
 feeling of satisfaction. Tennyson speaks of some adorable being as one who 
 " cannot understand — she loves." That happy condition, substituting belief 
 for love, we desire our dragoman to consider as being ours — the fitting state of 
 feeling for travellers in this the " Land of Promise " part of Syria. 
 
 On our road to it we diverge a little to pass through the Lebanon village of 
 Zahleh- -a perfect town for its size, with nine or ten thousand inhabitants. I 
 thought it looked too clean, busy, and civilized for a Mohammedan place, and so 
 was quite prepared to find that its people were all Christians of the Greek Church. 
 The town is built in terraces around a perfect amphitheatre that gives a fine 
 view of it, and enlarges its size and goodly appearance to the surprised eyes of 
 the traveller. A rushing stream, dignified as a river, comes down through it 
 from the Lebanon range above. A one-eyed maiden at an hotel here talked 
 broken English to me, and what was as well, or better, gave me of the best of 
 Lebanon wine. On enquiring how this Polyphema came to be so optically 
 damaged, the sad story was again told — the fine town had been sacked by the 
 Druses of the mountains, helped by the Mohammedans, in that fearful 1S60. 
 Though its people made a good resistance, much murder and massacre ensued, 
 which, with significant looks, I was told would not occur again. Zahleh is 
 such a lively, pretty, and thriving place that one needs must wish it well, and 
 free from damaging, desolating Turkish dominion. It is, as a part of Lebanon, 
 under special protection now ; but its people deserve to dwell in a safer land 
 than is Syria. 
 
 On the road to Zahleh we were again invited to go out of the way, and this 
 time to see the tomb of Noah ! As an additional attraction, it is, I am told, 
 between one and two hundred feet long, from which one is left to judge of the 
 height of its occupants when alive. After mature deliberation of about two 
 minutes, we consider it better to show the same disposition towards Noah's 
 tomb that we had done to Abel's, and so pass onwards. We know that we 
 
470 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 shall feel remorseful about it afterwards, but life is so full of regrets that such 
 additions as these don't much encumber. 
 
 Along the valley of the Lebanon run rivers of immortal names, fed by 
 mountain springs from either side. The Orontes, rising in the Lebanon range, 
 at the foot of its loftiest peak, runs thence to the sea at Antioch. Hereabout 
 also is the source of the Litany, a name not usually connected in thought with 
 a river, which runs hence southward for fifty miles away down to the port of 
 old Tyre. None of these mountain-born streams — the Jordan, the Orontes, 
 the Litany, or the Abana, Mdiich are in magnitude according to the order 
 written— are navigable. 
 
 Lebanon gets its name from the whiteness of ^the chalky stone of which its 
 terraced sides show so much. Among its woods and willow groves, its olive 
 and mulberry plantations, its vineyards, orchards, cornfields, and beehives, 
 there is. spite of three hundred or more of villages scattered among its slopes, 
 an utter solitude which the notes of birds can hardly be said to disturb. These 
 Delectable Mountains are inhabited nearly wholly by two sects — the Druses 
 and the Maronites— who are strange folks in their ways, and not comfortable 
 neighbours to each other or to any other of mankind. 
 
 ^ The origin of these Druses and Maronites is as little known as that of the 
 gipsies, and they are equally clannish. I pick up some particulars about them 
 now and again. The Druses have many points of belief in common with the 
 Buddhists — holding the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and carrying 
 its existence backward for all time as well as forward to all eternity. Like 
 Buddha's disciples, they believe also in the transmigration of souls as a means 
 of reward or punishment, and a subsequent absorption into Nature itself as a 
 final rest. Like Buddhists, they abjure the luxuries of life, and dress plainly, 
 believe in labour, drink no wine or spirit, neither smoke nor swear, and hold 
 it sinful to lie. To make up for such self-denial, they periodically indulge in 
 murder. As such is done for religious reasons, it bears, of course, another 
 name, and we know what difference the name makes to many things. 
 
 It is noticeable of what great length is this Lebanon range — a ride of days 
 over its intricacies from here to either end of it. Its great breadth we shall 
 realize fully as we cross it. As remarkable as its large area is its good land and 
 the excellent uses to which it is mostly put. Before we begin the ascent of its 
 side, we come upon the camping-ground of Sthorer or Sheturah, and here find 
 a welcome wayside hostelry kept by an Italian. He has for the good of 
 travellers established hereabout three wooden house-buildings, well supplied 
 with attendants, who seem all to be of the gentler sex, and of European com- 
 plexions. 
 
 A traveller not in a hurry might stay here very well for many days, and 
 make pleasant raids upon the surrounding country, all of which is haunted 
 ground. What is not filled with scriptural and historical records is so with the 
 ghosts of those who have thereabout been murdered. To other accommo- 
 dations supplied at Sheturah, roomy stabling is added, with horses that are 
 good enough for the country, though they look almost as cursed. A pretty 
 mountain stream runs through the garden grounds attached to this guest-house 
 in which, while creature comforts are getting ready, we get the luxury of a cold 
 bath that is equal, in another but as pleasant a way, to the Turkish one got at 
 Damascus. 
 
 In an hour or two's stay at Sheturah we established ourselves so comfortably 
 about its cosy quarters that we were in no hurry to leave. The wine of the 
 Lebanon was good, the Turkish tobacco was mild, and the mountain ride of 
 the morning had given us that good digestion which waits always on a well- 
 earned appetite. There is something invigorating about mountain air that takes 
 away megrims and blues, makes the liver active, and life all lovely. My 
 
Marking Woman's Condition. 471 
 
 American friends are, however, each of that kind whom their popular poet has 
 so well sketched in "Excelsior." I want to stay hereabout for another day, 
 and take horses and go and see two or three spots that my Italian host tells me 
 of in his half-broken English. Not so my Transatlantic brethren ! The 
 mountains lie before them, and their cry is " Forward." All the maidens that 
 are about speak, unfortunately, with foreign tongues, which perhaps somewhat 
 takes from the pleasure of their society. They would, I fear, speak without effect, 
 however, had they been able as eloquently to urge those reasons for staying which 
 equally failed with Longfellow's hero. The shortness of the stay has made it 
 all the pleasanter, and we leave it with those thoughts which comp are time 
 spent at such places to the longer day of life itself. 
 
 " Some break their fast and so depart away ; 
 Others stay dinner, then depart full fed ; 
 The longest age but sups and goes to bed I 
 Larger his bill who stays throughout the day ; 
 Who goes the soonest has the least to pay." 
 
 On our way up the mountains it is very soon perceptible, here as elsewhere, 
 that mountaineers are on the whole a superior people to the lowlanders. The 
 climate makes the man, as we had seen sufficiently in the wretched beings 
 dwelling in the valley of the Jordan as compared with the hill-top residents of 
 Bethlehem. Those people whom we now see about us are as improved in ap- 
 pearance as is their land. The stone-built villages of cleanly exterior have a 
 comfortable look — nestling among the green of their graded gardens, and the 
 corn, wine, oil, honey, and silk which are the produce of these everlasting hills. 
 Beehives are frequently seen, and many an open door shows the rude loom of 
 the village silk-spinner as the most prominent thing visible within. 
 
 Olives and vines flourish everywhere about. The vines are left to lie upon 
 the ground unsupported in any way. Every country seems to have notions of 
 its own about treating the vine. In some, as in France, it is trained upon 
 sticks, and in others, in Italian fashion, carried along upon strings until a con- 
 venient tree branch is reached. It is hardly conceivable that grapes would be 
 left to ripen on the ground, but the vines lay there on Lelianon as I passed 
 through them in the month of May. Later in the season they may be other- 
 wise dealt with. The mulberry-tree divides attention with the olive both with 
 the villager and the traveller. The silk-wheels are not, however, in as much 
 use here as formerly, much of the silk, Hassan tells us, being now sold in the 
 unspun or cocoon state. 
 
 As village after village is passed and their inhabitants spoken of, I see 
 further evidence that all Lebanon is either Maronite or Druse in character. 
 The Druses are the Circassians of Syria, in the matter of independence. Here 
 in the Lebanon they have ever been as turbulent as Highlanders formerly 
 proved themselves. The Turks have had, therefore, to make terms with those 
 whom they could not crush. I wait while a procession of the people passes 
 along, which I learn is nothing less than a Druse wedding party. The women 
 are veiled, and the veil depends from a projecting horn of unicorn shape worn 
 as ahead-dress. That ornament is the " tantour," and is some fifteen inches 
 in length. It is worn in perpendicular, angular, and horizontal positions. 
 These denote the mother, the married woman, or the maid. The birth of the 
 prophet Samuel, as we read in the second chapter of his First Book, caused 
 his mother to say that "her horn was exalted," by which expression the 
 honour attaching to the perpendicular position is the better understood. The 
 fashion will not be out of good taste if it should come into more general use, 
 as it likely will some day. Something of the sort has been felt as a want by 
 many, who are not too tall, and the "tantour" really lends a dignity to its 
 wearer. 
 
472 
 
 The Main Routes Round the JVofld. 
 
