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LIBRARY
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UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS
t OBTHODOCIA STERNLY SAT DOWN ON AS MANY OF THEM AS SHE CON YENLENl'Lx'
could ’ — Fage 71
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
HOW ORTHODOCIA AND I WENT ROUND
THE WORLD BY OURSELVES
BY
SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN
THt UBR4RY OF THE
MAR 2 1932
j^NIVEfiSITY OF ILLINOIS,
WITH 111 ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. II. TOWNSEND
SECOND EDITION
ITonbott
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1891
[All rights reserved]
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
p
t l 3
C-^Sso
£bi? Volume
AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE TO THE OMNIPOTENCE OF HER OPINION
AND A HUMBLE MARK OF PROFOUNDEST ESTEEM
Js IRespecttullg 2>eMcateD
TO
MRS GRUNDY
793236
‘A Social Departure ’ appeared originally in the columns
of c The Lady's Pictorial ' The Author and the Publishers are
indebted to the courtesy^ of Mr . Alfred Gibbons for the use of
the Illustrations.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
‘ORTHODOCIA STERNLY SAT DOWN ON AS MANY OF THEM AS SHE
conveniently COULD’ ..... Frontispiece
INITIAL LETTER ........ 1
‘SAT DOWN REMOTELY ON THE PENINSULA OF YUCATAN’ , . 2
‘YOU SEE THERE’S NOTHING DUTIABLE IN THAT’ . . .4
‘I WAS NOT SURE OF HIM, BUT I KNEW THE SHILLING’ . . 6
‘COULD SLAY ANY MEMBER OF THE FAMILY WITH A TENNIS-BALL
AT A HUNDRED YARDS’ ...... 9
‘A PERFECTLY INOFFENSIVE LITTLE ENGLISH CURATE’ . . . 12
MRS. GROWTHEM’S NEAREST NEIGHBOUR . . . .20
‘WE BURIED HER UNDER A CLUMP OF TREES’ . . . . 21
MR. GROWTHEM ........ 23
‘ LEFT-WING-OF-A-PRAIRIE-CHICKEN ’ . . . . . . 28
‘LIKE A DENUNCIATORY HOUSEHOLD GODDESS’ . . .32
THE HON. CARYSTHWAITE . . . . . 39
‘YOU FEEL WITH WONDER THAT YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING
VERY EXTRAORDINARY AFTER ALL ’ . . . . .43
‘ A BEAR WAS A GOOD DEAL MORE PROBABLE EPISODE THAN A COW ’ 45
‘THE RIGHTFUL OCCUPANT OF THE COW-CATCHER’ . 46
‘LADIES AIN’T MEANT FER EXPLORIN’’ . . . . .50
‘ ANY INQUIRING SPIRIT COULD HARDLY FAIL TO FIND MOST OF THE
LEADING FACTS IN HER NOTE-BOOK’ . . . 52
ISN’T IT DELIGHTFUL TO BE SITTING ON AN AMERICAN STUMP OF
ONE’S VERY OWN?’ . . . . . . .51
OUR LUGGAGE LABEL . . . . . . . . 57
THE REPORTER’S CARD . . . . . . .58
* HOW OLD IS RADY ? ’ . , . . . . . . GO
EXTRACT FROM REPORT OF INTERVIEW . . . . .61
♦HE BOWED ALL THE WAY FROM THE DOOR TO THE MIDDLE OF
THE APARTMENT’. . . , , . . . 63
X
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
* ORTHODOCIA STERNLY SAT DOWN ON AS MANY OF THEM AS SHE
CONVENIENTLY COULD’ . . . . . .
‘TURNED HIM CAEEFULLY EOUND BY HIS SLEEVE, AND POINTED
OUTSIDE
‘EACH PULLING AFTEE US A SEPARATE PIECE OF OUE HATED
AGGEEGATE’ . . . . . . . .
‘AS WE EODE THROUGH A SUNNY STEEET IN TOKIO ’ .
‘I WOULD LIKE ANOTHEE PICTUEE SHOWING HIM IN A STATE OF
CONVALESCENCE ’ . . . . . . .
‘JAPANESE MAIDEN WHO LIVES BEYOND THE CAMELLIA HEDGE’
AN ELDEELY PARTY .......
‘ TEGAMI ! ’ . . . . . . . . .
KIKU ..........
‘ I DID NOT COME TO JAPAN TO PLAY LEAP-FROG ’ . .
‘IT WAS PRINTED IN JAPANESE’ . . . . .
‘THESE JAPANESE LADIES MAKE THEIR HAIRS IN CURIOUS FASHION,
ISN’T IT 1 ’ . . . . . . . . .
‘ I SUPPOSE THE GENTLEMAN HAD A COLD ’ .
‘MY DEAR LITTLE HEATHEN, IS YOUR MOTHER AT HOME?’
‘SHE WAS A PROFESSIONAL DANCER’ .
‘ONE DAY IT TOLD US OF A BAZAAR’ . . . . .
‘BUT I TOOK THE MONKEY HOME’ . . . . .
‘AS FOR ORTHODOCIA, SHE STOOD FASCINATED, LEANING ON HER
PARASOL BEFORE HER CAPTOR’ . . . . .
‘THE IMPERIAL PERSON’ .......
THE MIKADO’S PALACE . . . . . .
‘FOR A BETTER VIEW OF THE FEATHERS I DROP! ED UPON MY KNEES’
‘WHILE WE ARE YET AFAR OFF YANO-SAN BECOMES AWARE OF US’
‘THE CHEAPEST THING IN DRAGONS ORTHODOCIA EVER SAW’
YANO-SAN .........
‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT GRAY BUDDHA OF A PUBLIC PARK’
‘ LOOKED UP AT THEM WITH SHARP BEADY ANTICIPATION IN THEIR
LITTLE BLACK EYES’ .......
‘AS WE SAT SIDEWAYS ON OUR CUSHIONS AT OUR MODEST MID-DAY
MEAL ’ . . . . . . . .
BACK TO UTSONOMIYA IN THE RAIN’ ...
‘IT WAS FAIRYLAND OVERTAKEN BY A BLIZZARD*
C THERE WHIRLED MADLY FROM THE GRAND HOTEL TWO BELATED
JINRIKISHAS ’ . , • . .
PAGE
70
72
n
77
80
82
84
85
86
89
97
101
103
106
115
119
122
124
127
129
132
141
142
144
151
153
155
169
172
177
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
xi
TAGE
GOOD-BYE, JAPAN ! GOOD-NIGHT!’ ..... 178
‘AT HOME HE IS ATROCIOUS’. . . . . . . 184
‘WE ESCAPED WITH TWO BASKET TEA-POTS APIECE ONLY— A MERE
SCRATCH’ .... ... 185
‘OFFERED TO LEND US HER NOTE-BOOK’ . . . . . 188
THE CAPTAIN ....... 196
‘THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT AS AN INNOVATION THE CATAMARAN IS
A SUCCESS’ ........ 203
1 AND THEN LIE SWEETLY DOWN TO SLUMBER’ . . . 208
‘THE MOST AFFABLE AND AMENABLE DRESSMAKER THAT EITHER
OF US HAD EVER EXPERIENCED ’ . . . . . 215
‘THE HEATHEN AND THE TEMPTATION CAME TOO CLOSE TOGETHER’. 218
INITIAL LETTER ........ 220
‘IF THE LADIES H’EAT THE PINEAPPLE AND DRINK THE MILK OF
THE COCOANUT AT THE SAME TIME THEY WILL DIE’ . 222,223
‘ ORTHODOCIA HAD HER NOTE-BOOK OUT WITH CELERITY ’ . . 225
‘JOTTING IT DOWN IN HER EVERLASTING NOTE-BOOK’ . . 233
‘THE STEWARD SANG IT AMONGST THE PLATES’ . . . . 242
‘OTHERS INSTANTLY SET OFF IN MAD CAREER WHILE WE WAITED’. 245
INITIAL LETTER . . . . . . . 253
‘ IT WAS WITH EMOTIONS OF A VERY MINGLED ORDER THAT I HEARD
ortiiodocia’s resolution’ ...... 255
‘THEY ALL SALA’AMED SO PERSUASIVELY THAT A CHOICE WAS
PAINFUL ’ . . . . . . . . 257
‘ CHEAP AT THE PRICE, EVEN TO SLEEP ON THE VERANDAH ’
‘TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE VICEROY’S EVENING PARTY’
‘AND PRESENTLY THERE IS A SCRAPING SOUND OF MOVING BR CKS
AND FALLING PLASTER’ ......
‘ THE OLD GENTLEMAN MADE ANOTHER BOW * . .
INITIAL LETTER
*MY HOUSE IS YOURS’ , . . . . .
* THE PRINCE OF RISSOLES
‘ BUT THE YOUNG BABOO SAT IN THE DRAWING-ROOM AND WAITED
A LONG TIME FOR HIS ICE ’ . . . .
‘ HE HAD PERVERTED OUR INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DRIVER FOR THREE-
QUARTERS OF AN HOUR’ ......
‘ CHUTTERSINGH ’ .
‘ HE, BENDING OVER THE DEAD MAN, TOUCHED FIRST THE LIPS
WITH THE FIRE
‘THAT BOY I’ . ....
265
269
278
282
284
287
2 JO
293
296
298
299
305
xi:
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
4 THE TOWERS OF SILENCE’ ......
‘ MERELY DEPOSITING THE OFFENSIVE OBJECT GENTLY UPON THE
GROUND AND PUTTING HIS FOOT IN IT ’ . . .
INDIAN CATTLE ........
* THE FORT ’ . . . . . . . . ,
4 THE MORE MODERN ARTIST HAD PRODUCED BROADER EFFECTS ’
‘THE MO TT MUSJID ’ .......
‘ THE TAJ *
‘ MUMTAZ-I-MAHAL ’ .......
‘YET ANOTHER SHIP, OUTWARD-BOUND ’ . . . . .
‘CONSIDER, ORTHODOCIA,’ I SAID, CONSOLINGLY, 6 WE ARE IN THE
ARABIAN SEA ! ’
‘NERVOUSLY SMOOTHING IT OUT WITH BOTH HANDS’
‘I DON’T FEEL LIKE MOSQUES ’ .
‘I COULD QUITE BELIEVE HIM CAPABLE O’ DOIN’ IT ! ’ . .
INITIAL LETTER ........
‘WE NEVER SAW ONE THAT WAS NOT INDISPUTABLY SECOND-
HAND
‘INTO THE BAZAARS’ .......
4 TO HELIOPOLIS
‘THE ROSE OF SHARON’ .......
4 I’M OFF I ’ . . . . . . . .
‘AWAY INTO THE DEEPER SHADOWS OF CAIRO’
‘THE SOLEMN GLADNESS GREW IN THE FACE OF THE SPHINX* .
‘ IT WAS A PROUD MOMENT FOR ORTHODOCIA ’ .
‘ THE SCENE THAT FOLLOWED ’ . . . . .
* WE ALL W T ENT UP TOGETHER’ ......
‘HE HAD LEFT HIS WHITE TIE AND HIS DIGNITY EIGHTY FEET
BELOW ’ . . . . . . .
‘THE CANAL’ . .......
AND BORROWING SMALL WHITE PULPY BABIES ’ . . .
PAGE
316
326
329
331
333
336
343
347
350
351
353
367
373
375
378
379
388
389
390
393
396
399
401
402
403
408
410
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
I
RTHODOCIA, as her name implies, is an
English girl. No fond Transatlantic parent
ever thought of calling any of us Orthodocia.
It would be impossible to find a godmother to
take the responsibility. She would have to be
an English godmother, caught touring, and an
English godmother would know better. She
would focus her eye-glass with a little shudder
upon the small pink bundle of undeveloped un-
conventionalities presented to her, and sweetly
suggest Hetrodocia instead — and another sponsor. Moreover, I
couldn’t possibly introduce an American Orthodocia to the British
public, up in its Henry James, and understanding the nature of a
paradox. Nobody would look at her.
I met Orthodocia originally on a sandy point of the peninsula of
Yucatan. She looked very pretty, I remember, picking up muddy
conch shells all shiny and pink inside, and running to her auntly
chaperon with them for admiration. I remember, too, that she did
not get the admiration, but a scolding. ‘ Look,’ said the chaperon,
‘ look at your front breadth ! ’ Orthodocia was eighteen then, but
she looked at her front breadth, and went away very low in her
mind, and sat down remotely on the Peninsula of Yucatan and
made a dreadful mess of her back one. It was this little incident,
I think, that drew me to Orthodocia.
u
B
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
It does not in the least matter what had happened in the four
years between Yucatan and the port of Montreal last September,
where I met Orthodocia again. You will believe that a good deal had
happened when you understand that she was quite by herself, and
prepared for a trip round the world with a person her relatives had
been in the habit of mentioning as ‘ that American young lady/
which was me. Naturally you will think of matrimony first, which
casualty would have enabled Orthodocia to go to the planet Mars
alone, I believe, with the full approval
of all her friends and acquaintances.
But matrimony
had not be-
fallen her : she
was still Ortho-
docia May
Ruth Isa-
bel Love,
of Love
Lodge,
near St.
Eve’s-in-
the-Gar-
den, Wig-
ginton, Devon. Neither had
she become an heiress, with
nobody to thwart her vagrant
fancies. Neither had the
chaperon of Yucatan been
gathered to her foremothers, leaving sad associations of grey curls
and pince-nez clustering about a place which none could fill.
Orthodocia had simply prevailed ; but as she told me in confidence
there on the Montreal wharf just liow difficult she found it, and
what an extraordinary amount of trouble she had with the second
wife of a cousin by marriage about it, I have no intention of letting
you know how she did it. I feel that a certain amount of reticence
on this subject is due to Mr. and Mrs. Love.
Orthodocia was surrounded by the captain and three quarter-
's at DOWN RE-
MOTELY ON THE
PENINSULA OP
YUCATAN.’
3
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
masters when I found her, while two stewardesses stood respectfully
a little way off, but evidently also on guard. They had all received
their instructions on the other side of the Atlantic, and were deter-
mined that she should not escape to the formless dangers of Mr.
and Mrs. Love’s imagination, unless under circumstances that would
acquit them. The situation would have worried me. I should have
taken a few of the quartermasters and stewardesses apart, and with
silvery palms and accents entreated them to leave me. But Ortho-
docia stood in their midst placid and comfortable. She was evidently
accustomed to it.
I have said that Orthodocia arrived in Montreal prepared for a
trip round the world. This, considering her baggage, is an inade-
quate statement. It would have taken her comfortably through the
universe with much apparel to spare, I should say, in a rough esti-
mate. All the quartermasters who were not watching over her
person were engaged in superintending the removal of her effects,
relieved at intervals by the ship’s officers. There were two long
attenuated boxes, and two short apoplectic ones. There was a small
brown hair trunk, and a large black tin case. There was a collection
of portmanteaux, and a thing she called a despatch-box, that properly
belonged to her papa. There were two tin cylinders containing
millinery, I believe. And there was a sitz bath tub — a beautiful
round, shining, symmetrical sitz bath tub. I cannot conscientiously
say that Orthodocia ’s full name was painted on that object. In the
brief instant I gave to its contemplation, I certainly saw' a legend
of some sort in white letters, but it may have been only the Devon-
shire address from which it had innocently w r andered, in which case
it may have been restored by this time to its native Wigginton.
For there is no use in concealing the fact that in the course of my
long, serious, private conversation with the drayman offering the
lowest contract for removing Orthodocia’s luggage, I enjoined him
carefully to lose that sitz bath, and he did.
When I came back to Orthodocia, after instructing the drayman,
I found her kneeling in a secluded corner before her open boxes,
surrounded by a sea of fine linen, and wearing a small triumphant
expression about the corners of her mouth. A man in brass buttons
hovered as near as he dared, looking troubled and unhappy. ‘I
4
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
suppose/ she said, as I approached, ‘you thought I didn’t know
about Customs surveillance in America. Well, you see I did. I
have shown this person the inside of my handkerchief boxes, and
taken out all these white skirts and dressing jackets, and collars
and cuffs, and things, but he doesn’t seem to want to look at them.
He said a few minutes ago that I might “leave it to him ! ” and I
told him that I would do
nothing of the kind. As
if one would let a man go
through all this ! 9 And
Orthodocia waved her
arm to include a quantity
of the nearest embroid-
eries. At the same
moment she shook
out a flannel petti-
coat at the man in
buttons, austerely
remarking, ‘ You
see there’s nothing
dutiable in that 1 ’
The man fled.
‘ See here,
Orthodocia,’
I said with
severity, ‘you
are doing
something
punishable
‘you see thebe’s nothing dutiable in that.’
over here —
intimidating
the officers of the Crown in the performance of their duty. That
man has probably gone for assistance, perhaps for a policeman,
Now, if when he returns he finds every one of these things packed
up again, and you willing to deliver your keys to him, he may let
you off. Otherwise ’ — but Orthodocia did not wait for the alterna-
tive. In three minutes there wasn’t an inch of lace to be seen
5
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
anywhere, the boxes were locked tight, and my sophisticated friend,
with very round eyes, was sitting on them. The officer returned
with a superior, and they gently but firmly took the keys from
Orthodocia’s unresisting hand, opened the boxes, stared fixedly at
a point in the horizon while they thrust an arm into two of the
four corners of each box, locked them up again, and said solemnly
and simultaneously, ‘That is all, Madam.’ ‘Really,’ said Ortho-
docia, sweetly ; ‘ how nice ! ’ Then she held out her hand to the
superior officer, who took it, regarded it attentively for a minute,
turned a deep terra-cotta colour, and dropped it very hastily.
‘ Thank you so very much i ’ he said, lifting his cap to her, and
bowing in an angle of forty-five degrees, with his feet very close
together, like an A.D.C. He was a young Customs officer and
equal to the occasion. Moreover, as his salary did not, in all pro-
bability, exceed fifteen hundred dollars a year, he may have been
glad of the shilling Orthodocia bestowed upon him.. At all events,
when he was introduced to her at Lady C. P. R. Magnum’s dance
an evening or two later, and begged the pleasure of the fifth waltz,
it hung round and resplendent from the guard that crossed his
waistcoat. ‘ I was not sure of him,’ said poor Orthodocia to me
afterwards, ‘ but I knew the shilling ! ’
I regret to say that the bath was the only reduction I was able
to make in Orthodocia’s baggage. She has been sorry for it since,
but at the time it was quite impossible to convince her that aesthetic
tea-go w 7 ns, and trained dinner dresses, and tulle ball dresses, and
tennis costumes in variety, to say nothing of walking and visiting
toilettes, with everything to match, were not indispensable to her
happiness in going round the world. This was surprising, because I
had always been told that English girls travelled in an assortment of
old clothes, a blue veil, and a pair of copper-toed leather boots with-
out heels, and didn’t care ; while American ones followed the
example of their illustrious predecessor, the Queen of Sheba, and
cared a great deal. Orthodocia called them all ‘ frocks,’ declared
that circumstances and climates might arise which would demand
them, and would be separated from none of them, so I sadly re-
duced my impedimenta still further toward my ideal minimum of an
umbrella and a waterproof, and felt very superior indeed. Herein X
6
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
also erred, and must say seriously that nobody should start upon the
circumnavigation of the planet with an ideal of this sort. If I were
going again — time-honoured preface of experience ! — I should avoid
it, and construct a bigger one, in which necessity and convenience
and a regard for the beautiful should be skilfully blended. But I
should avoid Orthodocia’s theory, that in a journey round the world
one should be prepared for every emergency that has presented
itself to the human race since the flood. Her dearest friend, for
instance, fresh from a course of ambulance lectures, had given her a
large quantity of bandages and splints, and one
of her aunts had sup-
plied her with several
pounds of linseed for
poultices ; she had also
a variety of 1 gargles ’
all labelled Poison — •
the Wigginton apothe-
cary and Mrs. Love
ouly know why — several
mustard plasters, and a
bundle of catnip which
smelled to heaven.
As we never dis-
covered any special
utility in these
things I wouldn’t
advise prospective
travellers to take
them, unless fired by a desire to establish medical missions among
the heathen here and there as they go along. A spirit lamp and a
small tin saucepan are admirable things in their way, but we didn’t
at all know what to do with Orthodocia’s oil stove, with the grid-
iron and other necessaries kindly provided by Mrs. Love for our
use in Japan, where she understood the people would not cook
beefsteak for foreigners on account of the original cow, being
Buddhists. Liebig is useful and comforting, but one can get him
anywliere, and it did seem unnecessary for Orthodocia to have
*1 WA.S NOT SURE OF HIM, BUT I KNEW THE SHILLING.’
7
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
brought a dozen cans of British Columbia salmon for our sus-
tenance in Japan, back again over the weary thousands of miles they
had travelled to Wigsinton.
While we feel deeply the responsibility resting upon everybody
who writes experiences of travel, to inform people who are thinking
of it as to what to take with them, Orthodocia and I have agreed to
offer no advice upon this point. For we do not now believe that the
best regulated wardrobe and the best informed mind would be equal
to complete preparation for a trip round the world beforehand. There
must be additions and subtractions, things one would have ‘ given
anything ’ to have had, and things one would have given anything to
have left behind. One wants old clothes and new clothes, and a little
of everything in the way of garments the thermometer can possibly
demand. There is the widest possible margin for the luxuries and
vanities of individual requirement; for instance, there were moments
in J apan when Orthodocia yearned for a piano and I for a spring
bed, but we would have felt the inconvenience of them afterward.
I had almost forgotten Orthodocia’s letter of introduction to an
old college friend of her father’s, a document the thought of which
comforted and supported Mr. and Mrs. Love considerably in the
hour of her departure. It was addressed to the Rev. Theophilus
Thring, Sesquepediac, Hew Brunswick, Canada East. We found
Sesquepediac on the map first — about a thousand miles out of our
route. Then we discovered, by telegraphing, that the Rev. Thring
had migrated, some ten years before, to the State of Illinois, which
did not lie in our way either. But Mr. and Mrs. Love were so
happy in the conviction that Mr. Thring would take an interest in
Orthodocia’s movements, and give her valuable advice about any
parts of Canada that might still be infested by wandering Iroquois,
that we had not the heart to disturb it.
8
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
II
Ortiiodocia was a disappointment to my family circle. It was
probably because I had always spoken of her as ‘ Miss Love/ main-
tained a guarded silence as to her age and personal appearance, and
discreetly allowed the fact to escape me that she had an ambition
to become a Poor Law Guardian, that she was expected to arrive a
mature person somewhat over thirty, with political opinions and
views upon dress reform, and the habit of wearing black alpaca and
unknown horrors which she would call ‘ goloshes.’ Instead of which,
as you know, she was only twenty-two, with a pinkness and healthi-
ness which subtracted a year or two from that ; she hadn’t a theory
about her except that one should say one’s prayers and look as well
as possible under all circumstances, and her inexperience in the
practical concerns of life seemed appalling. True, she could walk ten
miles in her broad-toed boots, and slay any member of the family
with a tennis-ball at a hundred yards, but these qualifications,
original and valuable as they seemed, hardly gave my friends the
sense of security they expected to derive from Orthodocia’s chaper-
onage. It is very 4 American 9 for young ladies to travel alone, but
not such a common thing in my part of the continent that it could
be acceded to without a certain amount of objection on the part of
their friends and relatives. All Orthodocia’s battles, therefore, in
which she had the advantage of picturing me to Mr. and Mrs. Love
with grey side -curls, I have no doubt, had to be fought over again
for my benefit. It was Japan that gave rise to the most contumacy.
Go to Japan without any man whatever — absurd ! Answering
which we brought down statistics relating to the surplus female
population of the globe, which proved beyond doubt that to many
ladies resident in Chuguibamba, Bin-Thuang-Din } and Mas§achu-
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 9
setts, the object under discussion was a luxury, and no necessity in
any sense. But it was the height of impropriety. We argued that
propriety was entirely relative, and that naturally impropriety in
* COULD CLAY ALT MEMBER OF THE FAMILY WITH A TEXNIS-EALI. AT A
UyNPRUD YAPPS,*
ID
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
North America would be quite the correct tiling in the antipodes.
Who would look after our luggage ? We suggested, with the gently
disciplinary air of two who have their quarrel just, that there was
only one change of cars, so to speak, between Montreal and Yoko-
hama, and that the C.P.R. porters were reliable. It was unheard
of that two young women should go wandering aimlessly off to the
other side of the globe ! Whereupon the intention of these present
articles was disclosed with dignity, and the momentous mission in-
volved in enlightening the home public as to the amount of truth
in Gilbert and Sullivan’s assertion that flirting is prohibited by the
Mikado. If we penetrated into the interior we would be chopped
up to give a secular flavour to missionary croquettes ; if we ventured
to stay in the capital it was quite likely that some fat Mandarin
would take the advantage of a wife, or wives, conversant with
European cookery, and entice us into his seraglio — those Japanese
were known to be adopting foreign ways. People who are not going
to J apan, and are unfamiliar with the encyclopaedia, can’t be ex-
pected to know that Mandarins grow in China and seraglios in
Turkey, so we forgave this, and many other things which the
Britannica would have enabled us to set at naught. We exercised
forbearance, valour, and magnificent perseverance, and we prevailed.
4 What,’ said Orthodocia, in the days of discussion that followed,
1 is the 44 Seepiar ” ? ’
4 The C.P.R.,’ I answered her, 4 is the most masterly stroke of
internal economy a Government ever had the courage to carry out,
and the most lunatic enterprise a Government was ever foolhardy
enough to hazard. It was made for the good of Canada, it w T as
made for the greed of contractors. It has insured our financial
future, it has bankrupted us for ever. It is our boon and our bane.
It is an iron bond of union between our East and our West — if you
will look on the map you will discover that we are chiefly east and
west — and it is an impotent strand connecting a lot of disaffected
provinces. This is a coalition Liberal-Conservative definition of the
C.P.R., which is the slang or household expression for Canadian
Pacific Railway. In the language of the vulgar — 44 you pays your
money and you takes your choice.” ’
‘ I’m sure it doesn’t matter,’ said Orthodocia, in a manner that
OUR JOURNEY ROUND TI1E WORLD n
caused me to give up her education in Canadian economics on. the
spot.
We were both quite aware, however, when we made our last
farewells out of the car window in the noisy lamp-lit darkness of
Montreal station, the September night that saw us off, that the
C.P.R. would take us over the prairies and across the Rockies, and
finally to a point along the shore of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere in
British Columbia, we believed, where in the course of time we should
find a ship. It was our intention to commit ourselves to the ship,
but there speculation ceased and purpose vanished away, for who
hath foreknowledge of the Pacific, or can prophesy beyond the rim
of it ? We had been so grievously embarrassed by kind-hearted
people who wanted to know our plans in detail, with dates attached,
that we refused at last to entertain a single plan or date or detail — •
we would send them, we said, when they had been carried out,
which would be much more satisfactory. In the six days’ journey
across the continent we would get out occasionally and wait for the
next train where the landscape looked inviting ; but whenever we
paused this way we would let them know. And thus we sped
away.
It was Orthodocia’s first experience of a Pullman sleeper, and 1
dare say she found it exciting. I know I did. For economy’s sake
we had taken a lower berth together instead of luxuriating in a
whole section ; and as we sat in a vacant place across the car she
watched the transformation of our own seat into a bed with dis-
favour from the beginning. 4 Extremely stuffy ! ’ she said, 4 ex-
tremely stuffy ! ’ When the upper berth was shut down and the
curtains drawn she thought it time to interfere. 4 Please put the
top bed up,’ she said to the negro porter ; 4 we can’t possibly sleep
that v ay ! ’
4 Sawry not tuh be able tuh ’commodate yuli, Miss ; but dat
berth’s took by a gen’leman in de smokin’ car at present, Miss.’
4 1 suppose there is some mistake,’ said Orthodocia to me, where-
upon I was obliged to tell her that the proceeding was perfectly
regular, and that the gentleman in the smoking car would probably
be a large oleomarginous person who would snore hideously, diffuse
an odour of stale tobacco, and drop his boots at intervals during the
12
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
night into our berth. Orthodocia then stated her intention of sitting
up all night, a course from which she was dissuaded by the appear-
ance of claimants for the only two seats that were left. Then the
gentleman came in from the smoking car, and turned out to be a
perfectly inoffensive little English
curate, as new to the customs of
the aborigines as Orthodocia, and
quite as deeply distressed. 4 Per-
haps — perhaps you would prefer
my sitting up ? 5 he said unhappily.
4 Oh no/ said Orthodocia, 4 Til sit
up/ 4 But really ’ — protested the
curate. 4 It’s not of the slightest
consequence/ Orthodocia inter-
rupted frigidly, and sat down on
the edge of our berth, while the
frightened little man scrambled
up to his with the aid of a step-
ladder. Orthodocia told me next
morning that she sat there a long
time waiting for the boots, but as
nothing appeared she concluded
that he must have slept in them.
The curtains that screen the berths
are buttoned loosely together, and
the usual method of reconnoitring
before making a sortie in the direc-
tion of the toilet-room is to thrust
one’s head out between the but-
tons. It was very early in the
morning when Orthodocia did
this : no sound was to be heard but
the rattling of the train ; and she
did it very deliberately and very
stealthily. She looked carefully in all directions, and was just aboub
to depart, when an upward glance made her withdraw precipitately.
For there ubovc her was the anxious countenance nncl dishevelled
‘a perfectly inoffensive little
ENGLISH CURATE.’
OUR JOURXEY ROUND THE WORLD
locks of the curate, also scanning the situation and looking for the
step-ladder. I suppose, if I had not been willing, after performing
my own toilet, to hold the top curtains together while Orthodocia
made her exit, both she and the curate might have been there still*
We entered after that, the little curate and Orthodocia and I,
into the most amicable relations, for it took us two days to get to
Winnipeg, which w T as our first stopping-place, and nobody can sit
within three feet of a small thin pale Ritualist, an alien in the Cana-
dian North-West, for two days, without feeling sorry for him and
wishing to mitigate his lot in every possible way. So we fed him
with chicken sandwiches from our hamper and made him cups of tea
with our spirit lamp, and he in return gave us each three throat
lozenges and some excellent spiritual nourishment in the form of
tracts. He was going, he said, to labour in Assiniboia among the
Indians, and hoped it would not be long before he could expostulate
with them in their own tongue. In fact, he had quite expected to
have picked up something of the language by this time. Possibly I
could speak a little Cree ] He was disappointed, I think, to find
that the aboriginal dialects did not survive more widely.
The country for the first day was very grim and barren and
dreary. We rushed along through a wilderness of rocks and stunted
shrubs, juniper chiefly. The great boulders thrust themselves
through the scanty grasses like gaunt shoulders through a ragged
gown. Now and then a spray of yellowing maple or of reddening
oak broke the grey monotony, or the rocks blossomed into lichens,
but this only gave an accent to the general desolation. And steadily
travelling with us all along the sky-line went a fringe of blackened
firs, martyred memorials of forest fires. That alliterative expression
belongs properly to the curate, whose depression was frightful about
this time, and whom I saw write it down in his note-book. I hope
that any of the curate’s English relations who may read this chapter
and be able to identify the phrase by one of his letters, will charit-
ably refrain from communicating the plagiarism to the public. It is
a very little one.
But next day we hurried along the north shore of Lake Superior,
and the country grew in colour and boldness and significance. We
could almost touch the great wet masses of stone the railway
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
pierced, and there were tangled forest depths to look into, and always
some glimpse of the majesty of the lake. It had many moods,
sometimes blue and still and tender over headlands far away, some-
times deep and darkling in great inlets that gave back the tamarack
and the pine clinging to their sheer rocky sides, sometimes sending
long white waves dashing among broken boulders within a few feet
of the road. I think when the world grew orthodox, they exiled
Pan to the north shore of Lake Superior, its beauty is so conscious,
so strong, so eternal.
On the morning of the third day we began to see fences and an
occasional cow, and then we rejoiced, for we knew we were nearing
Winnipeg and the Manitoban approach to civilisation. At about
ten o’clock we arrived. I don’t think the emigration agents have
left much to say seriously about Winnipeg, which they probably
call the £ Prairie City/ and chromo lithograph in other ways with
their usual skill, so I will treat it from Orthodocia’s point of view,
which cannot be called serious. Her first surprise was a cab — a
four-wheeler, with two horses. Her next was the popular style of
architecture. £ Queen Anne ! ’ she said under her breath. £ I dis-
tinctly understood that the settlers lived in log-huts ! ’ She asked
to be driven at once to the Hudson Bay trading post, to see the
Indians bringing in their peltries and exchanging them for guns and
knives — a scene which she said she had always imagined with plea-
sure. I took her to the Hudson Bay trading post because I wanted
to gratify her and to buy a pair of six-button Jouvin’s at the same
time ; and, of course, there wasn’t an Indian anywhere in the
vicinity of that extremely fashionable establishment, or a peltry
either. Our Winnipeg hostess lived in one of the Queen Anne
houses, and I could perceive Orthodocia’s astonishment rising within
her as she observed the ordinal y interior garnishings of Turkish
rugs and Japanese vases and Spode teacups. £ I rather expected/
she said to me privately, £ deers’ horns and things.’ And when I
sarcastically suggested wampum and war hatchets, she answered
with humble sincerity, £ Yes.’ Ortho locia’s wonder culminated at an
afternoon £ At home 9 at Government House, where, as the local
paper put it next day, £ the wealth and fashion/ of Winnipeg
gathered together to drink claret-cup and amuse itself. There were
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 15
the Governor and his A.D.C.’s, there was a Bishop, there were the
matrimonial adjuncts of the Governor and the Bishop, equally im-
pressive ; there was a Canadian Knight and his dame, there were
judges and barristers, and officers and visiting celebrities, and a
rumour of a real lord in one end of what the local paper called the
‘ spacious apartments/ I was rather glad Orthodocia didn’t find any
Indian chiefs there, as she expected, though perhaps she would have
preferred that sensation ; and I was distinctly gratified when I
passed her in conversation with a younger son in corduroys at the
reception, looking glum, who had just come out to waste his sub-
stance in Manitoba, and heard him inform her that ‘ Weally, you
know, for natives — it’s weally wathah wum.’
The reason he found it ‘wathah wum,’ was because he had a
shooting jacket on and people were looking at him. They all wear
corduroys at first — to dances and the opera indiscriminately, by way
of helping the ‘natives ’to feel on an equality with them. But
in the course of time they commonly go back to the usages of
civilisation.
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
t ;
III
OuR next travelling acquaintance was a lady. V/e were speeding
out from Winnipeg — out and away into the prairie world — and we
stood on the rear platform of the car, watching the city sink like a
fleet of many -masted ships on the rim of the horizon. She stood
with us looking back too ; holding up a thin, bony, much-veined
hand to keep the sun out of her eyes. She did not try to keep the
regret out of them, not thinking, perhaps, that anybody noticed her.
We didn’t notice her much either, the prairie world was so new to
us. It was a wide wide world of heaving brown grasses, dotted
everywhere with tiny yellow dark- centred sunflowers, and bearing
as its outposts now and then, distinct against the horizon, the low-
set shanties of the first comers. Miles on miles to the right, to the
left, before, behind, the yellow brown country rolled away, the blue
dome of the sky springing from all its outskirts, the fibrous grasses
paling in the swathe of the strong wind. Here and there a reedy
little pond lay on it like a pocket looking-glass, with a score or so of
wild duck swimming over it ; or a slight round hollow where a pond
used to be with the wild duck flying high. The railway with its
two lessening parallel straight lines seemed to lead from infinity to
infinity. Straight into the west we went, chasing the sun, who
laughed gloriously at us and mocked us with a lengthening shadow,
fleet as we were. The sand and cinders that rose in the wake of
the flying train began to accumulate in our eyes and to obscure the
view, however, and we went in after a while. So did the other re-
trospective lady a little later, and came and sat opposite us. Ortho-
docia looked at me, and hunted for a minute in her hand-bag.
Orthodocia is a little short-sighted.
‘ If you have a cinder in your eye, here is an eye-stone,’ said
17
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
Orthodocia sweetly. ‘ It is quite certain to remove anything of the
kind if it is inserted under the lower lid.’
The lady thanked her, and said that it wasn’t a cinder, and then
Orthodocia was sorry she had not looked more carefully, for there
was only one other explanation of things. So she offered a railway
novel by way of reparation, and subsided into one herself, but that
was the beginning of their acquaintance. I looked up and observed
that our companion was an Englishwoman, but evidently accustomed
to the country. One knew the first from her speech, and the second
from an indescribable something in the way she wore her clothes.
She had lost most of her English colour, though a little of it lingered
yet, darkened into lines end patches, and her face had grown tense
instead of soft as it was intended to be. She did not look unhealthy,
but there was something in her alert Americanised air that suggested
heavy drafts on her reserve fund of vitality. She was not pathetic-
ally shabby — people seldom are in America — but there was a very
much ‘ made over ’ look about her, and a quarter of an inch of
useless kid flapped at each finger-end of her two-button black gloves.
I suppose she might have been fifty.
The first time I came out of my pirated edition of 1 Robert Els-
mere ’ they were finding out people they both knew in England.
The next time the other lady had disclosed the fact that she was a
niece of Orthodocia’s dear bishop. The next time Orthodocia was
being enlightened as to the experiences of English ladies who emi-
grate with their husbands to farm the Canadian North-West, and I
listened.
It transpired that the lady’s husband was a banker — a banker
up to forty-five — but that this had never been of choice, and that
the desire to go away somewhere and dig had burned within him
‘ for years, my dear,’ before he made up his mind to throw up his
Lombard Street connections and all his wife’s relations and go to
Canada. There were a good many reasons why he shouldn’t have
gone — a steady and comfortable income where he was, a cosy home
in Kensington, and a picturesque little country place — the most
devoted family physician ‘who understood all our constitutions
thoroughly, my dear ’ — the boys’ education coming on, and a hundred
other things, but the gentleman knew he had capital, and the emi-
e
is
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
gration agent assured him he had brains, and 6 of course, when he
had made up his mind, I couldn’t say anything, Miss Love.’ ‘No,’
said Orthodocia, with singular sympathy. ‘ Dear me ! ’ said I in my
American mind, reflecting on the conduct-limitations of the British
matron, ‘ Dear me ! ’
Well, there was an interval during which they were all up to
their eyes in sawdust and shavings, and nothing was heard from
morning till night but the sound of the hammer as the packing went
on, and everything was very dismal except the children and Mr.
Growthem, who were in the most aggravating spirits. They didn’t
know what they might need and what they might not need on the
prairies — Mr. Growthem had been told that he would have a very fair
chance of becoming Governor of the Territory — so they decided to
take everything, and Miss Love might imagine that ivas a business !
Then came the parting with the old servants and everybody, and
the sailing, which made Mr. Growthem so very ill that he wanted
to go back and begin life over again in Lombard Street the second
day out, and the arrival in Montreal, where Mr. Growthem had
written a letter to the Times complaining that the Canadian police-
men in Her Majesty’s uniform could speak nothing but bad French.
‘ Did you have any trouble with the Customs h ’ interrupted
Orthodocia, anxious to sympathise. But Mrs. Growthem hadn’t
hid any trouble with the Customs, and was desirous to get on to
Assiniboia, so Orthodocia mentally reserved her adventures. The
railway didn’t cross the continent then , she said, with a reasonably
aggrieved inflection, and they found themselves and their effects
dumped in a tiny North-West prairie town with seventy miles to
make by ox-cart between them and the ‘ section’ Mr. Growthem had
got from the Government. Here Orthodocia said i Beally ! ’ You
must understand that all through the narrative Orthodocia said
‘ Beally ! ’ in the proper places ; occasionally, when she was very
much astonished, varying it to £ D’really ! ’ which was a Wigginton
shibboleth, I suppose. I can’t go on interrupting Mrs. Growthem.