 I see these mountain maidens afterwards unveiled, and notice that the fresh 
 air of the hills has given them both grace and good looks. In the ancient 
 custom that some of them indulge of wearing a string of coins on their brows 
 is to be seen what may be the origin of the odious modern Western fashion of 
 disguising the forehead by combing the hair over it. The coins here worn 
 seem to show well in relief to the olive complexions of their wearers, but the 
 pulling of a fringe of shortly-clipped hair over the brow, and so hiding the 
 noblest part of the face, can only be an imitation of the drunken state, of 
 which it used to Ije the distinguishing stage mark, or may be of likening the 
 
 SYRIAN WOMEN, 
 
 face to that of the monkeys who are spoken of by Shakspeare in " The 
 Tempest " as " with foreheads villainous low." 
 
 The originator of the Druse faith was one Ilakim, who declared himself a 
 prophet, but was said to be a madman. There always has been an allegation 
 of that sort about prophets by those who rejected their doctrines. The chief dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the faith of the Druses appears to be the desire for con- 
 cealment of its points and principles. Other prophets have said,. " Go forth 
 into the world, preach, publish, and convert !" But Hakim seems to have 
 said " Keep it dark !"' as one who thought to add the attraction of a kind of 
 
Mountain- Village Afurde?'s. 473 
 
 Freemasonry-mystery to the other mysteries of the Druse faith. Their places 
 of worship are as strictly " tiled " as is any Masonic lodge-room. 
 
 The Druses, ignoring r^Iahomet, substitute as their prophet this Hakim, 
 whom they believe will return to earth as the Messiah, there to reign and to 
 make their faith the universal one. Though they take no means to spread this 
 faith, they have a Mohammedan dislike to those of other beliefs. If they 
 don't carry their gospel to those of other creeds at the sword's point, as the 
 Turks do, they more unfairly use that weapon of war to exterminate un- 
 believers by assassination. 
 
 The Maronites are between one and two hundred thousand in number, and 
 call their high priest the Patriarch of Antioch. He resides on the mountains here 
 in the Monastery of Canobin as head-quarters, and there acknowledges Papal 
 supremacy, and furnishes periodical reports to Rome. The bishops and all the 
 clergy of this sect are said to live principally by pastoral labour in its temporal 
 sense. Some twenty thousand of their number are in religious houses among 
 the hills here, and regard St. Anthony as their patron saint. The sects of the 
 Druses and Maronites, scattered all through the long range of the Lebanon, 
 extend away among villages to Aleppo on the coast-line. They are little better 
 in civilization than are the Bedouins, but are governed by sheiks and a feudal 
 system and its customs, one of which is the adoption of a vendetta-like hatred, 
 which, similarly to the Corsican one, hands down unsatisfied vengeance as a 
 heirloom. 
 
 These agreeable people of the mountains began among themselves the mas- 
 sacres of i860, in which the Maronites suffered mostly. The victorious Druses 
 were then joined by the Mohammedans, and the Christian^ of all kinds were 
 included with the Maronites in the slaughter that ensued. The Druses fled 
 from the vengeance of the French troops who came as avengers, and left the 
 Mohammedans to pay all the fearful score. The end of it was that in 1864 the 
 Lebanon territory was divided into seven districts, under the supervision of 
 one Daoud Pasha, an Armenian Christian, who has hitherto succeeded in pre- 
 venting further bloodshed. 
 
 Account is given to me as each village is passed in this Lebanon of what 
 occurred there in that frightful i860. I look at the smiling little places nest- 
 ling among the pleasant mountains, like to babes in a mother's arms, only to 
 hear how many were murdered there ! A strange piece of intelligence thai, 
 and as out of place in the scene around as was the speech of one who at a 
 wedding breakfast threw a wet blanket over the joyous party by reminding 
 them that they had all to die ! 
 
 "What is the name, Hassan, of that village yonder —the white-looking one 
 — there, seen through the trees ?" 
 
 " That is so-and-so (a three-syllabled name). Three hundred were mas- 
 sacred there in i860 !" 
 
 "Why, that must have been the whole village — men, women, and children !" 
 
 " No ! the men, except the aged, escaped by flight. It was the women and 
 children who were murdered !" 
 
 " Has that, and the like of it, yet been avenged ? Is the score not wiped 
 out ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! . TheFrench soldiery came first, the French being the protec- 
 tors of the Catholics in Syria, and then the English. The latter came in the 
 man-of-war which yet remains as guardship in the harbour down at Beyrout, 
 My brother was with them for more than a year chasing and killing the 
 murderers. I think that he accounted for nineteen !" 
 
 Nineteen to one gun was not bad for mountain sport as taken by an amateur 
 volunteer like Hassan's brother ! The Turkish soldiers, who should have pro- 
 tected the murdered ones, joined the fanatics, and either helped in the 
 
474 '^^^^ Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 Huguenot-like massacre, or looked on at it. The Jewish population were 
 helpless in the matter. The Turkish governors — the Pashas of I3amascus and 
 Lebanon — broke all faith with those whom they were bound by their position 
 to shelter and succour. One of these governing scoundrels, named Osman 
 Bey, was afterwards hunted from his stronghold by British troops, and shot at 
 sight, as such a miscreant deserved to be. 
 
 "A nice country this to be in! May the like of that break out again, 
 Hassan ?" 
 
 "Yes, when the English and French men-of-war are taken away from the 
 harbour over there at Beyrout. They are all that really keep the Moham- 
 medans and Druses now quiet. This Lebanon, though now taken from 
 Turkish rule and placed under a Christian guardian, would be in nothing 
 better off if the armed ships go away." 
 
 So England stuffs the Turks with her loaned money, and supports them with 
 her armies and navies, and yet has to keep a man-of-war in the harbour of their 
 Beyrout to save the Christian population from murder ! "Go abroad," said 
 the Swedish Minister, Oxenstiern, to his son, "and see with how little wisdom 
 the world is governed !" It spoke well for the Government of Sweden that 
 it should be thought necessary to travel to see misgovernment. Other com- 
 munities may be apt to think that such is perceptible quite near enough to 
 home, and that distance lends no enchantment to the view of it in any shape. 
 
 Hassan explains that the Turks are sore at loss of revenue, through the 
 government of Lebanon being taken from them. Under its present rule those 
 who dwell here are only taxed half as much as they were previously. The 
 many millions upon millions that the Turks have cajoled from British pockets 
 may, however, count very well against this loss of plunder. 
 
 " Are those men-of-war likely to leave Beyrout harbour, Hassan? We don't 
 feel at all comfortable in this place !" 
 
 " Oh no ! They must never leave there while Turkey has this country. If 
 they do so, a good warning must be first given, that all of us may leave with 
 them." Our dragoman, though of Arab birth, was a sort of Christianized 
 being, and so, along with his red-handed brother, would be marked men in the 
 next Druse and Mohammedan massacre. 
 
 The land we journey over is that of which Moses spoke in the third chapter 
 of Deuteronomy, " I pray thee let me go over and see the good land that is 
 beyond Jordan, the goodly mountain and Lebanon." The "goodly mountain" 
 was probably Hermon, the immense conically-shaped mount of some ten 
 thousand feet high, which is the crown of the Anti-Lebanon," on the other 
 side of the valley we had crossed earlier in the morning. Eternal snow covers 
 it as with a silver crown, that which melts lower down helping to form the 
 Pharpar River, running thence towards Damascus. Its summit is the highest 
 point in Syria next to a part of that Lebanon range towards wdiich we are now 
 crossing. On the higher part of this grows the largest of the clumps of cedars 
 that are yet to be found here, though other patches of them are to be seen 
 about elsewhere on the heights. 
 
 " The trees of the Lord . . . the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted!" 
 With that declaration from the fourteenth Psalm ringing in our ears, we 
 look with infinite respect on these Bible trees. Isaiah, in his second chapter, 
 names one tree alone in the same breath with them. "All the cedars of 
 Lebanon that are high and lifted up. and all the oaks of Eashan." The debate 
 among the trees, when they assembled to choose a king, as reported in the ninth 
 chapter of Judges, closes with these cedars' name, and what the bramble said 
 about them when addressed by all the trees, " Come thou, and reign over us!" 
 
 Solomon, who made most use of them, sings of them often in his Song, as 
 thus in the fifth chapter: — " As pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold : 
 
The Cedars of Lebanon. 475 
 
 his countenance is as Lebanon; excellent as the cedars." No material but 
 their wood served for his gold-adorned chariot or for that famous temple of his. 
 We read in the Chronicles, second book and second chapter, how he set about 
 the building of it, and " told out" seventy thousand men to bear burdens, and 
 eighty thousand to hew in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred as 
 overseers ; also how he made terms with Huram, King of Tyre, for the 
 "cedar-trees, fir-trees, and algum-trees out of Lebanon," which we read in the 
 sixteenth verse were to be as many as needed, and to be brought by Huram 
 on floats to Joppa, whence Solomon was to take them to Jerusalem. We can 
 guess, from having gone over that journey all unencumbered, what trouble they 
 must have had with that timber ! 
 
 We read in the fifth chapter of the first book of Kings that these mountains 
 were the country quarters of that levy of thirty thousand that Solomon and 
 Huram jointly raised "out of all Israel." These now sparsely timbered hill- 
 sides were well wooded then, of which Scriptural evidence is great, to quote 
 only Isaiah, in his forty-first chapter, in allusion to the greatness of a sacrifice 
 there spoken of — " And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts 
 thereof sufficient for a burnt offering." 
 
 As we gaze upon a clump of these trees growing on one of their high retreats, 
 a large bird of the condor kind is seen to be wheeling above them, strangely 
 reminding one of my friends of what he read at Sheturah that morning in 
 Ezekiel's seventeenth chapter, "A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, 
 full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the 
 highest branch of the cedars." Anything in their praise seems appropriate from 
 the lonely grandeur of those solitary heights which these cedars seem to seek. 
 The ninety-second Psalm likens them to right doers, "who shall flourish like 
 the palm-trees, and grow as a cedar in Lebanon." But we fail to imagine any 
 likeness of Behemoth drawn from Job's imagery in his fortieth chapter, that 
 such animal " moves his tail like a cedar." Stateliness and stillness seem of 
 their chief characteristics ! 
 
 These famous Biblical trees grow at greater heights, we are told, than any 
 other. It is probable that this aspiring and heavenward-cleaving character 
 has helped them to a respect like that given to the lark which " at heaven's 
 gate sings." The Turks' rule has caused their clearance oft the face of the 
 earth, as it has done with every good thing that should grace it. The cedars 
 of Lebanon which remain seem to have retreated upwards as far as they can go 
 out of the way of man — their destroyer. It can hardly be, though it looks like 
 it, that they are naturally disappearing from amongst us, as have done so many 
 of the created things of the older world. 
 
 By the excellent evidence of a walking-stick cut from one of the trees, the 
 cedars of these mountains are of a white wood, and not of the colour we 
 usually connect with the name and its lead -pencil associations. In the largest 
 clump of them to which allusion has been made, a sort of chapel has been 
 built, and some semi-druidical grove worship, as we are told, takes place there 
 at one time of the year — a kind of cedar celebration. It is not supposed that 
 such attention does the trees any good. At their heights the air is cold, and 
 much of that which it is intended to honour is burnt for warmth's sake. As 
 the trees are the sole attraction there, the so using them, at these celebrations, 
 is as living upon one's capital. 
 
 If Lebanon recalls the Blue Mountains of Australia to the traveller, it also 
 brings to his mind the appearance of the Apennines as he approaches them 
 from Foggia on his road to Naples. That mountain range of the Italian 
 peninsula is, however, beautiful in a far lesser degree than the prolific land of 
 Lebanon, which gives forth a generous fulness of all that the heart of man can 
 desire in mountain scenery, or hope to enjoy in mountaineer life. The 
 
476 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 Lebanon hills occup)' a happy midway position between the uncultivated 
 wildness of the Australian range referred to, and that of the less lofty and 
 more sterile mountains of Italy. 
 
 The views from some of the heights and at the different turns and windings 
 of the way were of all orders of beauty — the sublime, the picturesque, the 
 fantastic, and the simply pretty. These greatly protracted progress, so difficult 
 was it to get away from what fixed attention, and led to drawing others into 
 the same way of regarding it, and comparing thoughts on the subject. As in 
 reading Shakspeare each one thinks that he sees meanings and beauties which 
 others overlook, so here we each became something of both the artist and the 
 poet in our special ways of regarding the delightful scenery. 
 
 A pleasant time of it might be found in these mountains for the summer 
 months by a friendly pair seeking health, recreation, and a change from 
 European life. Companionship would be essential, as the sole company of a 
 local guide is of a wearisome nature, to give it no worse name. There is a 
 recruiting power in the air of these hills that was distinctly appreciable after 
 our two days only upon them. To have gone a tour of the endless villages 
 which they enfold, and to have traversed their length, as we did their breadth, 
 would have made good mountaineers of us ere the journey ended. The length 
 and breadth does not include heights and depths, which are again other features 
 which would protract time spent on the Lebanon. 
 
 As a souvenir of pleasant Lebanon I would bring away a bottle of its good 
 wine if I thought it possible to keep it. In place of such I bring away two of 
 the fine cones of the cedars, large as the eggs of the ostrich or emu. They are 
 bulky to carry, and occupy much space in a bag, but their value in a distant 
 land will be worth the trouble taken. It will not be wasted carriage if I can 
 grow in the new world these specialities of the older one — if in the land of the 
 Southern Cross can be reared the distinguishing tree of the Land of the Cross 
 and Curse. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 AT A SYRIAN SEAPORT. 
 
 To leave Syria by the fair seaport of Beyrout helps to the retaining of some 
 pleasant recollections of the land. It is from one pleasure to another to 
 descend to the prettily-situated town, its green gardens and fresh sea-breezes, 
 from that goodly Lebanon leading down to it. The distance which I have 
 seen recorded as from Damascus to Beyrout must be taken as measured in the 
 manner that the crow flies and the bee makes headway. The mountainous 
 nature of the country and its winding roads render the mileage something like 
 double what travellers are led to expect. If it were longer, however, it would 
 only be more enjoyable, and this Beyrout at the end of it is as a pretty tail-piece 
 to the story. 
 
 No town can have a nobler background than this glorious mountain-range of 
 Lebanon makes for Beyrout and its surroundings. But the fine appearance 
 which the hills have to those who come down them is much marred by the show 
 of white sides to the terrace cuttings, which are only to be seen when looking 
 upwards at them. Such gives to Lebanon's ridges, when gazed at from Beyrout's 
 shore, a barren look that is not theirs. The natural advantages of this Syrian 
 
Sf. George and the Dragon. ^j'j 
 
 seaport are undeniable. It needs only peace and a sense of security, civilised 
 rulers, and proper protection, for its thirty odd thousand of inhabitants, to 
 double that number in five years. 
 
 Beyrout stands on a pleasantly-situated promontory of the Mediterranean 
 shore that projects altogether well out to sea, and yet has a still further pro- 
 jecting point that makes a good breakwater for its anchorage. Of the Syrian 
 seaports on • this sea, from Joppa northwards, it is apparently the leading one, 
 and in that range lie those of Cresarea, Kialia, Acre, Tyre, and Sidon. Bey- 
 rout is said to be a sort of other Nice by those who have tried both places. It 
 would be, from its natural advantages, mure forward in fame and fortune than 
 it is, had it that government which attracts visitors and favours settlement. 
 Cleared of the Turks and their pashas, and left to the Bedoueen, the sheiks, 
 and the shrines, the accursed land of Syria might yet have that chance in the 
 future which Burns was willing to allow even to Satan. 
 
 The English guardship being yet in the harbour, we visitors feel safe while it 
 does that service which may be fitly descril)ed as men-of-war keeping watch 
 over men of murder. Thus we rest securely in thankfulness at Bassoul's hotel, 
 and begin to forget tent-life in Palestine and Syria, Those troubles which 
 had so nipped us at times will be soon forgotten, or cause perhaps only a smile 
 that they should even for a little while have been thought of as annoyances. 
 Waiting for the steamer that will convey us westward we wander about the 
 neatly-kept and modern-looking town. We get fresh outfits here also, and are 
 quite "■ perky" in our new clothing. I realize again the feeling I had in "53 in 
 coming down to Melbourne after five long months of tedious gold-digging in 
 the Australian bush, arrayed in blue woollen blouse, and clay-coloured and 
 covered leggings. 
 
 On the forts that face seawards here are plain marks and scars of the scrim- 
 mage oi 1 84 1, when Sir Charles Napier bombarded Beyrout for a short time 
 in one of the expensive efforts which England made to rescue its troublesome 
 Turkey from the losses Mehemet Ali was then causing to them. We look next 
 at pleasanter things in the work of the weavers of gold and silver thread, for 
 which industry they have a good name, as also at the silk spinners, and those 
 who are preparing for the markets the oils, gums, galls, and madder, which 
 have all been specialities of Beyrout from the time the Phanicians had posses- 
 sion of it. 
 
 Among the honours of the city its chief has been that it was to Syria what 
 HeHopolis first, and Alexandria afterwards, were to Egypt, and what Oxford 
 now is to England. A finishing touch was here given to an education which 
 combined all the ancient accomplishments. An earthquake fifteen hundred 
 years ago shook down its colleges, as it did the temples of Baalbec, and drove 
 away in affright from the ruins such of its professors, tutors, students, 
 *' coaches," and crammers as were not then swallowed up. 
 
 Wandering into one of its churches, I look at a very large and good oil- 
 painting over the altar, which brings pleasantest of thoughts to the mind and 
 a smile of greeting to the face. I had_ seen nothing that looked so familiar 
 to me in its way since I saw at Shanghai the tea-house and gardens which were 
 the original of those we see on the willow-pattern plate. This picture that I 
 now gaze upon is one which, in its reproduction on silver and gold, the world 
 regards more than any other, and more seeks after. The willow-pattern plate 
 touched one's recollections through the sympathies of the stomach, but this 
 picture thrilled one by the more tender chords which lead direct to the ever- 
 palpitating pocket. It was the well-known representation of St. George and 
 the Dragon ! 
 
 " Hassan," I said, " what does that mean ; why is that picture put over the 
 altar ?" 
 
478 The Main Routes Round the Wo?'ld. 
 
 "That is St. George fighting the dragon. The combat took place in Bey- 
 rout just handy to here. He was a native of Syria, and is a great saint of the 
 Greek Church !" 
 