Yes. Fancy that ! And no regular carpenters to be had to
build the house within a hundred miles. Mr. Growthem managed
to get a labourer or Wo, however, and he and the big boys went on
ahead to build something that would shelter them— -fortunately it
19
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
was spring time — and Mrs. Growthem and the girls and the baby
stayed behind in Q’asquepekiabasis, at a little inn — Mrs. Growthem
had not yet reached the American point of calling it an 4 hotel ’ —
where she always should remember getting her first tinned tomatoes,
until they were sent for. She expected to be kept waiting a month,
and was astonished beyond bounds when Harry arrived in two weeks
with the information that the domicile was ready, and power of
attorney from his papa to bring her to it, and the baby and the
girls and the household goods. Then came the three sunny days on
the prairie, the June prairie, covered with a myriad wild blooms,
pink and red and yellow and white, when Mrs. Growthem tried to
share the joy of the children, but observed the sparseness of the
settlement, and thought long thoughts. But it wasn’t until they
arrived that Mrs. Growthem broke down, and 4 then, my dear, I did
break down.’ The little lonely log house, with its fresh-cut timber
ends, different so widely from the imaginary residence of the future
Governor of Assiniboia ! Mrs. Growthem said she simply sat down
on the nearest heap of chips and cried, and the children all stood
round in a circle and looked at her. It wouldn’t have been so bad,
Mrs. Growthem said, if Mr. Growthem hadn’t raked up the chips.
It was the raking up of the chips that finished her. Could Ortho-
docia understand that ? Orthodocia thought she could, but I didn’t
believe her.
But Mrs. Growthem soon saw that she must dry her tears if they
were ever to take up housekeeping again, and, as a matter of fact,
she quite forgot them in her overwhelming anxiety about the family
china, of which only three pieces were broken after all— simply won-
derful ! It was the busiest day the Growthems had ever known,
what with building a shed over the piano till the door could be en-
larged to let it in, and reducing the gilt cornice of the mirror by
eighteen inches, in order to stand it straight against the wall — the
unplastered, unpapered wall of the new 4 drawing-room ’ — and solv-
ing the problem of sleeping accommodation for themselves, six
children, and the nurse, in four small rooms. Curiously enough, it
appeared that what Mrs. Growthem missed most was, not the apart-
ments of Kensington, but her linen closet, her store-room, her attic.
She felt that housekeeping was almost impossible to her without the
c 2
20 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
responsibility of beys, the interest of the skilful management of re-
serve forces. I was not at all surprised to hear her say that Mr.
Growthem’s very first building extension took the form of a pantry.
4 And how did you get on ? ’ asked Orthodocia with pitying in-
terest.
4 My dear, we didn’t get on. It was impossible to get servants,
and field labour was very scarce ; so that the first year Mr. Grow-
tliem and the boys managed all the work about the place, while the
girls and I did our own baking, and sweeping, and scrubbing. No,
the nurse wouldn’t stay, the life was too lonely she said, and she
went off to Winnipeg, where she got a situation immediately, she
wrote me, at two pounds ten a month. I almost envied her !
‘For the life was lonely. Our nearest neighbour was a young
Englishman, who had a half-bred
squaw for a — wife, and he was
four miles away. Mr. Growthem
and he and the boys went shooting
together sometimes, but I didn’t
see much of him, and the woman,
poor thing, couldn’t speak English.
He sent her over to help with the
heavy work once when I was laid
up, and she was very kind and
willing, poor creature — there was
no harm in her. Our first crop
was potatoes,’ Mrs. Growthem
went on irrelevantly. ‘Nothing
else came off. And we didn’t un-
derstand how to take care of the
potatoes in the winter, conse-
quently they were all frozen. But
misfortunes were not serious in
those early days, because it was
easy then to make a draft on a London bank, and supplies of all sorts
were plentiful. It was harder when it began to be necessary to look
after the crops seriously for the sake of returns, when the stock had
to be cared for with t,he thermometer thirty below zero, and two or
MRS. GROWTHEM’S NEAREST
NEIGHBOUR.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND RUE WORLD
21
WE BURIED IIER UNDER
OF TREES.’
three labourers lived in the house
for weeks at a time, which made
more cooking and washing.
‘ Indians ? Oh, they never
gave us any trouble. We did not
dare to refuse them food or tobacco,
and often when my husband and
the boys were away a Blackfeet or
two would come and sit stolidly
down in the kitchen for hours at
a time, smoke, eat, and go away,
making no sign either of gratitude
or discontent. It was a little
alarming at first, but we got used to it. They were almost our
only visitors for a couple of years, except a young Presbyterian
student we used to like, from Toronto, who took us in occasionally in
his “ Home Mission ” work, though we didn’t belong to his particular
fold. Yes, Mr. Growthem went on liking it ; it took a great deal to
discourage him. The first blow he really seemed to feel was the
failure of an experiment in young trees, which cost a thousand pounds
and declined to grow for reasons best known to themselves. Two
years after not a twig could be seen of all the thousand pounds’
worth. He took it bravely, but it told on him. He said somebody
had to find out that they wouldn’t grow. By this time we were in
debt, and then — then the baby died.’ . . . ‘ The Presbyterian student
helped us through that,’ Mrs. Growthem went on after a while.
22
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘ Slie Was just two years old — a dear baby — the last I had. And wo
buried her under a clump of trees in a corner of the ten acre wheat
field — the only trees that grew in all our four hundred and eighty
acres. We could see the little grave from the kitchen window — for
a long time I used to leave a lamp in it, especially when the snow
came. After that nothing seemed to matter.’
The soft illimitable dusk was falling outside, and the porter was
lighting the lamps overhead, before anybody spoke again. Then it
was Orthodocia who said some sweet gentle thing that made me look
out of the window suddenly, feeling like an intruder. When I
listened again I heard that all this was ten years ago, that the
Growtliems were picking up now, had more neighbours, and usually
a servant, that crops had been good lately, and splendid this year,
and that the second boy— Harry was irretrievably a farmer — had
been left by his mother at college in Winnipeg, where she had
made her first brief return to civilisation in ten years, £ and words
cannot express, my dear, how I enjoyed it.’ So I suppose the
Growtliems have taken root at last in the land of their adoption,
though Mr. Grow them has never become Governor of Assini-
boia. I know they have, for, getting out at the same station as
Mrs. Growthem, we were invited to tea with her next day, and
drove ten miles behind a pair of lively little ‘ cayuse 5 ponies, through
the waving prairie grasses that parted for the horses’ feet and curled
and closed up after them like shallow beach waves, to see her again.
W e found the Growthems picturesque— something we hardly expected.
Their original little log house had been added to, and boarded over,
and painted white. A rustic fence enclosed the garden in front,
where honeysuckles were climbing, still in blossom, up the verandah,
and sweet william was blooming, and pansies, and mignonette. The
land rolled a little about here, and over all its pleasant undulations
grain was stacked in long parallels as far as one could see. We met
Mr. Growthem, casually, in his shirt sleeves, driving a waggon-load
of wheat into the barn-yard. He was still a pleasant-looking man,
but there were lines on his face that would not have been there if
he had not been a banker in London first and a farmer in Assiniboia
afterwards. Mrs. Growthem looked gentler and sweeter than she
had in the train. She was glad, she said, to be at home.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
23
We took our tea in her quaint old china cups, sitting in her
crowded little drawing-room, with a feeling that there must be some
mistake. The soldier portraits on the wall, the inlaid tables and
Chinese cabinets and old-fashioned little Parian \ases, could not
belong to the interior of a North-West farmhouse. Then we noticed
that the gilt top
of the mirror’s
frame was cut
in two, and re-
membered all
about it.
As we closed
the gate that
defined the pri-
vileges of the
public, even
there where
there was no
public, we saw
a quarter of a
people coming towards
;irl, English, a lady, step-
ping vigorously along, carrying a rifle ; the other
a stalwart young officer of the ‘ P’leece,’ as the
tongue of the Briton hath it always, with a
couple of wild ducks hanging from his hand.
It was our host’s daughter, and we lingered long
enough to hear that she was a first-rate shot
and often brought a bird down on the wing.
The young fellow, a cousin of some sort, had
walked over from the barracks to be her escort. So that life, we
reasoned driving back, is not devoid of the interest that attaches to
youth and propinquity, even in Assiniboia.
MU. GEOWTIIEM.
24
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
IV
We were tarrying 1:1 Corona — which you will not fine? upon the
map.
One has no sensation of the absolute flatness of the prairies
until one reaches Corona. Before that there seems always an un-
rest about it, a vague undulation of line along the sky, the con-
tour of the country never broken, but always gently changing with
the point of view, like the bounds of truth as we know them. But
here the country might have been ironed out ; it lies without a
wrinkle or a fold, flat to its utmost verge. The town strays this
way and that, like a cobweb ; you can see above it, around it, through
it, across levels and levels beyond. The world looks very clean-
washed about Corona — to keep my metaphor in the laundry. The
tiny log-houses one descries at great intervals in a prairie drive are
mere specks on its wide surface. And the air finds the bottom of
one’s lungs in such a searching tonic way, giving one such hopeful
notions of things in general, that one is disposed to think that even
noisome humanity, planted out here, has a chance of coming up with
fewer weeds in it than are common to the crop.
I have met very few people in England who did not know of some-
body in Canada. If it happened to be a relation, the knowledge
was defined, and consisted of the exile’s post-office address ; if not
he was usually £ somewhere in the Territories, I believe — Manitoba,
I think. And now do please tell us, is it “ Manitoba,” or “ Mani-
toba ” h 7 The exile was not always a Mrs. Growthem — more often,
indeed, a youth who fared badly in examinations for Sandhurst or
the ‘ Indian Civil,’ and had been started, with a hundred pounds or so,
to farm in Canada on that large scale and under those indefinite
conditions that make farming in Canada a possible occupation for a
25
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
gentleman. I dare say, now, that a good many such young English-
men might be located, each under his own little lonely roof, in
Assiniboia, that far-reaching brown region round about Corona, ful-
filling the law of destiny that draws the cities to the plains and brings
about the great British average.
Orthodocia knew she had a second cousin in Canada. She thought
he was ranching in Winnipeg, until we got to Winnipeg and she dis-
covered that people didn’t ranch there to any extent, on account of
the price of city lots for pasture. Then Orthodocia gave him up.
I don’t think she was very anxious to see him. She believed he had
been in the country three years, and didn’t know ‘ what connections ’
he might have made. And neither of us had the least idea, when a
necktie-less, heavy-coated, high- booted young man, bronzed and deep-
chested and muscular, came and sat opposite us at the dinner-table
of Corona’s pleasant little hotel, that it could be Orthodocia’s second
cousin in the flesh. In fact, we thought very little about him, except
that he had a large quantity of mud on his boots, and nervously
offered us a great many unnecessary things. At last, however,
when Orthodocia had declined the Worcestershire sauce for the third
time, he put down his knife and fork with an air of desperation,
and said, ‘ I find among the new arrivals in the hotel register the
name Miss Orthodocia Love, of England, and as there are no other
ladies in the hotel, I think one of you must be my cousin. It is not
a — a common name.’
How, I have no doubt that you are inwardly believing this
cousin to be an invention, and my dignity as a self-respecting his-
torian will not permit me to deny this. But you would not have
thought so if you could have seen the vehement manner in which
those two Loves shook hands with one another, and watched the
pathetic way in which the exiled Love’s gravy chilled into greasiness,
while he absorbed Orthodocia’s English colour instead of his proper
nutriment, and hung with many 4 1 says ! ’ and ‘ By Joves ! ’ upon the
tale of our joint expedition. £ To be sure, I haven’t seen any of you
for years,’ he marvelled, ‘ but how in the world you ever got round
Aunt Georgina ’ And being a man grown and a relation, of course
he had to say that it was a ‘ rum go,’ and to warn us against American
sharpers and confidence men. Whereupon we asked him if he thought
26
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
we were likely to be drawn into a casual game of poker with an in-
sinuating stranger who wore a silk h*t on the back of his head, and
talked through his nose — but we did not ask this indignantly ; our
indignation at such warnings had simmered down into a calm and
gentle pity. He had nothing wherewith to reply — we found that
they never had anything. He only laughed uneasily, and said that,
well, his advice to us was to have nothing whatever to do with any-
body, advice which, I might as well confess in the beginning, we
scrupulously disregarded.
‘If you wouldn’t mind a twenty-mile drive each way,’ he said,
after a while, ponderingly, ‘ I could take you out to my place to-
night and get you back to-morrow. I could borrow the aunt of a
fellow about five miles off for the occasion, and I dare say he’d be glad
enough to come over too. He never sees anybody besides the fellows
but his aunt — nice old girl, but rather deaf and not lively. What
do you think ? It would be roughing it, you know ! ’
Orthodocia assented joyfully, and then added, in some trepi-
dation, ‘ You are sure of the aunt ? ’
‘ If she’s alive,’ responded Mr. Jack Love with enthusiasm. ‘ She
was lent once before not long ago, for a dance, and she rather
liked it.’
So it happened that within an hour we were breasting the vigor-
ous North-West air as it came rolling in over the great stretches of
the prairie, billow after billow of it, behind Mr. Jack Love’s ‘team’
of little bronchos, Orthodocia, trying to hold them in, sitting up very
straight as she would in her own dog-cart in the Park, and making,
w T ith her cheeks aflame and her fur collar turned up against them, as
pretty a picture as you could imagine. Our vehicle was, in the lan-
guage of the country, a ‘ democrat,’ a high four-wheeled cart, painted
and varnished, with double seats, one behind the other. Mr. Jack
sat beside Orthodocia to supplement her very limited acquaintance
with bronchos, and I shared the seat behind the two Loves with a
large bundle of binding twine and certain sections of agricultural
implements, brought in for repairs. The road lay across the prairie
like a great undulating, velvety -black snake — = the original Indian
trail, Mr. Love told us, curving to avoid the swampy places. We
made an occasional dash away from it just for fun, through the crisp
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
27
curling yellow prairie grasses and back again, but then ‘ Cousin J ack ’
took the reins himself in masterful fashion and held the ponies’ heads
well up to avoid a broken knee in a badger’s hole. So we went
speeding over a world with nobody in it but ourselves for miles at a
time. In fact, we saw only three people all the way. One was a
pleasant-faced German driving a pair of oxen, who suggested to Mr.
Love certain hearty words of appreciation. £ That fellow,’ he said,
‘ and his family represent more success than anybody I could show
you within fifty miles. Everything they can’t raise or make they
do without, as far as possible, spending less money in a year than
some of the rest of us, who think ourselves some on economy, do in
a week. Their furniture they make of wood from the bluffs — even
the nails are hardwood pins. They stuff their beds with wild dried
hay, weave their blankets, spin their clothes, produce their bread,
and imagine their luxuries ! ’ Quaint, durable, poetic home-making
this, we thought. No varnish, no veneer, all primitive but con-
scientious, good outward showing of the inward Teuton. We looked
back after the man with admiration.
‘Yes,’ assented Mr. Jack, ‘it’s all true, but I can’t help getting
into a wax with those Deutschers sometimes in my mind. They’re
so — darned — contented ! ’
Which showed two things — first, that Mr. John Love’s vocabu-
lary had not quite escaped American contamination ; second, that
he had not been three years in Assiniboia without occasional fits of
home -sick ness.
Our next encounter was a solitary Blackfeet Indian. This Indian
is memorable for having inspired Miss Love with a burning contempt
for Mr. Fenimore Cooper. He rode a very small white pony of
depressed appearance, by whose assistance his feet just managed to
clear the ground. These members were encased in ragged leather
shoes, between which and the ends of an inadequate pair of light
checked trousers there glowed an expanse of red woollen stocking.
He wore a dirty blanket across his shoulders in a neglige manner,
the remains of a silk hat on his head, and a short clay pipe in his
mouth. His countenance was not noble, aquiline, or red, but basely
squat, with a complexion paralleled only by the copper kettles of a
kitchen-maid who is not a treasure. His hawk-like eye was ex-
28
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
tremely bloodshot, and his
long black locks were tightly
and greasily braided into
a couple of unspeakable
strands that dangled behind
him. I saw Orthodocia bid
a silent fare wel
to the brave of
the tomahawk
as he passed,
grunting
‘How ! ’ to her
cousin’s saluta-
tion.
4 What’s his
name i ’ she
asked.
‘ Mr. Jones
— popularly.’
4 But his
baptismal — I mean
his own name ? ’
4 Oh, anything —
44 Left - Wing - of - a-
Prairie - Chichcn, u
44 Old - Man - with -
the - Green - Silk -
Umbrella,” 44 He-
Who- Stands - Up-
and - Eats-a - Raw -
Dog,” ’ responded
Mr. Love, with
levity. 4 They
excel in imagi-
native efforts of
that sort. Black-
feet nomencla-
ture is one mass
of embroidery.’
Just then we
overtook a slim
youth clad large-
ly in buckskins,
with a wide
felt hat pulled
well down over
his eyes, stepping
along beside acart-
‘ LE FT - WIN G - OF-A-PEAIRIE -CHICKEN .’
29
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
load of lumber, whistling 4 Queen of My Heart ’ with great vigour
and precision. He turned out for us in sudden surprise, but his hat
came off in a way Orthodocia thought particularly graceful in re-
sponse to Mr. Jack’s exuberant 4 H’lo old man ! Walkin’ good V
4 That’s Brydington,’ remarked Mr. Love. 4 Brydington’s no end
of a swell. Keeps a chest full of b’iled shirts, and shaves on Sunday.
Got a toilet table ! Got a tennis racquet tied with a blue ribbon
hanging over it ! Got a door-mat ! Said to possess Early English
china. Said to have pillow-shams. Said to use a hot-water botU*
for cold feet. Beads Buskin and “ The Earthly Paradise.” ’
4 Dear me ! ’ said Orthodocia. 4 How very interesting ! ’
4 Is it h ’ said Mr. Love. 4 We call Brydington 44 The Bride of
the W est.” His shanty is about ten miles beyond mine — he won’t
get there before night walking. The Bride’s going in for an ex-
tension, I guess, with that lumber — a conservatory, p’raps, or a
music room ! ’
4 Dear me ! ’ said Orthodocia, thoughtfully ; 4 dear me ! ’
Whereupon I fancied Mr. John Love whipped up the bronchos
unnecessarily. Life on the prairies evidently did not tend toward
concealment of the emotions.
In due course we arrived at Mr. Love’s establishment. I have
permitted us to arrive without describing any of the scenery en route,
but as no scenery whatever occurred during the whole twenty miles
except one little wooded rising which Mr. Love pointed out as 4 The
Bluffs,’ and the bush-fringed borders of a stream which seemed to
wander out of nowhere into anywhere, this may perhaps be forgiven.
Anyway, I have observed that in reading accounts of travels people
always skip the scenery.
Orthodocia’s 4 American cousin,’ as she had begun to call him — -
not apparently to his great displeasure — opened his hospitable front
door to us and begged us to make ourselves entirely at home while
he went for the aunt. 4 You may find Jim about the premises,’ he
said, 4 but don’t mind Jim. Jim’s getting out the crop with me
this year on shares. I say, Jim!’ he shouted, driving off*, as a
lanky figure appeared in the distance ; 4 look after the ladies, will
you h ’
Jim came up to us with a long, astonished, and anxious counte-
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
30
nance. Jim was no importation from gilded halls beyond the seas.
Jim was of the soil. He had an honest, sun-burned face, and great
knotty red bands. He wore a grey flannel shirt, and his blue jean
trousers were hitched to his shoulders by one old white suspender
and a piece of rope. Jack Love had ‘boarded’ with Jim on his
Ontario farm, and probably paid him five dollars a week for a year
to be instructed in general agriculture. Then Jim had caught his
‘scholar’s’ — by which he meant his pupil’s — ‘ shine fer the West,’
had sold out his bachelor estate in Ontario, and come thus far with
young Love to have a ‘ look round.’ Meantime he was ‘ getting out
the crops on shares.’ But this we discovered afterwards.
Jim’s consternation did not decrease when he found that we were
actually coming in.
‘ I never ! ’ he said profoundly ; then, with an awkward, doubtful
attempt at sportiveness — ‘Ain’t ben an’ got mar’d, hes he? We
ain’t fixed up fer a lady igsackly. He’d ought to have let me know ! }
When we had sufficiently explained ourselves Jim showed us into
one of the three rooms the establishment boasted, to take our ‘ things
off.’ ‘That ere’s Mr. Love’s room,’ he remarked, awkwardly, ‘but I
guess youll hev’ to hev’ it fer t ’night, an’ he’ll sleep in the settin’
room or alongside me in the kitchen.’ Then Jim disappeared, con-
sidering his vicarious duties done.
Orthodocia and I inspected our apartment. It was about six
feet by ten, and had one small square window wearing a demoralised
muslin flounce. A little iron bed with several blue blankets on it
filled up one end, and there was a table with a pitcher and basin, a
fragment of looking-glass, and a collection of old pipes on it, and a
chair. Two or three rifles stood in one corner. The outer walls
were roughly boarded over, and between the cracks of the partition
dividing this from the ‘ settin-room ’ we could see the pattern of the
pink and green wall-paper with which Mr. John Love had made
that apartment cheerful. A few photographs, much fly-specked and
faded, were tacked against the boards, a white- whiskered officer in
uniform, a pleasant-faced lady in early middle age and the usual
black silk, a cluster of girls in muslins — perhaps a dozen altogether.
Orthodocia went straight to the photographs and looked earnestly
at each of them.
3 1
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
< No,’ she said irrelevantly to my remarks on the tide of immi-
gration, ‘she’s not there. It’s off, then! I’m very glad. She
always was a flirt, and that second curate ’ Then Orthodocia
paused in twisting up the left coil of her hair, looked round her, and
said, very softly, ‘ Poor J ack ! ’
It did not take long to explore Mr. Love’s establishment very
thoroughly. There were three cane-bottomed chairs in the salon
with the pink and green wall-paper, and a table with a miscellaneous
literary collection on it. A Christina Rossetti Birthday Book, from
‘ his loving sister on the eve of his departure for America,’ Somebody
on Shorthorns, a well-thumbed set of Dickens, ‘ The Game of Cricket,’
‘ Successful Men,’ some old school books, and a lot of railway novels,
in which a certain prominence was given to the works of Miss Amelie
Hives. Decoration had stopped at the wall-paper, but a couple of
polished buffalo horns made pegs for rather bad hats. The floor was
covered with a rag carpet, there were some skins about, and a gor-
geous nickel-plated cylindrical American coal stove upreared itself
in the middle of the room, and sent at least two yards of stove-pipe
straight through the roof. We followed our noses with great pre-
cision into the kitchen, where Jim was bending over a diminutive
cook-stove, his countenance warmed into a deep rose madder, cooking
what seemed to us a feast for the gods in a frying-pan. It was only
bacon, and I dare say the smell would not have been tolerated for an
instant on Olympus, even about the back premises ; but we had
achieved a pair of North-West appetites, and regarded Jim tenderly.
He had set the table elaborately in one corner, covering it with a
faded piece of flowered chintz, that fell in voluminous folds to the
floor. With an eye to neatness as well as elegance, Jim had pinned
it up at the corners, so that it looked very like the garment of a
corpulent washerwoman. We speculated in vain, but feared to in-
quire what the original uses of that flowered chintz might have been.
Horn -handled knives and three -tin ed forks of various sizes were
artistically crossed for six people, and three ‘ individual ’ salt-cellai’s
were disposed with mathematical impartiality. A large glass jar of
pickles stood in the middle of the table, and a box of sardines, a
plate of soda biscuit, and a tin of blackberry jam occupied three
corners, the third being desperately made out with some fragments
32
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
of maple sugar in a saucer. There were two white cups and saucers
which matched, two tumblers, and one large moustache cup, highly
ornate, with ‘For James’ on it in damaged gilt letters. I think
that was all, except some generous slices of bread and a blue wine-
glass, in which were arranged
with care six toothpicks. Our
seats were also placed, five
wooden chairs and a turned-
up tub, but the tub concealed
itself modestly in an in-
side corner under the
chintz — Jim was . evi-
dently a strategist.
In the ravenous in-
terval before we heard
wheels, Orthodocia and
I took feminine notes
of Mr. Love’s
culinary es-
tablishment.
A shelf be-'
hind the
stove held
most of the
utensils that
were not on
the door, and
among them * like a denunciatory household goddes
were several
remarkable patent contrivances which Jim scornfully refused to ex-
plain. 4 He will buy ’em,’ he said, 4 an’ they’re all the same — sartin
t’ bust on yer hands. Ef anybody showed him a machine t’ lay an
egg, hatch it, an’ bring it out spring chicken ready briled, you puttin’
in some feed an’ turnin’ a crank, he’d believe it an’ bring the thing
home. "Won’t take no advice about ’em. An’ I’ve kep’ house a sight
longer’n he lies ! ’
We came upon one invention, however, which was quite clear to
3j
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
us. It was a large woollen sock, half full of brown spongy stuff with
an unmistakable smell. Orthodocia held it up to Jim between her
finger and thumb, like a denunciatory household goddess.
‘ Thet !’ said he, making a lunge at it, ‘tliet’s — Canader for the
Canadians ! — thet’s bran, strained fer a poultice ! ’
But Jim was a bachelor housekeeper, and the truth was not in
him. It was coffee !
Meantime the tea was boiling cheerfully on the back of the stove.
Jim had argued so scientifically in support of its boiling that Ortho-
docia withdrew her protest, and subsided into a pained melancholy
—and the bacon had been succeeded by pancakes, ‘ self-raisin’ buck-
wheat’ Jim remarked as he mixed them ; 6 nothin’ like it in case of
compn’y onexpected.’ So that when the aunt appeared, with her
nephew and a pair of roast wild ducks and a pound cake of her own
making, we felt that the situation was complete. The aunt was a
corpulent, comfortable, uncommunicative person who was ‘ very
happy to make your acquaintance.’ She immediately produced a
wonderful square of crazy patchwork, into which she subsided when
the salutations were over, leaving the conversation to the rest of us.
4 Weren’t you very much surprised to be carried off in this way ? ’
Orthodocia said with her usual blandishments.
The aunt looked up over her spectacles, and said with decision :
‘ I’ve been five years in this part of the country, Miss Love, and
now I can’t say I’m surprised at am/thing ! ’ which only caused
Orthodocia to smile more sweetly and say that in any case it was
very good of her to come.
After supper, during which the young men chaffed Jim, who sat
large and absorbent on the wash tub in the corner, about his prepa-
rations, and Orthodocia nearly went into a convulsion at the dis-
covery that as a mark of special consideration he had given the
moustache-cup to the aunt, and everybody was very merry, we all
wandered out under the stars to hear the crickets telling summer
stories with acute bronchitis in the September wheatfields. The
starlight was very clear ; we could see to pick the tall brown-centred
yellow daisy-like things that grew about our feet. A single Indian
tent broke the long, heaving line of the prairie against the sky, and
the crickets only seemed to make the great lonely stillness stiller.
D
34
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
C I kinder think sometimes,’ said Jim, ‘that tli’ last trump ’ll
sound cut here — tlier’s so much extry room.’
Then Jim took the aunt round to see how the calf had grown,
and Mr. John Love and Orthodo3ia wandered off to confer on
cousinly matters, I suppose, and the nephew, who was a nondescript,
asked me what was £ going on ’ in Winnipeg when we were there.
And by-and-by we all gathered in the kitchen again — somehow it
was a more attractive place than the front room with the pink and
green wall-paper — and Jim brought out his fiddle and played upon
it in the most grievous manner ‘ Way down upon de Swanee Rib-
ber,’ ‘ Home, Sweet Home,’ and ‘ Cornin’ thro’ the Rye,’ in the order
mentioned. Whereupon Orthodocia came to her own relief, and
executed a brilliant little jig upon the instrument, to which Jim did
a hornpipe with great glory.
The aunt was very grateful to have the whole of the small iron
bed placed absolutely at her disposal, and slept therein all night
long the sleep of the just — and those who keep their mouths open.
Orthodocia and I on the floor talked between our blankets and
buffalo robes late, and I found that she had fully satisfied herself
about the conduct of the young lady who had been guilty of a ‘second
curate.’
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
35
Y
1 Did you know/ said Mr. Jack Love to Miss Orthodocia Love, as
we drove past a cluster of Blackfeet tepees on a prairie road skirt-
ing Corona, ‘ that Carysth waite of Tenharapton is in the Pleece? ’
We were on our w r ay to spend an afternoon with the ‘ P’leece,’
not in any connection of durance vile, but with the peaceful pros-
pect of tea and muflins and general information. It had been Mr.
Jack Love’s plan — he had thought of an officer’s wife he could
utilise to further it — and Orthodocia had entered into it with en-
thusiasm. She had heard of the Canadian Mounted Police in Eng-
land, as most people have, and her ideas regarding them were
wrapped in a gold-laced glory, as most people’s are, and associated
with prancing chargers and the subdual of the French Canadian
population. It had been a disappointment to Orthodocia that no
Mounted Police were to be seen in Montreal. She had supposed
we should have a large force in barracks there, to patrol the country
between that point and another, which she somewhat indefinitely
alluded to as ‘ the Great Lakes.’ She had found the Canadians thus
far monotonously civilian, an offence which the red coats of our
peaceful militia rather aggravated, in her scornful opinion. Here at
last w r as a body of ‘ regulars ’ ; here was a band and barracks and a
properly-commissioned officer’s wife ; here were the Mounted Police ;
here, according to Mr. John Love, was Carysthwaite, the Honour-
able Carysth waite, of Tenhampton.
‘No ! ’ said Orthodocia. ‘ I thought he had gone into mining
in Colorado.’
‘ So he did — and came out again.’
‘ Curious,’ Miss Love remarked, tentatively, ‘ how he managed to
drift into such an out-of-the-way place as this ! ’
3 ^
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
i Not so curious.’
‘No? Well, we all tolcl him that sooner or later he would be a
soldier again. He looked so awfully well in uniform, and we couldn’t
do anything — simply — in theatricals without him. A soldier’s life/
Orthodocia went on pensively, ‘affords such unlimited opportunities
for theatricals. I suppose the officers amuse themselves that way
occasionally, even out here.’
‘ The officers — yes/ her cousin answered, with unaccountable
amusement ; £ but I haven’t heard of Carrie’s doing it. There are
the barracks.’
£ Where ? ’ said Orthodocia.
Jack pointed straight in front of him, and we saw something that
reminded us strongly of pioneer defence pictured in the primary
readers of our schooldays — a hollow square of low, long wooden
buildings growing out of the prairie, with about as much picturesque-
ness as a problem in Euclid. As we drew nearer the resemblance
lessened. The houses were built of frame instead of logs, and had
brick chimneys, luxuries which we are led to believe the early settlers
largely dispensed with. There were no palisades, nor was there so
much as a sapling in the neighbourhood behind which painted foes
might lurk in ambush. There was a band-stand in the middle, and
the officers’ quarters had verandahs, and looked as if modern lares
and penates, even to aesthetic antimacassars and hand-painted man-
dolins, might be found inside. The general aspect of the place was
not warlike.
I don’t think I can go into particulars about the properly-com-
missioned officer’s wife. So far as I remember, her muffins were not
surpassed by any that we came in contact with afterwards. She
had a large dog and a small pony, several medium- sized children, and
an apparent habit of enjoying herself. Tier winter wardrobe inter-
ested Orthodocia, especially a buffalo coat for driving, in which our
hostess bore a comfortable resemblance to a cinnamon bear. My
friend was pleased also with a hole under the kitchen floor, which
was the lady’s only store-room. And with the fact that ladies
living in ‘ the country ’ thought nothing of driving in fifteen or
twenty miles to a ball in the barracks, with the thermometer at
twenty below zero, and dressing after they arrived. The great difii-
3 7
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
culty, it seemed, was the paucity of ladies upon these festive oc-
casions, and our hostess added illustrations of the premium upon
femininity in the North-West, which made Orthodocia thoughtful.
I observed Orthodocia’s education in Mounted Police matters to
be taken in hand with some thoroughness by a certain stalwart and
sunburned Major, who beguiled us all into his bachelor quarters for
another cup of tea. He told her a great many things that she
didn’t know before, and though she tried to look appreciative and
admiring over the photograph of Sitting Bull in full war costume,
and the elaborate chart of the patrol system and the last report in
the Parliamentary blue-books, I could see her opinion of Canada’s
military resources gradually approaching zero. It was naturally
disenchanting to hear that the chief business of the Police was to
visit justice upon horse-stealing Crees and to catch whisky-smugglers
— that the force really exercised the functions of a magistracy among
the Indians, who have never known any other authority than what
is vested in these red coats and white helmets, with the rifle, the
revolver, the guard-room, and the potential bit of rope behind. I
could see that these were not glorious duties to Orthodocia, though
she did grow sympathetic over a story or two that she coaxed
out of the Major— the arresting of an Indian murderer by two young
policemen alone in the face of a shanty bristling with the rifles of
the culprit’s friends — the untraced Indian vengeance that shot
another gallant fellow in the back and left him to die alone upon
the prairie — the eighteen days’ ride of nine hundred and ninety odd
miles after the perpetrators of a recent outrage, the men never under
cover during that time, but sleeping in their blankets on the ground,
and carrying their rations with them. Then we went forth in a
body to see what might be seen — the men’s quarters, with their long
rows of narrow grey-blanketed beds, the tiny theatre which was also
a chapel on occasion, the canteen where a fresh-coloured little
woman dispensed sardines and biscuits and ginger ale to all the
barracks, and the wooden-grated guard-room, where, for the moment,
there was nobody but the guard and a foolish old Indian who lay
like one dead in a lumpy heap under his blanket. Here we heard
of Riel — the patriot and the traitor, you remember, the man and the
mercenary, the murderer and the martyr, whom we hanged, w r ith
;S
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
much agitation, a very few years ago for obstinately heading the
second half-breed rebellion in the North-West. He was celled here,
this conspirator whom Canada must always take account of, all the
long days while our Government disputed with itself as to whether
it could hang him and continue its own existence or not, and from
Halifax to Vancouver everybody speculated upon his fate. They
told us of him again in a narrow and enclosed court at the back of
the prison, where we looked up, with a sudden chill, at a certain
window above. He stepped out to the hangman, who held a grudge
against him, from that window. And I remembered the sun light-
ing up some marigolds on a quiet grave in sleepy St. Boniface, across
the river from Winnipeg, within a stone’s throw of a quaint old
convent where a thrifty Sister Adiposa was stooping over some cab-
bages in the garden. It was not yet quite time for High Mass, and a
few French half-breeds, the men in mocassins, the women with the
tete couverte , loitered about the gate and the church -door. The grave
had been made for their sakes, but none of them went near it — it
had lost interest for them since the sod grew. On its plain, slim,
white wooden cross, in black letters, we read, Louis David IIiel.
And we thought of Death and of the Lav/. c Whom none could
advise thou hast persuaded.’
You must excuse these colonial trivialities ; Orthodocia did.
She even went so far as to write down the name of our traitor in
full in her note-book, where it remains in pencil, immediately under
the fact that there are thirty-four thousand Indians in the Canadian
North-West to this day.
Walking back past the stables we met one of the men. He had
top-boots on, with his trousers thrust into them, and a grey flannel
shirt ; and in each hand he carried a flowing pail of water. As we
approached he put down the buckets, one on each side of him, and
saluted the Major. Jack gave Orthodocia a cousinly nudge, and as
she looked again the man started, turned the colour of old red sand-
stone, then stood very erectly as before, and saluted again. Orthodocia
bowed and smiled with her sweetest self-possession. Then the two
Loves looked at one another, and said with one accord, ‘ Carried
The officer’s wife came in volubly at this point, and made J ack’s
explanation unnecessary. ‘ Miss Love,’ she said, 1 1 hope you noticed
39
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
that man. By birth and education he is the superior of almost
every officer in the Police. In fact, my dear , 7 in an awed whisper,
4 he is the third son of an English lord — and we can’t invite him to
dinner ! It’s too trying ! You see we must treat them all alike,
and poor Mr. Garysthwaite has got to turn out and groom his horse
at five o’clock on our bitterly cold winter mornings, and do every -
THE HON. CARYSTHWAITE.
thing else about the stables and quarters that has to be done just
like the rest of them. He can’t let his people know or they never
would allow it !
4 Of course they think he’s got a commission — they all think that
in England when their sons come out here, fail in farming or mining,
find Civil Service positions hard to get in Ottawa, and drift into the
40
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Police as a demur ressort. Instead of which they simply join as
recruits on ridiculously small pay and rough it — to — an — ex — lent !
We’ve had quite a lot of them at one time and another. Net every
man of that sort can stand the life, the drill and duty is sc severe, sc a
good many have dropped out, especially if there is any inclination to
dissipation ; but sometimes they stick to it in the most wonderful way.’
To Orthodocia’s inquiry as to why commissions were sc difficult
to get, the officer’s wife responded with naivete that she believed a
good deal of it was politics and that abominable system of promotion
from the ranks in the order of seniority and on grounds of general
qualification, a system which she would certainly abolish it she had
anything to do with Government.
This is only a faithful chronicle of the ordinary happenings of
an ordinary journey of two ordinary people, so I can’t gratify you
with any romantic episode later connected with Orthodocia and
the Mounted Policeman so well qualified yet so ineligible to be
asked to dinner, though 1 should dearly like to. The fact is— and
I tremble to think what might become of Orthodocia if I per-
mitted myself any departure from the facts — that we left Corona
and one very melancholy John Love late that very night, and the
Honourable Carysthwaite did not occur again.
We had, as we thought, but one day to spare in order to reach
Vancouver in time to set our foot on the ship, and sail according to
the instructions on our tickets ; and while yet the lamps were lit
outside our swaying curtains, and a man from Little Pock, ‘ Arkan-
saw,’ snored rhythmically in the upper berth across the aisle, we
devoted half an hour to a vigorous discussion as to whether we
should get off at Banff 1 or The Glacier. When we awoke we were
forty miles beyond Banff, so we concluded between the buttoning
of one boot and the discovery of the other that the phenomena at
The Glacier must naturally be much better worth a visit than
the fashionable and frivolous life at Banff, and that there would
probably be just as good a hotel there, and just as many people
anyway. But these were the consolations of the crestfallen. Asa
matter of fact, nobody ought to pass Banff. If you do you lay
yourself open to the charge from everybody who has gone before of
having missed the very finest bit of scenery on the trip. You may
41
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
expect it, n aJdoning as it is, from the most amiable of your friends
- — not one cf them will be able to refrain. The natural attitude
toward this statement, and the one we persistently assumed, is of
course one of flat negation, but privately I should advise you to
avoid it, and see Banff.
Orthodocia and I had our first glimpse of the Rockies from the
window of the ‘ladies’ toilet-room ’ between the splashes of the very
imperfect ablutions one makes in such a place. It was just before
sunrise, and all we could see was a dull red burning in the sky be-
hind the wandering jagged edge of what might have been the outer
wall of some Titanic prison. Orthodocia raised her hands in admira-
tion, and began to quote something. I didn’t, one of mine being full
of soap, and ransacked my mind in vain for any beautiful sentiment to
correspond with Orthodocia’s. I found the towel though, which was
of more consequence at the time ; and then we both hurried forth
upon the swaying rear platform of the car to join our exclamations
with those of a fellow -passenger, whom we easily recognised to be the
man from Little Rock, ‘ Arkansaw.’
As we stood there on the end of the car and looked out at the great
amphitheatre, with the mountains sitting solemnly around it, regard-
ing our impudent noisy toy of steam and wheels, we remembered that
we should see mountains with towers and minarets — mountains like
churches, like fortifications, like cities, like clouds. And we saw
them all, picking out one and then another in the calm grandeur of
their lines far up along the sky. Orthodocia cavilled a little at the
impertinence of any comparison at all. She thought that a moun-
tain — at all events, one of these great western mountains, down the
side of which her dear little England might rattle in a landslip —
could never really look like anything but a mountain. It might
have a superficial suggestion of something else about its contour, but
this, Orthodocia thought, ought to be wholly lost in the massive,
towering, eternal presence of the mountain itself.
‘ Let us go into abstractions for our similes,’ said Orthodocia ;
4 let us compare it to a thought, to a deed, that men have thrust high
above the generations that follow and sharp against the ages that
pass over, and made to stay for ever there, and not to some poor
fabrication of stone and mortar that dures but for a century or so,
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
4 -
and whose builder’s proudest boast might well be that he had made
something like a mountain ! *
‘ That’s so ! ’ said the man from Little Lock, ‘ Ark an saw.’