 A fit shrine certainly to finish Syria with ! — that of England's patron saint, 
 and one so fitly illustrative of all that is in this land, where everything to be 
 seen is mixed up with so much of doubt, dispute, and mythical story. St. George 
 is quite Syrian altogether for mystery. It is disputed that half that which is 
 told of him is true, and then that he is the man to whom those mythical tales 
 apply. His birth-place is attributed to Lydda, which is passed on the road 
 up from Joppa to Jerusalem, where Peter performed the curative miracle upon 
 /Eneas. It was at Lydda also that Saladin waited for Richard Coeur de Lion, 
 and meanwhile destroyed the town in Moscow fashion. Other chroniclers 
 give the honour of St. George's birth to Epiphaneia, but Lydda has the call 
 with the earliest writers. In the mosque of Aksa, at Jerusalem, I had been 
 shown his praying-stall, or pew, and here I am to see the scene, the very spot, 
 of that great exploit, the picture of a combat which we look at so often and 
 know so little about. 
 
 It is wonderful how our education is neglected in many essentials ! Most 
 of us know nothing about our patron saint, and the little that I learn here per- 
 haps accounts for this apparent neglect of his story. He was of the humblest 
 parentage, quite uneducated, and equally unprincipled. The smallest coin 
 was said to influence his opinion. In Walpolian valuation his price was the 
 meanest. He got from one meanness to another until he sank down to be an 
 army contractor, and made his biggest swindle in a bacon contract, for which 
 the outraged and half-starved soldiery hunted him out of Syria. Taking with 
 him what he had scraped up of ill-gotten goods, he departed for Alexandria, 
 where he took up religion similarly as he had done army contracts, joining the 
 Arians as the most likely party to help him. He accumulated a library as a 
 well recognized means of getting a reputation for learning, and so well worked 
 his way among his sect that, on the expatriation of Athanasius, he bought off all 
 other competitors for the episcopal place. Alexandria is not the only city, I 
 am told, in which church preferment has been purchasable. The swindling 
 bacon contractor thus became a bishop. He then began pillaging the native 
 temples and otherwise spoiling the Egyptians, for which a day of reckoning 
 came, when he was pulled out of his house and tied to a rope at the tail of a 
 camel. After being so dragged about all day till dead, his body was thrown 
 into the sea. 
 
 I am shown by the guide the scene of the combat, and the remains of an old 
 wall, part of a castle, in which St. George or the Dragon lived. The encounter 
 occurred, as most fights generally do, about one of womankind, in this case a 
 king's daughter, who it is to be presumed had rival suitors in the combatants. 
 As St. George never left Alexandria alive after getting there, this battle must 
 have occurred during his bacon-contracting and not his Episcopal period. 
 About that, however, our guide seems to be ignorant. His thoughts go more 
 towards appropriating the coin on which he sees me studying the picture of 
 the battle here on its very field. I feel that hitherto St. George has been much 
 neglected, and that one who takes no interest in his patron saint cannot be 
 said to fulfil the whole duty of man. All St. George's history finished in the 
 fourth century, and for what he was canonized, or when and by wliom, I have 
 not learnt. His violent death whilst a bishop led no doubt to the result of 
 regarding him as a martyr. The English crusaders on coming here in 1096 
 may be said to have invented him, or brought him into the world's notice. 
 They made as much of him beyond his deserts as the French do of a London 
 Lord Mayor. His spiritual aid was invoked by them at the siege of Antioch 
 further along the coast here, and on winning that battle they gave him all the 
 
Undeseired Honours. 479 
 
 glory. Forthwith he was made patron saint of the soldiers, and our Edward 
 the Third subsequently adopted him in similar way for the Order of the 
 Garter, and thus he became England's tutelar saint, and also that of Portugal. 
 The Russians also claim him through their Greek Church, and he is patron 
 saint of their military order. 
 
 There is a parallel to this strange muddle of undeserved honour in that 
 similarly given to Amerigo Vespucius as the discoverer of America — strangely 
 named after him instead of after Columbus. He began as a boatswain, and 
 finished as a pilot. The discovery of America by him in 1499 depended upon 
 an expedition that might have made the discovery had it ever left the port, and 
 would then have made it a year after Columbus had done so and published it 
 to the world. His subsequent voyages and published accounts, though a day 
 after the fair, counted somehow as first-fruits. Amerigo's answer to this 
 difficulty was that he had not sought the honour so thrust upon him, which 
 strangely sticks to him as if he had achieved it. 
 
 We get undeceived in many matters like that of St. George in going about 
 the world, and I felt sorry, for a day or so, about my patron saint, and the little 
 care I shall for the future have for his patronage. We are deceived about him 
 chiefly by that extrinsic veneration due to the intrinsic value of his medals. I 
 shall rate him now at even a lesser value than any of his medallion portraits. 
 They were in the time of that equally noljle namesake of his, the Fourth of the 
 Georges, placed as low down in the currency as the back of a halfpenny. 
 
 Everything that has helped to resuscitate Beyrout, and aided to its improve- 
 ment, has been done by foreign aid. Turkey, which misgoverns it, and ghoul- 
 like sucks its life-blood, has done nothing for it in return. Its schools and 
 colleges are foundations of English, American, and German origin. The best 
 road out of it, and through the Lebanon range, is the work of a French 
 company. When French enterprise thought of that road, English ideas were 
 being given to the water supply of Beyrout. Up to that time the supply of 
 this necessary had depended, in Eastern fashion, upon the exertions of water- 
 carriers, who brought it into the town for a distance of three miles by the 
 goatskin full. The English company which thus brought water into Beyrout in 
 1 86 1 have found it a successful enterprise. Another company that thought to 
 do the like with English omnibuses, anticipated their time, as many of the 
 would-be improvers of the world have done. They will yet be wanted, how- 
 ever. A Scotchman has introduced steam into the silkspinning business, but 
 yet leaves plenty of room for the native artisans to supply the demands of the 
 silk-wearing world. Of all places in Syria, this Beyrout is the most 
 desirable in which to live. With the Lebanon mountains at its back for 
 health, and the Mediterranean in front, this pietty Syrian seaport has various 
 attractions in numerous nice ways, quite irrespective of the consideration of it 
 as holy land. 
 
 On Lebanon I had seen the Scriptural cedars, and here in Beyrout I find the 
 doves of this Bible country. They are the sweetest, softest, most loving and pet- 
 looking of birds ! Apart from all the venerated recommendations of them which 
 we know so well, their very appearance prepossesses one sufficiently in their 
 favour. I thought a pair of Australian love-birds as sweet a sight as ornithology 
 could furnish until I saw these Syrian doves. Their colour is a mixed shade of 
 buft' and pink, their eyes the prettiest of all eyes, and their ways the most 
 winning. In spite of all proverbs and experience about the deceitfuJness of 
 appearances, it is with every one a case of love at first sight with these birds. 
 The Scriptures have compared them with all that is lovely and good. Their 
 very look suggests such ideas, and brings up thoughts of all things harmless, 
 innocent, graceful, gracious, wooing, cooing, pretty, and pleasant. If there be 
 other fitting words, they deserve to be added. This dove is the one thing 
 
480 The Main Routes Roimd the World. 
 
 fittest to nestle in the fairest of bosoms. In having the gazelle among its hills, 
 and this dove in its valleys, Syria has some little compensation yet left for 
 its sufferings under the ancient curse and the modern one of its Turkish 
 oppression. 
 
 The incoming steamer that is to take me away brings an alarming piece of 
 news, which well illustrates Turkey's behaviour towards those whom it may have 
 the power to injure. It always shows the will to do so. At Salonica, across 
 the water here, on the Turkish coast, two of Christian faith had been mobbed 
 and murdered in the street by Mohammedans. Beyrout quakes at the news, 
 as fearing it to be the beginning of another uprising and massacre similar to 
 that of i860. 
 
 The Salonica murders were, we hear, caused by the excusable desire of an 
 afifianced girl to become a member of the faith professed by her intended 
 husband. She was on her way to do what was necessary formally to carry 
 through this intention, when her Mohtimmedan kindred interposed, and by 
 force endeavoured to get this straying sheep back to the fold. Her struggles 
 and screams at their rough interference brought the aid of the American 
 consular agent, who gave her the shelter of his house — a right of sanctuary 
 which should have be.n respected, and would have been elsewhere. 
 
 The house was, however, besieged by a Turkish mob, who tore off the iron 
 railings from neighbouring buildings for weapons. To quell the riot the 
 French and German consuls, Messrs. Moulon and Abbot, gave their aid. 
 They were, well known as consuls, and also as Christians, for which latter 
 reason the mob set upon these men who so volunteered in the cause of peace 
 and humanity, and killed both of them. Their heads were beaten in with the 
 iron railings lately torn from the neighbouring building. A hot-headed leader 
 was now only wanted to have led on the crowd to another outbreak, and to 
 the massacre of all the Christians of Salonica, in addition to the two consuls. 
 
 " When this news gets about," says Hassan, " you will see the necessity of 
 the men-of-war now in the harbour. The Salonica example will so inflame 
 the Mohammedans here that, but for that protection, we should be all in 
 danger ! " 
 
 Our six weeks in Syria have, however, come to a finish, and we can leave 
 with no fears but for those left behind. It has been the strangest six weeks of 
 a lifetime, and the most toilsome — in its way of travel. Save for the reflected 
 light which has been cast upon all around, it would not have so well repaid the 
 making of the real pilgrimage which it is to those who may only do so much, or 
 so little, of the journey through it as we had done. There has been a curious 
 mixture of antiquity and of youth in the feelings and thoughts which it has 
 called up. It seems also as many months as it has been weeks since we 
 landed at old Joppa, and ceased to see newspapers and to hear of the world's 
 doings. 
 
 With the Bible for a whole literature, we have had that confusion occasioned 
 to us, of things antiquated and youthful, to which allusion has been made. 
 The ancient things were those around us, of which more was to be learnt from 
 Biblical descriptions and the mind's eye than from anything that guides or 
 guide-books could point out. The youthful thoughts were those recalled by 
 the well-remembered explanations of Biblical incidents by one's earliest 
 teachers. Looking daily at these scenes, and reading the Scriptural accounts 
 of them at night, one seems to hear again the well-remembered tones in which 
 they were first read and commented upon. Travel in Palestine and Syria is 
 likely to lose much of its charm to those whose early education has been only 
 secular. The Bible as a guide-book for such travel thus gains another and 
 stronger charm for those who in their youth have had it made the guide-book 
 for the longer journey of life. 
 
Breaking iip Camp. 481 
 
 A feeling of sadness comes upon one in the certainty that in leaving this land 
 it'is left most likely for ever. It seems so utterly impossible that its pilgrimage 
 will for any reason be made twice in a lifetime, that as we leave the gates of its 
 cities I feel, as I had felt nowhere else, that they eternally close upon me. 
 wSyria is out altogether of the world's way and its traffic. The work-a-day 
 world has not time for its travel, and dilettanti prefer lands which can be less 
 laboriously traversed. The British are not a pilgrimaging race as in the days 
 of Chaucer, and so, for religious reasons, are little likely to visit Syria. 
 Perhaps when it is delivered from Turkish rule, it may fall to English, and 
 then a migration may take place to this Beyrout and to other of its choice 
 places. 
 
 The day of that deliverance from Turkish oppression cannot be far off now 
 for Syria. Turkey is upon its last legs. The " sick man " is now prostrate 
 and bedridden, and the day will come — and the sooner the better — for the 
 administration and division of the deceased's estate. It has been the bad son 
 of the European family, and for that reason has been petted and bolstered up 
 as we see with bad sons to be too often the case. The idea that its existence 
 was necessary for the good of Europe and the balance of power may be realized 
 by a division of its territory. That which cannot help itself cannot help others, 
 Turkey has long been in that position, and has been supported only as a stop- 
 gap. The balance of European power also has changed altogether since 
 England, sixty years ago, might have been said to hold the scales for all 
 Europe. 
 
 The Turks have had their day in the world, and would, like the Phoeni- 
 cians, whose territory they usurp, have been dispersed long ago but for that 
 European support, so much of which falls upon England. Since they emerged 
 from the obscurity of a tribe of semi-obscure Scythians, and began that career 
 of conquest under Othman which they completed under the three Mahomets, 
 the Turks have gradually sunk to a state of decay, a state much hastened since 
 Russia in 1787 conquered three of their provinces, with the loss to Turkey of 
 a quarter of a million of its troops. That was the blow on the over-ripe apple 
 which has since gradually cankered and rotted it. The fruit is now fallen 
 altogether, and is a nuisance to the world where it lies. 
 
 The finish of tent-life having come, we have now to bid adieu to the strange 
 family who have been with us so long that we might have known their bio- 
 graphies but that we could not converse with them. To us the attendants and 
 muleteers have been as dumb, for that reason, as the mules they drove. For 
 Antoine, our good French cook, we have a feeling as for a mother. He has 
 been to us in our otherwise helpless state the sole source of sustenance. It has 
 always puzzled me whence he drew those supplies that came to us as mother's 
 milk. I have alluded to his wonderful ways of producing much out of nothing 
 as resembling those of a necromancer. It was fear, perhaps, of knowing too 
 much which kept us from knowing more. He was a bright, cheery little man, 
 as careless husbands usually are, and his wife, resident here at Beyrout, seems 
 thoroughly a Frenchwoman in taking upon herself a Frenchwoman's large 
 share of the burdens of life. Antoine travelled so much, she said, that the 
 minor matters of housekeeping fell naturally to her with all its cares. I com 
 forted her with a recital of the care he had taken of us, instead of her and the 
 family, and if it cheered her to hear it, she might have heard him so extolled 
 to any extent. 
 
 Our dragoman has been, in the way of information, what Antoine was in the 
 matter of sustenance. In looking into the matter I saw then, and see still, 
 that he who attended to the wants of the stomach was best liked. The pur- 
 veyor of intelligence and the feeder of the mind was very well indeed when 
 wanted, but we might have got on without a captain, where we should have 
 
 G G 
 
482 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 died for want of a cook. Hassan gets our thanks and best written letters- 
 testimonial, but we all four of us find ourselves hunting up some present by 
 which we hope to hold Antoine in remembrance. In putting the sentiment in 
 that form, I adopt the French interpretation of the old maxim about the bless- 
 ing of giving and receiving, and the feelings of the parties to the transaction. 
 
 One little article which we are very glad to part with seemed to be much 
 wanted by those we are leaving. Our dragoman had counselled our purchasing 
 revolvers before we left Cairo — after making the agreement with him detailed 
 in the Joppa chapter.* These troublesome things had been carried in a 
 leathern belt, which was a hot and heavy encumbrance in this land, where to 
 be strapped up in any way was unpleasant. These belts and revolvers were 
 more acceptable than money to our camp companions, and in hopes that they 
 might yet be put to good use, we let all go but one. Certainly no people 
 seemed more to need their aid ; and the late news from Salonica made the 
 possession of fire-arms even a greater necessity than previously in this wretched 
 Turk-ridden land. 
 
 The American mission established here is a very efficient and energetic one. 
 A large printing-house is annexed to it, as might be supposed, it being the 
 good fashion of Americans always to carry a printing-press with them, and to 
 set it up as a necessity primary even to that of opening a bar. Here are 
 printed, in all the language.^ of vSyria, those good books, tracts, and addresses 
 that are thence scattered throughout the land. Let me say a good word for the 
 Mohammedans. Their superstitious respect for printed paper keeps them from 
 making pipe-lights of these things ; but the conversion of a Turk to Chris- 
 tianity, by this or by any other aid, has not as yet been chronicled. 
 
 It is a collection, this Syrian population, of small sects, all equally obstruc- 
 tive and withstanding fusion — Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Armenians, Greek 
 churchmen, Coptic churchmen, Maronites, Druses, and Mohammedans, the 
 latter including also the Bedoueen, if they have any faith whatever. These 
 are not good materials to make up a prosperous community under the best of 
 governments, and it has fallen to the fate of Syria to be under one of the very 
 worst. 
 
 Syria's modern story is a dull, sad, and wearisome one of abuses, iniquitous 
 taxation, and mismanagement in all shapes. All the land belongs, by general 
 Eastern custom and Mussulman law, to the head of the state. No subject can 
 hold land as freehold. The terms of tenure are cultivation and improvement, 
 and if that be neglected for three years, the lease lapses. _ The nominal rent 
 is a part of the produce, which part is by the constructions of tax-gatherers 
 swelled to an extent which crushes the tenant. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXX. 
 
 WESTWARD HO ! 
 
 Ox the Syrian shore of the Mediterranean, looking upon waters which divide 
 the Eastern from the Western world, the delayed departure of the steamer 
 gives one an unexpectedly spare day. After the feast of Eastern life that has 
 so long been ours, we may, in scriptural language proper to the subject, 
 "gather up the fragments that nothing be lost." Pope has told us, in 
 immortal lines, that — 
 
 " Life can litde more supply 
 Than just to look about us and to die !" 
 
Eastern-World Teaching. 483 
 
 And poetry we know is but sense and philosophy reduced to proverbial brevity 
 of language. If such view of the object of life be correct, there can then be 
 no question that the world which holds so much the larger share of humanity 
 as does the East, has, if for no other than that one of a hundred reasons, the 
 first call on our attention. Another poet has given that as his opinion in lines 
 which we have before quoted : — 
 
 " Eastward roll the stars of Heaven, 
 
 Westward tend the thoughts of men ; 
 Let the man to Nature given 
 Wander eastward now and then I" 
 
 Ten months of such eastward wanderings have now here come to finish. The 
 Mediterranean crossed, the Western world and its more modern wonders will 
 then be all before us, Othello's Isle of Cyprus is outlying here over the water; 
 and, in his language, we think of that " word or two before you go " — which it 
 were as well, perhaps, we thought of oftener, regarding ourselves as the mere 
 sojourners, which, whether travelling or at home, is all that we really are in the 
 world. 
 
 " For all our homes, there is but one home 
 Where the grand secret hides, 
 And every home that can here be found 
 Finds its last home and bides !" 
 
 '" We sit about, therefore, in the balcony at Bassoul's, at Beyrout, or in the 
 neighbouring cabin of the s.s. " Nieman," which will take us hence when the 
 mail-bags come down from Damascus, and make up accounts, compare notes, 
 and strike balances of opinion about the Eastern world and its ways. If we 
 were not thoughtful beings when we landed on its shores, we have since then 
 become so. The long absence from newspapers and Western- world bothers 
 have made us well understand that frame of mind in which the returned East 
 Indian asked with surprise, when told of a Parliamentary debate, " Is that old 
 thing going on still ?" His thoughts had become Eastern, philosophic, not to 
 say somewhat abstract, poetical, and dreamy — a state of mind which sneers at 
 things Western and Parliamentary. 
 