Orthodocia shuddered, and consulted her muse further in silence,
while the dull red along the frontier east burned higher, flinging a
tinge of itself on the foam of the narrow pale-green river that went
tearing past, and outlining purple bulks among the mountains that
lay between. There was something theatrical about the masses of
unharmonised colour, the broad effects of light and shadow, the silent
pose of everything. It seemed a great drop-curtain that Nature
would presently roll up to show us something else. And in a mo-
ment it did roll up or roll away, and was forgotten in one tall peak
that lifted its snow -girt head in supremest joy for the first baptism
of tin sun. It was impossible to see anything but the flush of light
creeping down and over that far solemn height, tracing its abutments
and revealing its deep places. It seemed so very near to God that
a wordless song came from it, set in chords we did not know. But
all the air was sentient with the song. . . .
‘ How many feet, naow, do you suppose they give that mountin ? ’
said the man from Little Rock, ‘ Arkansaw.’
Orthodocia and I stood not upon the order of our going, but went
at once, vowing that it would be necessary to live to be very old in
order to forgive that man.
Field is a little, new place on the line, chiefly hotel, where I re-
member a small boy who seemed to run from the foot of one moun-
tain to the foot of another to unlock a shanty and sell us some apples
at twenty-five cents a pound. But Field is chiefly memorable to us
as being the place where the engine-driver accepted our invitation
to ride with him. He was an amiable engine-driver, but he re-
quired a great deal of persuasion into the belief that the inlaid box
upholstered in silk plush and provided with plate-glass windows that
rolled along behind, was not indisputably the best place from which
to observe the scenery. £ You see, if you was on the ingin’ an’
anythin’ ’appened you’d come to smash certain,’ he observed cheer-
fully but implacably. 4 Besides, it’s ag’inst the rules.’
Whereupon we invoked the aid of a certain Superintendent
of Mechanics, who was an obliging person and interceded for us.
EXTRAORDINARY AFTER ALL.’
44
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘Lady Macdonald did it,’ he said, instancing the wife of our Premier,
‘ and if these young ladies can hold on ’ — he looked at us doubtfully,
and Orthodocia immediately gave him several examples of her extra-
ordinary nerve. We coveted a trip on the pilot — in vulgar idiom
the cow-catcher — a heavy iron projection in front of the engines in
America, used to persuade wandering cattle of the company’s right
of way. My argument was that in case of danger ahead we could
obviously jump. The engineer appreciated it very reluctantly, and
begged us on no account to jump, obviously or any way. And we said
we wouldn’t, with such private reservations as we thought the situa-
tion warranted. Finally we were provided with a cushion apiece
and lifted on. To be a faithful historian I must say that it was
an uncomfortable moment. We fancied we felt the angry palpita-
tions of the monster we sat on, and we couldn’t help wondering
whether he might not resent the liberty. It was very like a personal
experiment with the horns of a dragon, and Orthodocia and I found
distinct qualms in each other’s faces. But there was no time for
repentance ; our monster gave a terrible indignant snort, and slowly,
then quickly, then with furious speed, sent us forth into space.
Now, I have no doubt you expect me to tell you what it feels
like to sit on a piece of black iron, holding on by the flagstaff, with
your feet hanging down in front of a train descending the Bockies
on a grade that drops four and a half feet in every hundred. I
haven’t the vocabulary — I don’t believe the English language has it.
There is no terror, as you might imagine, the hideous thing that in-
spires it is behind you. There is no heat, no dust, no cinder. The
cool, delicious mountain air flows over you in torrents. You are
projected swiftly into the illimitable, stupendous space ahead, but on
a steady solid basis that makes you feel with some wonder that you
are not doing anything very extraordinary after all, though the
Chinese navvies along the road looked at Orthodocia and me as if
we were. That, however, was because Orthoclocia’s hair had come
down and I had lost my hat, which naturally would not tend to im-
press the Celestial mind with the propriety of our mode of progres-
sion. We were intensely exhilarated, very comfortable and happy,
and felt like singing something to the rhythmic roar of the train’s
accompaniment,. We did sing and we couldn’t hear ourselves. The
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 45
gieat armies of the pines began their march upwards at our feet.
On the other side the range of the stately Selkirks rose, each sheer
and snowy against the sky. A river foamed along beside us, beneath
us, beyond us. We were ahead of everything, speeding on into the
heart of the mountains, on into a wide sea of shining mist with
white peaks rising out of it on all sides, and black firs pointing
raggedly up along the nearer slopes. A small cave in a projecting
spur, dark as Erebus ; the track went through it, and in an instant
so did we, riding furiously into the echoing blackness with a wild
thought of the possible mass of fallen in debris which was not there.
Orthodocia and I wondered simultaneously, as we found out after-
wards, what we should do if the rightful occupant of the cow-catcher
namely, the cow should appear to claim it. It was impossible
to guess. I concluded that it would depend upon how much room
tne cow insisted upon taking up. If we could come to terms with
■er, and she didn’t mind going ‘ heads and tails,’ she would find a
lew inches available between us : otherwise— but it would be un-
pleasant in any event to be mixed up in an
A BIJAR WAS A GOOD DEAL MORE PROBABLE EPISODE 1
THAN A COW.*
45
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Supposing a
to our society,
amazement, or
us in displeased
mediate cause
lie sympathise
bear suddenly hurled in
would he feel fear, or
wrath? Would he connect
astonishment with the im-
of his disaster, or would
with us as fellow-victims
trapped further back %
In either case, would he
make any demon-
stration i These
considerations so
‘ THE RIGHTFUL OCCUPANT OF THE COW-CATCHER.’
worked upon my mind that I actually expected the bear. In imagin-
ation I saw him tramping through the undergrowth to meet the great
surprise of his life and of mine, and my sympathy was divided
between us. I dwelt with fascination upon certain words of an
American author — 1 And the bear was coming on/ and I thought of
the foolhardiness of travelling on a cow-catcher without a gun. With
an imaginary rifle I despatched the gross receipts of the cow-catcher
for a week with great glory. I wondered what would be said in
our respective home circles if the bear really came on. And as we
alighted at The Glacier I confided to Orthodoc-ia my bitter regret that
he did not come.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
47
VI
It was a strange thing to find there in the silent solemn heart of
the Rockies, under the great brow of one mountain and among the
torrent- washed feet of its fellows, an elaborate little hostelry which
pretended to be a Swiss chalet to match the scenery. One admires the
chalet idea exceedingly from the outside, but with an entire and
thorough appreciation of the inconsistencies of the inside, which in-
clude various attractions and conveniences unknown to the usual
Swiss chalet — from electric bells and hot- water baths to aspercjes
glacees and pretty American waitresses with small waists and high
heels to bring it to one. The conception cannot he defended on
artistic grounds perhaps, but one must be far gone in aestheticism
not to approve it on general principles. I must be pardoned for in-
troducing the hotel at this point, for there was really nothing else
to introduce, except the c Loop ’ and the Great Glacier itself, which
is its own imst-otfice address. The Loop occurs a mile or two fur-
ther on, and is as wonderful a convolution in engineering as any
successful candidate could make in politics immediately after an
election. We walked down to inspect this railway marvel the even-
ing we arrived, while yet the thought of the bear that we might
have met on the cow-catcher dwelt in our imaginations. Twilight
was coming down among the mountains that went straight and sheer
up into the evening sky at our very feet, and the tall pines and
shaggy juniper bushes behaved in an extraordinary manner. In
consequence of these things, Orthodocia and I saw five bears apiece
and ran all the way back with the ten in hot pursuit : which is
one reason why I can’t adorn this page with an exact description of
the remarkable engineering feat we went to see. But the bears are
worth something. There was one more, by-the-way, a baby-bear
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
4 *
chained up in the hotel grounds, who would tear one’s clothes in the
cunningest way, in as many places as one would permit, for an
apple. In Orthodocia’s note book he figures as the eleventh bear we
experienced in the Rockies : but this being a sober chronicle I
prefer to gives its readers what might be called the benefit of the
doubt.
Next morning we sallied forth to climb the Glacier. We took a
small boy as a mere formality on account of the bears, but we found
him useful before long on other accounts. For, while horses and
mules are promised to convey the tourist of next year to the base of
the phenomenon aforesaid, the tourists of last year had to walk ;
and the walk is a two-mile climb, more properly, over rocks, across
(by stepping-stones) the torrent that the sun sends down from the
Glacier every day, and under Douglas firs that tower seventy feet
above you, with the sunlight filtering down through them upon
mosses that are more vividly, vitally green than anything I ever saw
out of British Columbia. The grimy small boy’s grimy small hand
as he skipped from rock to rock over the clear green water that
swirled past them, was an invaluable member. A small dog was
attached, necessarily, I suppose, to the small boy — an alarmist small
dog, who persisted in making wild excursions into the forest, bark-
ing volubly in the distance, and adding potential bears to Ortho-
docia’s note-book. This is the w^ay she put them down :
Bear (V)
But she used a lead pencil, and I dare say the interrogation point
became obliterated in the course of time.
We maintained our purpose of climbing the Glacier with the
utmost steadfastness the whole way. In fact, we took it for granted
that we should get to the top in the course of the morning — that
everybody did — so confidently that we didn't think it necessary to
mention the matter to the small boy until we were almost there.
The manner in which he received our intention was not encourag-
ing. He whistled. It was a loud long contemptuous whistle, with
a great deal of boy in it : and we resented it, naturally.
‘ W T hat do you mean ? ’ said Ortiiodocia. 1 Don’t people usually
go up ? 9
‘ Naw ! *
49
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
* Has nobody ever got to the top ? That’s just like you Ameri-
cans ! ’ — to me — 4 What do you think Providence gave you moun-
tains for, if he didn’t intend you to climb them ? I suppose ’ — -
scornfully — ‘you’re waiting for somebody to put up “elevators”
for you ? ’
4 Ye-p — No-p ! ’ answered the small boy, a trifle confused.
‘ Three or four English blokes went up explorin’ this summer, but
not this way. They went round somehow ’ — describing an indefi-
nite arc with his arm — £ an’ it took ’em ten days. Found a bed of
ice up there seven mile wide, an’ mountin sheep that jest stood still
an’ got shot, lookin’ at 'em. Ladies,’ continued the small boy, with
mighty sarcasm, 4 ginerally git s’fur’s this. Then they say, 44 How
perfeckly lovely ! ” an’ go back to th’ ’tel. Ladies ain’t meant fer
explorin’. I ain’t ben up there myself yet, though.’
Thus consoled, we decided that life might be worth living even
without including the conquest of the Great Glacier of the Rockies.
It looked rather a big phenomenon to take liberties with when we
arrived at its base, though Orthodocia ascended it to a height of at
least five feet and was brought down again in safety by the small boy.
Its wavelike little hollows were slippery and ankle-breaking, and
great cracks yawned through it suggestively. On close inspection
it was a very dirty Glacier indeed, to look so vast and white and
awful a little way off, though the torrent that rushed from its feet
down through the valley to the canyon of the Fraser was clear as
crystal. Being athirst, we wanted to drink the glacier water, but
the small boy, for whom we were beginning to acquire a prodigious
respect, would not permit this. 4 Snow-water,’ he said, would give
us fever — we must find a spring. Then we entered, and sat down
in a beautiful blue ice-cave under the Glacier, fell into the usual
raptures an ice-cave inspires, and took two bad colds which lasted
longer.
The windows of our special corner of the chalet were low and
broad, and the mountains that were gathered about brought night
down soon. We leaned out, and looked and listened, after the last
tourist soul besides ourselves had closed his door on his dusty boots
and sought repose. The moonlight gleamed broadly on the still
gray sea in the gap ; a shining white line chased itself, murmuring,
E
50
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Si
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
clown the dark height before us ; over the mighty head of ‘ Sir
Donald ’ a single star hung luminous. We left our shutters wide
for the song of the one and the benediction of the other.
There is a satisfaction that is difficult to parallel in getting as far
as you can go. Orthodocia and I felt it when we had left the snow-
capped mountains, in their stern, remote, inaccessible beauty, be-
hind, and sped through the softer, kinder, cloudier heights of the
Yale Canyon to Vancouver. Vancouver is the end of things gene-
rally, in so far as the C.P.R. and the Dominion of Canada are con-
cerned, and the end of our duties and responsibilities, as indicated
by our tickets. We rejoiced in the final surrender of our tickets. A
through ticket is a confining nuisance. So long as one has it, one is
obliged to live up to its obligations to travel ; it is always staring
out of one’s pocket-book in any pleasant halting-place a mute
‘ Come on ! ’ It was a pleasure to survey the Pacific Ocean in the
full knowledge that though we fully intended to cross it in the course
of time, it had no claims on us.
For we decided not to 1 catch ’ the ship that was to bear us fleetly
Nippon-ward in the fond imaginations of our relatives next day.
Vancouver was an original town to Orthodocia, whose former muni-
cipal associations had at least three centuries of blue mould on them,
and we tarried in that place a fortnight, which is the space between
the sailings of the ships. If Orthodocia had travelled in the Western
United States she would probably not have found Vancouver so
remarkable a centre of enterprise ; but she had not. Therefore our
infant prodigy burst upon her gloriously, with all the advantage of
sharp contrast with her native Wigginton, and she found its accom-
plishments quite fascinating. 1 Two years old,’ she murmured, ‘and
eight thousand people ! Extraordinary ! ’ And it was exhilarating
to be in a place whose vigorous young vitality is so strong as to get
into one’s own blood somehow, and give it a new thrill, especially
for sober-going Canadians, whose lack of £ g o’ has always been the
scoffi of their American cousins. Vancouver’s enterprise was a
revelation to Orthodocia, and she took to it in a manner which
was a revelation to me. I think that any inquiring spirit who
wanted information about the municipal history of Vancouver from
the beginning could hardly fail to find most of the leading facts ia
E 2
52
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
her note-book — bridges, roads, new industries, commercial
and all. Whene’er we took our walks abroad, Orthodocia
new point of interest to direct them to ; but
what charmed her most were the unbuilt city
s uares, still dotted with the stumps
and green with the ferns of
the forest which was
two years asro. She
stood
blocks
had a
watched the blue smoke curl-
ing up out of the hearts of
those trunks in a manner
which, conjoined with her
frequent expressions of con-
fidence in the future of Van-
couver, gave me profound
misgivings. One after-
noon, while we were
riding in the Park —
which is really a
British Colum-
bian forest with
a seven-mile
A\l) 'A
* INQUIRING SPIRIT COULD HARDLY FAIL TO FIND MOST OF THE LEADING
FACTS IN HER NOTE-BOOK.’
53
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
drive round it, where they show you trees fifty and sixty feet in girth,
and the pale green moss hangs its banners everywhere between you
and the far blue sky, and the grouse rises and the squirrels skip,
and on the broad waters beside you whole fleets of wild duck sail
within gun-shot — my misgivings were justified.
‘I am going/ said Orthodocia, with a little air of decision,
4 to invest.’
4 You are not,’ I replied, with calmness. 4 1 do not propose to
bring the gray hairs of Mr. and Mrs. Love down in poverty as well
as sorrow to the grave by countenancing any such mad proceeding.
You are not.’
Whereupon Orthodocia began to discuss the scenery. I don’t
know a more aggravating thing than to have the person to whose
views on any given subject you have just expressed the most deter-
mined opposition, abruptly turn the conversation into the channel
of the scenery. I returned several times to the charge. I asked
Orthodocia if she didn’t know that people who invested always lost
their money. I spoke of taxes and repairs, and drew a feeling pic-
ture of Mr. and Mrs. Love in connection with the Wigginton work-
house. I begged her to remember the South Sea Bubble, which was
the only disastrous commercial enterprise that occurred to me at the
time. Responsive to which, Orthodocia believed we should have rain 1
Next morning Orthodocia introduced to me in the hotel corri-
dor a person whom I knew at a glance to be a real estate agent.
He was regarding Orthodocia in an interested way, and she was
putting down figures in her note-book. He had gray hair, and he
looked like a gentleman, but I was certain that this was superficial
and that Orthodocia was being robbed. Remonstrances were useless
at that point, however, so I retired with the air of a person who
washes her hands of it. Later, when I had brought myself to the
point of referring to the subject again, I said to Orthodocia : ‘My
dear lunatic, how much has that sharper induced you to throw
away in town lots % ’ or words to that effect.
4 Oh, I haven’t bought yet,’ she said airily ; 4 1 was only making
inquiries.’
I think five real estate agents sent up their cards to Orthodocia
in the course of the next morning, and she saw them all politely and
54
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
smilingly, with constant references to her note-book, coming up
after each interview with a small excited spot of colour on each
‘isn’t IT DELIGHTFUL TO BE SITTING ON AN AMERICAN STUMP OF ONE’S
VERY OWN ? ’
cheek, and much amusement in her eyes. But it was two days
before she bought. ‘ 111 show you my lot/ she said, in a stroll be*
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 55
fore dinner — which was the first I had heard of it — and struck off
into the cleared wilderness which then represented most of both sides
of Granville Street. ‘As far as I can tell it’s somewhere about
here,’ and Orthodocia sat down on one of the neater stumps and
made a comprehensive curve with her parasol. ‘ Isn’t it delightful
to be sitting on an American stump of one’s very own ? ’
‘ I don’t know,’ I answered grimly. ‘ But you had better
arrange to spend the rest of your time in Vancouver in the enjoy-
ment of that peculiar satisfaction, for it is probably the only one
you’ll ever get out of your bargain.’
‘ I’m afraid I can’t,’ regretfully. ‘ You see it won’t be mine.
I'm going to sell it.’
‘Are you?’ derisively. ‘When? To whom? For how
much ? ’
‘ You’ll see,’ answered Orthodocia cheerfully, gathering a scrap
of flowering weed from her own property, and pressing it between
the memoranda in her note-book.
Next day my practical young English friend from St. Eve’s-in-
the-Garden, Wigginton, Devon, whom I was to protect from extor-
tionate cabmen and foolish bargains in curios, made a little addi-
tion to these memoranda. Then she explained them to me, very
neatly and carefully, showing a net profit in the purchase and sale
of her small stumpy lot of forty pounds.
Don’t inquire of me how she did it. I didn’t ask her. I only
know that she bought of one real estate agent and sold to another, and
that she was an object of interest to the guild from that time until
we sailed. For me, I retired into nothingness, only meekly remark-
ing that I supposed she would invest again, of course.
‘No,’ said Orthodocia thoughtfully. ‘I believe not. You see
I’ll want such a quantity of tea cups in Japan,’
5 $
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
VII
I’m afraid I must skip the trip from Vancouver to Yokohama. In
the journey to Japan a disproportionate amount of time seems to be
spent upon the Pacific Ocean. It is an outlay upon which there is
no return, an inroad upon one’s capital of days and weeks which
does not justify itself in any way except in its unavoidableness. It
makes a period of tossing chaos in one’s life that must always stand
for an indefinite number of missed experiences, and the on’y thing
I have to say in favour of it is that the period is a week shorter
from Vancouver than from San Francisco. There are some people
who like sea voyages, long sea voyages. I do not, and I decline to
write pleasantly of the Pacific Ocean. What I would like to do is
to nothing extenuate, and to set down a great deal in malice. That
I refrain is due not to any blandishments of an occasional day of
fine weather on that misnamed body of water, but to the admonitions
of a conscience born and brought up several thousand miles east of it.
Moreover, there is nothing to tell of this time during which
nature is revealed to you all in tossing gray and white, framed in a
porthole, and you note resentfully how perfunctory is the almond-eyed
sympathy of the Chinaman who comes inconsequently into your
cabin and goes illogically out and remarks between times, ‘Welly
sea- chick welly long time ! Iss ship welly lole 1 ’ Nothing, that is,
that would interest anybody. Assuredly one does not sail across
the Pacific to write accounts of the diversity of the scenery. I might
tell you about ourselves, meaning the passenger list, but there were
so few of us that we grew to criticise one another cordially before we
sighted land, and I can’t trust my impressions as being unprejudiced.
I might talk of the books we had with us, but they were chiefly
pirated editions of ‘ Robert Elsmere/ and I do not propose to add
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 57
anything from what I heard about it to the accumulation of critical
matter that already surrounds that remarkable work. I would sug-
gest to intending travellers, however, that
it is not quite the kind of fiction for a sea-
voyage. It precipitates polemics, and there
grows up a coolness between you and the
person whose steamer-chair you find most
comfortable. For the first four or five days
I remember the atmosphere was blue with
dogma of one sort or another, and there
was a suggestion of aggrieved Calvinism in
the vvay our only missionary threw the
volume overboard. The mere possession of
the book was enough to entitle people to
vehement opinions of it, and this is fortu-
OUR LUGGAGE LABEL.
nate, since for an ocean novel it is rather
stiff reading. The critic amongst us most
disputative of its positions was content to leave it at the bottom of
his valise.
For incidents, there was the day the steward made almond-taffy,
cr 1 toffee/ as Orthodocia had been brought up to pronounce it — the
day we hemmed the captain’s handkerchiefs — the day the Chinaman
died and went to Nirvana, and was embalmed and put in the hold —
the last day, when we learned the delicious, palpitating excitement
of being twenty-four hours from the Land of the Rising Sun — the
last day and the last night, when the moon danced in the rigging,
and we sat in the very point of the bows together, Orthodocia and
I, and wondered how we should ever get to sleep, and watched the
grayer line against the sky where slept that strange Japan.
‘ Perhaps/ said I, £ it is the bill ! ’
‘ This is a European hotel,’ remarked Orthodocia, scornfully.
She stood in an apartment of the c Grand ’ of Yokohama half an hour
after we had landed. ‘ They wouldn’t send their bills in Japanese.
Besides, it’s a little premature, I think. We haven’t been in the
country twenty minutes yet. But it may possibly be a form of
extortion practised by that bobbing person with a full moon on his
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
53
head that pulled us from the wharf in his perambulator. So far as
I am concerned ’ — emphatically — ‘ he shall not have another penny.
I am under the impression now that go-jiu-sen-go-rin was altogether
too much to give him. It sounds like the price of land in Lombard
Street. You can do as you like.’
Thus privileged, I turned the bit of pasteboard over and read on
the other side a legend in English to the effect that the gentleman
downstairs represented a certain shimbun in Tokio. Now shimbun
being interpreted means newspaper.
‘ Orthodocia,’ said I, solemnly, 1 this is no overcharge. It’s some-
thing much worse. It’s a reporter. We are about to be interviewed
— in Japanese. If he succeeds in getting anything out of us, how-
ever, it will be extortion indeed.’
Orthodocia turned pale. ‘ lie will demand impressions,’ she
TIIE REPORTER'S CARD.
said. ‘ They always do. Have you got any convenient ? Could
you lend me one 2 ’
We do not know to this day to what circumstance we owed the
honour of appearing in print in Japan — whether we were mistaken
for individuals of distinction, or whether we were considered re-
markable on our own merits on account of being by ourselves ; but
we went downstairs fully believing it to be a custom of the country,
a rather flattering custom, to which we were much pleased to con-
form ; and this is a true chronicle of what happened.
It was a slender, round-faced youth who made his deprecating
bow to us in the drawing-room. His shoulders sloped, his gray-blue
kimona lay in narrow folds across his chest like what the old-
fashioned people at home used to call a sontag. American boots
were visible under the skirt of the garment, and an American stiff
felt hat reposed on the sofa beside him. His thick short black hair
stood crisply on end, and out of las dark eyes slanted a look of
59
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
modest inquiry. He was the most unaggressive reporter I have
ever seen. His boots and his hat were the only things about him
that I could connect vvi'h journalism, as I had previously been ac-
quainted with it.
6 How do you do h ’ I said, seeing that the silence must be broken
and the preliminaries gone through with by somebody.
‘ Yes !’ he responded, with an amiability that induced Orthodocia
to get up hurriedly and look out of the window. 6 Did the radios
arrive to the Duke of Westminster h ’ looking from one to the other
of us.
‘ We believe they did ! ’ gasped Orthodocia, and immediately
looked out of the window again. I edged my chair toward the other
window. Then the cloven foot appeared in the shape of a note-book.
He produced it with gentle ostentation, as one would a trump card.
The simile is complete when I add that he took it from his sleeve.
‘ How old is rady h ’ calmly, deliberately.
4 I— I forget/ falsified this historian ; ‘forty-five, I believe.’
The reporter put it down.
‘ Other rady, your friend — not so old ? Older ? More old ? 9
i I am twenty two years of age/ said Orthodocia, gravely, with a
reproachful glance at me, ‘and I weigh ten stone. Height, five feet
eight inches. In shoes I am in the habit of wearing fives ; in gloves,
six and a half.’
The reporter scribbled convulsively.
‘Radies will study Japanese porry ticks —please say.’
‘ I beg pardon ? ’
‘Yes.’ Fills another page.
Orthodocia, suavely : ‘ Are they produced here to any extent ? ’
‘ We have here many porry ticks — ribarer, conservative, monarchist.’
‘ Oh ! ’ more recourse to the window.
‘ Orthodocia/ I said, severely, ‘ you may not be aware of it, but
your conduct is throwing discredit upon a person hitherto fairly
entitled to the world’s good opinion — which is me. Continue to be
absorbingly interested in that brick wall, and allow me to talk to
the gentleman.’
‘We have come/ I said, distinctly — Orthodocia bears testimony
to the fact that I said it distinctly — ‘to see Japan as far as Japan
6o
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
will permit. Her politics, system of education, customs, and arts
will be of — ahem — interest to us. We cannot truthfully say that
we expect to penetrate more deeply into the national life than other
travellers have done. In repressing this expectation we claim to be
original. We confess that our impressions will naturally be super-
ficial, but we hope to represent the crust so charmingly that nobody
will ask for any of the — interior — of the — well, of the pied
6 That’s equivocal,’ said Orthodocia, ‘ and ridiculous.’
‘ Notwithstanding the well-known reticence of the Japanese,’ I
continued, ‘ we hope to meet some of them who will show us some-
thing more of their domesticity than we cam see through the win-
dows/
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 6t
‘You will acquire ranguage of Japan V
•Not all of it, I think. It seems a little difficult, but musical —
much more musical than our ugly English/ interposed Orthodocia.
1 Yes. Will you the story of your journey please say ? ’
‘Certainly. We came from Montreal to Vancouver by the
C.P.R. — that is the best Western railroad on the continent because
it is built with English capital/ bombastically. 1 Some people say that
you never would have heard of Canada in Japan but for the C.P.R.,
but I am told that they are mostly jealous Republican Americans.’
The reporter bowed.
‘ We travelled three thousand nine hundred miles by this route
across the North-West and through
the Rocky Mountains.’ Here
Orthodocia dwelt upon the remark-
able snow-sheds for protection
against avalanches. She went on
with vague confidence to speak of
the opening up of trade between
Canada and Japan by the new rail-
way and steamship line, and I added
a few remarks about the interest
in Japanese art that existed in
Montreal, and the advisability of the
J apanese establishing firms of their
own there ; while the reporter
flattered our eloquence by taking
down notes enough to fill a quarto
volume. We had never been in-
terviewed before — we might never
be again — and we were determined
to make the occasion an illustrious
one. We were quite pleased with
ourselves as the nice little crea-
ture bowed himself out, promising
to send us the fortunate shimbun which would publish the interview,
with a translation of the same, a day or two later.
I suppose it was Orthodocia’s effect upon him — the effect I had
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EXTRACT FROM REPORT OF
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6 >
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
begun to find usual — but he didn’t send the shimbun ; he brought
it next morning with much apology and many bows. I have before
me a pencilled document in the handwriting of three persons. The
document contains the interview as it was set down in the language
of the translator, who sat with an expression of unruffled repose,
ancf spake aloud from the shimbun which he held in his hand.
Sometimes Orthodocia took it down, sometimes he took it down
himself, sometime* I took it down while Orthodocia left the room.
The reason for this will perhaps be self-evident. Orthodocia and I
possess the document in turns, to ward off low spirits. We have
only to look at it to bring on an attack of the wildest hilarity.
The reporter came entirely in J apanese costume the second time,
and left his wooden sandals outside on the stairs. He left most of
his English there, too, apparently, but he bowed all the way from
the dcor to the middle of the apartment in a manner that stood for
a great deal of polite conversation. Then he sat down and we sat
down, and Orthodocia prepared to transcribe the interview which
had introduced us to the Japanese nation from his lips. It was a
proud, happy moment.
The reporter took the journal with which he was connected out
of one of the long, graceful, flowing sleeves which make life worth
living for masculine Japan. He told us that it was the Hochi-IIoclii -
Shimbun , and he carefully pointed out the title, date, beginning and
end of the article, which we marked, intending to buy several copies
of the paper and send them home. We were anxious that the
people there should be kept fully enlightened as to our movements,
and there seemed to be a great deal of detail in the article. Its
appearance was a little sensational, Orthodocia thought, but she
silently concluded, with her usual charity, not to blame the reporter
for that, since he couldn’t possibly be considered responsible for the
exaggerations of the Chinese alphabet.
4 Yesterday,’ translated the reporter solemnly — I must copy the
document, which does not give his indescribable pronunciation — c by
Canada steamer radies arrived. The correspondent, who is me, went
to Grand Hotel, which the radies is. Hadies is of Canada and in-
the-time-before of Engrand. They have a beautiful countenance.’
Here the reporter bowed, and Orthodocia left the room for the
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 63
first time. I think she said she must go and get her pencil sharpened.
She left it with me, however, and I took np the thread of the inter-
view.
4 Object of radies* rocomotion, to make beautiful their minds.*
Miss Elder-Rady answered, 44 Our object is to observe habits, makings,
and beings of the Japanese
nation, and to examine how
civilisation of Engrand and
America prevails among the
nation. And other objects is
to examine the art and draw-
4 HE BOWED ALL THE
WAY FROM THE DOOR
TO THE MIDDLE OF
THE APARTMENT/
A. v
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
64
ing and education from the exterior of the confectionery. In order
to observe customs of Japan we intend to ream a private house.” ’
We were getting on swimmingly when Orthodocia reappeared,
having recovered in the interval, and told the reporter that he must
think foreigners very abrupt and rude, and that he really spoke
English extremely well. To both of which remarks he responded,
with a polite suavity that induced me to turn my back upon her in
an agony of suppressed feeling, 4 Yes.’
4 MissYounger-Rady-measuring-ten-stone-and-wearing-six-shoes-
and-a-lialf, continue, 44 The rai-road between the Montreal and
Canada is passing ” ’
4 1 beg pardon/ said the unhappy Orthodocia, with an awful gal-
vanism about the corners of her mouth, 4 1 didn’t quite catch what
you said — I mean what I said.’
The reporter translated it over again.
4 Perhaps,’ said I, nervously, 4 it’s a misprint/
4 No/ the reporter replied gravely, 4 Miss Younger- Rady/
4 Gracious ! ’ said Orthodocia.
4 And if by the rai-road we emproy the steamer, the commerce of
Montreal and Japan will prevail. Correspondent asked to Miss
Younger- Rady may I heard the story of your caravansery ? 9
Orthodocia again retired. It was a little trying for me, but when
he continued, 4 She answered, 44 From Montreal to Canada the dis-
tance is three thousand mires,” ’ I was glad she had gone. I am
afraid I choked a little at this point, for just here he decided to
wrestle with the pencil himself. When he handed the paper back
again I read : 4 While we are passing the distance between Mount
Rocky I had a great danger, for the snow over the mountain is fall-
ing down, and the railroad shall be cut off. Therefore, by the snow-
shade, which is made by the tree, its falling was defend. Speaking
finish. The ladies is to took their caravansery attending among a
few days. Ladies has the liability of many news/
4 That last item/ said Orthodocia, who had come in with the ex-
cuse of some tea, 4 is frightfully correct/
Having despatched the business of the hour and a half, the
reporter began to enjoy himself, while Orthodocia and I tried to seat
ourselves where we couldn’t see each other’s faces in the mirror over
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 6$
the mantelpiece. He drank his tea with his head on a level with
the table, and if suction can express approval it was expressed. He
said that there were fourteen editorial writers on his shimbun , and
that its circulation was one million. Which shows that for the soul
of a newspaper man Shintoism has no obvious advantages. He
dwelt upon the weather for quarters of an hour at a time. The
Japanese are such a leisurely people. He took more tea, by this
time stone cold. He said he would bring a Japanese ‘gentleman
and rady ’ to see us, and in response to our inquiry as to whether the
lady was the wife or the sister of the gentleman, he said with gravity,
4 1 do not know the rady’s wife.’ He asked us for our photographs,
and when Orthodocia retired at this for the fifth time he thought she
had gone to get them, and stayed until I was compelled to go and
pray her to return. It was the ringing of the two o’clock lunch bell
that suggested to him that the day was waning, and that perhaps he
had better wane too.
I have told you about the reporter first, because in all the wonder
of this quaint J apan, where one laughs more than anywhere else in the
world, he was our earliest definite impression. We afterwards agreed
that the next reporter who was to be taken in instalments should be
regularly apportioned beforehand, to prevent mutual recriminations.
We also decided never again to receive a native gentleman whose
politeness would not permit him to go home within half a day with-
out a J apanese phrase within easy reach which would put an end to
his sufferings.
B*
6 6
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
VIII
It was five o’clock of that November afternoon that found us mourn*
ing the progress of journalism in Japan, and the dusk was creeping
out among the quaint-curving tiled roofs and sago palms that I was
trying to sketch from the upper verandah of the Grand Hotel,
Yokohama.
4 Hurry ! ’ said Ortliodocia, 4 or it will be pitch dark when we get
there, and our Japanese is not fluent.’
We were going to Tokio. Now it does not particularly matter
when one goes to Tokio from Yokohama. If it is advisable to go at
one, and lunch is late, why, say two ; if at two one’s gloves are
missing, three will do ; if somebody calls at about that time there is
no reason why one should not got at four. We had begun to go to
Tokio, for example, when I became pencil-smitten of those clustering
eaves two hours before, and our various portmanteaux were still lying
restfully on the verandah beside us.
4 What if it is !’ I responded, indicating a chimney, 4 you forget
that they all speak English ! ’
It was our second day in J apan, and as we had been advised not
to spoil the freshness of our impressions by seeing Europeanised
Yokohama, we had not seen it, but had devoted our entire attention
to recovering from the Pacific — and the reporter. Our acquaint-
ance with the natives of that remarkable and interesting country
had been limited, therefore, to the opportunities of the very European
hostelry I have mentioned.
4 1 don’t know,’ said Orthodocia, thoughtfully, 4 you can’t believe
everything you read. For instance, we haven’t met a single Japanese
carrying a fan yet, and I was under the impression that they never
went out without them. I remember, however,’ with a relieved ex-
67
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
pression, 4 the jinrikisha man certainly swore in English with an
admirable accent and idiom, and if the lower classes have acquired it
so thoroughly, we may expect it as a matter of course among police-
men and railway officials. A most extraordinary people ! *
The manager of the hotel, the sole individual with whom we had
a bowing acquaintance in the country, except our fellow passengers,
who all with one accord sought opposite ends of it at once, had
advised us strongly to secure immediately the services of a guide,
which he said was the 4 usual 9 thing to do. At these words I saw
a peculiar expression attach itself to Orthodocia’s under lip. It was
a certain indrawing with which I had grown familiar, and it be-
tokened decision.
4 The “ usual ” thing being precisely the thing which we wish to
avoid/ she said to me, 4 1 think we won’t take the guide. Besides,
we shall enter much more intimately into the national life, as you
told the reporter we were going to do, if we come into personal con-
tact with the people. Everybody knows, moreover, how thoroughly
easy it is for English people to get on in foreign countries. 44 Soap ”
and 44 beefsteak ” have been incorporated into every language on
earth, and with soap and beefsteak you can’t be very uncomfortable/
So we provided ourselves on the spot with a small paper-covered
book containing, we understood, a compendium of all that is useful
and elegant in the Japanese language. From what we had read of
the proficiency of the natives in our mother tongue, we would have
expected rather to find it a 4 Handbook of Popular Inaccuracies in
English/ compiled by some one of them, which might have been of
material use in the construction of this present history. But such
as it was, we trusted it, and I sketched on.
Notwithstanding Orthodocia’s professed faith in the ease and
comfort of our trip to the Japanese capital, she required a gresit
many assurances from me to the effect that the railway officials would
be certain to speak Ejiglish to be induced to let me finish my sketch.
Finally, however, it was finished, and we rode with much joy to the
station, had beautiful little J apanese labels which meant 4 Tokio ’ put
on each of Orthodocia’s multitudinous boxes, and were seated in the
train just as the last gleam of daylight departed, congratulating our-
selves mightily upon our masterly management of our own affairs.
F 2
68
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
It was a good deal like travelling in a matcli-box, this first
Japanese journey of ours. We were in a narrow-gauge little car,
sitting on a narrow-gauge little seat running lengthwise, opposite a
very small Japanese gentleman, whose native costume was crowned
by a noble Oxford Street ‘ topper/ He held a Japanese newspaper
in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and looked at us as if he
had extracted quite all there was worth having in our civilisation.
We wondered tremblingly if that was the paper containing the
announcement that Orthodocia measured ten stone and wore six
shoes and a half, and when he laid it down we tried to identify it ;
but that was impossible, since whichever way we looked at it it
seemed to be upside down. Presently the engine gave a narrow-
gauge little shriek, and we rattled off. It was dark, very dark
indeed. Outside we could see only an occasional gleam of the water
that covered the rice-fields, agricultural divisions about the shape
and size of a schoolboy’s slate. Occasionally we reached a group of
bulbous yellow lanterns that swayed and danced and ran madly
about at the will of shadows with flowing sleeves, and there we
stopped for a moment, but never long enough to convince ourselves
that this was Tokio and get out. When we did arrive at Tokio there
was no mistaking it.
You will remember the individual pieces and the aggregate of
Orthodocia’s luggage. It is necessary that you should remember
them, for I can’t possibly take up my valuable space to the extent
that would be necessary in order to enumerate them again. I merely
wish to state that we had them all with us as the train arrived in
Tokio, as well as my own modest impedimenta, to which a lady had
added a small green trunk to be delivered to a missionary friend in
Japan. It was a great pleasure to undertake the commission ; I set
down the incidents and accidents of that small green trunk in no
spirit of reproach, but because they seemed at the time, and seem
still, to have the importance of episodes to us. That small green
trunk had been missing at the station in Montreal, had been left
behind in Winnipeg, had caught up with us at Corona, been identi-
fied with difficulty at Vancouver, and had required the services of
four able-bodied persons — the steward, the under-steward, the first
mate, and a Chinaman — to track it to its lair in the hold when we
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 69
arrived in Yokohama. As I said before, it was a pleasure to under-
take that small green trunk, but by this time it had become a little
wearing to the mind — anybody would have found it so. Our first
anxiety, therefore, as we stepped out upon the broad, bright platform
full of short gentlemen in long gowns, was as to the whereabouts of
that erratic piece of luggage — whether it had finally come with us,
or followed the natural bent of its vicious inclinations, and stepped
off to spend the night at a tea-house somewhere on the way.
I will say of the several people whom we asked to show us the
baggage-room that they all bowed, and some of them smiled, while
one or two even looked concerned, but none of them appeared to
have the slightest conception of what we wanted. One only re-
garded us unpleasantly. This was a fierce-looking little J ap, with a
great many gold buttons exuberating over his person, to whom we
confidently presented our luggage checks. He was an officer of the
Imperial Household, and he did not take the checks. He did not
even bow.
We began to find ourselves objects of increasing interest to these
blue-petticoated travellers with nothing on their heads, who filled the
station with the gentle, uneven, deprecating click of their multitu-
dinous wooden sandals. Having come to see curios, not to represent
them, we found the situation unaccountably reversed. It is a wise
provision of nature that disposes the average young woman, by way
of relieving her overstrained nerves, under circumstances particularly
novel, to giggle. We giggled, and felt our circumstances less over-
powering, whereupon the onlookers began to giggle too. We laughed
outright — they laughed outright ; and presently we stood in convul-
sions of mirth in the midst of a small multitude similarly convulsed.