 Time had not beaten one. as expected in this journey. Like all nature, it 
 waits, as it were, for man in the East, and goes with tardier steps. On 
 Eastern seas especially it seemed but to drag along, and thereby to lengthen 
 life. The ten months spent lately in the East have been as twenty, from the 
 constant changes that have occurred. Such is explicable if we think that life 
 is not to be reckoned by days and years, but by the occupation of time, and the 
 tariety and number of our ideas and sensations. A fair young flirt, telling of 
 her many love-affairs, remarked, " I seem to have lived sixty years instead of 
 twenty, and must really, from my experience, be dreadfully old I" She merely 
 expressed, in so saying, that in going through the world it, in some sort, goes 
 also through us. 
 
 The climate, which equally with occupation, helps to form character, has 
 been daily doing its work upon us and on the changing of those particles of 
 our being that every seven years renew us altogether. We have thus been 
 inoculated with the influences of those lands in which we so change, or in 
 Shakspearian language "ripe and rot." Going through the East for so appa- 
 rently long a time gives us something Eastern in nature, orientalizing our ideas 
 to a degree of which we are not perhaps fully conscious. 
 
 This Eastern world, the cradle of the human race, will yet likely be the 
 home of the last of those who shall tread the earth, when its course shall, like 
 ours, be run, and it finishes as the burnt out, cooled cinder which all worlds 
 must become. There is that about Eastern people, their adherence to habit, 
 fashions, and customs, indicative of lasting qualities — a patience and stolid 
 
 GG 2 
 
484 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 endurance, a calm, half-sleepy indifference to circumstances, and that faith in 
 Fate which gives easiness of mind and disposition to its possessors. Of such 
 the Western world has but little share compared with the Eastern. The West 
 is all hurry, scurry, and flurry — all whirr, whirl, bustle, and burst. Such 
 excitement is unknown to the placid slow-going Eastern man — the tortoise of 
 the two, but the tortoise who may outdo the hare in the end, and beginning 
 our race as he did, will probably likewise finish it. 
 
 Climate, in that previously-mentioned sense of forming character, has had 
 largest share in the making of the Eastern man. It is especially noticeable in 
 America how many of the Red Indian's characteristics — self-respect, silence, 
 and stoicism — have become ingrained and part of the character of the white 
 man bred there of many generations of settlers. The very features also often 
 assimilate to the aboriginal type. Allowing for such climatic influence, these 
 men of the East, wearing that "livery of the burnished sun," which is too 
 often their only clothing, are the products of its many causes. Of these a few 
 may well lie mentioned as most noticeable. 
 
 The warmth of the Eastern world necessitates less exertion for living, and 
 the means of doing so, than the Western world has to expend. Nature here 
 empties her horn of plenty, which no winter-rigour ever reduces. The desire 
 for exertion lessens with the need of it. The traveller no further towards the 
 East than sunny Naples, has plenteous evidence of that in its lazzaroni, and 
 their half animal way of life. Dress is but little needed in the East for warmth, 
 and considerations of decency appear to involve only questions of habits and 
 customs. For show purposes, which is the chief object of Eastern costume, 
 what is mostly worn is not costly. The food of Eastern life is naturally, as it 
 must be sanatively and philosophically, of vegetable growth. What the trees 
 do not yield unaided by man's effort, the fields produce with but little labour. 
 
 The midday heat necessitates midday sleep, and that tends to lassitude— 
 not to say laziness — which is further promoted by the habits of squatting 
 instead of sitting, and of lounging in place of standing. The cushions and 
 the couch, taking the place of chairs, breed limpness of body and mind, 
 lazy limbs, and those inactive habits which become as second nature. Reading 
 in a reclining position soon brings about sleep, and that position, alike with 
 Eastern and Western men, is the only one attempted in the East. After a 
 few pages the effort is dropped and the book soon follows — the student probably 
 pleading Solomon's words as his excuse. That Eastern monarch may be taken 
 as a type of the Eastern world, in more things than his allegation that " much 
 study is a weariness of the flesh." 
 
 Eastern life — its warmth, and the habits engendered by it — is of a satisfying 
 and not stimulating nature. The necessities for clothing, animal food, warmth, 
 and house-shelter, so felt by us, and giving birth to invention and exertion, 
 press but lightly, and are never felt as in the Western world. To the inactive 
 influence so produced may be added the vicious sensualities that are nursed by 
 idleness, and flee for indulgence from what is active and energetic to what is 
 idle and enervating. 
 
 The belief in Fate entertained by the Eastern world has helped to its debase- 
 ment, to which, and to the bUnd adherence to the laws of "caste" entertained 
 by so many millions, is to be attributed the want of that ambition which is so 
 strong an incentive to the Western world. In that condition of life in which 
 a man is born he has to remain, whether fitted by nature for it or not. He 
 must follow his father's vocation and none other. The mind and intellect of 
 men are thus crushed, much as are the feet of many of the womankind. 
 
 And then comes the deadening eftect of Eastern faiths, the enslavement of 
 the human mind, the saddest sight that a Western-world man can look upon ! 
 One who has been brought up as a good Christian regards with reverent respect 
 
Easfer?t- World IVays. 485 
 
 his faith as a means to a good end and the hope of a better world. It is the 
 uncertainty, however, upon that matter generally entertained by the European 
 world which stimulates its people to make the best of the world here — the 
 blessed uncertainty, I may call it, seeing how it aids and helps in obtaining for 
 those who entertain it a share here in good things that the Eastern man is 
 satisfied generally to wait for in the hereafter. 
 
 Of the Paradise awaiting him in the next world and of his sharing in it, the 
 man of the East has no more doubt than he has of his existence here. This 
 life becomes to him as nothing compared with the eternity of bliss to which it 
 is, in his strong faith, but the mere portal. His tomb is, therefore, cared for 
 more than his home, and the wealth that Western-world men leave to help 
 forward their families is in the East lavished on the house for the dead. Men, 
 it is thus to be seen, may have too much of faith and of the certainty of bliss 
 hereafter, and be led to neglect thereby a proper share of earthly welfare. 
 Religion so realized and faith so expressed are nowhere seen as in the East ; 
 and seen there, they are novel features to \Yestern -world eyes. When I 
 trembled at the possible shipwreck of a rock-caught vessel, the Eastern-world 
 man, calm in his belief in Fate and Faith, saw in it but the sea-gate to his 
 heaven, and smiled at death's probable approach as introducing him, at once, 
 to Paradise and the black-eyed Houris there awaiting his coming. 
 
 Death is no King of Terrors to such, but shows the smiling face and welcom- 
 ing hand of one whose mission is of mercy and not of destruction — so saying 
 
 '■ ^Miscall me not ! j\ly generous fulness lends 
 Homes to the homeless — to the friendless friends: 
 Gives to the starving babe a mother's breast ; 
 Wealth to the poor, and to the restless rest." 
 
 The earthly black-eyed Houris have also much to do with the Oriental man 
 and his fate. Woman's position and influence in the Western and Eastern 
 worlds differ as light and darkness. That seclusion for life in the harem and 
 zenana, which is so physically, mentally, and morally enervatinq;' in its effect, 
 is occasioned by the despotic government and feudal systems of Eastern lands. 
 W^omen are secluded at home, and their faces covered when allowed out of 
 doors, that they may not be seen, admired, and stolen from husband or father 
 in lands where might is right, and habeas corpus acts are unknown. 
 
 When it is considered how much a riiother's influence has to do in forming 
 her children's mind and character, the doll-like treatment of Eastern women is 
 to be blamed for the puppet-like progeny which seems naturally to result. The 
 Eastern man, like the Western one, imitates his superiors and their ways. As 
 a wife has no freedom, she can give no trouble here ; and women having, in 
 Eastern belief, no soul, can give none hereafter. A plurality of wives has, 
 therefore, none of the terrors of which we know. All who can afford the small 
 expense that polygamy occasions in the Eastern world, where women are 
 plentiful, have more wives than one, the evil effect of which was too sadly illus- 
 trated in Solomon's case. Too much of a good thing is found to be the result, but 
 only when all too late to mend matters. The end, when it comes, is seen in 
 large families unprovided for, and desolate widows, who are by law not per- 
 mitted to tight with their maiden sisters for a second chance, with all the odds 
 in their favour by their greater knowledge of man's weakness. 
 
 It is in these sun-nursed climes, this enervating atmosphere, and among these 
 soft-natured, placid-minded, fate-believing, faith-holding people, that ten 
 months of our precious time of middle life has been passed. Better so passed, 
 perhaps, than any other ten months of our lifetime, if it be true that all mankind 
 is a book, and that such is, as Pope declared, our proper study. But the 
 Eastern world now to be seen is that of the present only, and the lesser and 
 
486 The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 degenerate one. Of its great bygone time only remnants are now visible. As 
 travellers we find that — 
 
 " Our days among the dead are passed; 
 Around us we behold, 
 Where'er we cast a casual glance, 
 But mighty names of old ! " 
 
 These names are those which lend a charm to the Eastern story, and give 
 that halo to history which, half romance as it is, would be dry indeed without 
 such zest. Our utilitarian and Western-world life is one of freedom and of 
 care for the good of all. We would not choose to change it for the splendours 
 and barbarities of a world which lived, worked, and slaved for the will, whims, 
 and glory of one despot. There are those of conservative notions who see, 
 however, a beauty in the laws of primogeniture, and look upon one only as en- 
 titled to all the estate, and as thereby upholding family dignity better than the 
 half-score of brothers among whom the tendencies of our age is to divide the 
 property. In their family doings, the Eastern world, the first-born of people, 
 gave all to one, and lived and toiled as a nation of slaves for that one's 
 aggrandisement. 
 
 "Helots degraded, scarce esteem'd as man, 
 Having no rights, for ever under ban; 
 Fetter'd in body and enslaved in mind, 
 Their mental eye-balls sear, and dark, and blind. 
 
 They crawl'd like beasts, and if they dared complain 
 Were lash'd, and tortured, until tame again — 
 Slaves to be lash'd and tortured and resold, 
 Or starved and murder'd when for toil too old !"' 
 
 Of such were "the people" of whom the little that is left to us of the 
 history of the Eastern world has kept no account. By their labours we alone 
 know what they were, and for whom their lives were wasted like water, and 
 the world encumbered by their life-long toil at the " vast and cruel wonders " 
 that are left to testify of the greatest efforts of the civilization of the East. 
 
 Such ideas of the Eastern world have been gathered in that recount of its 
 scenes begun more chapters back than I have reckoned. The fancy for such 
 travel and such notes of it came upon me in Japan, with its novelties of a 
 newly-opened country added to those of an Eastern one. China next displayed 
 its immensity of territory and humanity to one's wondering vision. Cochin 
 China and Malasia then followed. The Thousand Islands led me up to their 
 Queen in that united Sunda and Java which, but for Dutch defilement, 
 were as Paradise regained. Resumption of the journey took me to and through 
 Ceylon on to India from ^Madras to Calcutta, and thence through the heart of 
 Hindoostan, for three thousand miles, to Bombay. 
 
 Passing thence down the Red Sea by Aden to Suez, Lower Egypt was 
 entered upon and traversed to Cairo, its capital ; and headway then made up 
 the Nile to Assiout, the chief town of Upper Egyyt. Down the Nile to 
 Alexandria, and thence by sea to Joppa, brought me to the shores of Palestine. 
 Tent-life then commenced in a journey up country to Jerusalem, and thence 
 down to the Dead Sea and the Valley of the Jordan. The route of travel took me 
 onwards to Caipha, Carmel, Nazareth, and Damascus, and thence over Lebanon 
 down to this sea-side Beyrout. Having given the ideas of the East suggested by 
 such journey, a recount may be made of some of its characteristics most 
 observable to outer vision. 
 
 Long shut-up Japan made a pleasant impression as a key-note to the music 
 of these Eastern lands. All that was seen there was so novel and of such 
 interest to one who travelled only to observe and remark. Its likeness to the 
 British Islands in size, as also in population, was prepossessing, and its people 
 
Recounting the Journey. 487 
 
 might be thought to represent what the British would be, had Britain shut out 
 the Romans, Saxons, Normans, and Danes, who have so mongrelized the 
 native blood. The happy Japanee and his pleasant country, his French 
 politeness and his frugal ways, were worth a visit, as showing what our mother 
 land might have been like in the days when it was called " merrie England," 
 and when it was as destitute of banks and poor-houses as is Japan, " where 
 every rood of land maintains its man." 
 
 China and the Chinese shewed one a different picture. A nation is here 
 found that would shut itself up, as did Japan, while it could, and which believes 
 its knowledge complete, and that it can learn little or nothing from the rest of 
 the world ; which bought up the railway laid down in one of its ports by the 
 British that it might destroy it altogether, and so have no innovations from 
 other lands with which to disturb the minds of its people. A vastly extensive 
 country, with rivers, in their immensity, like those ot America, and a population 
 equal to nearly a third of the whole world : a population that now we have 
 broken into their house, are swarming out of it, as ants do .when we disturb an 
 ant-hill, and who will likely overrun the modern world as the Goths and Huns 
 did the older one. 
 
 Not to be forgotten either is the visit that has been made to Cochin China, 
 and the sight of Saigon there and Cambodia further inland. Saigon ha.s 
 shown us one of the follies of the late French Emperor, which was similar to his 
 bamboozling effort to distract the attention of his people from their own affairs 
 to those of Mexico. The French settlement here, made on the line and on 
 the low-lying marshy ground, is bad enough for climate, but to be surrounded 
 by the odious .Malays makes things worse. A place, this Saigon, that if made 
 a penal settlement would leave nothing to be desired by those who wish to see 
 justice dealt out to those of their fellow-men who may happen to be found out 
 in their misdeeds. 
 
 Singapore presented the pleasant sight to a Victorian of a flourishing town 
 supported by its position only. It stands to the land of which it is an out- 
 lying point much as Victoria does with regard to the rest of Australia — nearest 
 to the busy world and its high roads. As a corner allotment this port of Singa- 
 pore has a daily-increasing trade with those who use it solely as a house of 
 call, for which purpose it seems to be the most favoured of places. A vessel 
 there could probably have been found from most ports ot the world, and 
 several from some of them. 
 
 Any one will have a lasting pleasant remembrance who has seen the fair and 
 fertile Java — Queen of the Eastern Archipelago and of all the islands of the 
 East — a paradise of a place, in which is seen one of the saddest phases of 
 Eastern life, and that in all its odiousness. Why the Spanish should be per- 
 mitted by the world to enslave Cuba, and the Dutch to do the like with the 
 eighteen millions of Java, are ugly questions. 
 
 Let those who may think about them remember that the crime brings its 
 own punishment. Peoples who will live on the slavery of others sink in the 
 world's esteem, and become of no account among the nations. The examples 
 of Spain and Holland show us that if we will be respected it must be on our 
 own merits, by our own deserts, and not from the wealth of others, or by their 
 labours. So vicariously to live sinks men and nations to the position of 
 paupers and parasites, and of such are modern Holland and Spain. One 
 may be glad to have seen fair Java, and its towns of Batavia, Buitenzorg, 
 Samarang, Solo, Jockio, and Sourabaya, and to have seen therein how 
 beautiful nature can make an Eastern island, and what brutes men can become 
 there. 
 
 Forgetting the odious semi-enslavement of its native races, the traveller 
 through Sunda and Java will recall all the perfumes of "the Spice Islands," 
 
488 The Main Routes Ro2ind the Wo?id. 
 
 the grandeur of the verdure-clad mountains, and the sweetness of the flowering 
 valleys, the groves of tree-ferns, and gardens laden with fruits found nowhere 
 else, chiefly to be remembered amongst which will be the delightful mangosteen 
 and the strangely-smelling dorian. The beauty of Nature's work in Java is 
 seen to have greatly stimulated an artistic race who, in past ages, before Dutch- 
 men disfigured the place, dwelt there, and have left away up in the interior, 
 for our wonder and delight, some of the finest temples the world can show, and 
 notable above all, the wondrous "Temple of Boer Buddha." 
 
 Ceylon showed a fine reverse to the hateful side of the picture presented by 
 Java. The Dutch had sought to make it a similar wealth-producing source to 
 the exchequer of Holland ; but England, having obtained possession of it, 
 allows man there to labour for his own good, and to find the best market both 
 for his work and its produce. The true greatness and fair dealing of England 
 in relation to its conquered possessions was not fully appreciated until one came 
 upon Ceylon, and going through it from Galle to Colombo, and on to Kandy, 
 Rambodda, and Newera Eliya, learnt the ways of its tea, coffee, and quinine- 
 growing population* and how nothing in the island was made, as in Java, a 
 Government monopoly for the enrichment of a distant land. 
 
 The same story was taught by great India itself in visits paid to Madras, Cal- 
 cutta, Benares, Lucknow,Cawnpore, Agra, Delhi, Allahabad, Ellora, Jubbulpore, 
 and Bombay — a run rapidly made, but sufficient to show the system of govern- 
 ment, which is without doubt the best that Hindoostan has ever enjoyed. 
 Always the possession of some foreign power, and always probably so to be, 
 India has never before had that done for it, and for its advancement among 
 the nations, which Great Britain has there accomplished. Such is shown in its 
 railways, schools, newspapers, local courts, and those other aids to enjoyment 
 of life and protection of property which none of its former owners gave to it. 
 The great names they have left in the story were achieved by the splendid 
 wonders with which they encumbered the land. At these decorative but use- 
 less works the toiling millions worked as slaves for the whims of some idiotic 
 or eccentric despot. Such was India's sad fate, until England became its 
 owner. If not always to be so, that which her Government leaves behind will 
 be memorials whereof any nation may be proud — the story told by them being 
 one that men may always read as they run on every side of their course 
 throughout the country. 
 
 Any one may be glad that he has seen India. It is a sight to satisfy the 
 dream of a lifetime, and to understand fully by outward vision what Shak- 
 speare saw so well in the mind's eye of the world's glory in its outer and 
 visible way. 
 