Then we remembered what we had been told of the extremely
sympathetic nature of the Japanese. Just as Orthodocia was
threatening hysterics and I was considering their probable effect
upon the nation at large, I caught the gleam, under a lamp-post afar
off, of a familiar object. It was the green trunk, and I do not
over-express our activity when I say that we made for it. Of course
the multitude made for it too, but we were oblivious to the multi-
tude. It was not only the little trunk, but the big trunks and all
the portmanteaux a*nd bundles, and they were going on a succession
7i
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
of trucks we knew not whither. We accompanied them, however,
and when they were finally deposited within a certain railing
Orthodocia sternly sat down on as many of them as she conveniently
could, while I looked further for the English-speaking population
of Japan. I took my little book, and walked into a room with a
very large weighing-machine and several very small gentlemen in it.
They were all in native costume, and one of them, an ancient person
with many wrinkles, sat at a desk with a box of India ink and a
brush before him, and a beaded frame like those the children learn
the multiplication table on at home, which is the lightning calcu-
lator of Japan. They all bowed in an abject manner, and drew
their breath in rapidly between their teeth — a Japanese politeness,
I learned afterwards. If you try it you will see that it suggests
physical distress, danger, at all events something wrong. I didn’t
know exactly what I had done that was incorrect, and as nobody
seemed disposed to do me any bodily injury on the score of it,
I selected the least decorated of the bowing uniforms this time, and
presented our checks. Might we leave all our baggage there until
to-morrow, but one portmanteau and a 1 roll-up 5 ? — pointing to it
outside. The old gentleman got up and rustled out, inspected the
pyramid, came back in perturbation of mind, made a wild demon-
stration on his frame and a picture of a rookery on a strip of paper
with his brush, pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and looked
at me. I repeated my request. Then the gentlemen all with one
accord bowed, smiled, and said 1 Hcii ! 7 resuming the perpendicular
and regarding me with curiosity while I looked in my little book
and found 1 Hai ! 7 to be an expression of assent. This was encou-
raging, so I went on. Might the small green trunk be sent imme-
diately to the lady whose address I would give ? ‘ Hai ! 7 Sweetness
and light. Might I take the portmanteau in one jinrikisha, and my
friend the shawl-strap in the other, to save jinrikisha fares l Hai ! *
Beaming satisfaction at the arrangement.
i Then,’ said I, with triumphant urbanity, c will you send porters
out there to bring in the luggage, and we will take what we want
and leave the rest till to-morrow, when we shall have secured a per-
manent address ? ’
They all bo^ved and smiled again, and again they all said £ Hai 1 9
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
72
but not one of them stirred. I began to lose faith in the monosyllable,
picked out the smallest of the porters, turned him carefully round
by his sleeve, and
pointed outside.
He departed in-
stantly, and pre-
sently he reap-
peared with five
of his brethren
trundling a truck.
The baggage was
on the truck, and
Orthodocia was on
the baggage. ‘I
would not desert
it/ she said, with
pride. ‘ I thought
they were emis-
saries of some
hotel ! ’
Behold all the
various pieces
neatly and con-
clusively piled in
a corner, the small
green trunk
and special
portmanteau
at the very
bottom.
‘You try
him ! ’ to Or-
thodocia.
Orthodo-
‘ TURNED HIM CAREFULLY ROUND BY HIS SLEEVE , AND
POINTED OUTSIDE.’
cia tries him — in Japanese, the authorised and corrected Japanese
issued at Yokohama.
‘These two ’ — Orthodocia, impressively — ‘we’ll keep ! Let me
73
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
see ’ — with a wild excursion into the little handbook— 1 { what's to
“keep,” to “want,” to “ possess ” 'I — “ Arimas ” ! — there now ! These
two , arimas ! That small green trunk ’
4 “Small” is “ skoshy ,” ’ I interrupt, ‘ and it is getting on towards
midnight.’
* That skoshy green trunk you send by jinrikislia ’ — going to the
window and pointing out several rows of these vehicles to explain to
the Japanese what a jinrikislia is — ‘to Miss Robinson, Jo Gakko
- — savey % At once. Miss Robinson will pay jinrikisha ! ’
‘ There now ! ’ — turning to me — ‘ I flatter myself the matter is
settled. But you see you were quite wrong in thinking we could
approach these people in English ! ’
‘Jo — Gak-ko ! * repeats the old gentleman slowly and thought-
fully, stroking his chin ; ‘ J o — Gak-ko ! ’
Enter an intellectual-looking little Japanese in trousers, about
whose English there could be, therefore, no doubt. A conference
between him and his fellow-officials, who are beginning to look
burdened with the cares of this world.
‘ Please write your speakings/ he says to me, and with a dawning
hope I write my speakings, underlining the final destination of that
skoshy green trunk, and the fact that Miss Robinson would be liable
for all further charges thereupon. He looks at the speakings in an
interested way, and there is a pause, during which the porters re-
spectfully take each piece of luggage and weigh it, apparently for
their own private satisfaction, for nothing else comes of it. The
youth in trousers says something confidential] y to the porters, and
presently wishes to bow us to the platform where the jinrikishas are
waiting. ‘ But the bag and shawl-strap ! ’ we exclaim. ‘ Alright ! 3
he answers suavely, ‘ I have give your informations.’
We suffer ourselves to be seated in two little hansoms leaning on
their shafts at an angle of forty-five degrees with the pavement,
which are the jinrikishas.
‘ Sayonara ! 3 bows the gentleman in trousers, which means
‘ farewell.’ ‘ Sayonara ! 3 exclaim all the rest, bowing in a last
agony of amiability. ‘ Sayonara ! 3 says the old gentleman with the
voluminous skirts and the spectacles, waving his calculator. And
‘ Sayonara ! ’ we politely reply.
\BACI! rULLING AFTER US A SEPARATE PIECE OF OUR EATEP AGGREGATE.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 75
In an iiistant we are whirling after a swift pair of brown legs into
the gemrny darkness of the J apanese night, sans any portmanteau,
sans any shawl-strap whatever. "W e look back in helpless reproach
at the perfidious beings on the platform, and straightway are like to
expire in inextinguishable laughter. For away behind us stretches
a line of racing shadows, each pulling after us a separate piece of
our hated aggregate, and bringing up the rear with a positive smile
of malicious satisfaction, that unspeakable skoshy green trunk.
Orthodocia was forbearing that night as she settled the jinrikisha
bill, which was large. She said nothing at all at the time, but later,
when, in response to her request for a towel, they brought her a nice
bowl of hot rice, she could not help remarking, in a casual way,
1 They all speak English — don’t they ? ’
76
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
IX
We would keep house.
It arose in us suddenly and simultaneously, this feminine in-
stinct, as we rode through a sunny street in Tokio next morning,
and would not down. The experience would be valuable to us, we
agreed. We might even make it valuable to other people by start-
ing a domestic reform movement, when we went home, based on the
Japanese idea. Life amounts to very little in this age if one cannot
institute a reform of some sort, and we were glad of the opportunity
to identify ourselves with the spirit of the times. We were thank-
ful, too, that we had thought of a reform before they were all used
up by more enterprising persons, which seems to be a contingency
not very remote.
Moreover, though of course this was a secondary consideration,
we could not help thinking that it would be something of a joke.
Naturally not a very great joke, since it must occur in a Japanese
house, but a piece of pleasantry that would not take up too much
room, and be warranted to go off without annoying the neighbours.
We had kept a dolls’ establishment before, and it would be interest-
ing to renew our extreme youth by doing it again, this time in the
capacity of the dolls. Perhaps, too, we could get a more satisfactory
idea of the national life if we sat on the floor for our point of view.
And straightway we went to look at three modest domiciles from
which the householders had gathered up their cushions and de-
parted.
We rode several miles to the first, through endless wandering
narrow streets of little constructions so like the one we went to see
that Orthodocia declared it would be fully a year before we could avoid
the most shocking intrusions by mistake. It looked in its unpainted
grayish-brown wooden personality like something between a small
77
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
North American barn and a large South American bird’s-nest. It was
a good deal overcome by its heavy tiled roof, which it wore helplessly
crowded down over its eyes like an old hat much too big. It was
one of a series that climbed at intervals up the side of a diminutive
mountain, and a good deal of the mountain was attached to the
premises. We could go out every morning and watch the sun rise
from an altitude considerably higher than
our own roof by simply ascending our
back yard. I use that term with a sense
of its vulgarity
in the Japanese
connection.
The back yard
in the Ameri-
can sense is
as completely
unknown to
J apan as the
empty lobster-can that
usually decorates it.
A serious drawback
to the eligibility of this
house was the fact that
cook would run the risk of
inundating a landscape garden,
which had a beautiful lake in it
as large round as a wash-tub,
every time she threw out a pail
of water. We could not live
in constant dread of being
swept into one of the neighbour-
ing moats by such a casualty, which might occur any day. True,
there was a bamboo bridge over the lake, but we could not count
with any certainty on escaping that way. There was a gray and
mossy stone watch-tower also where we might have hoped to take
refuge, if either of us had been able to get into it. It commanded a
beautiful view of all the scenery that went with the house. There
‘as we rode through a sunny
STREET IN TOKIO.’
73
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
were avenues of tea plants and forests of rose bushes, while here and
there a solitary camellia lifted its proud and lonely head in the midst
of a rocky waste at least two feet square. We never could sit under
our vine and fig tree ; we would be altogether fortunate if we avoided
stepping on them. The vine was a wisteria trained gracefully over
an arbour almost as large as a wood-box, and the fig-tree was an
ancient pine, the topmost boughs of which waved quite three feet
above their native Japan. We felt that to rent that garden would
be to live out ‘Alice in Wonderland’ daily. Nevertheless, we did
not take it. It seemed too much occupied when we were in it.
The next house had no garden but three chrysanthemums and
a well curb. These, however, were so disposed as to give quite an
arboreal effect to the front door and dispel the commercial air of the
neighbourhood, which was redolent of many things. The red and
green and blue scales of a fish-shop glinted on one side of us, on the
other little yellow piles of oranges and persimmons, opposite, the
limp contents of a poulterer’s establishment. A yard or two of
octopus, a pink-billed heron, a monkey cutlet would be within our
reach for breakfast any morning we chose to put our heads out of
the window and order them. The house was wedged in between
two ‘godowns,’ fireproof storehouses, black, heavy-walled, many-
shuttered, not u npicturesque, which the average newcomer to J apan
takes at once to be temples. This minimised its chance of sharing the
fate of the generality of Tokio houses — cremation every seven years.
It maximised the rent, however, and did not induce us to take the
house. As Orthodocia said, the provision would be of no benefit
to us, since we had not the slightest intention of staying seven
years.
I am afraid you must allow me the present tense again for our
housekeeping in Japan. To live a week in Tokio is to forget entirely
how one got there, and to write about it is to disbelieve that one
has ever come away. The great purple stretches of the prairies are
blurred like a badly- washed water-colour in my recollection now,
our gallant mounted policemen are uniformed in flowing kimonos with
hieroglyphics on their backs, the Blackfeet carry on fan flirtations,
the Rockies form a dissolving chain of Fusi-Yamas, and even the
Great Glacier, as I try to think about it, folds itself up and retires
79
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
behind a lacquered screen in my imagination. There may be such
a continent as America, where the inhabitants build for themselves
hideous constructions of red brick and stone, sit down in them on
four stiff legs instead of two flexible ones, and have never learned to
put a flower in a vase — one may even have spent some part of a
previous existence there, but one is quite willing to accept proofs to
the contrary. There is a possibility of reality too in your big Lon-
don with its shuffling multitudes. But there is nothing certain any
more in the world except these pale half-lights that fall on the
blackened tiles of the curving roofs of Tokio, creeping up to the
faint yellow sky of a November evening, nothing but the swaying
drops of light that begin to reel across the moats, where the dark
water under the arched bridges catches and holds them undissolved
for a fleet moment, nothing but a queer white castle in a gnarled
tangle of fantastic pine trees, a pair of illogical liquid brown eyes, a
great gray stone image seated silent in a silent grove.
Our Tokio address is Fuji-Mi-Cho, Ni-Cho-Mi, San-Jiu-Banchi,
Ivudan, Kojimachi, Tokio — a great deal of locality for the size of the
house. When we have time and feel statistical, we intend to com-
pute how often our address, if written out in full on strips of paper
half an inch wide, would go round our residence. It is a decidedly
aristocratic locality. A moat runs opposite, beyond a wide smooth
street, a moat with curving bridges and walls of huge stone blocks
fitted together without mortar, and green embankments where the
Japanese pine trees stretch their low flat dragon-like branches in
marvellous dark greens. And beyond the moat rise the heavy
curved roof and dead white walls of the Mikado’s new palace, all
gorgeous and European within, which His Imperial Majesty can-
not yet be induced to enter, doubtless preferring still the mats and
fire-pots of his infancy. Plain two-storey barracks with His
Majesty’s gold chrysanthemum blazing on them stretch in several
directions, and all day long companies of small soldiers march past,
wearing their European jackets still a little slouchily, but stepping
forth with the most approved martial ferocity. Now and then a
Japanese officer trots by on horseback, erect, stern, sitting splendidly
in a magnificent uniform, and morning and evening the oddly fami-
liar notes of the bugle float over the dark water and across the
8o
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘WOULD LIKE ANOTHER PICTURE SHOWING HIM IN A STATE
OP CONVALESCENCE.’
multitudinous little sharp roofs
of the city, which stretches
seven square miles about our
feet. When the tide is in the
moat is a joy for ever. Faint
gray mists tremble over it in
the morning, each mist a sepa-
rate phantasm, and through them
the dusky wide-roofed temples
rise, and the shaggy arms
of the pine suggest themselves,
and the water, full of beautiful
pale half lights below", gives
back among its deepest shadows
a gleam of the gold that is
broadening in the sky behind.
In the evening the sky is red
and the tangle of pines is black
against it. A great ragged
crow flaps lazily past the low
white Imperial wmlls, which
cluster thick in the darkness
of the water. And presently
the paper lanterns begin
to come out, pendulous
drops of light, mysterious
swaying globes
of black and
rose and gold,
and the J apa-
nese night is
alive, en-
chanting us
to forget for
the moment
that we
came from
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 81
a land where illumination is measured by thousand-candle power
and ‘ turned on.’
Our house has a wooden fence around it which reaches to the
second storey. There is a swinging gate in the fence, which will admit
us if we take our hats off. From the outside our habitation cannot be
described as attractive. It is much too retiring. Within the fence
the house proper disappears again behind a sort of shuttered shell,
which is closed up at night, making our domicile blankly unrespon-
sive to the public eye. Orthodocia declares that domesticity in a
house like this ought to be warranted to keep in any climate. And
yet divorce is very common in Japan.
Come inside. The vestibule, you see, is about the size of a pack-
ing-box ; we are careful never to turn round in it. A pair of
ladder-like little stairs go straight up in front of you. The slide to
the right leads to the kitchen — ah, the kitchen ! — the slide to the
left into the drawing-room. This apartment is neatly furnished
with a picture. The picture represents a hermit in a severe spasm,
blowing a little imp out of him. Orthodocia says that in the same
room with that hermit you really do not feel the need of ordinary
drawing-room garnishings. He is so tremendously effective. Bub I
would like another picture showing him in a state of convalescence.
Part of the walls are plastered and part of heavy paper panels.
The plastered part runs two feet and a half round the room at the
top and all the way down one side, and is coloured a soft dull brown.
The panels reach from the plaster to the floor, and are in delicate
shades of biscuit-colour, decorated in silver. One of the most
graceful has rice straw waving over it in little bunches. The plas-
tered side has two recesses divided by a bit of partition finished with
the natural trunk of a quince tree polished a deep reddish brown.
The recesses are the same height as the panels, and along the inside
of one of them, at the top, runs a dainty cabinet with sliding doors
of pale blue, also decorated in silver. On the cedar floor below it
Orthodocia has placed a single vase with two or three camellias in it.
This is very J apanese. The other recess we have desecrated with a
small American stove — profane but comfortable. The ceiling is in
strips of natural wood delicately marked, of a lighter colour ; the
floor is covered with thick, soft yellowish straw mats, bound with
82
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
blue cloth and joined together so as to make an artistic design, and
the windows are simply panels divided into little panes and covered
with the thinnest, most porous white paper. A very pleasant sub-
dued light comes through them. The window panels slide in grooves
like the others, and the whole house is intercommunicative ; that is
to say, if Orthodocia stands in the vestibule and strikes a match, I
can tell in the seclusion of our remotest apartment on the next flat
whether it lights or not.
If
you come upstairs you must
wait until I get to the top
to be out of danger of my
heels. The steps are smooth
and polished, and very pretty
to look at, no doubt, but it is
a little trying to be
obliged to take off
one’s slippers every
morning and throw
them to the bottom
to avoid descend-
ing a la toboggan.
Our two small bed-
rooms are slightly
less ornate repeti-
tions of the salon
below, only that
the sliding panels
in various places
disclose cupboards.
In one you see, neatly rolled away, the Japanese quilted futons
of our nightly repose, in another the requisites of the toilet, iij
another a wardrobe, which represents Orthodocia reduced to her
lowest denomination. "We do not yet know our resources in cup-
boards, or the precise walls to take down to go into any special
apartment, and are constantly discovering new ones by getting
into them by mistake. Yes, we have our domestic difficulties
• — no household however humble is without them — but those
‘JAPANESE MAIDEN WHO LIVES BEYOND
CAMELLIA HEDGE.’
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 83
you must hear another time. Shall I try to be polite to you in
J apanese ?
Be good enough to favour our poor domicile by taking a mat.
Doubtless your honourable feet are tired. This tea is worthless in-
deed and green, yet deign to moisten your gracious lips with it, and
make the cup a heirloom in the family.
Listen ! That gentle melancholy twanging, ceasing, beginning,
beginning, ceasing, with plaintive indetermination — that is a J apan-
ese maiden who lives beyond the camellia hedge playing upon her
samisen. You cannot see her, the leaves are too thick, but the
timid minor notes come over two or three at a time, and bring us a
fantastic sadness.
You must be going ? Ah, is it not well not to speak so ? There
is nothing under our humble roof that could possibly please you, yet
is it not well to wait a little? So desuka Z 1 Sayonara ! then —
sayonara !
1 Is it so indoed ?
8 4
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
X
A great boom through the darkness about our little house on the
hill of Kudan. Soft and slow it swept around us and past us and
out over the sleeping city — the muffled bell of the Buddhist temple.
I heard it in the Nirvana of my dreams, and woke to the agreeable
discovery that I was still human and sinful. Neither had Ortho-
docia, peaceful on the floor beside me, degenerated into the cater-
pillar which I had found so appropriate as her final state because
she was always behindhand. Then I
slept again, and walked with Buddha
in a sacred grove and priced ricebowls
under a bamboo tree. . . . And this
was he who stood in dark flowing
robes beside our very lowly couch, with
one hand outstretched and something
luminous in the other.
6 Teg ami / ’ said the figure, £ Teg-
ami ! ’
I closed my eyes and then I rubbed
them, for instead of fading away after
the manner of people in dreams, Buddha
still stood with a halo round him saying persistently £ Tegami ! ’
£ It’s the cook/ remarked Orthodocia, suddenly ; £ and he’s got a
letter.’
It was four o’clock in the morning, and the first mail for the day i
had just been delivered by a postman running at the top of his speed.
For a nation disinclined to exert itself, this seemed enterprising, j
We discovered afterwards that the telegraph system was one of ex-
treme leisure.
AN ELDERLY PARTY.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 85
1 The dawn seems to be delayed,’ remarked Orthodocia after
several naps and further conversation ; ‘ I wonder what has oc-
curred ! ’
Hours had elapsed and the faint gray light that hung about one
corner of the room still sufficed only to make darkness visible. ‘ Let
* TEGAMI.*
us inquire ! ’ I said, and clapped my hands. It is one of the advan-
tages of a Japanese house that your commands reverberate in every
quarter of it. Presently the wall opened, and a glossy black head
appeared in the light it let in. The head was arrayed in a pattern
very like the trefoil conventionalised, with an admixture of pink
86
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
beads and a rather warlike array of hairpins. It surmounted a
shrinking little plump figure that stole across the floor, let itself
out through the window wall, did a little mysterious pushing
and sliding in the passage out-
a moment our small apartment
by the yellow sunlight of ten
side, and in
was flooded
o’clock.
We were
thus intro-
duced to the
second of our
domestics.
We did not know how
many there were. Our
landlord, who was an obliging
man, had engaged them for us.
Her name was Kiku, which
being interpreted is ‘Chrysan-
themum.’
We dressed, assisted pro-
fusely by Kiku, who surveyed
each of our garments as she
took it out of the wall with an
expression of awed humility.
Our toilet requisites were also
very interesting to
her, and she brought
Orthodocia a spoon
to take her tooth-
powder in. We
stepped out of the
KIKU window for a mo-
ment to admire the
view, and when we stepped in again, bed and bedclothes, pitcher
and basin, everything had vanished into the all-capacious walls, and
Kiku stood smiling in the middle surveying the work of her hands.
We began to understand the time-hallowed emotions of Old Mother
Hubbard.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 8;
W e descended to the next floor, going downstairs backward with
care, as we had fortunately been educated to do on board the steamer
coming over ; and Orthodocia decided to explore the kitchen, while
I took a mat where my foreign personality would best balance that
of the American stove, and gave up my soul to the contemplation of
the essence of things as expressed in the family porcelain. She re-
joined me almost immediately with a blanched countenance.
‘ I can’t get in,’ she said. ‘ In fact I don’t in the least see how
they got it.’
Cockroaches instantly flashed upon me, and I gathered up my
skirts as I went to the scene of her retreat. But cockroaches would
have been uncomfortable in that apartment, it was so full of our
domestics. They arranged themselves in a semicircle on their
hands and knees at our appearance, each describing a respectful aro
with himself by touching his forehead to the floor, and remained in
that position until we thought we ought to retire for fear of giving
them a rush of blood to the head. This attention was so embarrass-
ing, after the demeanour of the charge d'affaires domestiques of our
previous experience, that we bowed politely in return, walked back-
ward a little, bowed again and finally fled. But before we went we
counted seven, and the jinrikisha man was outside. The landlord
came in presently and explained their use and price per head. There
was the cook, Buddha, of a serene countenance, at three yen (dollars)
a month, who should prepare our modest repasts, and a sub-cook at
two who would prepare his and those of our retinue generally. There
was Kiku who would wait upon us in a silk dress at one yen ; Tomi
who would sweep and dust for seventy-five sen (cents) ; Jokichi,
her son, who would at two sen an errand run errands ; Yoshitane-
san, who was a youth of family, culture, and education, but would
be honoured to wash our dishes for us if we would supply his food
and converse with him occasionally, for the sake of learning English.
And there was an elderly party without any teeth, whose round
brown face went into a mass of merry wrinkles when he laughed,
who seemed to be of general utility, but no particular use, and who
did not even stipulate for the language in return for his services,
although English is the chief end of every man in Japan. All he
asked was rice every day and fish once a week, and his bow was tho
88
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
longest and lowest of all. He had practised it all his life — it was a
masterpiece of self-annihilation. He did acquire one word during
the week of his sojourn with us. Listening carefully to an object
lesson of mine with the cook one morning, he respectfully repeated
‘ spuhnn ’ beneath his breath.
After that he mumbled ‘ spuhnn ’ at intervals every day with
great satisfaction to himself, occasionally reverently picking up the
subject of his remarks to look at it. I regretted very much the
necessity of parting with him when we decided to reduce our staff ;
he was so cheerful and decorative in general effect. But somebody
was always upsetting him and he had to go. As he tied up his
handkerchief, made his last bow, and trotted off, he looked back at
us regretfully, and murmured ‘ spuhnn.’
The wall of our dining-room opened on the street. We had
decided to use it for this purpose on that account, although it was
difficult for both of us to sit down there at the same time. To sit
down in the Japanese way is to distribute one’s self so largely. We
did not dine there often, however, because of the inclemency of the
weather. Opening as it does on the street, our dining-room had so
much weather in it as a rule that we never thought of consulting
the thermometer — another advantage which no Japanese house is
without. We discovered it early on that experimental and memor-
able day, and ordered luncheon in the salon , where sat the American
stove, and radiated heat, and hideousness, and home associations.
Buddha had been engaged on the strength of his acquaintance with
English and with foreign cooking. He looked acquiescent when we
gave our instructions ; followed us into the parlour, and sat down
on his heels.
‘Explain to him,’ said Orthodocia, ‘ that we will discuss Treaty
Revision after breakfast.’
I endeavoured to do this. Buddha immediately took the first
position for a somersault and remained in it.
‘ We may as well discourage him in that practice first as last,’
remarked my friend and fellow-housekeeper, hungrily. ‘ It is com-
forting to the aesthetic sensibilities, but otherwise unsatisfying. Also
monotonous and a waste of time. I did not come to J apan to play
leap-frog.’
I DID NOT COME TO JAPAN TO FLAY LEAP-FROG,
90
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
£ We want breakfast immediately/ I urged.
Buddha sucked his breath in between his teeth, and dusted tli3
mat with his forelock in another place.
£ Lunch-dinner-tiffin-food, right off ! ’ put in Orthodocia, despe-
rately. £ There, you see ! I made him understand/ as he apologetic-
ally got up and went out. £ Nothing like being plain and forcible
with the heathen intellect ! 3
Buddha reappeared presently with his arms full of wood and a
fan. Then we observed that the fire had taken advantage of our
excitement to go out. The wood was neatly arranged in bundles
fifteen inches long and eight thick. You could hold five of the logs
on your outstretched palm without dropping a splinter. The fan
had a young moon in one corner, some clouds having been spilled on
the same side. Buddha put two pieces of wood in the stove, lighted
them with some kindling exactly the size and shape of visiting cards,
which he took from his sleeve, sat down in front of it, and fanned it
with a grace that might have been the result of a long ball-room
experience. Then he turned calmly about on his heels and said,
with the air of one who makes a humble suggestion, £ Chow now ? ’
Buddha’s vocabulary, as we learned afterward, was beautiful in
its simplicity and wonderful in its expressiveness. It consisted in
little more than the single term, affirmatively, negatively, and inter-
rogatively applied, £ Chow now.’
Chow then by all means we said, and while we waited for it
Orthodocia recklessly piled our entire provision of fuel for the winter
into the stove at once.
Our festive board appeared on a tray, borne by the faithful
Buddha, and followed by Kiku, and Tomi, and Jokichi, and the
others in a line to the vanishing point, each with a small black
lacquered bowl covered by a saucer to correspond on another tray.
Buddha went down on his knees, and so did the sub-commissioners.
He presented us each with a shiny red wooden vessel and a pair of
chop -sticks. Bemoving the lid we discovered rice.
I prefer to make a hiatus here in my description, which you may
fill in with the chop-sticks. I hope you will not find it as difficult
in imagination as we did in fact. I do not wish to discourage be-
ginners in Japanese housekeeping, but I am bound to say that before
9i
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
approaching a practical hiatus, or real life void of any kind with
chop-sticks, practice is absolutely necessary. After our fruitless
struggle with these implements our attention was invited to ex-
tremely minute cups of pale green tea, accompanied by red and white
sugar bubbles, which melted away in our mouths leaving an im-
pression of the family medicine chest. Bowls of soup with fish in
it followed. The fish we speared very elegantly with our chop-sticks,
the soup we were reluctantly compelled to drink.
Then came pieces of a fowl that never flew on sea or land, with
preserved cherries and sugared beans. Sheets of pale green sea-
weed formed the next course. Then limp and cold and flabby,
liberally dosed with pungent brown soy, the Japanese piece de re-
sistance . We found the rest of it in the kitchen afterward, looking
very uncomfortable in a pail of water, and astonished Buddha by
requesting that it should be killed and boiled for the next meal.
He is probably still contemptuous of the foreign taste which prefers
dead fish.
A delicate pink saucer was then presented to us, containing round
slices of lilac-coloured vegetable matter with holes in it — the root
of the lotus. It had a rubber consistency in the hand, and a soapy
suggestion in the mouth. 4 Lovely culinary conception ! ? said Ortho-
docia, 4 take it away ! ’ And we decided that we did not care for
boiled poetry.
We paused at the lotus. It had seemed a lengthy and elaborate
repast, and yet we were conscious of a sense of incompleteness, a
vagrant and uncared for gastronomic feeling. We remembered a
beautiful piece of scenery near the Seyo Ken restaurant, and went
for a walk.
I think I have reached a point in the history of these untram-
melled wanderings of Orthodocia’s and mine where it is my obvious
duty to state, for the benefit of that large and altogether worthy
class of persons who expect a measure of instruction in every printed
thing, that instruction was entirely a secondary object with us, and
must therefore be at least a twenty-secondary object with those
whom Orthodocia is pleased to call 4 our readers/ Occasionally since,
in certain uplifted moments — when passing the British Museum, for
instance — \^e. have been conscious of a poignant regret that this
92
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
should have, been the case. It would have been ‘ something/ as
Orthodocia mourned to me one day, to be able to confront that in-
stitution with a practical, working, world-acquired knowledge of the
antecedents of all the facts exposed to public ignorance in its glass
cases. That struck me as ambitious. When, however, not long
ago, in the course of some peaceful cups of tea, a certain impressive
dame fixed me with her glassy eye, and asked me the number of
cubic feet in the Pyramid of Cheops, and whether it was true that
the Israelites built it, I confess that I should like to have known,
just to have been able to suppress her polite inquiry as to what we
went round the world for ! I was obliged to say then, as I am
obliged to say now, that we went chiefly to be amused, which pro-
bably would not have been — elaborate sarcasm — her object ; an aim
which you may find as unsatisfactory as she did. Perhaps, though,
if we had stayed in the house and studied the J apanese classics, we
might have missed a sunset from the hill of Kudan ; if we had
devoted more time to Shintoism we might not have gone to Mr.
Takayanagi’s garden party, and Mr. Takayanagi’s garden party —
but I anticipate.
We had been keeping house in Kudan in unalloyed felicity for
two days. By shutting ourselves up in them by mistake, and taking
down the wall on the other side, we had discovered most of our cup-
boards. We had learned to sit upon flat square velvet cushions in
the middle of the floor, admire our painted hermit and our single
vase, and congratulate ourselves on the convenience of the J apanese
furniture idea which, leaving nothing to be possessed, leaves nothing
to be desired. Dignities and classifications in the matter of our
apartments were purely arbitrary. The sideboard and the dining-
table and the piano being a-wanting, and the bed and toilet ar-
rangements put securely away in the wall, we might sleep in the
dining-room, dine in the salon , and receive in the bedroom with
equal comfort and propriety. Our house did its whole duty in en-
couraging a taste for simplicity and keeping the rain out. It must
be confessed that this palled upon us in the course of time, and I
remember Orthodocia declaring one day that she took an intellectual
comfort out of the bath-room which all the decorative essences of the
six-foot drawing-room did not afford, on account of its distinct local
93
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
peculiarity — which consisted in the bath. I must be allowed to
wander still further while I describe that bath-room. You have
nothing at all like it in England.
It opened off the drawing-room, to begin with, which is some-
what unusual, and 4 gave ’ on the back yard. Considering the ab-
sence of glass and shutter, it gave immoderately on the back yard.
It was protected from the winds of heaven by little wooden bars a
few inches apart, and a paper pane that slid over these. One re-
quired a chair to climb into the bath, which was an imposing struc-
ture, as they say of municipal buildings in Western America, some-
thing like a wood box, with a funnel at one end for charcoal, to heat
the water. We no sooner saw this remarkable contrivance than we
were seized with a simultaneous yearning to get into it. But we
had not read Miss Bird for nothing — how the J apanese made an
elaborate ceremonial of the bath, each entering it in turn, but the
most honourable first— and we had pledged ourselves, on artistic
grounds, to be as Japanese as possible. We produced towels at the
same moment and then looked at each other.
4 You first ! 9 said I, politely, bowing and drawing my breath in
between my teeth in a manner that would have graced the Court of
the Mikado.
4 Apres vous ! ’ returned Orthodocia, with the same etiquette, in-
dicating the bath-room with a stately wave of her towels. But I
would not be constrained, and after a while Orthodocia, feeling un-
equal to further politeness on muscular grounds, went to order her
bath. The commotion that immediately followed showed us that
we had laid no light command on our household. Preparation was
to be made for a function. Our retinue received the order with be-
coming decorum on their knees, and conversed upon the subject of it
in awed tones in the kitchen. Then one by one its members filed
into the bath-room with pails and pitchers and bamboo dippers, and
cups and teapots full of water, which they emptied in solemn con-
clave into the bath. Issued forth Buddha, of serene countenance,
went on all-fours to Orthodocia, and touched the floor with his fore-
head.
4 Get up, Buddha,’ said Orthodocia, amiably. 4 What do you
want ? ’
94
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
4 Charcoal cirimasenj 1 communicated Buddha, with a depressed
smile.
4 Take coal, then ! ’
4 Ilai ! 9 said Buddha, radiantly. 4 Coal muchee smell arimas 1 2
• — doubtfully.
4 Coal ! ’ said Orthodocia, imperiously. 4 Take coal.’
4 You should never argue with servants about these things/ she
remarked to me. And he took coal.
I suppose it was three-quarters of an hour after this command
was issued that I heard my name from the bath-room in accents of
the liveliest distress, alternating with high-pitched commands of
4 Ikemasho ! ’ 3 I thought, as I sat down near the top of the stairs
and descended them in my hurry in this manner, of the stories I had
heard of the J apanese climate sending people mad, and I hoped that
my friend’s would be only a temporary aberration. The mere men-
tion of what I saw when I got down is enough to bring on strained
relations between Orthodocia and me to this day. I don’t at all
know what she will say when she sees it in print. Thin curls of
smoke were issuing from behind the closed paper panels of the bath-
room, and before them knelt our whole retinue, attracted by the
voluble anguish within, each with one eye immovably glued to the
small round hole which he or she had made with a wet finger for
purposes of observation ; and my unhappy friend told me afterwards
that the jinrikisha man was at the window. As she heard me
coming, Orthodocia’s plaints grew louder. 4 The water is nearly
boiling ! ’ she wailed. 4 They won’t ikemasho , and I can’t get out
till they do ! And there’s something the matter with the chimney
of this bath — it smokes ! And there’s no way of turning the heat
off ! Ah — ow ! ’ Convulsive splashings, and wilder cries of 4 Will
you ikemasho ! *
Buddha got up deferentially and helped me with the panels.
4 Coal muchee smell arimas,’ he remarked. 4 OE san 4 no like ? 9
I let myself into an atmosphere three parts smoke and one part
steam, and a temperature of, I should say, 110 degrees, through
which my unfortunate travelling companion’s head loomed over the
1 I have not.
8 Go away !
2 Has.
4 Young lady.
95
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
side of the bath-tub like a large red moon. 4 I’m only parboiled, ’
she gasped, 4 but in three minutes more I should have been quite
done.’
I wrapped her up in a dressing-gown and she escaped ; and then
I choked heroically in a struggle with a funnel full of burning coal,
the Japanese language, and the fire-brigade which arrived mean-
while to put out the conflagration. For an intellectual effort I com*
mend the attempt to assure an anxious and active fire-brigade of
Tokio, with the smoke pouring out of your doors and windows, that
your house is not on fire — in Japanese.
Orthodocia was much hurt that I declined to conform to the
best Japanese usage by going in immediately after her ; but I felt
that my knowledge of statics was to be depended upon only in con-
nection with a tap. We had the pleasure of seeing the proper eti-
quette observed by the whole of our household, though, who followed
each other one by one, observing grave and respectful precedent,
into Orthodocia’s tub. Yoshitane-san first, old 4 Rice-and-Saki-
Only’ next, and a fat little Chrysanthemum last of all. I don’t
think Orthodocia ever went into that bath-room again — she used to
say the associations of the place were too painful — and, as I said,
in order to create a coolness between myself and my friend to-day,
I have only to remark, 4 Coal muchee smell arimas ! Ok’ san no
like J ’
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XI
But, as I was saying, we had been keeping house just two days on
the hill of Kudan, when the invitation came to Mr. Takayanagi’s
garden party. It came with loud ceremonious rappings at our outer
wall and many respectful bows and parleyings between the messengers
and Buddha, who finally brought it in to us on a saucer — the only
card -receiver we were ever able to persuade him to use. It was a
large, square, thick white envelope, and our instincts cried ‘ Invita-
tion ! ’ before we drew out the card. It was printed in J apanese,
however, address and all, with a gilt crest on top which might have
been a pine-apple rampant, and our instincts were not equal to the
translation. We turned eagerly to our charge d'affaires. ‘Dinner
or dance or what , Buddha ? ’ cried Orthodocia, thrusting it into his
hand. Buddha contemplated it for a moment or two with awed
humility. Then he said with the usual suction, ‘ Takayanagi-san
• — house.’ As to who Takayanagi-san might be, or where his house
was, or what was going to happen in it, not a syllable of light could
Buddha afford us, though we plied him diligently. So there we were
in the enviable position of being invited to a delightful J apanese
something, we knew not what, we knew not when, we knew not
where. Orthodocia sat down and tore her hair.
Suddenly inspiration dawned in Buddha’s countenance, 1 Skoshi
mate ! ’ 1 said he, and presently we saw him whirling violently down
the hill of Kudan in a jinrikisha. In a quarter of an hour he was
back, riding behind two other jinrikishas, and in a moment the mes-
sengers were on their hands and knees before us awaiting our com-
mands.
‘ Darika eigo hanasu ? ’ said Orthodocia, consulting her phrase-
1 Wait a little.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 97
book which stood for, ‘Is there a gentleman here who can speak
English ? ’ Whereupon they both said ‘ llai ! ’ and simultaneously
sat up on their heels as if she had
pulled a string and made them do it.
And between the English of one
gentleman and the English of the
other we learned that we were bidden
to a ‘party in the garden’ of Mr.
Takayanagi, who lived in a certain
cho 1 in the district of Azabu, the
next afternoon at two o’clock. Mr.
Takayanagi had learned of our recent
arrival from America in the
newspaper, and as his garden
party was given in honour
of his two sons
also recently arrived
from * college in
America, he thought
it appropriate to
invite us thereto. Nothing
could have been more beauti-
ful than the simplicity of this,
and we wrote our acceptances
forthwith, joyously. After
the messengers had departed
we wondered how Mr. Takayanagi had known our address, and then
remembered that the very night we moved in a policeman had come
to our residence — a smiling policeman of four-feet six — and re-
quested to know the number of our brothers and sisters in America,
and our father’s and mother’s first names. We had given the in-
formation cheerfully, hoping that the municipality of Tokio would
profit by it, and Mr. Takayanagi had evidently been in communi-
cation with the authorities.
Orthodocia produced her most flippant and Parisian creation for
that garden party, which vindicated her baggage policy, as she
1 street.
* IT WAS PRINTED IN JAPANESE.*
H
98
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
modestly remarked, for the whole trip. I went in a serious-minded
black silk. Miles occurred between Kudan and Azabu — miles of
quaint, flapping, clicking, smiling Tokio, all gay in the November
sunlight and the last of the flowers; miles of gray-paved streets, many
and wide, of dainty little shops heaped with yellow persimmons and
queer blue platters, tiny babies exactly like Japanese dolls tottering
and crowing in the midst of their entire stock-in-trade ; miles of
shining brown moats and arched bridges that we mounted and de-
scended at a steady, even, easy, delightful trot. Then our willing
bipeds drew up together before an imposing gate which was open,
let the shafts down gently, turned round wiping their perspiring
brown faces, and said : ‘ Takayanagi-san cirimas ! \ l
We descended and went in, with some trepidation, and a
hysterical hope that nothing w^ould happen that would be too funny
for us. The grounds were full of J apanese — ladies or gentlemen we
couldn’t quite determine at a glance — walking solemnly about ; and
several noises were proceeding from different directions. None of
them knew us, and we knew none of them, so our immediate duty
did not seem very clear. We concluded to go up the principal path,
and see what would happen. The first thing that happened was a
double file of Japanese gentlemen. ‘Probably our host and his re-
lations,’ whispered Orthodocia nervously. ‘ Hadn’t we better present
our cards ? ’ So we presented our cards, one to each of the first
gentlemen in line, who took it, scrutinise* it carefully, bowed very
low indeed, and passed it on to the next, Wu o did precisely the same.
It was a little awkward for us, for nobody spoke, and there was
hardly room enough on the path for four people, two advancing and
one on each side, to bow properly in the Japanese manner, but we
got through it ; and Orthodocia immediately confided to me that
Japan as an education for the Drawing Doom was admirable. Then
away on ahead of us we saw a pretty group, bright- coloured and grace-
ful, with a centre, and when we reached it we discovered that we had
made a slight mistake about the cards, and that the bowing gentle-
men had been only a sort of guard of honour. This was our host,
this tall, dignified old J apanese with the intellectual face, who shook
1 I have.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 99
hands with us in pleasant welcome, and turned to two dapper
youths in very tight -fitting broadcloth suits, to interpret it to us.
4 My father says/ said Mr. Ichitaro Takayanagi, ‘ that he is very
glad to see you. He says that this lady, my mother, is his wife.’
At this a little old woman, all in soft brown and silver gray silk,
with her hair in wide, shiny black cushions radiating twenty wonderful
hairpins, smiled widely, showing a row of teeth blackened on her
marriage day, put her hands on her knees, drew in her breath, and
went down before us half a dozen times. As we thought it imper-
ative to return the compliment, we felt relieved when another guest
arrived with a claim upon the old lady’s politeness.
‘ My mother says,’ said Mr. Ichitaro Takayanagi, 1 that she hopes
you are well. And these are my sisters.’ He indicated with that
a row of the prettiest things you could imagine, each a little shorter
than the next, every little round face daintily powdered and painted,
with narrow black eyes modestly slanting, and shiny black cushions
of hair like the mother, and a bright dab of gold beneath the full
under-lip. Their plump shoulders sloped under kimonos which were
pale blue and gray and rose and gold, but all with the crest on our
invitation stamped just in the middle of the back ; and the kimonos
were tied in at the waist with embroidered obis , the wide sashes which
are the pride and delight of feminine Japan, and which these maidens
probably inherited from some of their grandmammas. Their garments
were drawn much too tight round their ankles for the stage capers
of a Gilbert and Sullivan Yum Yum, and their shapely little feet
were kept off the ground by lacquered sandals three inches high. I
am afraid we stared rather, they were so new and sweet and pleasant
to look at, for after they had made their little bows they all hid their
faces, each on the shoulder of the taller one, just as you may have
seen blue-bells do in the wind.
‘ My sisters say,’ said Mr. Ichitaro Takayanagi, £ that they hope
you are well.’
‘ And I also,’ put in Mr. Takashi Takayanagi, who was tired of
seeing the honours usurped, ‘I also hope you are well.’
We assured the entire Takayanagi family that we were perfectly
well, and inquired after their health, individually and in the aggre-
gate, with satisfactory results. Then we permitted ourselves, under
H 2
100
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
the escort of the scions aforesaid, to be taken away and entertained
It was all out of doors, Mr. Takayanagi’s garden party ; nobody
went near the house, which retreated within itself at one end of the
grounds. The grounds themselves reminded us of nothing so much
as the maps of the early geographers. They were ‘ laid out 5 in moun-
tains and valleys, lakes and rivers, islands and isthmuses. We
wandered between forests as high as our knees, we stepped across
roaring torrents on their way to join a mare Japonica situated near
the front gate. Everything was on a scale of colossal imagination,
and the most diminutive reality. We felt like Brobdingnagians in
Lilliputia, but the idea did not occur to us in connection with
the Japanese ladies and gentlemen about us, who also chatted over
the tree tops and spanned streams at a stride — not because they
were so much smaller than we, but because all this grotesque belittling
and pretty bejuggling seemed to belong to them by nature, seemed
to be a reasonable aspect of life for eyes that looked at it the way theirs
did. Mr. Ichitaro pointed out with special pride certain large beds
full of chrysanthemums, white and red and yellow, arranged in striking
patterns. ‘ In America you do not so , 7 he said. ‘ It is a decoration for
the occasion . 7 And, looking closely, I found that all the chrysan-
themums were cut, and stuck separately and closely into the ground
with quaint and curious effect.
Then our attendants took us to see the jugglery, which was the
attraction in one corner — wonderful jugglery with umbrellas and
eggs, and fans and whatnot, with the usual clown in it, too, who
failed, and whose failures provoked more mirth than the successes of
his companion. A band played in the middle of all — played ‘ Home,
Sweet Home , 7 ‘ Climbing up the Golden Stair , 7 and ‘Wait till the
Clouds roll by, Jenny , 7 for the Takayanagis were advanced to the
appreciation of foreign music. And in another corner fireworks went
off with a puff and a bang, and Japanese paper ladies and gentlemen
coquetted with one another high in air with fan and parasol. As
we walked we met several times a man and woman, very simply
dressed, wearing lugubrious faces and carrying stringed instruments,
which they twanged intermittently, accompanying themselves in the
most unhappy sounds possible to the human larynx. Mr. Takashi
Takayanagi told me that these were the most renowned singers in
‘ THESE JAPENSE LADIES MAKE THEIR HAIRS IN CURIOUS EASHION, ISN’T IT?
102
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Tokio, personating rustics and singing tlie latest Japanese lyrics, a
popular feature of fashionable entertainments. 4 The taste for music/
he went on, 4 is difficult to acquire, don’t you think ? ’ I said I thought
it was.
Presently we were conducted to an arboreal retreat, where sweet-
meats and tea and faintly fragrant cigarettes were being served to
the ladies. "We sat down amongst them, a shy fluttering set, all
bareheaded, cuddling close among themselves on the low wooden
benches, and looking very much askance at the foreign ladies with
their hats and their heels. It was pretty to see them drink tea with
one another, from the same tiny handleless cup, and they smoked in
a way that was simply enchanting. They did not talk much, but
such low, sweet talking as it was, with such dainty deference in it,
such gentle surprise, such tinkling mirth ! Mr. Ichitaro and Mr.
Takashi, whose conduct towards these maids of Nippon we quietly
observed, took absolutely no notice of them. They had arrived at
a period of evolution in which they looked at the world over high
collars, indulged in 4 button -holes,’ and carried small canes. They
were probably engaged to young American ladies of Boston, who
wore spectacles and had a philosophical understanding of Shintoism.
These poor little creatures were of a thousand years back ; they
toddled, they had never seen a dress-improver, they believed in the
gods. Mr. Ichitaro and Mr. Takashi were not rude, but they brought
all the pink and white rice-cakes and candy with pepper in it and
tiny cups of pure green tea to us, and we felt sorry for the little maids,
who probably did not feel sorry for themselves.
The afternoon wore on, and our young hosts began to present
their friends, chiefly their male friends, evidently under the impres-
sion that we could not consider the young ladies far enough ad-
vanced to be interesting. They mentioned the pretty creatures in
a tone of apology which we felt much disposed to resent. 4 These
Japanese ladies make their hairs in curious fashion, isn’t it,’ volun-
teered Mr. Ichitaro. 4 You wish laugh, eh?’ We did not 4 wish
laugh’ in the very least at our dainty Japanese sisters in their very
poetry of attire, and the sweet unconsciousness with which they
wore it, or even at the great shiny puffs that made black halos round
their modest little heads ; but we did 4 wish laugh ’ prodigiously at
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 103
some of the specimens of progress who submitted their tailors and
their vocabularies to us that afternoon. I need not say anything
more about the Japanese dress — everybody knows it, with its ease
and dignity for men, and its special quality of dainty femininity for
women — and you have only to consider the effect of that loose and
flowing kind of garb upon generations of Japanese anatomies to
neither is a national wardrobe. The best dressed of these little
gentlemen looked narrow-chested and stooping, and very much aware
of their legs ; and among numbers of them the c European costume 3
did not seem to be apprehended as an exact science. White cotton
gloves prevailed to a funereal extent, and an assortment of hats that
might have been considered fairly typical of the fashions of the
present dynasty. We were sorely tried by certain hybrid costumes
104
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
which were introduced to us with profound gravity. On one occa-
sion, while Orthodocia was doing her best to converse with a young
gentleman in tennis shoes, a silk hat, and a dressing-jacket, and I
talked to another in tails and a ‘ Tam O’Shanter,’ one of the young
Takayanagis bore down upon us with still another, in irreproachable
evening dress, lavender kids, patent-leather shoes, white tie and all
- — and garnished as to his neck with a large, fluffy, comfortable
Manchester bath towel, best quality ! I suppose the gentleman had
a cold. But the gentle, unconscious, unobserving unanimity with
which Orthodocia and I moved off in different directions at that
moment was a beautiful sight to see. Mr. Takashi Takayanagi con-
fided to me his regret that there were no Japanese ladies present in
foreign dress, and I think he was astonished at the vigour of the
sentiments I expressed upon the subject.
As the sun went down, and made a checkering of quaint shadows
all among the smiling, moving, bowing little groups about us, a feast
was disclosed behind the tallest of the mountains, and under the
most umbrageous of the fir trees — a very wonderful feast of which
I have still a souvenir in a large smooth shell of the clam variety.
I ate sugared beans from this with chop-sticks, and carried the dish
and the remains, for many sugared beans are a weariness to the flesh,
home with me for politeness’ sake.
And then, leaving the garden party of Mr. Takayanagi still
elaborately complimenting itself among the chrysanthemums, we
rode away out through the wide gate into the life and light and
colour of Tokio’s early evening. In my picture of it, which grows
more like a phantasm every day, the great daintily-tinted paper
globes were pulsing and glowing before the multitudinous little shops ;
the gay drops of light that hung from the jinrikishas were frisking
up hill and down ; there was still a red memory of the sun in the
sky behind the dragon-like arms of the gnarled pine trees that guard
the Mikado’s moat ; and against these three wild geese were flying,
black and swift, long necks outstretched in front, short legs out-
stretched behind, just as they flew always across a tea-tray, that I
knew long before I went to Japan. And, high over all, on its
pyramid of stones, shone the great square lantern of Kudan — dusky,
mysterious.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
105
XIT
‘Don’t you think/ said Orthodocia, coming in from the kitchen, where
she had been beseeching Buddha for the sixth time that week to
refrain from boiling the potatoes with sugar and flavouring the oat-
meal with Worcester sauce, ‘ that we ought to go and call upon Mrs.
Takayanagi ’
I said that I was unacquainted with the Japanese custom in the
matter, but one would naturally suppose that in a country where
the door-handles turned backwards, and people sat down in your
presence as a sign of respect, and the horses stood with their tails in
the mangers, the inhabitants would invite you to entertainments, and
shortly afterwards make formal visits to thank you for giving your-
self the pleasure of attending them.
£ That may be/ said Orthodocia, ‘ but the Takayanagis haven’t
come to thank us yet, and I think we ought to go. Was it Miss
Bird or Pierre Loti who said that the Japanese ladies received in
their baths ? I should like to see if they do really.’
‘ Yes/ I responded with levity, ‘ and then you will be able to
conduct your next hydrostatical function on ’
I was going to say ‘ approved principles/ but there was a look in
Orthodocia’s eye which checked me.
So we went to call upon Mrs. Takayanagi, at about five o’clock
on the last day of November, 1888. I have come upon this entry in
Orthodocia’s note-book, which she has kindly lent me to revive my
impvessions with. Opposite the entry I find ‘Not at home.’ And
that simple, pregnant formula brings it all back to me.
We rode up to the same wide gate, but it was barred ; through
the same wonderful garden, but all its terrible dragons made of pink
and white chrysanthemums had vanished, and most of the trees
xo 6
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
seemed to have been taken indoors, and it was quite empty of the
bowing, shuffling groups of little people in their long drooping wings
of rose and blue.
Not so much as an
ivory hairpin re-
mained to tell of the
shy little maids, nor
a cuff- button to re-
mind us of the quaint
little men, nor a
scrap of tinted paper
to be a memory of
all the pretty doings
we had seen. The
fantastic narrow
walks were immacu-
lately neat. In one
of them a gardener
was carefully pick-
ing up pine-needles,
and I have no doubt
that the bridges and
shrines and embank-
ments had every one
been dusted that morning. But
it all looked unreasonable and
expressionless, like a Japanese
drawing, and there was not any-
where a lingering smile of the
charm we had found so very
charming in Mr. Takayanagi’s
garden party.
We knocked at the outer
door with our knuckles — and
knocked and knocked again.
It remained blankly unresponsive. Then we clapped our hands until
the welkin rang, and just as Orthodocia’s glove split explosively from
‘my dear little heathen, is your
MOTHER AT HOME ? ’
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 107
her thumb to her little linger, a bobbing figure came round the
corner.
1 Ok’ scima arimaska ? ’ 1 inquired Orthodocia, who had begun to
talk J apanese in her sleep.
‘ Hai ! ’ 2 said the bobbing person, with all but a somersault, and
disappeared.
Presently the door slid back gently, and before us stood the
tallest, plumpest, sweetest of the little young ladies Takayanagi, not
quite as gay as at her papa’s garden party, but very dainty and line
in the colours of an early wild flower, with her tiny hands lost in
her great sleeves and her little toes close together under her ankle
draperies. There she stood and there we stood quite mute, looking
at each other ; and as she seemed to have no intention of letting us
in, Orthodocia presented our cards. She took them bowing, smiling,
blushing. £ Arigato ! ’ 3 she said, and put them in her sleeve.
£ Why don’t you say something h ’ said Orthodocia to me in an
irritated wmy. ‘ And for goodness’ sake stop laughing ! ’
But I couldn’t help laughing, I felt so exceedingly funny, and
with a malicious desire to make Orthodocia laugh too, I said, £ My
dear little heathen, is your mother at home '] ’ speaking as one who
knows she will not be understood.
My dear little heathen smiled demurely. Then she said, blush-
ing furiously, and cuddling her small person up very tight in her
swathing gownlet, £ My name is ITaru Takayanagi.’
£ Oh ! ’ from Orthodocia and me, with a palpable jump. £ So you
speak English,’ continued my friend, affably. £ How nice ! We have
come to make a call.’
£ My father is not at home.’
£ Is he not ? Oh, indeed ! I am sorry to hear that. But we
did not come — ah — especially — ah — to see your father.’ A vigorous
aside to me — £ If you don’t say something soon — and stop that
idiocy ’
£ Hai ! ’ said the little maid, forgetting herself. £ The gentlemen,
my brothers, are in Yokohama. It is a great pain.’
£ Dear me ! How vewy extwaordinary ! ’ remarked Orthodocia,
Is the mistress at home ?
2 Yes.
3 Thank you.
io8
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
just as if she were standing on the steps of a house in Cavendish
Square. ‘She appeahs to think we have come to call upon Lor
bwothahs ! *
This sudden reversion to an earlier type in my friend entirely
finished me, and I was helpless from that time forth.
‘ Is your mothaw at home ? ’ I heard her demand between my
gasps, very sternly and pointedly ; and then the little maid gave her
a frightened look. ‘ Wakarimasen ! ’ 1 she said, Gomen nasal / ’ 2
slipped the door shut again, and toddled off inside. "VYe waited, I
very humble under Orthodocia’s castigations, but still decidedly
‘ smily round the lips and teary round the lashes/ and presently she
came back again.
£ My mother is in her bath/ she said.
We looked at each other. Was it or was it not an invitation ?
And if it was an invitation, had we or had we not the strength of
mind to accept 'l In a convulsive instant we decided that it was, in
another that we had not, in another that it might be insisted on;
the next saw our headlong flight over the precipices and across the
peninsulas of the garden, out through the wide gate, and away into
the mazes of Tokio, leaving the little maid stock still in the door-
way, full of consternation. Poor old lady, innocently seated at that
moment in your tub, and preparing a steamy conventional welcome
for us, was it ever explained to you, I wonder, that your European
guests did not feel quite equal to you on that occasion ?
Then on one of the long, happy days that cluster about this point
in my memory, when the acutest joy was centred in the buying of a
teapot, and all the dainty fantastic life about us pressed sharp upon
our senses, and we wondered how the foreigners we met could look
so commonplace and blind, came an invitation to dinner from Mrs.
Jokichi Tomita. It was a verbal invitation by messenger, and was
interpreted to us to the effect that the entertainment would be very
humble indeed, and the guests few ; yet the honour of our presence
and the solace of our society would be so great that she could not re-
frain from begging us to come. It took our united efforts and three-
quarters of an hour to compose a message which we considered polite
enough to accept in.
1 I do not know. 2 Please excuse me.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 109
I was sorry for Orthodocia the day of Mrs. Tomita’s dinner party.
She spent it largely in the society of her various boxes, which were
grouped around the well curb under a tarpaulin in the back yard, it
having been found impossible to get even the least among them into
the house. Her distress of mind, as she vibrated from one to the
other of them uncertainly demanding £ What shall I wear h ’ was
painful to witness. Secure in the unruffled composure with which
a black silk and no alternative always enables one to confront social
emergencies, I looked on and made remarks about the comfort of a
unified wardrobe. But my precepts were indignantly rejected, and
my example was of no use, for Orthodocia hadn’t a black silk.
£ The trouble is, one can’t tell,’ said my friend in her perplexity,
surveying a Bond Street tea-gown at arm’s length. £ These people
are getting so frightfully civilised that we may find Mrs. Jokichi
giving the regular thing with a Russian attache to take one in ; or
it may be entirely a la Japonaise , in which case ’ — thoughtfully — •
£ I suppose one ought to wear some thing like this. And yet it is so
early — five o’clock ! ’ I think the potential Russian attache prevailed
over both our better judgments, for five o’clock saw us arriving at
Mrs. Tomita’s, Orthodocia in all the glory of full dinner costume,
and I with my robe of sobriety and general utility turned in, tucked
up and begarlanded to faintly approximate her.
Mrs. Tomita stood at an inner door of her funny little establish-
ment to welcome us — at least it looked like an inner door then. A
few minutes later it appeared to be a wall, and the passage in which
we stood had broadened into a room, and the end of it had dissolved
into the most charming view of moats and trees and temples, with
Fusi Yama rising in the distance. Our hostess went down on her
knees to greet us, a politeness which Orthodocia found embarrassing
to return on account of the bouffant nature of her draperies. Then
she got up and bowed a great many times, with her hands on her
knees, keeping a bright eye fixed upon us sidewise, and only leaving
off when we did. Thereupon she turned to her husband, in whom
we saw the reason of our invitation. For Mr. J okiclii Tomita bent
before us in coat and trousers of the most conventional cut, and we
recognised in him the advancing European idea. He shook hands
with us gravely, and regarded Orthodocia, who looked like a large
no
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
low-necked pink-and-gray parrot in a very small canary cage, with
an expression much resembling awe.
1 It is to us a great regret that my wife does not speak the
English/ he said, while the little brown oE sama at his side smiled
and shrank further into herself than ever. £ But we have here some
ladies who speak a little words.’ And he marshalled us, if the word
is not too big for the occasion, into another room.
It seemed so full of softly chattering little dames in wonderful
clothes and painted faces and shiny black puffs, that must have been
lacquered over-night to be so smooth and solid, that I wondered how
Orthodocia could ever get into it. When she did, and stood in their
midst, graceful and tall and fair, with white chrysanthemums in her
bosom and a look of quiet wonder in her face, a sudden silence fell
upon all the little ladies, and they regarded her, my beautiful English
friend, with a certain pathetic perception, I thought, of the distance
that lay between her and them.
How we marvelled what they had been talking about when we
came in, these soft-voiced matrons who so suddenly found themselves
with nothing to say ! Hot the opera, surely, for the opera in Japan
is — well, is not a thing that is calculated to excite conversation.
Hot their pet charities, for the ladies of Japan who are advanced to
committee meetings wear bonnets and boots. Could it have been
scandal, or servants, or the weather, or those curious little shaven
dolls that represented babies to them ? We could not guess, and
nobody told us. But we had known their facsimiles postured grace-
fully upon fans and tea chests for so many childish years, during
which they never spoke at all, that their low voices seemed a strange
and unnecessary part of them.
We were introduced to those who spoke ‘a little words/ but
found none of them so fluent as our host, who plied us with a great
many. I have forgotten most of his conversation, and I find Ortho-
docia has too. We were both so much absorbed in watching the
strange artificial little faces round us that changed so unalterably,
if you can understand what I mean, with the thought in the small
brains behind them. Their owners seemed to control a set of pretty
stereotyped expressions, and when the occasion came to pull some
hidden string, and the proper one flitted out ; but always the same
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD iij
quick look that said surprise, or pleasure, or sympathy, or a politely
repelled compliment, and never any other, never any shade or degree
of feeling. I have not seen anything in conduct so exquisitely with-
out flaw as the ‘ form ; these little ladies exhibited towards one
another. The gentle approachings, the deferential liftings of the
eyes, the deprecating bows, the distinctly well-bred laughter, and
the pretty rattling syllables, all seemed part of a very old work of
social art, inlaid and polished so wonderfully that one forgot to
inquire its true significance. They wore no ornaments but pins and
beads in their hair ; not a ring, nor a bracelet, nor a necklace did
we see among them. Their kimonos were embroidered in gold and
silver, and we should hang their obis upon our walls for panels, so
thickly they were embossed with storks and lotus flowers. Their
shapely feet were dressed in socks that hooked behind, and had
pockets for their great toes. In the passage outside stood all their
small sandals in a row. Their little lives had been arranged for
them by their parents, they might or might not have seen their donna
sans 1 before their marriages ; perhaps none of them held a matri-
monial monopoly, and any one of them could be divorced if she talked
too much ! They had learned to read words of I don’t know how
many syllables, but enough to apprehend treatises upon woman’s
domestic sphere in Japanese, and they knew that a mother should
obey her eldest son. Some of them worshipped their ancestors,
others when they went to the temples to pray rang a great bell that
the god might hear — and pay attention. At home they did not
eat with their husbands ; it was a new strange thing for them to be
here on equal terms with their host, whom they could not bow before
long enough or low enough. For the cares of life they had the bear-
ing of their children, the ordering of their servants, the observance
of an elaborate social etiquette. For accomplishment they played
upon the samisen , or perhaps if their advantages had been very great
upon the koto , and sang interminable songs, all in a minor key ; or
some one of them may perhaps have learned to make paper roses, as
the foreigners did. No lover or husband had ever kissed them. This
fashion of ours had probably been canvassed among them, and set
quietly down to be another of the incomprehensible ways of the
foreigners. They looked at life and bore themselves through it much
1 Husbands.
1 1 2
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
as puppets might, and yet if its tragedy touched their curious little
souls too closely they were quite capable of putting an end to it with a
certain broad sharp knife, with a burlesquing bronze god on its handle.
Our host’s art treasures were brought out of their hidden places
for the pleasure of his guests ; not all at once with vulgar lavish-
ness, but one or two at a time, to be handled tenderly and admir-
ingly, and appreciated separately in dainty phrases. We wondered
at the discrimination of the little ladies, and felt most clumsy and
bungling and unclever when our turn came to touch and to praise the
ivory carvings and the inlaid bronzes, and the tiny soft old porcelain
bowls and vases. Mr. Jokichi Tomita listened with quiet pity as we
stumbled on, missing always the wonderful curve or the rare colour,
and bowed polite acknowledgment of our good intentions, only
saying, as he replaced his joys in their sandalwood cabinets, 1 The
foreign taste, I think it is much different with ours. The Japanese
child — small baby — is wise in these things.’
About this time dinner was announced, that is to say, a wall
vanished suddenly, and showed a small empty room with about a
dozen flat velvet cushions in a row upon the floor. Nothing else.
Orthodocia and I looked at one another, and I think the Russian
attache crossed our minds at the same moment. Mentally we com-
miserated, not ourselves, of course, but one another ! Then came
the unhappy moment when we were waved to the first cushions in
the row, as the honoured guests of the occasion, and expected to sit
down on them in full view of the demure little company. We stood
over them as long as we could, but it became apparent that so long
as we remained standing there was a hitch in the ceremony ; so we
gradually subsided upon them, the most unearthly groans arising from
all parts of Orthodocia’s attire at once. ‘ I shall never get up,’ she
whispered to me, ‘ without a derrick,’ and at that instant I heard
the bitter sound of parting laces that proceeds only from a sylph-
like form under stress of circumstances.
Then began among the little ladies an odd struggle, not for prece-
dence, but for post-cedence. The most rigid order was observed, and
they all knew that it must be, yet it would have been a horrible rude-
ness to take the next most honourable cushion, or the next, or the
next, without a great show of deference to somebody imaginarily more
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 113
worthy. Finally it was all accomplished, and we sat in a row, the
silence broken only by ominous creakings from Orthodocia, and
waited events.
‘I think you have a custom/ said Mr, Jokichi Tomita, ‘before
you eat to make ceremony. I have read in books/ continued Mr,
Jokiclii Tomita, 4 that without ceremony you do not like eat. Will
you ceremony please make ? ’
4 Orthodocia/ said I, 4 1 think the gentleman wishes you to say
grace/
4 Grace/ said our host. 4 It is the word. Quite right. Will you
the grace ceremony for your pleasure please make ? ’
I couldn’t have done it. I don’t know anybody but Orthodocia
who could. But I record it to my friend’s credit — immensely to her
credit — that the nursery training of St. Eve’s-in-the-Garden, Wig
ginton, Devon, failed her not in that far foreign moment, and, with
perfect gravity of face and voice, she bowed her head and said, 4 For
what we are about to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful/
Later on I was glad she had said it. We required every available
aid to gratitude.
The little ladies looked at one another comprehendingly, as much
as to say, 4 Yes ; we have heard of this. It is a politeness to a
foreign Dai Koku, who brings rice and many sons/ and the first
course came in on its knees from the passage outside. I say the
passage advisedly. Where it came from before that I will not com-
mit myself by stating, but I should think from a 4 Toy Emporium/
where the toys are delicately painted with much turpentine. Vul-
garly speaking, it was tea and cakes, but it is difficult to bring one’s
self to speak vulgarly of the initial dainties of a Japanese repast.
One’s artistic conscience protests. For myself, I found the toy and
turpentine idea more satisfying on imaginative grounds — not, how-
ever, I may add, upon any other. The tea came before the cakes,
and a queer little ceremony came with the tea. It was served in
trays that held five tiny handleless cups, a flat teapot, and a bowl of
hot water. Mr. J okichi Tomita drank from his cup and we from
ours — a brief and bitter draught, no sugar and no milk — then,
bowing before us, he begged our cups to drink from, presenting his
in return. Of course we bungled our part of it stupidly, and the
IT4
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
ceremony must have been very much askew so far as we were con-
cerned ; but we watched our host exchanging compliments with
those of his guests who knew how to behave in society ; and, if I
remember rightly, each oE sccma on whom he pressed the honour,
shrank from it with many pretty protestations and shakings of
the head, only yielding after long importunity. Then she dipped
the tiny transparent thing into the bowl of water and handed it to
him. He drank with grave felicity, as if he quaffed ambrosia,
and washed his own. The servant filled it, and the dame-guest
modestly accepted it from his hand. It was a very dainty little
function, but it must have been very bad for Mr. Jokichi Tomita’s
inside.
Orthodocia looked at her pink spinning-top, nibbled it sus-
piciously, and then laid it down with a shudder.
‘ You must eat it ! ’ I prodded her in French. 4 It offends them
frightfully if you don’t ! * and I made a determined attack upon mine.
Orthodocia looked at the morsel in silent despair, then with a sud-
den convulsive effort of two mouthfuls she despatched it ! I regret
that I cannot use any term more suggestive of good manners. The
little ladies who had been amusing themselves with theirs for ten
minutes, absorbing them daintily crumb by crumb, stared, and one
or two put their hands to their mouths. Orthodocia looked unhappy.
Our host said something to a servant, and he presently came in with
three trays heaped high w 7 ith further confections. Orthodocia spent
the next quarter of an hour in declining them.
I think — I say I think — for who could undertake to write ac-
curately of the sequences of a Japanese dinner ? — that it was at this
point that the eels came on, split into neat little finger-lengths on tiny
wooden splints and broiled, unmistakably broiled. If they had been
raw Orthodocia told me afterwards that the fear of no amount of
social degradation would have induced her to eat them, which made
me tremble for Orthodocia, for it showed a departure from the way
in which she had been brought up. The eels were not very bad,
though they would have been better with a little salt, and we be-
came more cheerful at this point. And the next thing was a
wonderful fruit made chiefly of sugar and uncooked rice flour, which
we gathered ourselves from the branches of the little tree it grew on
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 115
floor, each with a strange
stringed instrument in her
arms. A tiny hand glided
, . over its samisen , a low,
‘ SIIE WAS A PROFESSIONAL DANCER/
plaintive cry came from it,
and one uprose before us to dance. She w T as a geisha — a professional
dancer. She represented the highest form of Japanese amusement,
and she amused the foreign gentlemen, too, sometimes. And her
in the pot the servant
handed about. We con-
sumed the fruit, but
Orthodocia grew very
silent.
Then came a pause
in our feasting, and the
nearest w T all vanished to
disclose three very gay
little maids postured
in the middle of the
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
1 1 6
dancing — it was not the dancing of any gnome or fairy one had ever
imagined, still less of any human being one had ever seen. It was
the dancing of a still little face, with a set smile of coquetry that
came when it was summoned, of an undulating little body and slowly
turning feet, and it all seemed responsive to the crying of the sam -
isen from the flitting hand of her friend on the floor. She held a
fan, too, a frail paper thing that the samisen opened and closed at its
pleasure ; and she looked like a creature of papier mache \ that moved
obedient to the laws of the Science of Decoration,
The samisen wailed once more and the little geisha sank to her
first posture among her twisted draperies of blue and gold, and then
the wall closed again, and our attention was diverted to a series of very
beautiful fishes. They were quite dead, indeed they had been cooked
in some way, but one of them was presented to each of us, and as
they were at least two -pounders this was embarrassing. We had
also to experiment upon them with chop-sticks, which was more em-
barrassing. I had just made an excavation of about half an inch
square in mine when the oE sama on the other side of me blushed
violently, leaned toward me and said, ‘It is not necessary all to eat.
It is given, and will to-morrow eat be sufficient.’
Orthodocia heard with an agonised sigh of relief and dropped her
chop-sticks. I looked at her reprovingly, and she made a pun which
was so bad that I submit it herewith to illustrate her state of mind.
‘ It is only,’ she said, ‘ the groaning of the festive bored ! ’
More dainties, and then three geishas again, one of whom sang a
koto song, which was a mournful melody in three notes. Orthodocia
grew very restive under the next set of dishes, which included a
roasted bird of some sort, stuffed with preserved cherries, with all its
feathers on. The little ladies removed the feathers very daintily before
helping themselves, but they got hopelessly mixed with the cherries
in the little Owari bowls in the laps of Orthodocia and me. By this
time I did not dare to be restive, the lightest movement brought on
a series of the wildest tortures. And after we had disposed of the
feathered cherries or the cherried feathers, the third and last geisha
performed her little performance, which was a story — a haggard tale
of woe, I believe, but it made all the oE samas laugh consumedly. . . .
At last, just as Orthodocia had implored me to ‘make a move ’ and I
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 117
had assured her that it was physically impossible, we were politely
made aware that the feast was over. The process of farewell was a long
one, and cost us elaborate agonies ; but we were finally straightened
out and stood on our more or less incapable legs, and sent home
feeling much like very valuable pieces of furniture of the reign of
Queen Anne. In our jinrikishas, when we arrived at ichi banchi , ni
chome, Fugi-mi-cho Kudan , each of us found a daintily-made square
box, with a carved twig for the handle of the lid. In each box was the
tai fish as our feeble chop-sticks had left it, a large pink rose with
green leaves in rice-flour confectionery, and Orthodocia had the head
and I the tail of the cherried fowl I have told you about. It was
the last of Mrs. J okichi Tomita’s dinner party.
iio
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XIII
Now, Orthoclocia and I kept ourselves reminded of our foreign origin,
there among the flapping blue gowns and clattering wooden sandals
that resounded so endlessly round the bon-bon box we lived in on
the hill of Kudan, by taking in an English newspaper of Yokohama.
We did not care much about the newspaper, because it insisted upon
treating the droll, wonderful, many-tinted fairy tale that Japan was
to us, quite seriously, and disposing of its affairs in paragraphs that
might have been written in Fleet Street or Broadway — paragraphs
upon the navy and the universities, and the import duties and treaty
revision, that alternated with news notes about the electric light
system of Yokohama, or the extension of railway lines into the in-
terior, or the 1 political banquet/ at which Count Kuroda was * in
the chair.’ What business, we thought resentfully, had Count
Kuroda ‘ in the chair ’ when, according to every tradition of his
delightful country, he should have been on the floor ? After an
evening ride through Tokio, dreaming among her thousand dainty
lanterns, or wakeful under her thousand flitting shadows that jested
and coquetted and passed on, it was like a disagreeable waking up
to open next morning’s paper, damp with disillusionment and brist-
ling with these things — to say nothing of news ‘ by cable ’ that told
us of the other world from which we had come and to which, alas !
we must soon return. But occasionally we found compensation in
the Herald. It informed us of the coming and the going of the mails,
for instance ; and one day it told us of a bazaar to be given in aid
of a hospital charity by 4 the ladies of Tokio.’
Orthodocia read this aloud in a displeased manner ; then, in spite
of the lingering J apanese idea in the garments of Mr, Takayanagi’s
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 119
garden party and the indisputably Japanese flavour of the entremets
at Mrs. Jokichi Tomita’s dinner, she made the following state-
ments :
< We are too late for Japan ! ’ she said, bitterly. ‘ The island
that once existed on this side of Asia has invented a new process of
lacquer, with European
playing their dear little samisens, and sitting on their dear little
heels — where are they ? Molesting unprotected young Japanese
gentlemen with entreaties to buy a lottery ticket for a hand-painted
pincushion ! ’
I begged my friend, for her consolation, to remember the feathered
120
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
cherries of Mrs. Tomita and the soaring compliments of Mr. Ichitaro
Takayanagi ; also the visit which she had premeditated, and then
basely fled from, to Mr. Takayanagi’s mamma ; but privately I agreed
with her complaint, and publicly I advise you, if you want to see
the Land of the Rising Sun in anything like pristine simplicity, to
travel eastward soon, for already she is girt about with a petticoat,
and presently she will want to vote.
We went to the bazaar, however, and found that we were not
altogether too late for Japan. It was conducted upon European
principles, but its conductors were not Europeans, and the principles
seemed to work erratically, as if they did not feel at home.
The bazaar was held in a building put up by the paternal Japanese
Government to foster social intercourse among the official classes on
the European plan — to be a club-house in short. It was the advanced
idea of a certain foreign minister, who returned from special pleni
poing somewhere in Europe with the opinion that his countrymen
sat down too much in the evenings. The Government, therefore,
built, upon foreign plans, a place of resort for them, in which they
could be induced, among other things, to stand up ; and put billiard-
tables in it for muscular development, and a bar, doubtless to sti-
mulate circulation. I regret that I cannot give you the figures
of the mental, moral, and physical improvement that immediately
followed. Orthodocia tried to get them, but they had not yet been
tabulated.
I cannot say positively that the Mikado and his advisers had
anything further to do with the affair than granting the use of the
premises, but that bazaar certainly seemed directly under the super-
vision and control of the State Department. We passed through a
double file of solemn-faced little policemen to the door, and there met
an official who took our tickets as if he would have preferred a cer-
tificate of character attached. One gets in the way, in Japan, of
trembling before the least of uniforms, they take their gold lace
so seriously and wear the little shining chrysanthemum of their
emperor with such a redoubtable air of authority. The atmosphere
inside was full of officialism and severe-looking monkeys in braid and
buttons, whom we could not possibly connect with any triviality in
Kensington stitch that might be displayed upstairs. They stood
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 121
helplessly about in the lobby, these prim and dapper representatives
of the bureaucracy of Japan, eyeing the ladies as they tripped in
and up, but filled with a reasonable fear of following them. The
reputation of our charity shop had evidently preceded it, and a civil
service income is a civil service income all the world over.
But upstairs there were no trivialities in Kensington stitch, or
any other stitch. There was no gruesome vegetation hand-painted
by amateurs. There were no baby -jackets knitted to imitate the
warmth and durability of an April cloud, no perfumed handkerchief
sachets, or embroidered tobacco-pouches, or beaded chairbacks, that
give the sitter cold agonies— but let me not grow maledictory under
a possible feminine eye that acknowledges and loves these things !
All I want to say is that this bazaar wasn’t really related to the
family of that name that we are acquainted with at all. It had
simply been bought up, every article of it, at bazaars outside that
were not charitable, and it looked more like a little narrow street of
Tokio wholly devoted to the elegant requirements of society than
anything else. Why was the antimacassar absent and the mantel -
drape a-lacking ? Because the 5 ladies of Tokio,’ laudably ambitious
of the correct thing in charities as they are, are not yet quite equal
to it from a manufacturing standpoint. The pleasant embroideries
of J apan are the employment of people who make them a business,
and the foreign needle is not conquered yet. It is even so that
certain of the bolder ladies of J apanese fashion have shaken their
little heads disapprovingly over the crewel-work perpetrations of
their Western sisters, and confided to one another that they might
be very wonderful and difficult to achieve, but they were hideous — •
very hideous indeed. And why should one devote one’s life to the
production of ugliness at infinite pains ? And for the little ok J samas
who had not the foolish audacity of this opinion, their lives had
other idylls probably — The fingering of the melancholy koto, the
arrangement of the household vase — or domestic cares supervened
the charge of many cupboards and innumerable mats.
In other respects, however, we found that these gentle almond
eyes had slanted across the Pacific at our commercial charity to
some purpose. Their faithfulness to our tariff left nothing to be
desired, and they had improved upon our method of enforcing it.
122
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Beside the main attacking body behind the stalls, there were flying
squadrons, and outposts and scouts. The solid work was done by
the dowagers ; recurring charges were made by bevies of young
married ladies, and these were reinforced by numbers of native
gentlemen who went about single-handed with most insinuating and
destructive effect. Entering, Orthodocia and I were blandly cap-
tured by one of these. He approached us with the modest, ingenious
air of the man who has been introduced last season, and is afraid he
is forgotten, yet has every
taining the next dance. He
manner, the manner of a
smile, and his
wave of his hand
seductive of the
melt and run to-
gracious complex
his small brown
indicating a stork
was caressing,
outstretched, as
teacup, the thin
upper lip which is
tation of a mous-
European clothes
all, but a little
dummy in a
tiny gold star
of his coat. His
select, syllabic.
Japan, and had
with the daughters
BUT I TOOK THE MONKEY
HOME.’
intention of ob-
had a charming
diplomatist ; his
bow, and the
toward the most
stalls seemed to
gether into one
curve. When
member was not
in gold lacquer, it
with the little finger
an old maid holds a
black line on his
the Japanese imi-
tache. He wore his
not awkwardly at
like a very elegant
tailor’s shop. A
shone in the lappel
English was careful,
He belonged to Hew
probably danced
of princes at foreign
courts. He was equally polite and persuasive, whether we admired
a fifty-yen enamelled screen or a five-sen lacquered sugar spoon.
He made an agreeable effort to step back, as it were, to our British
point of view in considering purchases, and amiably speculated with
us. I vacillated between a really clever little carved wooden monkey
at twenty sen, and a trashy paper workbasket at one yen fifty. Ho
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 123
looked at one and at the other, and then, picking up the painted
humbug with the air of a connoisseur, ‘ corner- a-tive-ly cheap/
he said, ‘com-y>«r-a-tive-ly cheap.’ But I remembered the antipodal
character of Japanese views generally, and took the monkey.
Orthodocia fell a victim to an old lady in native costume, a
countess, I believe, as countesses go in Japan. She was of a past
generation ; she spoke no English. Doubtless she regarded her
children proudly in their imported garments, and made flattering
obeisance before her elder son ; but they had departed from the
ways of their mother and of ancient Nippon, and she understood
nothing of their strange new ambitions. Her face was round, and
brown, and sweet, and her gold comb shone above it as other coro-
nets do. Her shoulders drooped womanly beneath her silk kimono ,
and her toddle was worth many strides of the female suffragist.