 "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples" 
 
 are here all to be seen at their best, and such as no other land can equal. 
 They are also mostly visible in that state of dissolution that tells of days of 
 splendour of which the " revels now are ended," and the " insubstantial pageant 
 faded " like to the " baseless fabric of the vision " which called them into 
 existence. 
 
 The visit to Egypt showed another phase of existing Eastern despotism — 
 the land groaning under the oppression of the Turk as Java does under that 
 of the Dutchman. The despotism of the old Roman Emperors we are too apt 
 to think of as a thing of the past, and much as we think of the days of Louis 
 XIV., and of his belief that the State was himself — ^' Cest 7/101!''' Eg}'pt 
 is now in much the same sad condition as was France when its tirst 
 revolution asserted the rights of its people to a share in the benefits of 
 government. 
 
Eastern Despots and Slaves. 489 
 
 It is scarcely possible to credit, without personally visiting Egypt, that one man 
 could have been allowed to recklessly dissipate the earnings of millions, and go on 
 building Versailles-like palaces out of the hardly wrung and grossly burden- 
 some taxation of millions of starving slaves. If any one imagines slavery as a 
 thing the world has done with, a visit to Egypt will dissipate that delusion in 
 the shortest of time. The humanity which is there not bought and sold but obliged 
 to cultivate the land for a living, is then robbed of all earnings, and half-beaten 
 to death. So left to a wretched starvation, the country is cursed with the most 
 hideous form of slavery. Of such doings, disgraceful alike to Egypt and the 
 world, enough was seen and heard in the visits made to Suez, Cairo, and the 
 towns and villages on the right bank of the Nile from Boulac to Assiout, and 
 from thence down to Alexandria. 
 
 Gladdest, or perhaps saddest, of all, as a Briton and a Christian, will be 
 he who has seen something of Palestine and Syria. Its crusading and other 
 historical associations are pleasant to his memory, and all its Holy Land ones 
 touch his soul. Beyond those, however, there are financial and political ones 
 which touch his pocket, in the millions of British taxes paid to keep Turkey in 
 possession there and elsewhere. A British subject may tread the Holy Land 
 wdth the thought that it is an English possession, and bought many times over, if 
 the British money expended on account of it be reckoned up. He is astonished 
 to see so much of it such a worthless-looking property, and becomes a politician 
 right off in his desperate efforts to understand what apparent follies can be per- 
 petuated to keep other folks out of possession, the worthless Turks in it, and the 
 " balance of power " equalized. 
 
 What the curse really is that overlies the Holy Land has been made plain 
 by such visit. Every land misgoverned as Palestine and Syria are would 
 appear similarly blasted. Egypt might equally be called accursed, subject to 
 such tyranny as now afflicts it. These lands that were earliest in the van of 
 civilization, and were, with neighbouring Persia, once foremost in fame, are 
 now all the more, for such reasons, mournful and sickening to the travel- 
 ler's eyes. If it be true, as Rochefoucald tells us, that we derive our greatest 
 happiness from the contemplation of the misery of others, there is cause 
 enough and to spare here for all such French enjoyment. It is not so, how- 
 ever, and human nature, that is worthy of the name, is of better stuff than the 
 Frenchman estimated. To tread shores trodden of times past by the wisest 
 of head, the boldest of spirit, the largest of heart, and the brightest of intellect, 
 and to see them, now, a prey to soulless sensualists, men of only animal 
 instincts and worse than brutish feelings, is a painful and a saddening sight. 
 
 It will be strange indeed, after ten months of tawny, yellow, and other 
 shaded skins, to see white ones again, and to look upon beings " cloaked from 
 head to foot." The human form divine in its unadorned state has been so 
 familiar to one's eye that it may be a question if the change to its all-clothed 
 state will be a pleasanter one. The compensation for any loss in missing the 
 living Apollos Belvidere and Venuses de Medici, whose forms have been so often 
 seen, will be that in the white and Western world we shall see the all- 
 uncovered faces of womankind. 
 
 In leaving the East we leave, too, its old forms of locomotion, the palki of 
 Hindoostan, the jinrikishaw of the Japanese, and its centaur drawers ; the 
 palanquin chairs of the Chinese, as also their humbler wheelbarrow street 
 vehicles. From those to the Egyptian donkeys and the Syrian mules and camels 
 has been a move in a more humanitarian direction. It must be pleasanter to one 
 of right feelings to be dragged about by quadrupeds than by two-footed beings, 
 to which latter form of conveyance an unconquerable repugnance may be 
 honourably indulged. The camel can be dispensed with as a mode of convey- 
 ance by those disliking aching bones ; but the Eastern donkey is an institution 
 
49° The Main Routes Round the World. 
 
 that might be acclimatised in the West to better results than have been there 
 seen of it. 
 
 Of the outdoor sights which may be called amusements of the East we shall 
 miss many : — the Japanese drama as enacted al fresco, and their wondrous 
 ground and lofty tumbling and posturing ; the Chinese tea-house life by land 
 and water, and their street and stall gambling-stands ; the Hindoo conjurors 
 also, who were as enjoyable to see as their doings were mysterious, doings that 
 helped to confirm the faith of our youth in the powers of darkness, and in the 
 reality of the moving spirit of Milton's Paradise and Goethe's Faust. Neither 
 will the Oriental story-teller at the market stands and street corners be for- 
 gotten as a pleasant change from the all-musical devotion of the Western world. 
 The good old practice of lively narration which we in our youth recognized 
 when asking our elders to " tell us a story " has been with the Western world 
 altogether replaced by the too-much-twanged piano, and that singing which as 
 often as not scares away those listeners who are musical enough to understand 
 it. 
 
 Gone with those sights will be the magicians who can see into the past and 
 future unaided by packs of cards, who consult drops of ink as better indications 
 for such purpose than the coffee-grounds of our breakfast-cup, and who sell 
 me, as in China, my horoscope for a shilling, in which I see my future as unin- 
 telligible as it really is. Departed also will be the street water-carriers, and 
 the sight of those picture-book Eastern wells which are now as they ever were. 
 We shall not perhaps miss the beggars even in the Western world, but 
 we shall not see the lepers, which will be at least one relief. Painted faces 
 are common enough all over the world, so far as both Eastern and Western 
 ladies are concerned, but not out of the East will be visible those facial 
 " caste marks " on mert which tell us what they are, and of their attention that 
 morning to their religious formulas. 
 
 And what a coming change of a ten months' dietary ! No more curries and 
 endless rice compounds, that, with fish and fowl, have been as aforetime were 
 mutton, veal, and beef. Of gladness for that change one is far from sure, if I 
 am to speak well of the bridge which carried me over. It has been a digestible 
 dietary, that has never produced a headache nor hour's illness in ten months. 
 On the contrary, it has stimulated to twelve hours per day of sight-seeing work, 
 and four hours thereafter of nightly writing of the record. Michael Cassio 
 talked of his " poor and unhappy brains for drinking," and of his wish that 
 " courtesy had invented other means of entertainment." He could not have 
 said that of the Eastern drinks — the tea, coffee, and lemonade, the latter made 
 of lemons and sugar and water, and not of acids and chemicals. The saki, or 
 rice spirit, and the Eastern wines, are weak but enjoyable drinks, which Cassio 
 would have had difficulty in getting uproarious upon. What the liquor was 
 that he got in Cyprus across the water here is not told, but he says that the 
 cup was "craftily qualified," and his subsequent inebriety was therefore not 
 fairly from Eastern drink. lago, we may infer, had hocussed him. 
 
 Some of the sights to be lost on leaving Eastern shores may not be grievous. 
 No more opium-smoking will be seen, nor anything of the wretched-looking 
 faces of its votaries ; nor any betel-nut and chunamb lime chewing, nor the 
 reddened saliva with which, as with blood, it fills the mouth ; nor any inches- 
 long finger nails on men, nor reddened ones on women. No more shall we see 
 the nasty fashion of carrying infants as packs upon the back or excrescences 
 upon the hip ; nor any al fresco washing and head-combings ; nor any cow- 
 dung-disfigured exteriors to cottages ; nor men too holy to wash themselves 
 and their clothing. Sanctity so expressed and otherwise shown in shaved heads 
 and yellow garments will be now looked for in other forms. Cathedrals, 
 churches, and chapels, will henceforth replace the temples of the Eastern 
 
Leaving a Wonder- World. 491 
 
 faiths — the Brahminical, the Buddhist, the Sintoo, the Jain, the Parsee, and 
 the Mohammedan, which, with other sects, as the Druses and Maronites, make 
 up the faiths of three-fourths of the people of this world — a people impene- 
 trable to all missionary power, and in their several faiths strong as martyrs. 
 
 And so here at this Syrian seaport we men of Australia and America leave 
 that Eastern world which knew nothing of ours — the great East that once held 
 all the world, and is now as the Sleeping Beauty of the fable. On the state 
 of its possessions, their dilapidated condition, and the supine and somnolent 
 state of its folk, our eyes have looked as did those of the Wandering Prince 
 upon her castle and its drowsy surroundings. A great world nevertheless this 
 Eastern one, in that it still holds three-fourths in number, if not in value, of 
 the human race — has made two-thirds of all history, and cradled all existing 
 faiths worthy of the name. 
 
 THE END OF THE EASTERN AND SOUTHERN WORLD TRAVEL- 
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