She did not quite plead, or quite coax, or quite command Orthodocia
into that bronze goddess ; but her soft, low Japanese phrases, with
their ever-recurring ‘ So desuka ? ’ 1 her beguiling bowing attitudes,
with her head now on this side, now on that, in gently persistent
inquiry, suggested all three. As for Orthodocia, she stood fascinated,
leaning on her parasol before her captor, winder and amusement
lurking behind her eyes. She was finally startled into paying for
the bronze goddess, which still charms her now and then into an
absent smile.
They told us that there were a few countesses among the young
married ladies also, but apparently this was a distinction which
nobody thought it worth while to advertise ; and we did not hear
of any aristocratic enhancement of values. The young married
ladies, moreover, were homogeneous in their foreign clothes, and
the uninitiated could not tell them apart. So far as w r e could ob-
serve, some of the clothes came from Paris, some from Oxford Street,
some from the Bowery, and some from a Tokio dressmaker inspired
by vague European ideals. These latter rather made us think of
the J apanese lion, popularly decorative in wood, stone, bronze, and
porcelain, and commonly taken for a dragon. The artist who intro-
duced him had never seen a lion, and the innocently fat and ferocious
* Is it not so ?
124
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
looking creature he originated
pily conscious of a wish that
seems unhap-
he might have
| been anything
else had cir-
cumstances
permitted, over
which he had
no control.
It seemed
to us quite
wonderful
that these
little dames of
Tokio, after
the freedom
of their ante-
cedent ward-
robes for so
many genera-
tions, could
adapt them-
selves so easily
to our cramped
bodice and
multitudinous
skirts. ISTosuf-
fering what-
ever was visi-
ble upon their
countenances,
counte-
ss^- nances
which
Ortho-
^ docia
‘ AS FOR ORTHODOCIA, SUE STOOD FASCINATED, LEANING ON HER
PARASOL BEFORE HER CAPTOR.’
ed were
n$
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
not pretty, but neat perhaps. They looked snugly and complacently
out from behind the bonnet-strings tied in bows under their un-
accustomed little chins ; and yet Orthodocia declared that the size
of their waists was entirely incompatible with dining on the floor
without the most appalling tortures, and she spoke with conviction.
We learned, though, that they have not yet fully entered the bonds
of servitude, that the comfortable kimono is still in a convenient
cupboard for private wear, and the gorgeously-embroidered obis are
not yet all sold to the curio dealers. They are still experimenting,
still amused ; and nobody seems to have told them that they are
trying to do what we have concluded to try to undo. They have
not put on our manners with our clothes ; they cling to their dear
little bows of extreme humility, hands on knees ; and it was inter-
esting to watch the rear elevation of the stiff, short, puffed skirts and
the fashionable tournure when countess met countess in a shock of
politeness. And it was very funny to find, even in Japan, that
nervous lady who never knows exactly what society requires of her.
She was quite sure of her clothes ; from a jet pin to a glove-button
she was entirely and properly European. Her bonnet-bows were
the tallest, and her heels the highest in all the quaint little company.
She climbed the broad staircase with great self-respect. At the
door she paused, looked about her in anguished uncertainty, made
up her mind with a pang of resolution, remained faithful to the way
she was brought up, stooped down, and took off her shoes !
‘ Mata kimasu ! 9 (‘I will come again’) was our only weapon of
defence against these alluring shopmen and shopwomen of the
Mikado’s aristocracy, who might have sat on the pavements and
sold curios all their lives, so had they mastered the wiles of persua-
sion. That little phrase left them with nothing but a bow of assent
and a smile of hope, though never one of them believed for an instant
in our sincerity. ‘ Mata kimasu ! ’ we said to the sellers of ivories
brown with age, of gods and goddesses, fans and paper-knives,
Satsuma vases, and cloisonne plaques, and boxes, and teapots, and
trays. i Mata kimasu ! ’ and so fled.
But would we not go downstairs and have tea and cakes — very
cheap ? We would, and did. Ah ! there were the daughters of the
nation clustering about in little shy knots in the middle of the room,
126
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
all in narrow pale blue draperies drawn tight round their ankles,
with a glint of gold round their short little waists, and a great plump
cushion behind, and faintly-tinted long silk undersleeves, and their
own wonderful shiny black coques of hair, that gave their delicately
cut faces the relief of ivory. Here had no impertinent Western
fashion interfered ; here were grace, simplicity, and sweetness ; here
were the originals of all the dear little teacup ladies we used to know.
Perhaps even now they are toppling about like their mammas in
high heels, imploring Nanki Poo to buy chrysanthemums for his
buttonhole at twenty-five sen apiece ; but last December they were
still unobtrusive, still Japanese, still brought to bazaars for decora-
tive purposes only ; and we rejoice to have seen them then.
‘ Mata himasu ! ’ we said again, taking smiling and unwilling de-
parture. And I hope you will be as polite and agreeable about it
as were the £ ladies of Tokio ’ when you find from Orthodocia at
the end of this finished chapter 1 Mata himasu ! }
OUR JOURNEY ROUND TI1E WORLD
1 27
XIV
It had come from the Secretary of the American Legation, with a
polite note which translated it to he an invitation from His Imperial
Americans are such unceremonious people though/ she said. ‘ I dare
say it will never occur to them/
On the way :
‘ ILuydah ! 1 . . . £ Iloudah! ’ 'Huy dali!' . . . c Iloudah ! 9
It was such a patient cry, with such submissive gentle cheer in
it, and so musical withal ! Not glad or light-hearted, nor with any-
thing of reckless strong courage ; for how indeed could that be,
when it panted forth from the straining lungs of men who labour as
horses do, with all their might of arm and strength of will and power
of purpose, harnessed between two shafts ! Up the long paved hill
streets of the great cities all over J apan they toil, these man animals,
heads bent, eyes suffused, wet brown skin shining over tightened
muscles ; one pulling before, the other pushing behind, sending
great loads of rice and timber through miles of narrow roads from
sunrise to sunset, and calling the one to the other for the nameless
Majesty the Mikado,
the new palace that
paration for him, on
Days before the Au-
in. There was no
invitation so far as
we did not answer it,
that our American
our acknowledgments
kado the next time
to visit and inspect
has been years in pre-
one of three Last
gust Presence moved
1 THE IMPEUIAE PERSON.’
‘ P. S. V. P/ on the
we could discover, so
and Orthodocia hoped
friends would make
properly to the Mi-
they saw him. ‘These
128 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
sympathy and encouragement of the human voice, £ Iluydali-! ) . . ,
Houdah ! 1
It filled in the gaps between all the sounds we heard as we rode
to the Emperor’s palace.
And it was a long ride to the Emperor’s palace from the hill of
Kudan, though the moat that guarded it curved through the city
within a stone’s throw of our sliding door. If it had not been for
the sentry we might have crossed one of the arched wooden bridges,
and entered privily the seat of the Imperial representative of the
gods of Japan. But the sentry was there, and the moat was deep,
and the walls were high ; and only one gate of all the many en-
trances to the palace was opened by mandate that day. So we had
to follow the brown shining water and the quaint granite defences
for quite two miles before we found ourselves admitted within the
outer wall of the grounds of the sacred habitation.
I am not at all sure that I am warranted in saying that this was
a veritable Last Day before the moving in of the Imperial Person.
For aught I know he may still be inaugurating Last Days and in-
viting confiding foreigners to believe that he is just on the verge of
changing his ways for theirs. It was difficult to get him to begin
to inaugurate them, I believe, on account of the conservative nature
of his tastes, but now that he had begun there was no reason why
he might not conciliate his advisers by going on indefinitely. His
habit had been, up to that time, to appoint a date with vague amia-
bility some distance off, settle down on his tatami to the solid com-
forts of life till the date came round, and then obligingly reappoint
it. The reason I understood to lie in the fact that His Majesty is
not keen on all lie’s seen that’s European, and the fundamental ideas
of the new palace are distinctly European. Being a Mikado he
feels himself superior to the fashions. He has an enormous respect
for his ancestors, of such proportions that he finds it difficult at
times to carry about with him ; and the fact that they sat on the
floor weighs with him. Then he was opposed to the actual change
from the old palace on superstitious grounds. The abode he was
accustomed to came to him ready hallowed, the new one lie will
have to hallow by his own unaided exertions ; and people who are
well acquainted with him say that he will find this difficult.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 129
But the embarrassment of the situation for the Imperial advisers
carried us straight back to the plaintive difficulties of Koko.
There seems to be no easy or obvious or reliable way of disciplining
a Mikado.
4 What is your busi-
ness % ’ inquired the first
small gold- laced person
who took our cards of
admission.
4 To see the
palace ! 1 answered
Orthodocia with
promptitude.
The little offi-
cial looked up at
her fiercely
from under
his eyebrows,
but as his
glance dwelt
upon her the
fierceness
faded out of
it, and we passed
on, leaving him
gazing ecstatic with
uplifted chin at
the spot in the
firmament above
him where the ra-
diant vision had
appeared.
4 What is your
dignity 'l ’ said the
next obstruction, who received our visiting cards and scrutinised us
very closely. It seemed that this also should be self-evident, but
I regret to say that we obscured it still further by levity, which
tiie mikado’s
PALACE.
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
130
the solemn functionary with the gold chrysanthemum in his cap
resented, so far as a severe J apanese expression of countenance can
resent.
‘We have rather lost sight of it since coming to Japan/ said
Orthodocia, again rising to the occasion ; £ I have not seen mine
since we left the Grand Hotel in Yokohama. But I have no doubt/
she went on politely, ‘ that if I have left it there it will be forwarded
in the course of a few days/
This seemed to be satisfactory, and they let us in.
I don’t believe there is anything in the world that a Japanese
palace is like from the outside except itself, and perhaps the temple
wherein the lord of the palace worships his unknown god. A great,
low, in-going curve of a blackened tiled roof with wide eaves that
seem to be quite two-thirds of the whole, and low white walls ; and
this repeated in varying sizes that cluster together, the whole set in
such gardens, ingeniously pinched and tortured, as I have told you
of, or perhaps half-hidden behind a score of grotesquely gnarled pine
trees — that is the abode of blood-royal in Japan, and the most im-
posing architectural idea one finds there. It is repeated in the
temples, with a dusky riot of coloured beasts all round where the
frescoes ought to be, and a succession of many steps leading to the
squalid mystery of the interior. And we saw very little more than
that as we walked up the broad drive within the walls of the palace
of the Mikado himself.
We found ourselves presently in a wide corridor. The ceiling
was high, and squared off with partitions like frames, and from each
frame a vari-coloured design shone down on us. Some of the de-
signs were painted on silk, some were lacquered on wood, some were
made in tapestry, and looked like antimacassars transfixed in their
flight to a better world. The walls were done in cream silk,
covered with a beautiful sweeping design in gold, the floor was of
cedar and inlaid, and the plate-glass doors, through which one saw
the magnificence of the reception-rooms, stood in great, massive,
lacquered red-brown frames that gave back one’s face like mirrors.
Let into the lower parts of them were marvels in ivory relief, ferns
and flowers, buds and berries, fruit and fishes, standing forth in
perfect imitative beauty, as they might have grown out of the wood.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 131
It was late in the clay, and we found ourselves almost alone in these
strange surroundings, which expressed an odd mixture of Japanese
art and foreign ideals. One little ok’ sama toddled on in front of us,
her small black head bent curiously forward like a bird’s, full of
nervous alarm, and bowing low to the official who passed her. It
was a very great episode in her life, this glimpse of the halls of the
Mikado, though she must have been the wife of an officer of rank to
be admitted, and she knew it beseemed her to walk reverently.
At the door of the corridor I felt a curious sensation in my
fingers, which led me to draw forth my note-book and try to put on
one of its pages what I saw before me — the wide, smooth courtyard,
the queer dark walls with their concave outlines, the stone bouquet
of electric lights, the gaunt pines beyond. There was nobody about
but a little policeman, who looked at me with serious alarm. He
stood on one foot with perturbation, he stood on the other with
vacillation ; he brought up on both of them with dignity, approached,
discovered my presumption, and scurried off. Orthodocia was con-
vinced that he had gone to bring the Mikado, and implored me so
that by the time he had returned with seven others greater than
himself I had finished, and was simply standing with my friend in
an affectionate attitude and rapt admiration of the view. There
seemed no reason to interfere with that, so they circled round us
once or twice and then retired to confer. But in any case it would
have been impossible to be afraid of guardians of the peace — even
seven of them — who wore carpet slippers. Orthodocia said that any
enterprising foreigner would simply have used them for implements
of chastisement.
Except that the colour schemes differed, the great reception-
rooms were very much alike, Japanese as to the ceilings and the
walls, and European in every other place. One had a floor of inlaid
squares in pale brown woods, and a cornice embossed in metal on
a pale blue ground. The furniture w^as of blue plush, figured in
yellow, and the walls vrere luminous with gold. Two great im-
ported bronzes, German equestrian things, stood in the middle of the
room, and about these were arranged those circular seats that give
people such admirable opportunities for conversing with the backs
of their necks. It was all very ambitious and very huge — the big
132
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
dining-room where His Majesty can do the Imperial honours tor
eighty -two guests at once, the waiting-rooms for people who are to
receive an audience, and the throne-room itself. We paused at the
throne-room, which was done wholly in crimson, with stunning bar-
barism. The walls were crimson flocked with gold, the floor was
black and crimson, the furniture was crimson and gorgeously
tasselled, and the tall canopy under which the Mikado and the Em-
press sit as the
crimson too. The
this was silk and
covered with tiny
while a big one
Two tall golden
three white plumes,
a heavily-lacquered
marvellous
I suppose it
saw any-
cate in J a-
were gene-
The curious
returned to
and my
came out
did a wiry
in European
had been
ever since I
audacity to
bit of the Mikado’s
courtyard to memory. I drew the dais, and he peeped furtively
over my shoulder. Orthodocia made a remark to him to divert
his attention, but he took no notice of her, which convinced me
that he was bordering upon temporary aberration. I went on
with the side hangings ; he began to wring his hands. The police-
men were all there. They discussed the matter volubly among
themselves. They made a ring round me and danced, and very
throng passes by, was
curtain at the back of
cream - coloured , and
gold chrysanthemums,
blazed in the middle,
rods, each topped by
supported the affair, and
slab at each side bore
racters in gold on it.
poetry — whenever we
thing particularly intri-
panese hieroglyphics we
rally told it was poetry.
sensation
my fingers,
note-book
again. So
little official
clothes who
watching us
had had the
FOR A EETTER VIEW OF THE FEATHERS •.
I DROPPED UPON MY KNEES.’ COmmit a
133
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
nearly took to fisticuffing with one another in then: hysteria.
They came closer, and I didn’t know whether to expect death by
asphyxia or decapitation. For a better view of the feathers I
dropped upon my knees. They took the posture to be one of adora-
tion, but still failed to understand the pencil. They began to talk
to me, and one ventured to twitch my sleeve. ‘ Ok’ sama ! ’ he im-
plored, ‘ OE sarna!’ But it is reasonable to be deaf to Japanese,
and £ Ok’ sama ! ’ was oblivious, and sacrilegiously sketched on. A
messenger was despatched, and went with trembling speed. He re-
turned with an official who spoke English, but his English was at
such a white heat that it was practically useless to him. The fact
bubbled forth, however, that I was doing a thing unlawful and
punishable, so I stopped. I didn’t want to risk anything lingering.
We can never, never tell by what means we got a glimpse that
afternoon, not only of the State part of the palace, but of the
domestic Japanese part— the part sacred to the use of their Imperial
Majesties themselves. If we did, somebody might get boiling oil.
Orthodocia says she knows now exactly what it must feel like to be
a Freemason, and go about longing to tell what nobody wants to
know, and she wishes we hadn’t seen it. But this is what it was like.
It is under a separate roof, is twenty-five feet higher up, and is
connected with the rest of the palace only by corridors. In its heart
there is a little chapel, very plain, perhaps eighteen feet square, with
bamboo blinds on the windows, and simple tatami 1 on the floor. Very
little else, except the inevitable Shinto looking-glass — to remind the
prayer-maker who looks therein that his sins are seen as he sees his
face. There the Mikado would retire every morning when he took
possession, and muse upon the ancestors without whose aid he would
have no palace, and no chapel to muse in. There is a popular state-
ment to the effect that the Mikado inspects his own face carefully
in the looking-glass every morning, and then prays diligently for all
the shortcomings of the people. It may be true, and again it may
be only another of the little Imperial scandals the stranger hears.
For one does not gather much that is reliable about Imperial
domesticity in J apan ; and this is not surprising in a country that
can still look over its shoulder at a time when the person of the
’ Matting,
134
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Mikado was so sacred that he could not take it out of the palace
himself. The air is full of stories, told by Europeans ; but they bear
their own stamp of un veracity ; and the Japanese themselves protect
their sensitiveness about their Mikado’s moral and intellectual
stature by a lacquer of polite ignorance. To queries as to his in-
terests, his aims, his occupations, they have only one answer, usually
accompanied by a shrug, which is not quite discreet — ‘ Makari-
masen 1 ’ — ‘ I have not the slightest idea ! 9 So between the prejudice
of its guests and the pride of its subjects, the gold chrysanthemum is
very well protected from any trial by fire, and glitters before the world
with all the virtues of true Imperial metal taken for granted.
Orthodocia has a photograph of the gentleman in question, however,
and I mean to borrow it for Mr. Townsend to make a picture of.
Then you will see for yourself that he looks more like the subtrac-
tion of the graces than the sum of the virtues.
As you have perhaps gathered from these pages aforetime, the
Japanese idea of household decoration does not admit of much variety,
and it is not surprising to find the only difference between the rooms
of the Emperor and Empress and those of their well-to-do subjects
to be an added fineness of texture and richness of lustre and grace
of line. The same paper panels for walls, the same dainty alcoves,
the same polished tree trunks for division, the same suggestion of
colour and curve for beauty, in these rooms of the twelve ladies-in
waiting, as in the house of a servant of the Government at fifteen
hundred a year. Of course the glittering birds flashing in and
out of dark storm-clouds on the wall are pure gold, and designed by
an artist who is much more than the William Morris of Japan, but
there the distinction ends. Art is art all over this quaint little
island ; art is almost air, for everybody breathes it ; and the person
of the Mikado himself is not more sacred from travesty on the walls
of any of his subjects. When the furniture, or the Japanese sub-
stitute for it, goes in, however, majesty may assert itself in some
upholstered way. I did not see the furniture.
There is one place more sacred than the chapel, more sacred than
any spot in the whole island of Nippon — a certain small room in the
very centre of the Imperial quarters, used exclusively by the Mikado,
which does not know the profanation q£ the foot of man — for the
135
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
Mikado himself is not a man but an Emperor. There he is served
by pages and women, and the noblest of his ministers dare not enter.
Orthodocia could not understand this objection of His Majesty to his
own sex. To her, she said, its members and adherents had always
seemed harmless enough ; but we concluded that it was for some
obscure reason connected with his ancestors.
He has an Empress, and a son, this Mikado. The son is being
educated at a school for nobles— we often met him being driven to
and from his lessons — and they told us that he had absorbed the idea
of his own consequence to such an extent that he would not play
with other little boys unless they took their caps off. The Empress
is occasionally to be seen — rather a pretty little woman, and much
in sympathy with the progressive movements of the country. I
don’t know how far an Empress of J apan is permitted to rule the
affairs of her own household, but there is no doubt that the Court
— at all events, the Court en evidence — is conforming more and more
to the customs of the West. Ten years ago Her Majesty stared im-
passive into the space immediately surrounding the prostrate figure
of the person enjoying the honour of presentation, like a Japanese
doll on exhibition for its ability to wink. Now she smiles and bows,
and to certain privileged people gives her hand. A year or two ago the
Court went so far as to forbid the appearance, anywhere in its sacred
vicinity, of anything but full dress according to European standards.
The edict has been lately withdrawn, but very few of her subjects
have gone back to the J apanese Court costume in consequence, as
she has not. Two chamberlains and the Court physician still sit at
the door of the State dining-room to taste the dishes and expire
first, in polite indication to their Majesties that the cook has not been
irritating enough to put strychnine into them ; but this is a survival,
and otherwise the official banquets might be given by the Lord Mayor
in most respects. And though these gastronomic attaches of the
Middle Ages invariably accompany them, their Majesties go out to
dine upon occasion now. They even receive the bureaucracy of Tokio,
and such foreigners as are introduced by the Legations at two garden
parties a year — poetical garden parties that celebrate the flush of
spring on the blossoming cherry trees, and the glory of autumn in
the coming of the tattered yellow chrysanthemums,
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
136
But we must come back to Orthodocia in the wide corridors of
the palace, who observed dotted here and there about the grounds
other white temple-like habitations, and was given to understand
that they were sub-matrimonial.
We stood for a moment upon the lacquered threshold of this de-
scendant of the gods who rules J apan, looking away across his capital
city with its thousands of tiny roofs, its curving moats, and the dark
wandering lines of pine trees that mark its greater highways. It
was not yet time for darkness and rest, and we heard the labour and
the weariness and the failing heart of the long day’s end in the call
and the answer that throbbed up to us there at the door of the
Emperor’s palace, £ Iluydah 1 ’ , , . 1 If oudah l ’
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
157
XV
I wonder, as I regard all that I have already told you about the
doings of Orthodocia and me in Japan, how I have kept away from
them so long — I mean the shops ; the marvellous, whimsical, quaint
little shops. I have some qualms of conscience about it, too, for I
have been submitting what purports to be a full and faithful chronicle
of the way we spent our time there ; and the undeniable fact is that
we spent a great deal more of it in the shops than anywhere else.
It was not intentional. We often walked out for exercise, oppor-
tunities for it being limited indoors ; but the exercise was invariably
taken in sittings of three hours each upon the floor of some small
wonder-market that we particularly affected. Or we sallied forth
in our jinrikishas, guide-book in hand, determined to do our duty
by the stock sights of Tokio. The jinrikisha men are not allowed
to run side by side for fear of blocking up the thoroughfare ; but as
soon as Orthodocia in advance missed me in the rear, she simply
cried ‘ Halt ! ’ in J apanese to her biped ; descended and shopped
until I turned up, which was usually too late for the guide-book.
You have heard of the eruption at Bandai-san ? On one occasion
we were going to the scene of it, about twenty-four hours’ journey
from Tokio, having made an appointment with the Japanese railway
system for ten a.m. O11 the way to the station Orthodocia fell
among porcelain vendors, and that is one reason why we were ob-
liged to leave Japan without any practical working knowledge of
earthquakes whatever.
And it is not reasonable, in pages of a volume published primarily
and particularly for the sex that loves to shop, to postpone an ac-
count of the Japanese method further. Will you go a day’s bargain
158 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
hunting then, in the Land of the Rising Sun, with Orthodocia and
me ?
This you must learn first — that a £ yen 9 is a dollar, a £ sen 9 is a
cent, a 1 ri 9 is the tenth of a cent. More than one £ ri ’ are so many
1 rin 9 £ /cAi/ £ m/ £ £ sAi/ £ go 9 express one, two, three, four,
five to the native mind. £ Jiu 9 is ten, and in the multiplication of
1 jiu 9 you prefix the lesser numbers, as £ ni-jiuj for twenty. In
adding to ‘jiu 9 you affix them, as ‘jiu-ni 9 for twelve. The proper
understanding of this point is indispensable. The difference looks
unimportant in print, but after you have paid £ san-jiu yen 9 a
few times for a thing you thought you offered thirteen dollars for,
you begin to realise it. £ Yasui 9 is cheap, £ takai 9 is dear, and
£ takuscm 9 is £ plenty/ used for £ very 9 by the hob -nailed tourist who
does not object to ungrammatical bargains — £ Takuscm takai ! 9 And
the indispensable £ How much % 9 is £ Ikura ? 9 When a person dies
who has once visited J apan, £ Ikura ? 9 will be found indelibly stamped
across his acquisitive faculties. It becomes the interrogative of value
to him for all time. Whatever his tongue may say, his soul will
never ask a price again in any other terms.
This may seem a little inadequate as a Japanese vocabulary, but
I am not coaching you for an examination in Oriental tongues ; and
when you go to Japan you will find it a compendium of all that
is useful and elegant in the language. I present it with some
gratification as the net result of philological researches that covered
an area of six weeks, and beg that you will use it just as if it were
your own whenever you require it, on this present or any subse-
quent occasion.
I don’t know that I ought to say that we are going £ shopping.’
The term is improper and impertinent in the Mikado’s empire, but
no appreciative person with a sense of commercial niceties has yet
invented a better one. You don’t £ shop ’ in the accepted sense in
Japan. Shopping implies premeditation, and premeditation is in
vain there. If you know what you want, your knowledge is set
aside in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and your purchases
gratify anticipations that you never had — to be entirely paradoxical.
The taint of vulgarity which great and noisy £ emporiums ’ have cast
upon the word is also absent there, So is the immorality of competing
139
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
prices. To shop in Japan is to perforin an elaborate function which
operates directly on the soul ; its effect upon the pocket is an ulterior
consideration which does not appear at all until three days later,
when one’s first ecstasy is overpast. Then, perhaps, psychical
luxuries strike one as being a little expensive.
And you never fully know the joy of buying until you buy in
Japan. Life condenses itself into one long desire, keener and more
intense than any want you have ever had before — the desire of paying
and possessing. The loftiest aims are swallowed up in this ; the
sternest scientist, or political economist, or social theorist that was
ever set ashore at Yokohama straightway loses life’s chief end among
the curio shops, and it is at least six weeks before he finds it again.
And as to the ordinary individual, like you and Orthodocia and me,
without the guidance of superior aims, time is no more for her, nor
things temporal ; she is lost in contemplation of the ancient and the
eternal in the art of Nippon ; and she longs to be a man that she
might go to the unspeakable length of pawning her grand-aunt’s
watch, or selling her own boots in order to carry it off with her to
the extent of the uttermost farthing within her power. At least,
that is the way Orthodocia said she felt. Don’t imagine you ever
experienced anything like it in a Japanese shop in London, where
the prices give you actual chills, and the demeanour of the ladies-
in-waiting lowers the temperature further. Japan can’t be exported
with her bric-a-brac , and, after all, it is Japan you succumb to first,
and her bronzes and porcelains afterwards.
Our European friends, who live in the district of Tsukigi, in the
only houses in Tokio that have chimneys, have the temerity to ad-
vise us to go to the foreign shops of Yokohama to make our purchases.
‘ There,’ they say, ‘ you will see a much greater assortment, and you
won’t be cheated.’
‘Go to a foreign shop ! ’ Orthodocia exclaims. ‘ Traffic with an
ordinary, business-like ’ — with loathing — 4 Englishman or American,
when one may be charmed into a transaction by these charmers of
J apan ! ’ while I say something indignantly about not having lived
a month in the country without knowing the Japanese scale of prices.
All of which they receive in smiling silence, telling us later that they
did not expect for a moment that we would listen, that nobody ever
did at first.
140
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
He sits there, doth Yano-san, all in the midst of his temptations,
with his liibachi 1 beside him, his wife behind him, and his various
offspring round about him. Yano-san smokes thoughtfully. His
pipe is a bamboo stem with metal ends, and the bowl thereof would
not make a baby’s thimble. He fills it at intervals, lights it at the
liibachi , takes two long whiffs, taps out the ash, and relapses into
meditation, his blue kimono falling over his stooping shoulders, his
face the face of one who takes life with serious philosophy. While
we are yet afar off Yano-san becomes aware of us, with an intuition
that makes us wonder. His face changes, he no longer ponders the
problem of life and the future state ; he is up and doing, smiling,
bowing, dusting off his best curios with a lively hope. And we ?
We stand fascinated, giving over our hearts to greed. It never
occurs to us that curio shops in Japan are as thick as the leaves on
a mulberry tree. This is the only one the land has for us ; this
pleased and flattered person with a world of calculation behind the
politeness in his eyes, the single vendor of Tokio with whom we
have the slightest desire to do business. Four bareheaded women
with babies on their backs, five small boys, and a couple of young
students in felt hats are presently regarding three pairs of buttoned
boots on the threshold with attentive interest. Their owners are
inside getting great bargains.
I fancy I see you.
‘ That Satsuma incense burner — ikura h 9
Yano-san picks it up musingly, turns it round, and steps back a
pace for a point of view as if he had never seen the article in his
life before.
‘ Sono 2 — takusan numb’ one — very many old — sono ! — san yen ,
go-jiu sen 1 9 with a mighty effort at decision.
‘Three dollars and a half!’ I ejaculate at your elbow. ‘It
would be at least six in America ! Better take it, hadn’t you ? —
quick — before he raises the price. Lovely thing ! But they always
cheat foreigners — offer three twenty-five for it.’
‘ San yen , ni-jiu-go sen ! 9 You enunciate distinctly, but with
trepidation lest your bargain be lost.
A gentle shade passes over the countenance of Yano-san, con-
1 Fire-pot, i That.
142
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
cealing his triumph. He shakes his head doubtfully and looks sadly
at the incense-burner. Suddenly he looks up. £ Yurosli ! ? 1 he says,
with cheerful
resignation,
and compunc-
tion steals in-
to your soul.
Perhaps, after
‘the cheapest thing in deagons oethodocia
EVEE SAW.’
all, you have been over-
reaching — you have so
many sen , and he such
a small stock-in-trade.
You look at his little
family, at his placid
brown wife preparing
his poor meal of rice
and pickled turnip, and
you are covered with
bitter reproaches. And
for your next fancy,
which is a kakemono
with a didactic Buddha
sitting on a lotus
blossom in the middle,
surrounded by his dis-
ciples, you pay the full
price ungrudgingly.
1 All right.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
M3
Orthodocia is sitting rapturous before a particular variety of
Japanese dragon in wood, a most delightful and original and impos-
sible of beasts, who vaults playfully into your affections on the spot,
with a smile on his broadly impertinent face and his tail flourished
high in air. He is amazingly cheap — the cheapest thing in dragons
Orthodocia ever saw ; she buys him at about a ri a pound. Un-
guardedly she says so, £ Yctsiii ! 1 she remarks, pleasantly, £ Yasui ! 1
And the price of everything in the shop goes up fifty per cent, higher
than it was before. Then we fall victims collectively and individually
to an ivory monkey smoking a pipe, and a bronze stork holding a
lotus blossom in his beak, and sets of saki cups and rice bowls, and
eld steel mirrors that reflected Japanese beauty in the days before
foreigners introduced it to the modern article called so appropriately
by the North American Indians a £ she-lookem.' The crowd about
the door swells visibly, and begins to enjoy our purchases almost as
much as we do, quietly laughing at every fresh negotiation. We
grow more excited and more enthusiastic, the glamour of Japan is
over all we see ; and we congratulate ourselves on our knowingness
in making Yano-san £ come down ’ a certain amount on almost every
article. We grow bold and cunning in our negotiations, and Yano-
san plies us with innumerable cups of green tea in the intervals
between them, to stimulate the spirit of investment. It is somewhat
in this wise. Picking up a cloisonne vase from the floor beside you,
you ask the price.
£ Shi yen shi-jiu sen,’ says Yano-san, grown prompt with prac-
tice.
1 Tdkai — tcikai ! 9 smiling ingratiatingly.
* Tcikai-na ! Yasui ! — takusan yasui ! ; still firm but polite.
‘ Takusan takai ! ’ keenly feeling your impoverishment of speech.
* San yen go jiu sen ! 1
Yano-sen shakes his head and puts the piece back in its place.
‘ Dekimasen !’ — £ I am not able J — he answers.
£ Shi yen ! 9 you offer, conceding the half-dollar. Then it appears
that Yano-san can make concessions also. He will not meet you
half-way, but he will do something.
1 Shi yen , san-jiu-go-sen-gorry ! ? he says, with the air of one who
makes a final statement. He has taken off four cents and a half.
144
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
and
YANO-SAN.
This beatings
down is de-
moralising to
one’s self-re-
spect ; but it
must be done,
and you accept
the reduction.
Farewells oc-
cur — bappy
farewells. Our
jinrikisha man
lifts up
the seat
of his
vehicle,
bestows
our purchases
under it, after
some conversa-
tion with Yano-
san. Then we
ride home, jubi-
lant with the
joy of her who
has got a great deal
for very little to our
foreign friends resident
in Tokio.
They regard the lot
with a trifle of super-
ciliousness, we think,
but set it down pri-
vately to be the jealous
criticism of people who
have missed a good
bargain.
145
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
1 And how much for that thing ? ’ indicating the Satsuma Jcoro.
1 Three twenty-five only ! ’ with pride, defiance, and resentment.
‘ Three twenty-five only ! Do you mean to say — well, of course,
if you like it so much as that — and how much for the kakemono ? ’
The price of the kakemono is received in silence. So is that of
the rampant dragon and the ivory monkey, and the stork and the
mirror, and the other objects of interest. This lack of criticism
begins to become oppressive, and vague alarms prey upon our minds.
‘Well/ one of us says ; c cheap, weren’t they ? ’
‘If you had paid one-third of the price you did pay,’ replies our
candid friend, ‘ you would have got them at their market value ; but
even then they would not have been cheap, for they are worthless at
any price.’ This is unpleasant, but salutary. It is followed by a
disquisition on each of our purchases, by which we learn that your
koro is a base imitation of Satsuma ; that your kakemono is gilt mere-
triciously, and likely to peel ; that my stork is copper, and not
bronze ; that Orthodocia’s monkey is vulgar, and her china coarse.
And we are reduced to a state of mind more nearly bordering
upon desolation than anything we have yet known.
But there are joys to come. After all, we have not left our
whole fortune with Yano-san ; and we turn our footsteps with
humility towards the despised and rejected foreign usurpers of
Yokohama. I remember one place which became a perfect resort
for Orthodocia and me after we had acquired our education. It was
the only art gallery we saw in Japan. We affected it to an ex-
tent out of all proportion to our incomes, as most people do, and we
may as well take you there on this — reminiscent — occasion.
It is a distinctly agreeable thing to see the proprietor come for-
ward to greet us as a fellow-being. We feel that we would like to
shake hands with him for doing it. We didn’t realise how deeply
we yearned for the business methods of the Philistines, for assort-
ment and choice, and room to walk about in, and unmercurial prices,
and the English language and information. To buy a curio in a
J apanese curio-shop is like investing in a piece of the Dark Ages,
unlabelled. It might be almost anything, and it is not at all likely
that your curio-dealer could enlighten you much about it if he could
talk, which he can’t. Neither does our art-collector profess to
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
146
understand his treasures fully. But it is one of his objectionable
enterprising foreign innovations — I have a distinctly American
memory of him — to introduce a Japanese connoisseur or two in his
establishment, who undertake the education of the tourist of average
intelligence in Japanese art, with alacrity and enthusiasm. I don’t
mind telling you that one of the things Orthodocia and I pledged
one another to do with great fervour, was to look deeply and carefully
into Japanese art, inquiring of the Japanese themselves. This vow is
made by everybody who goes to Japan ; but I do not mind asserting
that most of the information the average tourist acquires he owes, as
we do, to one or two of the foreign dealers of Yokohama.
One sees nothing, anywhere else in the world, like the wonders
that tempt us to ruin in this other sort of shopping in Japan. As
a nation, she measures us, and manufactures to suit what she believes
to be our taste ; and these things she sends us and no other. For
the best Japanese art we must go to Japan. It does not leave the
country as merchandise.
Just inside the door, as we enter, a Japanese artist stands in the
loose, graceful, native costume. He has been at work, and is hold-
ing, with admirable pose, his bit of ivory carving at arm’s length to
note the effect. His face is the patient, brooding, unconscious face
of the J apanese who makes beautiful things with his hands. His
expression of absorbed appreciation is perfect. His face is pale, and
his black hair falls loosely back from his forehead. His lips are set
with gentleness, and there is great pleasure in his narrow dark eyes.
The figure is a model, and the artist made it like himself. It is
marvellous in our eyes.
Ivory wonders — takusan ! The loveliest is a maiden, J apanese,
slightly idealised, as the heroine of a romance might be. She holds
a bird-cage in her hand, empty ; and her head is turned in the
direction of the truant tenant’s flight. The soft dull white of the
ivory is not vexed by any colours, but fine lines and patterns of the
most unobtrusive blacks and browns, that shade away into it deli-
cately. The folds of her dress are exquisitely long and thin and
graceful — she stands there an ephemeral thing caught imperishably,
and her price is five hundred and fifty dollars —height ten inches.
At your elbow is a tiny teapot, value five cents. Orthodocia buvs
147
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
the teapot and longs for the maiden. As she cannot possibly have
the maiden she buys another teapot.
Perhaps the most remarkable ivories there, for ingenuity and
workmanship, are two dragons, one four feet long, the other about
two, made of innumerable scale-like pieces, each piece a separate work
of art. Their claws are fantastically realistic, their pink tongues loll
and dart, their eyes have curious lights in them. There is no spring
in their long, sinuous bodies, yet their mechanism is so perfect that
when you place them on the floor their long necks erect themselves,
and their diabolical heads look forth, tense and alert.
As to Satsuma, our eyes are opened. We had thought c old
Satsuma ’ abounded in porcelain shops at least as freely as it does in
the drawing-rooms of modern novels. But we learn that ‘ old 9
Satsuma hardly exists at all now, and that ‘ gorgeous 5 old Satsuma
never did exist. When the Coreans began their wonderful work for
the use of the Court and the nobles they understood and used only
the simplest designs, and even the imitations, of ’which we can buy
— and alas ! have bought — many, are decorated in the scantiest way.
Our J apanese lecturer explains that in a search of two years, under-
taken by his employers, only one bit of real antiquity turned up— a
koro two and a half inches high, for which they paid fifty dollars.
We ask humbly if there is any good modern Satsuma, and are
shown a few pieces, which convince us, if by the price alone, that we
have never seen any before. He brings tenderly forth — the lecturer
- — a five-inch vase. It habitually nestles in an embroidered silk
bag. Groups of children appear in the decoration, each tiny face
perfect under the glass, though not one is more than three-tenths of
an inch in size. The gold is pure, the colours are delicate, the
arabesques drawn with dainty truth. And we conclude simul-
taneously, you and Orthodocia and I, that many rhapsodies over
‘old Satsuma/ indulged before we came to Japan, were inspired by
enormities in Awata ware, which were much too vulgar to stay in
their native land.
On the farther side of a great black door, arranged like the gate of
a temple, is the inner sanctuary, where the inquiring tourist may
penetrate and be instructed in many other things by this high priest
of porcelains. And the next thing we learn is that we have never
- 4 *
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
seen cloisonne before. An object lesson of six common plaques, in
the six different stages of tho process, convinces us that we have
been previously familiar only with unlimited editions of the sixth
common plaque all these past years, when we fondly imagined we
had profited by a whole cult of cloisonne ’ We knew the process
theoretically before — the first plate hammered into symmetry out of
copper, with the design drawn on it with ink, the second having the
design outlined with a flat, upright wire, fastened down with cement,
the third covered with the first filling, the burning having fastened
the wires to the body, the fourth the second layer of filling and
second burning. One more burning, when the plaque is ready to be
polished, and we see it after being rubbed down with pumice and
water, Then it is a round, blue, commonplace thing, with a pink
chrysanthemum oi two on it, perhaps, and a conventionalised bird
in flight towards them, possibly worth a silver dollar. I should have
thought it beautiful in America, but here it suffers by contrast with
cloisonne that does not go to America or to England either, ex-
cept in the boxes of tourists of the skilled kind. Here is a piece
captured on its way to the Paris Exposition, a ball- shaped vase,
about five inches in diameter. Its polish is so perfect that it seems
to gleam through from the inside, and innumerable specks of pure
gold glint in it. All the tints imaginable contribute to its colour
harmony, yet it leaves in the main a soft rich brown impression.
Each separate leaf and flower and bird of its marvellously intricate
design gives one a special little thrill of pleasure, not by its fidelity,
but by its exquisite ideality. Only one man can work like this, and
he is not a man who knows anything about ‘ realism ’ or pre-Paphael-
ism ; not a man who votes or reads the magazines, or takes an
interest in sanitary science or foreign politics — but a man whose life
lies in the doing of this one thing, and who knows its value only by
the joy it gives him.
It grows dusky and late in here behind the great black temple
gate among the screens, and the kotos, and the tall bronze vases, and
the daimios’ swords. Across the harbour the junk lights are begin-
ning to shine out in clusters and long lines. The artist at the door,
as we glance back and close it, still looks — an artist always — through
the gathering shadows at the ivory in his outstretched hand.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
149
XVI
It was New Year’s Day in the morning.
‘ Omedette / ’ said I to Orthodocia, bowing in the manner which
represented my sole Japanese accomplishment. I had acquired both
the expression and the bow with great care, wishing to felicitate her
in an original way upon New Year’s Day, and to impress her with
my progress in the language at the same time. I found it difficult
to impress Orthodocia with my progress in the language as a general
thing. She is a linguist herself, and linguists are intolerant, con-
temptuous people.
Just to be aggravating, Orthodocia bowed still lower. «
* Omedette de gozarimas ! ’ she remarked triumphantly, with per-
fect self-possession, and without at all acknowledging my politeness ;
and then we looked at one another in a manner which I might
almost describe as ruffled. A little explanation and translation
made everything clear, however, and our appreciation of ourselves
immediately rose to par again. We had merely wished one another
a Happy New Year out of different phrase-books — a circumstance
insignificant in itself, but which threatened at the time to cast the
gloom and shadow of a doubt over our respective attainments in
Japanese, and therefore to mar the peace of a habitation not con-
structed to withstand dissensions. Harmonious living must be the
rule in Japan. A genuine family jar would bring the house down.
The New Year had come to all Japan, and all Japan was brim-
ful of rejoicing. We had looked about us for festivities at Christ-
mas, but they told us then to wait for New Year’s Day ; so we
solemnly presented each other with little bronze pins in the morning
and a ‘ Merry Christmas ! ’ that was rather choking, and rode through
the twinkling streets in the evening to a little restaurant that dis-
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
150
pensed 4 foreign foods 7 in the shadow of the great gray Buddha of a
public park. There we- pledged one another in the wine of the land,
and wondered what Japanese turkeys were fed on to make them so
different from the turkeys of other Christmases, and Orthodocia
talked Wigginton, Devon, with such exile in her voice that I very
nearly shed tears into the pudding-sauce. But the occasion of our
foreign feasting was passed, and the day of the year for Japan had
come. We went downstairs to see what it was like.
There in the kitchen our little idolaters one and all were making
merry. They were accustomed to make merry ; in fact, they were
obliged to do it to while away the time, their responsibilities being
light. If their mirth became too uproarious at any time, we had
only to put our heads through the wall and say with severity
4 Yakamashi ! 7 and a blighting silence fell at once, accompanied by
awe and despondency. We had not the slightest idea of the moral
force of 4 Yakamashi ! 7 and its effect was so dismal that we used it
as seldom as possible, and only as extreme discipline. On New
Year’s morning, when there was a special note of hilarity among
our domestics, we did not use it. It was pleasant to have the
holiday in the house.
They were sitting round the hibachi in a smiling circle when we
descended, and Chrysanthemum was very gay in a blue kimono and
an obi that could vie with Joseph’s coat. Yoshitane-san made a
profound obeisance, and expressed their collective congratulation, to
which Orthodocia responded in feeling terms. Then, while Buddha
elaborately arranged five bits of charcoal under the oatmeal with a
pair of iron chop -sticks, and Chrysanthemum blew through a long
piece of bamboo upon three discouraged embers that were trying to
boil the eggs, we despatched old 4 Bice and Saki Only ’ with fifty sen
to buy the wherewithal for kitchen festivities. One and ninepenco
was not a large sum to grow riotous upon, but our ancient servitor
came back laden with good cheer for more than one reckless repast
■ — his round brown face all twisted into merry wrinkles, his decrepid
legs two crooks of grateful deprecation. A salted salmon, three feet
long ; a great basket of sweet potatoes, split in halves and roasted
brown ; two square yards of half-baked mochi, 1 white and viscid and
three inches thick ; a special New Year’s delicacy, of which the
1 Bean-cake.
*IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT GRAY BUDDHA OF A PUBLIC PARK.’
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
chief ingredient
seemed to be mu-
cilage ; half a
dozen neat little
fish rolls ; several
parcels of sea-
weed that looked
like smooth-
mottled dark-
152
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
.green paper, and vegetable accessories. The fish rolls were par-
ticularly appetising, half a small raw fish wrapped round a ball
of rice — somebody may like the recipe. It was a feast for the gods
of J apan ; and jolly Dai-koku himself could not have wished for
better spirits than it brought.
After breakfast we walked out of our inhospitable little front
gates to find an extraordinary growth on each side of it not bargained
for with our landlord. It shot straight and stiffly up out of the
ground about four feet, and consisted of a bushy bunch of pine
branches and three sections of green bamboo. We had stopped
giving way to astonishment in Japan, finding that it made too much
of a demand upon our time ; so we simply contemplated this addi-
tion to the scenery about our residence, and asked Buddha if it had
come to stay. As we expected, Buddha was responsible for it.
Buddha was responsible for everything, from the Japanese cat with-
out a tail, that made night hideous for a week, and took no notice
whatever of her proper name, but answered to a chirrup and made
incomprehensible remarks, and was an idolater, to the hanging of a
large soap advertisement in our small salon under the impression
that it was a masterpiece of foreign art. We looked to him, there-
fore, for the general explanation of our domestic matters. And
Buddha gave us to understand, with the assistance of an old
American almanack, that it devolved upon us as temporary citizens
of Tokio to decorate for the New Year as the custom was. He had
bought and planted the decorations, trusting to our sense of our re-
sponsibilities for justification, and it was not withheld.
We sped away through the city in our jinrikishas with that
comfortable sense of duty done that predisposes one to the scrutiny
of other people’s behaviour. But we found Tokio ready for it. No-
body had quite forgotten to welcome the New Year, however tiny the
bird-cage dwelling over which it would dawn for him. His tiled
roof might be sunken and his paper panes ragged and black, but
over the door surely waved a few palmetto fronds with a bit of white
; paper fluttering among them, if nothing else ; and his ivory-lidded
babies, crowing and tottering in the street exactly as you might
expect a Japanese doll to crow and totter, looked up at them with
sh arp beady anticipation in their little black eyes. Our own decora-
153
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
tionS were extremely popular, and a common gate-post ornament
was a bit of twisted rice-straw rope, fern leaves, and a fruit that
looked like a half-ripe bitter orange. The more ambitious had arches
of the glossy camellia twigs with strings of yellow mandarins twined
in them ; and flags, a red sun on a white ground ; and that quaint
crustacean which is not quite lobster and not quite crab, red from
the pot, bent and
sprawled before
every door of pre-
tension. The rice
straw means pros-
perity ; the craw -fish,
because he has always
looked decrepid, a good
old age ; the universal
tag of white paper, a
request to the gods, long
honoured in Shintoism,
for general favours. It
all so naif,
‘looked up at them with shabp beady anti-
cipation IN THE IB LITTLE BLACK EYES.’
touching, that I should
think even the woodenest, stoniest god, moved by the discovery
that he is not yet quite forgotten, would exert himself a little on
behalf of the decorators.
People were flying about in jinrikishas with all sorts of purchases
in their laps, and the eastern approximation to a Christmas look on
their faces. A small wooden bird-cage, with two dainty little in-
*54
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
mates all in white with pink bills ; a long willowy branch, with a
gay little conception in candy on every dancing twig ; a plum tree
in a pot in full blossom, eighteen inches high ; a close-shut wooden
box, in which we had learned to expect something specially sacred
in curios. Even the Japanese customers in the shops seemed in-
spired by an unusual excitement, and made their investments in
lacquer and porcelain almost at the rate of one investment per hour,
putting on their sandals and clicking off again with comparative
recklessness. The buying enthusiasm became infectious, and one
result is that if anybody wants a black silk gentleman’s kimono ,
embroidered in purple dragons and green storks, warranted worn
steadily by at least three generations, I think Orthodocia would
dispose of it for almost anything.
The wide, pale gray streets were all flung open to the sun, and
the great blue arch overhead seemed inconceivably far above the
gay little wooden habitations that bubbled up on each side of them.
Many of the shops were shut ; few sat at the receipt of custom but
the sellers of yellow mikcin 1 and sweet potatoes, and the whole
city seemed to be making holiday, clattering up hill and down in its
very best clothes. The ladies of position who have borrowed our
skirts were at home receiving in them, but plenty of hybrid costumes
were abroad among the men, the favourite article of masculine attire
being comfortable woollen under-continuations which should not, of
course, be so much as mentioned among us. O-Haru-San, who
tottered past us on her high black-lacquered getas, was not a lady of
position. Very dainty and very fine was O-Haru-San on New
Year’s Day, with the ivory hair-pins, the beads, and the flowers in
the wide black puffs of her hair, with her face all artlessly whitened
and reddened, with the never-failing tiny dab of gold on her full
under lip. The soft folds of her inner kimonos were white and gray
and delicate about her plump neck ; and the outer one was of the
tenderest blue, with a dash of scarlet where the wide sleeves parted.
Her sash was a marvel to behold, and from top to toe she was all in
silk, this daughter of the Mikado. Nobody at all was O-Haru-San ;
only a singer or a dancer, perhaps, or she would not be abroad in a
Oranges.
155
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
indifferent,
except at
con-
tlie
on our cushions
Buddlia ap-
ance and a
ing with
tray lay a
crowd like a dog or a foreigner ; but she made the Japanese picture
of New Year’s Day that we shall longest remember, I think.
Even the children were tricked out in quaint imitation of their
elders— girl babies of five and six painted and powdered like the
veriest coquettes. They were all playing in the streets, and their
fathers and mothers with them, flying kites— wonderful kites, with
dragons and gods on them, that hovered thick in air like charmed
birds. Not a soul was sad,
temptuous, and nobody laughed
glorious sport of it.
That day, as we sat sideways
at our modest mid-day meal,
proached with an air of import -
tray, which he presented, kneel-
the usual ceremony. On the
paper pack-
age, sealed
with a dia-
mond shaped
piece of black
paper, and
tied with red
and white
twisted
string. A
paper trifle,
also red and
white, and
folded like a
kite, was stuck under the string. That and the string and the
black diamond all betokened a gift. We opened eagerly one wrapper
and another, and found our first Japanese New Year’s present
to consist of half a pound of moist brown sugar. Orthodocia ascer-
tained that it came from the grocer from whom we had bought our
preliminaries. The preliminaries were indubitably fraudulent ;
but we were so affected by this kind attention to two alien young
women, six thousand miles from home, that we immediately sent
1 AS WE SAT SIDEWAYS ON OUR CUSHIONS AT OUR MODEST
MID-DAY MEAL.’
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
156
for a large additional supply. This at once threatened to become
a precedent, and, if it had, we should have gone into insolvency
by six o’clock. For the fruiterer, who had a large establish-
ment round the corner with nothing but ground rent to pay,
sent us a dainty bamboo basket of mandarins, with green strips laced
across the top ; the rival grocer, to whom we had temporarily suc-
cumbed, enticed us further with a string of peppers ; a city con-
fectioner, whose foreign nougat and pistachios we had greatly
appreciated, touched our hearts with a real plum cake and a pink
rose on it. And, as we were comparing conclusions about the plum
cake, the House having gone into Supply, there came a box. The
box was delicately wooden, with four feet, and a bamboo twig for
the handle of the cover. The card of a Japanese friend came with
it, and the gift token. We lifted the cover rapturously, and it dis-
closed two dozen of as neat little brown eggs, each reposing on its
sawdust cushion, as ever entered a larder of civilisation. Eggs are
the most popular of New Year’s gifts in Japan, we had always heard ;
but to know this theoretically, and to practise it practically, are
very different matters. Each smooth little oval had a separate charm
for us ; it appealed directly to our housekeeping susceptibilities ; it
seemed to fill a long-felt want as nothing in the way of a presenta-
tion ever had before. We had been told that it was the custom of
people who received several thousand eggs annually to send them
forth again on their errand of congratulation and potential omelets ;
and we had heard of a gentleman who marked one of his eggs for future
reference, and had the selfsame egg returned to him after many
days — tradition says the next New Year. Orthodocia said that she
did not believe this egg story ; but we thought we would not be
graceless about our eggs and redistribute them, but grateful and
scramble them.
Re-entered Buddha with another mystery. It reposed on a
lacquered tray, and was covered with a blue silk square. On the
square was embroidered in gold a peacock flamboyant . Under the
square a piece of white paper, under the paper a bowl of red lacquer,
in the bowl a large green rose with yellow leaves of Japanese con-
fectionery, a bunch of celery in candy, a woodcock with his bill
under his wing, and a dough- cake of pounded rice flour, pink and
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 157
pernicious. This gift was purely Japanese, the other had a flavour
of cosmopolitanism. Purely Japanese also was the card that came
with it, which made the situation embarrassing. We summoned
Buddha, but the card was beyond Buddha. He studied it long and
earnestly, and finally gave us to understand that it was not English
— if it had been he might have told us more about it. But he made
a demonstration when Orthodocia folded up the embroidered square
and I attempted to put the bowl and tray carefully away in the wall.
His demonstration was one of such extreme anxiety that we let him
carry it out. He took the bowl and washed it, put it on the tray as be-
fore, and threw the silk gracefully over it. Then he went to our foreign
hearth and picked up one of the neat little oblong bits of kindling
which lay there, and put it in the bowl. We argued and entreated
to no avail. ‘Japan way,’ he said with quiet obstinacy, and we
were obliged to see him return the whole with many bows to the
person who brought it. We discovered afterwards that Buddha’s
acquaintance with the latest thing in Japanese etiquette was to be
relied upon, perhaps because the latest thing is usually also the
earliest thing by several centuries. The antiquity of this custom
of sending a small quantity of comparatively inexpensive nourishing
matter in a gold embroidered ceremony and taking back the ceremony,
for example, is incalculable, and the chip dates back to the days of
the real dragons, I have no doubt. It was a great comfort to us
afterwards, when we found out that the rose and celery had been
intended for somebody else to whom it would have brought no in-
digestion, to know that Buddha had attended to that matter of the
chip. At least the sender could not reproach us with ingratitude.
‘ Visiting on Hew Year’s Day is a Japanese custom,’ a native
gentleman translated to us from the Jiji-Shimbun 1 of the day after,
‘but foreigners are becoming so Japanised that we met many blue
eyes and red moustaches making calls yesterday.’ This was delight-
fully cool of the Jiji-Shimbun , and we said so, but the native
gentleman only lifted his eyebrows a little and smiled. The smile
said : ‘We have got our sciences from you, and our educational
system, and certain ideas for our new Constitution, but in matters
of etiquette we copy nobody — we lead the world.’
1 Daily newspaper.
153
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Orthodocia and I had no blue- eyed or red-moustached visitors on
that memorable 'jour de Van / but were very happy to receive one
or two whose eyes and moustaches properly belonged to the custom.
We had rehearsed the ceremony of their reception with care, solemnly
agreeing that it should be carried out strictly in the Japanese man-
ner. 4 When they come to our country/ Orthodocia said very
properly, 1 they adopt our customs, our chairs, our knives and forks.
It is only polite that we should return the compliment.’ So we had
our bows in our pocket as it were, and our raw fish, our boiled dai-
gon , our seaweed, and our sugared beans all ready in the lacquered
compartment box of ceremony. The hot saki steamed in the quaint
long-nosed bronze saki pot, used only on New Year’s Day ; and the
tiny, thin, handleless saki cups, in sets of three, suggested a prescrip-
tion rather than wine and wassail. The square flat velvet cushions
were ready too, on which we were to drop gracefully, kneeling with
palms outspread upon the floor, and bowing as low in that position
as circumstances would permit. We surveyed our arrangements
with nervous anticipation, and every time a jinrikisha passed outside
Orthodocia flopped down on her cushion to be entirely ready when
the visitor entered.
Our first caller, whose name was Mr. Shiro Hashimoto, by his
card, came early, very early indeed, following the mandates of their
Imperial Majesties across the moat, who take their congratulations
before they take anything else, I believe. We did not see Mr. Shiro
Hashimoto, the New Year not having dawned for us at the time of his
arrival. This was a source of bitter regret to Orthodocia. 4 If we
had only been up ! ’ she said. 4 To have received a Japanese visit
of congratulation in the dimness of the early morning — so nice and
characteristic ! ’ She was still mourning Mr. Shiro Hashimoto
when Buddha appeared in the wall solemnly ushering in another.
Orthodocia dropped, according to agreement, with dramatic effect.
In the midst of her third bow she cast upon me a look of agonised re-
proach, which I felt all too keenly that I deserved ; for, covered with
ignominy, I was shaking hands with the native gentleman — Japan
had required too much of me. And he, in horrible uncertainty,
was making a superhuman gymnastic effort to pay his respects to both
of us at once, which must have resulted in dislocation somewhere.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 159
I should be glad to record this reception the distinguished success
Orthodocia and I intended it to be, but I can’t with rectitude. We
wanted to pay our guest the compliment of conversing in Japanese,
he wanted to pay us the compliment of conversing in English ; and
the compliments got confused. We were very generous with our
Japanese, we kept none of it in reserve. All we had we brought out
freely for his benefit, and his English was submitted to us in the
same candid way. When he fell back upon J apanese, therefore, or
we upon English, the situation became even more complicated, and
the simplest phrases of an infant’s primer in either language assumed
a subtlety that demanded two grammars and a dictionary. Our re-
freshments were also a source of mortification to us. The saki was
fairly appreciated ; but our Japanese ‘solids’ were ignored in a way
that cut deep into Orthodocia’s housekeeping sensibilities. In vain
did she press our pearly rice in a red rice-bowl ; in vain did I offer
one tier after another of our storied box of delicacies. Our visitor
received one and all with a bow and a grave smile, laid it carefully
on the floor beside him, and drank more saki to console our wounded
feelings. After he had departed, little Chrysanthemum, coming in
to remove the debris , appeared to go into a suppressed convulsion.
In the kitchen the convulsion became a series ; and when we sternly
demanded its cause, that dear little heathen, her small fat body
doubled up with mirth, pointed to a corner where stood in a desolate
row six pairs of the forgotten chop-sticks !
It is difficult to acquire the domestic economy of J apan thoroughly
in a month. The chop-stick might be called one of its chief features,
and yet it had utterly escaped us.
Mr. Ichitaro Takayanagi and Mr. Takaslii Takayanagi sent in
their cards a few minutes later, and Orthodocia kept them waiting a
disgracefully longtime in the vestibule while Chrysanthemum whisked
away every vestige of our Japanese preparations. Then she sat up
very straight and stiff on her cushion, and talked to Mr. Ichitaro and
Mr. Takashi in five o’clock tea English that neither of them under-
stood, for they only knew American. They both apologised very
profoundly for having been away from home the day we called — and
the more Orthodocia assured them that the call was made upon
their mamma, the more deeply they regretted not having been there
j 60 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
to receive tlie honour of our visit — it was ‘ so very kind ’ of us to
come !
* * * * * * *
And after a time we went forth into the merry street, and with
a feathered nut and a painted wooden bat, we played battledore and
shuttlecock, and all our household with us, till the sun went down
behind the roof of the temple, and the wind came in from the
sea.
* ^ ^ % & &
That night Tokio went tipsy. It was a gentle glowing tipsiness,
that shook and swayed and trembled under innumerable low roofs,
over the bare heads of clattering multitudes, aimlessly happy, smiling,
bowing, because one always smiles and bows at this especial season ;
content to bridge all the problems of life as they bridged the mud
with their wooden sandals. Down the long streets miles on mi]es
the paper lanterns shone, bulbous, serene, rows on rows, clusters on
clusters, lines of tiny red balls curving far up in air to the top of
some ambitious pole, great faint yellow orbs, glowering close to earth,
globules of light, palpitating, swinging, quivering, in rings and wheels
and arches, dainty and wonderful. Don’t think of any metropolis
you know, blazing with the vulgar vari-coloured lanterns that live
their short hour on the night of a strawberry garden party. Think
of a low, broad, far-stretching city, covered with a tiny heavy-eaved
growth of houses that gnomes might have built in the night, softly
illumined from one end to the other with hundreds of thousands
of the palest, most exquisite and artistic lantern ideas that ever night
brought forth. Every tiny interior opened wide to the wonders of
New Year’s Eve, the moats shining up at the stars, the young moon
sailing high. And the Ginza fair that night ! Where, in all the
gentle lustre of the myriad soft lights, the sellers sat on the pave-
ment in the great street of Tokio with their wares set forth around
them, and tempted and chaffered and laughed ! The sellers of tiny
carved ivories — a skeleton, a toad — of bamboo flutes, of blue and
white rice-boxes, of long-necked sctki bottles and lacquered saki cups,
of tall twisted bronze candlesticks, of marvellous hair-pins, of cookeries
manifold ! Up and down we wandered fascinated, wondering what
any of our friends from the European settlement would say if they
OUR JOURNEY ROUND 1 HE WORLD 161
should meet us under the spell which made us buy two quaint yellow
lantern balls to swing as we walked. Presently they did meet us — ■
rather, perhaps, we met them — two stalwart Englishmen dressed up
in flowing kimonos, high clacking getas, bare heads, and extremely
foolish facial expressions. Then we went home rejoicing in the
conviction that we had succumbed only where none could escape, not
even a man and a Briton.
That night as we sat in our tiny house the streets were full of a
cry that falls on the ears of the Yedites only on that night of all the
year. 4 Tarafuni ! 9 4 Tarafuni ! 9 with a sharp accent on the second
syllable, it went flying up and down through the broad gemmy spaces
of darkness about Kudan. We sent forth Chrysanthemum, and she
brought us two tarafuni for half a sen , two slips of paper with a
picture on them. The picture was of a ship full of gods, comfortable
old Dai-koku laughing in front ; and a line or two of poetry con-
necting the ship with the dreams of the sleeper ran down the side.
All true citizens of Tokio put Dai-koku and his luck ship under
their pillows for twelve months’ good fortune, and we did it too.
Then the candle burned low in the square white paper lantern in
the corner of the room, and a space in the wall let in a panel of the
sky, with the silver new moon hanging low among the pine branches.
The darkness grew silent, only now and then, sudden and shrill like
the cry of a night bird, we heard 4 Tarafuni ! 9 4 Tarafuni ! 9 In a last
fantastic moment we, too, slipped away to join all Tokio in its golden
dreams. . . . And in the morning Dai-koku was still laughing
us.
M
162
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XVII
Orthodocia and I did not travel much in Japan. Tokio was so
entirely delightful that we dreaded the discovery that others of the
Mikado’s cities failed of its consummate charm. Of course they
might have possessed it in the superlative degree, but again they
might not. There was always the risk. And we agreed upon
Orthodocia’s theory, that once you get an Impression you ought to
keep it inviolate. But we made a few journeys into the interior
for fear of reproaches when we got home, and once we went to
Nikko.
To depart anywhere in Japan out of the five treaty ports one
must have a passport, obtained through one of the Legations. Ours
came to hand the day before we started — a solemn and portentous-
looking document, with a large black seal — and we gathered from it
that the British Government would be temporarily responsible for
our behaviour, and that the Mikado covenanted to see that we were
politely treated. The next time Orthodocia and I go to Japan we
shall have to apply for our passport through some other Legation, for
the British Plenipo told us inside ours that if we did not return
them we should have no more, and we both thought they would be
interesting as souvenirs.
Now, it is only once in a lifetime that one can go to Nikko. One
can’t do anything twice in Japan — one only approximates it the
second time. Most of all Nikko.
Nikko is the temple city of Japan. It lies away to the north,
where the mountains begin to rise and dip, and it is a very sacred
place, for the great Iyeasu himself is buried there. Iyeasu was a
Shogun, and the Shoguns were not dragons, but military gentlemen
of distinction, who have achieved tombs. I was sorry for Orthodocia
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 163
and her note-book in connection with the Shoguns’ tombs — but
that is another story. Unless you go to Nikko, or read volumes upon
ancient Japan, I dare say your information about Iyeasu is quite
likely to be as limited as ours was. If you go to Nikko, as we did,
you will add to it, as we did, the fact that he lived and fought and
died about three hundred years ago, and that his bones are deposited
at the top of an incredible number of steps. This is not exhaustive
regarding Iyeasu, but you will find it satisfying at the time. As
we did.
Politeness is the soul and essence of all tilings truly Japanese,
and as most of the railways are directly in the hands of the nation,
we were not surprised to be presented with a cup of tea at the out-
set of our journey from the authorities of the road. Other wise, the
precise reason why the Japanese Government should insist upon
tampering with the nervous system of every foreigner who buys a
ticket from it does not appear. It must be pure, though mistaken,
amiability. But in our tiny first-class carriage there was a tiny
first-class table with holes in it for the safe reception of teapot and
teacups, which the guard brought in with a bow. The tea was
green as usual, without either sugar or milk to mitigate the bitterness
of it, .and the cups were the handleless cups of Japan, but Ortho-
docia drank the decoction with all the fortitude of Socrates to show
her appreciation. Appreciation, she declared, that required sugar
and milk, wasn’t worth showing.
J o
I wish I could put windows in this letter through which you
might see the country we travelled that day, stretching away as it
did, in all its careful little parallelograms of fields, to the feet of the
blue mountains along the horizon. Nature never allowed herself to
be arranged on a smaller scale. The tiny rice paddies, green with
the coming of the second crop, the small square plots of vegetables,
the camellia hedges, the baby hay-ricks, the domicilettes dotted
amongst it all^ the odd little cone-shaped mountains that seemed to
have dropped here and there for decorative purposes purely. It was
by all odds the neatest thing in landscapes we had ever seen. I had
to remonstrate with Orthodocia for throwing mandarin peel out of
the car window. It is very trying to travel with a person who can’t
be relied upon to pass through a rural district without upsetting it,
m 2
1 64 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Now and then we saw a stable with a horse standing in it, looking
meditatively out of the door and switching his tail where the manger
would be in our country. Trees were bolstered up in rice straw —
not to protect them from the frost, but to dry the straw. A
husbandman picked his way nimbly among his fresh furrows, a white
kerchief about his head, in blue ‘ tights ’ and loose blue coat, with
bags on his shoulders. Ripe yellow persimmons as large as apples
hung among the leafless twigs. The little windowless houses, with
their heavy overhanging thatched roofs, looked blind and unintelli-
gent ; they did not understand themselves to be homes, we con-
sidered. The colour that morning was dainty and cool, in clear deli-
cate washes of grays and blues, as it might have come from a brush
in a firm hand for detail. And away off, describing a long arc
through the fieldlets, and making apparently for a funny little moun-
tain that stood all alone in the midst of a wide flatness, shrieked
another tiny locomotive, leaving an erratic smoke track along the
sky. Many stations, each with its European railway building and
its gentle, clattering, staring Japanese crowd, half bareheaded, in
kimono and geta, half in ill-fitting coat and trousers topped by last
year’s ‘Derby’ hats; and finally Utsonomiya, where we should
abandon this foreign innovation of steam and wheels, and take to
man-power for the rest of the way. We got out with our various
bundles, and watched the foreign innovation out of sight with a
strong conviction of its value to the country and the vaguest idea
what to do next. If there is one comfort in travelling in Japan,
however, it is the mind-reading capacity of the Japanese. They an-
ticipate your idea 5 even w r hen you haven’t any. Orthodocia drew
my attention to this, which I considered unkind — I don’t know
whether any other observing person has noted it or not. On this
occasion they gathered up our effects and led us politely into a small
room in the station-house, where they indicated that we might with
propriety sit dc wn. A youth brought us a fire-pot with the usual
five embers arranged in it in a pattern, and it appeared to be our
duty to warm our fingers. Then we obediently followed our bundles
again to a low, rambling, open sort of a structure, which was a hotel.
We sat down on the threshold, a foot and a half above the ground,
and our friends looked at our boots consideringly. We shook our
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 165
heads ; we had forgotten the buttonhook again, and we hadn’t a
hair-pin between us that could do its whole duty. So then a little
maiden toddled out to us with tea and cakes— the eternal green tea
and pink cakes. Do you remember how, when you were very small
and blew soap-bubbles out of a halfpenny clay pipe, you sometimes
made a mistake and drew the soap-bubbles in? The pink cakes of
Japan revive many such gustatory memories. By the time we had
finished toying with them, we were surrounded by jinrikisha men,
who also had divinations of our plans. ‘ Nikko ? ’ they said;
* Nikko % clekimas , okasctn ! ’ — ‘ I am entirely able to take you there,
young lady ! ’ We tried to make a choice, but I think the jinrikisha
men settled it among themselves, for the pair of bipeds apiece that
we started with would have been the last to recommend them-
selves to us on the score of either personal beauty or accomplish-
ment.
We went through the long, straggling streets of Utsonomiya at
a steady trot. The little, open, neutral- tinted shops were full of the
pottery and vegetables and wooden buckets that had for some time
ceased to excite in us, the lively joy they give to new-comers. We
could ride past them without so much as a comma in our course.
The people came out to stare at us ; it was quite two weeks since
their last foreign entertainment ; the frost nipped off the tourists, as
it did the mandarin buds. From every group came a cheerful
word for our runners, and the answer went gaily back.
It is a long way from Utsonomiya to Nikko, quite twenty-three
miles. And all those miles climb slowly up between two solemn
lines of tall pine trees, the dark erratic pine trees of Japan, whose
twisted arms must have made the people first think of dragons, we
were sure. They are the only very tall trees in all the region near,
and they are so uplifted about this that they have quite lost their
heads, and lean this way and that in a manner which suggests a
sort of dignified inebriation. Overhead they meet sometimes, and
the sunlight glorifies the dusky greenness of the topmost branches,
and always they march on in endless mysterious toppling columns,
shadowed aslant, up the long arrowy Pilgrims’ Hoad to Nikko, and
always one rides between.
The long silent stretches of the gradual ascent were very empty.
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
1 66
Now and then a pilgrim, now and then a pack-horse, occasionally a
group of men urging along a cart full of trailing bamboo trunks.
The sincere pilgrims to Nikko went in the spring time, and sent up
their prayers with the incense of the wisteria vine. We were very,
very late. It was doubtful whether Iyeasu would even take the
trouble to feel complimented by our coming ; and as to our petitions
it was practically useless to offer them at all at this time of the year.
We had to seek what consolation we could in long glimpses of the
country, that slipped away to the right of us, glimpses framed be-
tween the slanting trunks of the pines, full of tender autumn colour-
thoughts, and stretching far to the beautiful blue masses and strange
white curves of the snow- tipped mountains that held in trust the
veneration of all Japan and the bones of Iyeasu.
It is quite true that our men ran half the way to Nikko in two
hours and a half without once stopping. Then as the evening sky
reddened behind the lowest branches of the pine trees, we came to
a tea-house hidden away under them. The walls of the tea-house
were open, and through them we saw the fire curling up from the
middle of the earthen floor, and all the household gathered round it.
Our runners refreshed themselves mightily here, and we ate rice
and eggs, with one battered tin fork between us, and drank hot saki ,
and were greatly comforted. Orthodocia confided to me as we
started off again that she didn’t know how her runners must feel,
but, judging from her own sensations, her jinrikisha was getting
very, very tired.
Then, as we rode on apace, the shadows clustered and grew
between the eaves of the pines, and fell silently at our feet, though
all about the country still lay fair and visible in the twilight.
Presently they deepened into night, and as we toiled further up,
strange dark shapes began to appear between the trees and to lean
forward, peering at us — the outer guard of gods about the bones of
Iyeasu.
That evening, as we sat on the floor of the Japanese inn and
constructed sentences to ask for a bed in, and soap, and other essen-
tials, our host entered, bowed on his hands and knees with supreme
humility, and made a remark.
‘ Nanto hanashimashita ka ? ’ said Orthodocia,
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 167
1 What did you say ? 9 1 asked her, jealous of a surreptitiously
acquired sentence, for Orthodocia had the phrase-book,
c That’s what I said/ she returned.
I What 1 9
‘ What did you say h 9
I I asked you ’ — with some irritation — c what you said.'
‘ Well, what you said was what I said — what did you say ? ’
* I asked you ’ — and I don’t in the least know how the matter
might have terminated if our host, who had seated himself, had not
repeated his statement, which was apparently a request, and I, turn-
ing to the phrase-book for relief, found 6 Nanto hanashimashita ka ? 9
- — ‘ What did you say ? *
He said it again.
‘ He said “ iru, 99 9 put in Orthodocia astutely. 4 Evidently he
wants something — “ iru 99 “ I want.” What do you iru ? ’ encourag-
ingly, to the man.
He smiled painfully and drew his breath in between his teeth.
There was a pause, and then he said it again.
‘ Really/ said Orthodocia, £ this is an unexpected contingency.
I didn’t undertake to supply the interesting native of Nippon with
anything he might take a fancy to.’
‘ It’s the bill/ said I sagely, and produced a yen or two.
But our host shook his head — it was not the bill. Orthodocia
then offered him a few soda biscuits, an orange, a tin of sardines from
our private provisions, but he politely declined them all. She
even opened a bottle of lemonade with a pop that frightened him
horribly, but he would none of it. Then she began with her per-
sonal effects, and brought him a handkerchief, a collar, an assortment
of hair-pins, and a pair of Wigginton goloshes. None of them,
though he regarded them with pleased and curious interest, seemed
exactly calculated to fill his long-felt want.
Finally, for most of the inhabitants of Nikko were by this time,
alas ! sitting on the floor of our apartment watching the progress of
events, Orthodocia brought him her satchel, and opened it under his
eyes. He looked over its contents very daintily and carefully, seized
something at the very bottom with great joy, and drew forth her
passport |
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
1 68
I Lave never before or since participated in such a scene of
mutual felicitation as followed.
We slept that night between two futons on the floor in a room
with absolutely nothing else in it, trusting Providence and the
phrase-book for morning supplies. They warmed our bed for us by
putting a fire-box between the upper and the nether futon , which is
a heating apparatus calculated to excite the liveliest emotions if you
clo not know of its presence until after you get in, which was our
experience. We removed it then ; but we could not remove the
charcoal fumes, and we dreamed asphyxia all night long. In the
morning we clapped our hands, and a fat little maiden brought us
water in a lacquered bowl, which might have held a quart, and tiny
blue towels, rather less closely woven than cheese cloth, which one
rub only reduced to the consistency of a damp cobweb. She im-
plored us not to splash the matting or the poetry on the walls, and
then sat down on the floor in an interested way, and watched our
ablutions.
After breakfast, at which our host proudly presented us each
with a poached egg — his own poaching — we went to see the temples.
They stood far up the mountain side, the great temples, all
clustered together under their curving roofs of red and gold, within
the outer courts of the trees and the sky. Broad, damp, mossy
stone steps led to them, and we heard a ceaseless sound of trickling
water from the overflowing stone vessels for the purification of the
pilgrims that stood inside the gates. The ubiquitous J apanese lion,
foolishly amiable as usual, kicked up his heels in stone on either
side of every approach.
One temple was to me very like another temple in glory, except
that those now devoted to Shintoism were simpler than the Buddhist
ones, and had only empty spaces and meaningless screens, where
formerly Siddharta sat in bronze. The interiors of the Shinto
temples, erected to the mighty dead, signified nothing to me. Per-
haps if one could see behind the great tasselled curtains that hung
in vague secrecy from the further walls, some distinct religious idea
might reveal itself, if it were nothing but a relic or a bit of writing.
But one does not see behind them ; their mysterious folds are never
disturbed. The souls of the Shoguns come and go with easy cere*
great and tall, had speech for us there in his temple. He told us of
the endurance of great apostleship ; the words trembled about the
shapen lip with its ineffable smile, the lip that taught a divine ideal,
and smiled ever after. His great bronze hand, stretched forth
among the temple shadows, above the fumes of the incense and the
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 169
mony. And the wonderful cocks and cats and dragons, in all
colours and all circumstances, that are carved in high relief round
the top of the walls, the lacquered pillars, the gold poetry and the
portraits of many Japanese poets, all taken in the inspired act,
failed to tell us of anything of faith or law. But Buddha, imaged
‘back to utsonomiya in the rain.*
170
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
tinkling of the bells, and the prostration of the single shaven priest,
caught a gleam of light as the heavy door opened to let us out. It
is our one vivid memory of the faith of Japan.
We climbed to the tomb of Iyeasu, with its bronze lotus and
guarding stork, and we looked upon that warrior’s helmet, and
sword, and chair of state with all the reverence we could muster for
heroic annals in Japan. We saw a pale, weird woman, all in waving
white draperies with scarlet under them, make strange passes with
a fan and a bell-rattle, strange posturings, strange measured steps
in a semicircle, within the cell-like little temple where she sat all
day to do her religion this service. And when that pale weird
woman sat down again among her draperies, and cast one level look
upon us from beneath her lowered lids — a mechanical, incurious
look — we felt that no sum of years, or of miles, or of human dif-
ference could avail to express the shivering distance that lay between
her and us.
We went back to Utsonomiya in the rain. The long green vista
of the leaning pines was darkened and blurred as it stretched out
before us in the late afternoon. Orthodocia rode ahead, her jinri-
kisha, with its hood up, looking like a corpulent beetle in full scud.
By-and-by we sped through utter night, hearing only the dripping
from the branches and the steady splashing of our coolies’ bare feet.
Then sometimes there would come a faint cool irradiation, and
beyond the fringe of shining white drops on the edge of my jinrikisha
hood would be set, solitarily, daintily glowing through the darkness
and the rain before some tiny portal, the familiar spirit of a great
golden paper lantern. . . . For statistics about the temples, their
heights, and breadths, and dates, and the types of their individual
pretensions, as well as for much valuable information about the earth-
quake-resisting construction of one of them, I believe a thoroughly
reliable volume has been written by one Dr. Dresser, and have much
pleasure in referring you to it. I can do this with cheerful conviction
that you will find all you want to know in it. The book was re-
commended to Orthodocia and me by a professorial friend of Tokio,
and we carried it all the way to Nikko and back again,
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
171
XVIII
The air had a familiar feeling that January night ; a familiar feel-
ing paradoxically strange in this country I tell you of, where even
the winds and the clouds are unfamiliar. The streets of Tokio, as we
rode through them from Kanda to Kudan, were very quiet. The
paper doors were all shut, the gentle lights that shone delicately
through the tiny white panes, and the wide eaves that hung over the
little habitations protectingly low, expressed a thought of home, the
first I had found in J apan. The sky was flat and gray and furry,
and it was softly cold. I carried a budding camellia branch, with
one conscious red flower open-eyed. I mused upon it, thinking how
curious it was that a flower could grow and blow to be just the
decorative essence that it seemed, and nothing more — without soul
or fragrance, or anything to give it kinship with the sweet com-
panies of other countries. Suddenly I saw my camellia through the
darkness red and white. I looked up — the snow had come.
I called to Orthodocia, riding behind me, in the wonder of it ; but
she did not answer. She was much too intent upon trying to bring
this new phantasm into place among the rest.
It fell silently, lightly, with a sigh ; the streets were soon white
with it, and the foolish little roofs by the wayside, and the shoulders
of my jinrikisha man trotting hardily between his shafts. It whis-
pered among the twisted branches of the tall pine trees as we rode
into the deeper shadows of a sacred grove, and made a soft crown
about the head of Dai-Butz — the great gray stone Dai-Butz that sits
there on a little eminence all day under the sun, all night under the
stars, and preaches to the people with folded hands. As we rode
over the moat into the Ginza the flakes began to fall more thickly,
became unfriendly, drove into our faces. The long wide avenue of
IT WAS
FAIRYLAND
little
OVERTAKEN
BY A
BLIZZARD.
tiny shops, each with its
dainty swinging lantern,
stretched out behind the
storm in dazzled be wile er-
ment ; the bareheaded
folk we met bent and shivered,
and clattered along on their high
wooden getas under great flat
paper umbrellas, with all their
graceful garments drawn tight
about them. It was fairy-
land overtaken by a blizzard,
in a state of uncompre-
Presently, as we turned into our
through which our runners’ foot-
soft dull pads and thuds, we saw
of Kudan, on its pyramid of
high among the swirling flakes
tricity. Next morning a strange
over our toy garden, and thick
hending collapse,
own deserted cho ,
falls sounded with
the square lantern
stones, glowing
with a new eccen-
white blight lay
upon the camellia
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 173
hedge, from behind which no sound of our little neighbour’s samisen
came at all that day ; and it seemed to us that the heart of
our beautiful Japan was chilled and silent, and that it was time
to go.
Yet it seemed to walk suddenly into the seat of our affections
and make a riot there, this idea of going, of riding for any last time
beside a dancing paper globe through the grotesquerie of Tokio’s
dusky evening, over the moats, and past the white palace walls —
of saying to this strange little world, new with a thousand years of
eld, ‘ Sayonara ! ' and of going forth into the one we knew before,
not to return. For one does not reach Japan often in the course of
the ordinary lifetime, and the farewells of youth are always for ever.
The riot lasted three days and three nights, and left us with the
conviction, which I consider it my duty to make public, that no
weak-minded person should go to Japan unless he is able to bring
his days to an imbecile close there, or is prepared to make shipwreck
of his gentle affections and his feeble brains on the rock of depar-
ture.
In view of the foregoing statement it is with some compunction
that I dwell upon Orthodocia’s sustained hostility to the idea of
leaving, long after I had succumbed and begun to take farewell
glances at Fusi-Yama. But, as a truthful narrator, I must not
know compunction, and I am compelled to say that Orthodocia’s
conduct was indefensible.
6 Skoshi mate !' 1 she murmured in the morning, looking regret-
fully into the glowing depths of the three charcoal embers of the
family hibachi. 1 Skoshi mate!' she suggested at noon, joyful in
the acquisition of nineteen tea-pots and a new verb. 1 Skoshi mate!'
she entreated at night, diluting with one small impotent tear the
saki in the saki bowl. And when I would not skoshi mate — no, not
for the return of the wild geese or the cherry-blossom garden party
in the spring — then was I attacked on the score of all we had
jointly promised to the small domestic public of St. Eve’s-in-the-
Garden, Wigginton, Devon, if Orthodocia were allowed to go — the
long letters full of valuable, nutritive, and interesting information,
which the oldest could profit by and the youngest understand, to be
1 Wait a little.
174
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
read aloud in the rapt communion of the Wigginton Dorcas Society.
Had we come to Japan with serious and honourable intentions of
carrying out that vow or not ? I protested that our intentions were
all that could be desired. And thus far — with a great deal too much
indignation for the person who was chiefly responsible — how, she
asked me, how had that vow been fulfilled thus far % 6 My own
darling mamma/ sarcastically, ‘ Japan is the most charming, delicious,
enchanting spot on this terrestrial globe. I bought you this morning
the sweetest five o’clock you could imagine — you could dream — and
for papa such a curious original pair of monkey slippers, which
never will stay on his dear old feet, but which he must always wear
for the sake of his very far away, but more loving than ever, Ortho-
docia. The quaint little postman will be round in two minutes for
this, and it is the very last minute for the mail, so, with tenderest
love to all, I remain your own, O. P.S. — This country gets funnier
and funnier ! 5 Orthodocia blushed to compare this imaginary but
fairly faithful epistle with the instructive volumes that were to
have been.
Did I or did I not remember our drawing, together, on the tossing
Pacific, bright pictures of dear mamma and all the home circle —
tears — supplementing what the encyclopaedias had taught them from
‘ the graphic pages’ of their daughter in Japan — and what had been
the proud result ? To what extent had the thirst for knowledge in-
spired in the deserving family at Love Lodge been gratified thus
far ? I ventured the suggestion that really very little of the infor-
mation Orthodocia had sent home about Japan could be found in
the Britannicum, and received a glance which made me feel the bru-
tality of my remark.
The discussion left us with a largely increased sense of the
responsibilities of the situation, and very vague ideas as to how they
should be met. We took our note-books from the respective walls
into which they had retired, and scanned them anxiously for facts —
civil, religious, social, military — any kind of facts available for
transhipment in the haste of departure. My note-book appeared to
my inspection, then and since, to be chiefly filled up with Japanese
poetry, with an occasional dash or exclamation point which might
be recognisable in these pages, but which seem to be hardly signi-
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 175
ficant enough to make the reproduction worth while. From Ortho-
docia’s note-book, however, I shall take a few extracts. It was a
large, black, shiny, respectable note-book, and it went impressively
with her everywhere in Japan. Neatly written at the top of one
page we found
‘ Educational.
‘ December 14 . Visited university with S. J. D., Mrs. Gallicus,
and Professor B.
‘ No. of students in university . . , . >
‘No. of professors To find
‘ No. of departments. out.
‘No. of graduates and matriculants last year
‘Met President. Short and stout. Coat and trousers. No
kimonos permitted on teaching staff (?). Inquire and note hard-
ship. Youth up in flowing kimonos, suddenly thrust into collars
and seams, &c. English professors gradually being ousted by Japan-
ese ditto. English professors, mostly bachelors, living in pretty
little houses about university grounds. Great shame. All tiffined
with Professor B. Charming tiffin. Blue china. Secured reports/
Some distance under this, to leave room for other instructive
matters, appears the sententious statement, ‘ Lost reports/
‘ Earthquakes.
‘ Tiffined with Professor M., General Manager, Earthquake De-
partment, Japanese Government. (Joke of S. J. D/s, but I do not
consider it particularly funny.) Earthquake machine invented by
Professor M., called by him seismometer. Professor M. explained
working of seismometer, but I cannot see practical utility, as seis-
mom. is not warranted to stop even slightest earthquake. Magnetic
needle traces movements on revolving cylinder covered with black-
ened wax. \ ery interesting. See pamphlet. Another invention of
Professor M/s — Drawing-room or baby seismometer. Sweet thing.
Stands on mantel. Can always tell by looking in morning how
many earthquakes have occurred during night, and whether chim-
neys down or not. Professor M. says thing no family subject to
seisms should be without. Burglars known to escape B. — alarms — ■
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
176
seismom. in every case fatal to seisms. Wished to buy one foi'
mamma, but felt delicacy about asking price.
‘ Saw model, Chinese idea, earthquake machine. Globe on stand
• — six dragons’ heads sticking out round globe, loose ball in mouth — -
six frogs sitting round at corresponding intervals, mouths open,
looking up. Shock occurs. Balls fly in direction of shock — mouth
of north-east frog, south-west frog, as case may be.
‘Note. — Chinese idea much simpler to unseismic mind. Pro-
fessor M.’s pamphlet inadvertently packed up with Nikko curios.
‘ Social.
‘ December 26. — Heard to-day of another Japanese Cabinet
Minister married to geisha , or professional dancer, which makes four.
Extraordinary state of things. Example of extent to which Japan-
ese are adopting Western civilisation — called on Government
official and wife just returned from Amer.; was shown room of new
house expressly designed to hold the lady’s band-boxes ! Heard
dreadful story of newly-emancipated Jap. young married lady dancing
three times at ball, each time with different man. Japanese pro-
priety would prefer same man.
‘ Native Intercourse with Foreigners.
c December 29. — Japanese still vicious. Saw whole silver service
belonging to foreigner (Englishman) destroyed by Japanese cook.
Articles thrown at cook’s head and severely dinted ; loss irrepar-
able.’
I don’t know whether Mr. and Mrs. Love and the Dorcas Society
have been made familiar with the foregoing valuable facts by any
other agency than this, but if not they are herewith submitted to all
Wigginton with the greatest goodwill, and many apologies for their
tardy appearance. As to the note-book, I have Orthodocia’s per-
mission to keep that as a monument to certain noble intentions
untimely perished. . . .
And so it befell that one day there whirled madly from the Grand
Hotel to the jetty along the sunny sands by the wide blue harbour
of Yokohama two belated jinrikishas. In one Orthodocia, with
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
1 77
twenty-four packages, the gayest of paper parasols, and the saddest of
countenances ; in the other this present chronicler, with twenty-four
more, a Japanese cat without a tail — war- ranted tailless
from earliest infancy, and not cut off* un-
screaming itself hoarse at us. Orthodocia
too long over her last tea-pot. And thus
as an unrelenting quartermaster bundled
had only time to single out of the kindly
timely — and
little tug was
had dallied
it was that
us into it we
j .... jr - :
ri."' v: , ■> 1
‘there whirled madly from the grand hotel
*1
Ml
TWO BELATED JINRIKISHAS.'
group of friends that had gathered to see us off two or three quaint
little sad-faced figures bowing and bowing at the jetty’s verge, and
to cry to these with a very genuine pang, < Sayonara, Buddha!’
bayonara, Chrysanthemum ! ’
We sped away through the dancing blue waves to the o Tea t P.
and O. steamer lying with her prow turned toward China ° It was
a desolate moment. Orthodocia, between her emotions and other
impedimenta required the assistance of three quartermasters and
the fourth officer to mount the ship’s ladder. I struggled blindly up
173
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
behind through the mist with which the sun, acting upon her feel-
ings, had considerately enveloped her. Which reads a little like a
sentence from a very old-fashioned romance, but which is my best
approximation to the verity of the situation.
We stopped at Nagasaki, with its old Dutch memories and its
dainty investment of the romance of ‘ Madame Chrysantheme ’ ;
at Kobe, with its mountains behind ragged and blue, its mandarin
sellers, and its softer air. And then the ever- marvellous Inland
Sea. . . .
That is to say, a voyage through the scenery of a dream ; for
here abides that most shy and exquisite Spirit of Japan— the Spirit
that whispers in all her winds and sings in all her streams, and
smiles in all her cities. Here, among these dainty water reaches,
opening and reopening, alluring and realluring, always within the
charmed boundaries of tinted mountains that might guard fairyland. \
A spell is over it all and over us as we move slowly into the liquid
silence and marvel at the gentle phantasm which is the soul of Japan,
though neither the missionaries nor the geographies may acknow-
ledge this. It rains a little — a playful sprinkled tenderness that ;
nobody could take seriously — and through the rain the quaint curves *
of the mountains near and far rest upon the water in the upper and jj
under colours of a dove’s wing. All at once, far and away down a
clear narrow space between two strangely -tortured purple peaks,
there comes a burnished bar in the sky. It glows and melts, and l
spreads into another sea ; it drops to a weird red burning ; it leaps
up and wavers and pales, and all these goblins of mountains in gray
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 179
and white, and purple, and rose, and gold seem to let their garments
slip into the dreaming water and troop toward the dying light. . . .
‘And so good-bye, Japan/ said I, leaning back to it, as we slipped
away into the wide grayness that lay between us and China.
‘Good-bye, Japan ! Good-night ! The gods you love and ridicule
keep your palms soft, your thoughts sweet, your manners gentle ! ’
And Orthodocia, my friend, looking her last at it over my shoulder,
echoed me softly, ‘ Good-bye, J apan ! Good-night ! 1
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
i So
XIX
It was a strange thing to see China that third day after the
witchery of the Inland Sea. We did not come upon it at all in the
usual way, sailing in between the open arms of a great harbour city
to the sights and sounds of wharves and warehouses ; but suddenly at
four bells of a gray morning somebody on deck said, ‘ There is China ! ’
and there it was. China, rising out of the sea away off on our lee in
a single line of little irregular round mountains, just as it used to
rise in the small square woodcuts in the big pages of the school atlases,
beside paragraphs which related to the Chief Rivers, Principal
Mountain Ranges, Population, Religion, Exports. It was dis-
tinctly the country of the geographies, the country of one’s early
and feeble association with tea-chests and missionaries, although I am
quite sure that I can’t enter into any analysis of this impression that
you would find satisfactory. I only know it is quite true, as Ortho-
docia said, that if we had sailed to this lumpy, lonely land through
unknown seas, with all the joy of the early navigators we should
have named it China — and sailed away again as fast as possible.
For it was even then, I think, at that remote and inexperienced
moment that Orthodocia and I made up our minds that we didn’t
like China, and wouldn’t stay there. ‘ It is a painful conclusion,’
said Orthodocia as we stood together looking at it, ‘ for I had vowed
a private vow to Miss Gordon Cummings that I would wave my
parasol in triumph on the top of the Chinese Wall at Pekin ; but
that there is anything picturesque or interesting enough behind those
ugly little hummocks to make it worth while I am not disposed to
believe.’
The shore began to trend into stronger, bolder headlands, and
behind one of them we presently found Hong Kong. We regarded
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 181
it from a great mountain-locked cannon-guarded water-basin, with
night settling down over it. The mighty semicircle of the hills
seemed very near the sky, and, as the stars came dropping through
the silence up there in the surprised way that stars have all over the
world, the city, climbing its peak, began to hold vain torches up in
emulation. And they all fell together into the peace of the harbour,
between the Trench frigate that lay white and ghostly, remembering
the graves at Tonquin, and the Eussian corvette with strange gold
characters glittering at her prow, and the sharply-defined long black
bulk of Her Majesty’s ship Imperieuse , darkly portentous among the rest.
So we had come to China, and as we slept that night on the ship
at anchor between the upper and the lower firmament I dreamed
that Orthodocia and Confucius sat on the bottom of a turned-up tea-
cup and disputed the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, Ortho-
docia closing the argument by pushing the father of Chinese philo-
sophy, so that he slipped with precipitancy down the side of the
teacup, and fell with a large splash into the Yellow Sea.
Next morning, while we yet hesitated whether we should come
all the way to China and depart the day after because of a prejudice
against its geographical outlines, we were introduced to its domestic
and social conditions as they exist on a sampan. The sampan was
one of many that swung about the ship’s ladder tempting us to slip
down and be taken ashore. A large family in two or three
generations floated through life on our sampan ; and the members of
it, round-headed, narrow-eyed, flat-faced, wide-mouthed, seemed to
have brought the simplicity of living to the n ih - degree. They
pounded rice in an iron pot, and nourished themselves therewith.
They slept on some scraps of matting in a roofed-over space in the
middle of the boat. Family dissensions went on in the stern, social
amenities in the prow, probably, where the matting was cleanest.
Over our heads swung two large rats, split and dried — sight of
ineffable gastronomic suggestion. I caught a glimpse of Orthodocia’s
expression as she regarded them, and I thought on Miss Gordon
Cummings and sighed, for I knew that this hint of the national diet
would prove final and fatal.
f The “ woman question ” appears to have made progress in China,’
remarked my friend, who is not a suffragist, disapprovingly ; and I
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
1 8.2
observed that our sampan was manned by the grandmother,
daughter, aunt, and female cousin of the establishment, who rowed
us lustily with much perspiration. We were disabused of this idea,
however, when we noticed that the small moon-faced object that stood
in the stern and gave orders which the women obeyed with prompt-
ness and unanimity, was a boy. He was a full-blown tyrant, at the
age of seven.
The prow of our sampan was liberally frescoed in blue and red,
and adorned on each side with a large expressive eye. Observing
that all the sampans were thus decorated, Orthodocia fixed hers upon
the grandmother, and said, inquiringly, ‘ Why eye ? ’ She answered
with the brevity, precision, and condescension of a personage talking
to a newspaper reporter, ‘ Ho got eye, no can see — no can see, no can
savey — no can savey, no can go ! 9 And we felt that the decorative
ideas of China had a basis of unfaltering logic.
Going round the world the wrong way, as we did, one gets one’s
first impression of British consequence in it from a Sikh policeman
of Hong Kong. He stands sadly about in the shade of the trees on
Queen’s Boad, or under the wide, cool, many arched stone verandahs
that run before the shops, tall, erect, dignified, looking as if the
whole history of Asia since the Flood passed in revision daily before
him. When I said that, Orthodocia contradicted me, and stated that
in her opinion the man probably didn’t even know British history.
This illustrates a solemn peculiarity of my friend’s which I found
trying at times. In case the peculiarity should be shared by any of
her fellow Englishwomen, I hasten to state that I don’t believe it
really does pass. If you were to ask one of those policemen the
family name of either Hoah or the present Governor of Hong
Kong, in all probability he couldn’t tell you. But when I explained
this to Orthodocia, she said she didn’t see why I kept saying things
if I couldn’t substantiate them.
We were much impressed by these tall guardians of the peace of
Hong Kong from the hills of India, though, and stood looking at one
of them so long that he became uncomfortable and went away. The
fidelity that shone in the liquid brown depths of his eyes was obvious,
but not as obvious, perhaps, as his turban and his feet. There were
eight red yards of his turban, wound round his head in majestic curves
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 183
unknown to tlie millinery of other continents. I don’t know that any
true estimate of the length of his feet has yet been arrived at ; they
remind one of the course of human events. He disposed of them
sectionally in boots for which we believed with ready confidence that
the Government makes a special contract, and they precede him
everywhere.
‘Why,’ said Orthodocia to me as the special object of our
admiration disappeared, ‘ is that policeman like a stopped pen-
dulum ? ’
I said I didn’t know.
‘ I didn’t think you would ! ’ returned Orthodocia triumphantly,
‘ Because he’s gone off his beat ! ’
It may seem disagreeable, but 1 feel that I must instance this as
another of my friend’s little peculiarities.
It is a strange sad thing how as one grows older the objects one
venerates in youth become fewer and fewer. Orthodocia and I,
before we left China, had entirely lost respect for the almanack, even
Whitaker, whom Orthodocia at least had venerated up to that time
as she did the equator. We will henceforth speak of the torrid
rays of the January sun and the Arctic rigours of the storms of July
just as casually as we had been in the habit of doing before we went
round the world, with the months attached, as we thought, appro-
priately. It is provincial, not to say local and bigoted, to believe in
the Seasons or very much in the Sun ; and almanacks are inventions
to excite certain narrow bucolic expectations and sell patent
medicines. This is written in Latin across the diploma of every
graduated ‘ globe trotter,’ and is a fact that survives all of
Baedeker’s. You will observe that I have quoted the expression
‘globe trotter’ to give it an alien look. Orthodocia objects to it in
any personal connection with our trip. She has invented ‘ planet
pilgrim’ instead, and insists upon it, as more dignified; and I let her
have her way.
For our day with the Celestials was an extremely hot one. And
as all Japan’s seductive confectionery was iced when we left, we
resented Hong Kong’s perspiring vegetation and rampant thermo
meter as entirely unjustifiable. For who, all these unreckoning
days since she left school and ceased to have it required of her, would
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
think of making climatic differences between China and Japan !
The experience of more intelligent people may differ ; but we found
this heightened temperature of China as unreasonable as the fact
that it took us a week to get there, instead of being, as one vaguely
imagines, perhaps a day’s sail !
And when we left the streets of tall, white European buildings,
with just a hint of the Orient in their arches and
casements, and turned our exploring feet into China’s
Hong Kong, we found the lEafc thermometer ably sup-
ported by a large and in- CSV fluential family of Odours
counts for the in- vincible Celestial
resistance to the advance of the
Modern Idea. Hot even an ab-
straction could travel far through
those unsweet mazes. It would
resolve itself into a single palpi-
tating olfactory nerve and perish.
crowded stairs ^ leading down into
them, and looked over upon lanes
and lanes, narrow, winding, crossing,
creeping, full of hideousness. I
can’t tell you how «liiP t° rea K s e this
hideousness. It , ^ wKbI might possibly be
approximated by mKm placing the three-
primary colours jmm and the six books
of Euclid in the / 'W/r hands of a ISTorth
American Indian, A. ; . and giving him a
contract to build ‘at home he is atrocious.* a Dakota railway
centre ; though Orthodocia says
she doesn’t see how it could be done that way. Long signs, in
staring red and blue and purple and yellow, projected a foot or
two from the walls on each side and hung down covered with black
cross-bones playing cricket. The vendors squatted under these,
and sold sham jade bracelets, and joss-sticks, and split fish and
unimaginable greasinesses to eat ; and a busy shuffling stolid-faced
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
crowd in
queues, caps,
and petti-
coats elbowed
itself con-
tinually past.
That doesn’t
sound half so
ugly as the
scene was, but
I can’t put
a Chinaman
bodily into
this chapter
and let him
radiate hide-
ousness as he
* WE ESCAPED WITH
TWO BASKET TEA-
POTS APIECE ONLY —
A MERE SCRATCH.’
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
1 86
does at home. It all diverges from the tan-coloured expanse, with
incidental variations, that serves him for a countenance, through
which his smug, self-satisfied, uncompromising identity looks forth
upon a world with which it has no relation of trivial aesthetics.
The Celestial abroad, where he is properly subdued, is unprepos-
sessing ; at home, where he permits himself an opinion of you, he
is atrocious. We went from force of habit into some of the shops
notwithstanding this, where we saw such a large number of un-
interesting things that Orthodocia, discovering a small Satsuma
dragon in exile in a corner, was moved to tears. After the land
of the Mikado, one may encounter the commercial temptations
of China without fear ; and I write down with considerable and
reasonable pride the fact that we escaped with two basket tea-pots
apiece only — a mere scratch.
One buys basket tea-pots in China because there is never any room
for them in one’s trunk, and they have to be carried separately;
because the spouts invariably come off on an unattached journey
round the world ; because they are not nearly so pretty as the ex-
ported ones ; and because they cost about sixpence apiece less than
they do at home. The present historian was peculiarly fortunate,
her spouts having come off among the vicissitudes of the first five
hundred miles ; but the experience of Orthodocia, who preserved
one and two- thirds of hers as far as the Suez Canal, and was never
happy unless they pointed to the East, ought to be a warning to
curio collectors.
We had no Baedeker or any such thing — Orthodocia wouldn’t
hear of buying one, for fear it might beguile us into staying the
necessary week before there would be another P. and O. ship to
take us away — but somebody had told us that the proper and usual
thing for strangers with a couple of hours in Hong Kong to do
was to go up the Peak. Although Orthodocia reminded me that
we had not come to China in search of hackneyed commonplaces,
we also went up the Peak. It was one of the things that we did
which convinced us that the travelling public quite understands
what it is about, and that the hackneyed commonplace exists only
in the minds of people who stay at home.
One goes up the Peak in a cable car. Two cable cars, in fact,
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 187
travel constantly up and down the elevation behind Hong Kong,
for a considerable distance at an angle of forty-five degrees. I can
state this fact confidently, for it is down in Orthodocia’s note-book.
I remember it very well, moreover, because Orthodocia and I
embraced one another fervently several times during the angle of
forty-five degrees. She sat opposite me, and it was a matter of
necessity.
When we got out we found that a magnificent distance still lay
between us and the top. Whereupon four or five Chinamen strolled
forward and signified, in a desultory way, their connection with the
cable car as a means of transit. They had a sort of legless arm-
chair on two poles, into which we got amidst much garrulity. One
Chinaman arranged himself between the shafts before, and the other
behind. They raised it to their shoulders with several solemn
grunts, and presently we started. Orthodocia was distinctly nervous
in the cable car, but when angles of forty-five degrees occurred to
her arm-chair, she spoke of the strides of mechanics in the most feel-
ing and intelligent way.
We looked away from our feet, there at the top of the Peak of
Hong Kong, and our eyes wandered, wavered, lost themselves, and
returned helplessly to the familiar grasses beside us. China rolled
before us, grim, grotesque, dreary, and silent. Strange hills threw
shadows into strange valleys, where no flower grew and no bird
sang. The sea, gray on the horizon, thrust dead -white arms in
between solitary misshapen mountains, whose gauntness a ragged
mist tried vainly to soften. Hong Kong, far below, looked like a
penal settlement from the planet we knew before, and its war-ships
in the harbour like the foolish toys of the convicts made in the hope
of escape. One’s eyes dwelt pleasurably on their tennis-courts,
their race-grounds, their green gardens and churches, and other
contrivances to amuse and comfort themselves, for nowhere else in
all the hem of this strange land’s garment could one find a touch of
tenderness, a breath of ideality. It was not yielding enough to be
melancholy, or conscious enough to be grand ; it seemed to be the
long-forgotten work of the gods of China, as stony, as stolid, as
ferocious as they.
Orthodocia made complaint in the cable car going down of the
1 88
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
art and of the people, and the lady next us, who had just returned
from Canton, where she had spent a day in minute observation
of the tortures, detailed them at length. But it seemed to me
that from the top of the Peak we had seen the reason of it all—
the blue and green china, and the Mandarins’ faces, and the spiked
The tortures lasted all the way to the bottom, and heightened
Orthodocia’s determination to take ship at the earliest instant
and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. The lady thought
we should at least go to Canton, and offered to lend us her note-
book that we might find the most delectable tortures without
unnecessary trouble, but we assured her that her description left
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 189
nothing to be desired. It was a dainty little gilt-edged note-book,
and she was a dainty little gilt-edged lady, who would have felt
herself a monster in sticking a pin through a butterfly, yet both
she and the note-book were quite full of the tortures, to be applied
to every victim allured into conversation with her between Hong
Kong and London.
‘Do you know/ she said, ‘they actually put people’s heads
through holes in the doors, and starve them to death that way ’ —
but at that moment we saw a chance of escape, and took it.
And in this chapter you have the whole, absolutely the whole,
of ‘ What we Did in China ! 5
i go
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XX
I suppose you will hardly believe me when you read this chronicle,
you to whose house in town or place in the country the Indian mail
comes every week, and to whom the initials of the great steamship
company that brings it are as familiar as £ or ‘ G.W.R./ when
I tell you that in the part of the world I come from you might ask
three-quarters of the people you met what ‘ P. and O.’ stands for,
and get the answer, £ Dear me ! That sounds like a thing one ought
to know, and yet — P. — and — O. — P. — and — O. ! Really, I’m afraid
I can’t inform you ! 9
For an Eastern voyage on a Peninsular and Oriental ship is
a vague dream that haunts the gay, hard little parlour where
what we call £ sewing circles 9 meet to hear books of travel read
aloud, in our substitute for villages in the New World — chiefly that
and little more. People who do not belong to the sewing circles,
and are not fond of improving their minds with the printed abstract »
of other people’s fun, don’t think about it. Living several thousand
miles from either end of this popular medium for sending English
brides to India and Australian letters to China, and the nomads of the
earth all over, they are not really so very much to blame — there is no
particular reason why they should know — unless, indeed, some kindly
magician like Mr. Black takes them as far as Egypt with a £ Yolande,’
which was the case with me. The reflected pleasure lasted, I re-
member, only while the novel did ; but the unfamiliar letters gathered
and held a fascinating halo that will endure in my mind as long as
the alphabet ; and from that day in school girlhood until that other
in Yokohama, I longed to set my foot on a ship of the £ P. and 0.’ \
Orthodocia and I both found it something altogether new and
strange in travelling, quite apart from the various queernesses of the
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 191
countries it took us to. You may have crossed the Atlantic in an
upholstered pa] ace, at all sorts of shifting angles, with three hundred
other people, once or twice, and think, as we thought, that you know
all there is to know about lay navigation, but you don’t. You may
even add to your experience, as we did, the great gray skies and
tossing monotony of two weeks on the Pacific, during which your
affections learn to cluster about a ministering angel in a queue, and
yet leave the true philosophy of voyaging unimagined. But Ortho-
docia and I, from Yokohama to London, sailed with intense joy and
satisfaction upon seven of the ships of the P. and O., so I know
whereof I speak.
In Orthodocia’s note-book the items round the corner of the page
labelled ‘ P. and O.’ begin, I observe, at Hong Kong ; for though
we took the voyage from Japan to China under the same paternal
guidance, the conditions were so different from those of our — per-
haps theatrical — expectations that we declined to recognise them as
Peninsular and Oriental. We took it in January for one thing, and
in January there are no punkahs, but a coal stove in the saloon in-
stead. Also, I remember, when we partook of afternoon tea and
plum cake and reminiscences in Captain Webber’s cosy little cabin,
there was a fire there, which didn’t help us to realise the tropics.
Orthodocia was obliged, moreover, to spend most of the five days in
contending with her emotions about leaving the Mikado, for whose
dominions she had found Hong Kong so slight a compensation. I
know it was not until we were on board the stately Sutlej , with her
prow turned towards the Straits of Malacca, that the prospect of
Ceylon began to revive the drooping interest she took in the rest of
the planet.
The first thing that happens when you embark on a P. and O.
ship on the other side of the world is the discovery of somebody you
had 110 special reason to believe you would ever see again in it —
somebody connected in your mind with another hemisphere, perhaps,
from which you had sailed together in the time B. J. (that is the
focal point in Orthodocia’s chronology, and means, ‘ Before Japan’).
And it is one of the pleasantest things that can possibly happen,
this sudden recognition, on a deck full of strangers, of the familiar
head and shoulders of some planet pilgrim gone before. It is quite
102
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
probable that I did not tell you, in my hurry to get to J apan, about
a certain gentleman from New York — a certain portly, and jovial,
and ripely-bald gentleman from New York, whom Orthodocia and
I found on the deck of the Duke of Westminster , watch in hand,
calculating in an incensed manner the precise number of minutes
we had delayed his arrival in Yokohama by keeping the ship waiting
for us. I should have mentioned him because he was the one bit of
colour, the one exhilarating fact in all that grievous time. And
there we fell upon him, there on the Sutlej aft of the smoking cabin,
round, and rubicund, and funny, and New-Yorky as ever, rejoicing
above everything in six extraordinary Chinese petticoats which some
Celestial dame had so forgotten herself as to sell him in Canton.
Well, of all things ! The very last people he would have ex-
pected ! And did we remember the ‘ grilled bones ’ on the Duke oj
Westminster ? Didn’t we •? It was like the Pacific Ocean giving up
Charles Lamb. And had we observed the peculiarities of pidgin
English ? ‘ John ! run topside — catchee me one piecee gentleman — -
savey, J ohn ? Quick ! ’
John savied, and shortly returned with the special piecee gentle-
man required, who turned out to be a great American author we
had met at Lady C. P. R. Magnum’s the evening before leaving
Montreal.
‘ You know each other, I believe,’ remarked Rubicundo, genially ;
‘ and you’re certain to have read this chap in any case. He simply
infests the bookstalls — there’s no getting away from him.’ ‘What
did you say he’d written ? ’ said my friend to me in a terrified whisper,
and in the confusion of the moment I confounded the gentleman
to be complimented with Mr. Howells, and answered, ‘A Foregone
Conclusion.’ ‘No getting away from him,’ went on Rubicundo,
cheerfully ; ‘we’ll count a dozen of his last edition on this ship.’
‘ Yes,’ fibbed Orthodocia, gracefully. ‘ Your “Foregone Delusion”
is delightfully familiar to everybody, that is to say’ — as he looked
aghast — ‘ I mean by reputation . How very warm it is ! ’
Rubicundo choked suddenly, and went away ; but the great
American author was very amiable, and only gave the situation the
slight emphasis of asking Orthodocia which part of England she
came from. Later my friend took occasion to say to me privately
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 193
that she had always been told that there was no such thing as
American literature, and she didn’t believe there was ; and anyway,
the careless manner in which I pronounced my words was getting
to be really
* # %■ % %
* So they sailed away for a year and a day
To the Land where the Bong Tree grows,’
quoted Orthodocia one day dreamily, when the time-spaces began to
melt into one another, and nobody knew and nobody cared, as we
pulsed southward over rippling seas and under soft skies, how many
knots they put up in the companion-way at eight bells as the ship’s
run, or how far we were from Singapore. It was a charmed voyage,
a voyage to evoke imagination in the brains of a Philistine or a
Member of Parliament. The very hold of the Sutlej was full of
poetry in its more marketable shape of tea, and silk, and silver, and
elephants’ tusks, and preserved pineapples ; and all the romance of
the Orient was in the spicy smell that floated up from it. The
Sutlej , moreover, was returning to England after discharging a Vice-
roy at Bombay on the way out, and her atmosphere was still full of
the calm and conscious glory of it.
Your days of tropical voyaging begin in a great white marble
bath. Then, if you want to indulge in the humbug and pretence of
‘exercise’ before breakfast, you pace up and down in the shade,
awnings overhead and at the sides, over the broad white quarter-
deck — holystoned hours before — and look away across the bulwarks
to where morning in the sky melts into morning in the sea, and a
wandering gull catches the light of both on its broad white wings.
But it is easier to lie in a steamer- chair and fall into a state of re-
flection. There is just enough ozone in the air to keep your lungs
gently in action, and make the languorous energy of your pulses a
virtue, and philosophy is easy. You fancy yourself very close to
the infinities, and you find the delusive contact pleasant. Rubi-
cundo, in garments of pongee silk and a pith helmet, leaning over
the taffrail in the middle distance, becomes invested with the tender-
ness and profundity of your own emotions ; and you wonder if he
too is dreamily playing ninepins with the eternal verities. Presently
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
T94
he takes out his watch and regards it phsorbedly, giving you a shock
which suggests certain sarcasms, and leaves you better pleased with
yourself than ever. It was only breakfast after all.
We pass the punkah- wallahs as we follow him at the clangour of
the bell to the companion-way — four or five handsome little Bengalis
with the Indian sun in their liquid brown eyes, barefooted, dressed
in a single straight white garment reaching half-way down their small
mahogany legs ; red cotton sashes, and turbans. There are punkah -
tvallalis and punkah-wallahs, we discover later ; and punkah- wallahs
may be as unappetising as those of the Sutlej are stimulating, in a
gentle, aesthetic way, to one’s idea of breakfast. It is a peculiarity
of Rubicundo’s that he never can pass them without a facetious
poke or two, from which the punkah- wallah poked squirms delightedly
away, and of Orthodocia’s that she must needs chirrup to them and
cast her new-gotten Indian wealth in annas among them. It takes
four of them to keep the punkah waving below, and a quartermaster
is told off to see that they do it. Systematically, when the quarter-
master is unaware, they attach the rope to their great toes, and
agonise on one foot while they pull with the other, which goes to
prove that the Aryan small boy is quite as ingenious in self-torture
as any other.
It is wide, and cool, and spacious below where the long white
table is laid, and the stewards are standing about looking weighed
down, as stewards always do, by the solemnity of the approaching
function. The walls are tiled in cool blue and white ; outside the
big square ports the sea sparkles and splashes in the sun — the sweet-
voiced laughing southern sea, that bears us so merrily, as if she
loved it. Quaint dwarfed cherry trees in full blossom, and orange
trees laden with twinkling fruit the size of a marble, and tall waxy
camellias from Orthodocia’s dear Japan win her affections at first
sight. Over head a large railed oval opening gives into the music-
room, and across this run bridges of palms and ferns, cool and grace-
ful. Orthodocia told the captain once that it was a little like break-
fasting in the suburbs of Paradise, whereat he made as if he were
shocked, but as he claimed the palm canopy as his own idea, I don’t
think he found her simile very objectionable.
At the breakfast-table one’s first interest is naturally in the ship’s
195
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
officers, and there is always somebody who has already ingratiated
himself with them and will point them out — the captain, the 4 First/
the ‘Second/ the ‘Third/ the doctor, and the rest. ‘P. and O.’
officers ought to have a chapter to themselves — and I am convinced
that- I could find enough material for one, duly initialled, in Ortho-
docia’s note-book— for they become a distinct species after one has
experienced a few shipfuls of them. But we will never get round
the world at this rate, and I must put the theme aside ; only telling
you that there is always, for instance, the engaged officer, with an
absent look and a disposition to take his food indiscriminately ; the
musical officer, who sings ‘White Wings ’ or ‘Queen of My Heart ’
to the accompaniment of the young married lady at the captain’s
right ; the flirting officer, who has a very pretty cabin to show, full
of the trophies, hand-painted or worked in crewels, of other trips ;
the tall dark oldish officer, and the short fair boyish officer, and
others whose accomplishments would take up altogether too much
space, but who help, I fancy, to make a great many voyages pleasantly
memorable. Captain Worcester, I remember, was rather particular
about the niceties of uniform, so that the galaxy of the Sutlej were
always apparelled exactly alike. The ‘First’ never appeared in
cloth if his ‘ chief ’ wore ducks, nor did the ‘ Second 5 wear white
raiment if black lustre monkey jackets were the order of the day.
To the ancient mariner, if such a one happen to read this chronicle,
these things will doubtless be trivialities, but to the feminine and
aesthetic eye I know their importance will be manifest.
After breakfast one finds the breeziest spot on deck, and reposes
oneself on the long Chinese steamer-chair of the person whose card
of possession is most obscurely tacked on. Perhaps there is a fire
muster to enliven the morning, and one languidly watches the
Lascars taking prompt orders with splashing buckets, the officers
getting the boats out, and the stewards trooping up with provision
for the same. Captain Worcester made this a very serious function
indeed, and the nutriment his pantrymen sent up was of the most
solid and uninspiring character ; but on another ship I took note of
the provisions one morning, and found that the head steward intended
us to live luxuriously to the last. They included two tins of pre-
served ginger — most inspiriting diet for castaways — a box of
1 96
macaroons, and
cia, I remember,
the consumption
putting in ^
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
a quantity of marmalade. Orthodo*
immediately conjured up a picture of
of that marmalade, each unfortunate
a huger in turn, and began to
select her fellow-
passengers.
Or perhaps there
is ‘ stations,’ and all
the ship’s crew, the
officer in buttons, the
quartermasters in
blue, the stewards
in their smug
black coats,
primitive
make a line
deck, salut-
amd first
then, at the
the depths
Nubian
with great
the Lascar sailors
in such finery as
they have, and the
African firemen
in long, clean and
white garments,
round the quarter-
ing as the captain
officer pass on a round of inspection ;
quartennaster’s whistle, disappearing to
from whence they came. The popular
robe deserves another word : it is cut
economy straight from the shoulders
197
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
clown to the calf of the leg, and there is an aperture at the neck, by
which it is got into. It is almost ugly enough to be adopted by a
dress reform society, and when the African who owns it is particularly
big and black and solemn -visaged, it is usually made of spotted
muslin. One or two patterns were quite sweet, and gave a special
interest to 4 stations/
Then 4 tiffin ’ — lunch is a solecism on the P. and O.— and fruits
and ices in paper boats, and other tropical alleviations, while the long
canvas flounce of the punkah swings lazily to and fro over the table,
and Captain Worcester tells a second best story, for the best are not
to be had from him till dinner-time. And then the afternoon wears
goldenly away with ship cricket perhaps, at which Orthodocia once dis-
tinguished herself by sending the ball so vigorously high in the air
that it carried Rubicundo’s pipe into the yeasty deep, and gave him
a sympathy, he said, for men who had seen active service, which
he never had before. Or the five o’clock tea of the lady who always
carries her own tea set, and has a private plum cake, which is quite
the prevailing idea in fashionable Oriental travelling. One afternoon
we pass within half a mile of a steam yacht which the 4 First’ declares
to be sailed by the Sultan of Jahore. We descry a stout person
in white in her stern, waving his handkerchief vigorously, and im-
mediately invest him with spotless robes, ropes of jewels, and great
condescension. The Sultan of Jahore ! The one touch of romantic
magic needful to make the. East tangible to us, to give a world of
realism to all that fantasy of opal sky and sea. It was altogether
sublime, and we can’t help regretting the later experience that
would make us more or less contemptuous of sailing Sultans — sus-
picious of the propriety of their linen, and the intervals between
their pocket-handkerchiefs. One is fortunate, Orthodocia has since
concluded, in seeing one’s first Sultan with a half-mile perspective.
Early missionary associations came back upon one forcibly in a
trip through the Indian Archipelago, and there is one especial asso-
ciation that comes back to everybody, and comes to stay. I mean every-
body on the saloon list. I have seldom heard it expressed by any of
the ship’s officers, though I have seen numbers of them move off almost
in a terrified way on hearing something about it from the lips of a
passenger. In fact, I have reason to believe that a violent and
4 SOCIAL DEPARTURE
19S
distressing end was put to a most promising Affair between a certain
First and a charming young person from Australia once, when it
became apparent that she was hopelessly addicted to the association
that I refer to.
There is a high broken line on the horizon one morning, which
we are given to understand indicates Sumatra, a mass of darker blue
against the sky — only this and nothing more. Yet it is enough to
make every individual on deck exclaim with one emotion, ‘ India’s
coral strand ! ’ It’s not India, and there’s nothing even remotely
suggestive of a coral strand about it, but 4 our imaginations,’ as the
old lady who is aunt to a bishop piously remarks, ‘ were not given to
us for nothing ’ ; and the association is well started. She begins by
looking thoughtfully for a long time at the geographical suggestion
on our lee, and repeating slowly just as the bishop might have
done :
* From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain.
They call us to deliver
Their land from error’s chain.*
Then she proposes that we should sing the entire hymn, but
somebody — the ‘ Second,’ I think — hurriedly interposes. He declares
it would be madness to let the association take such complete hold on
us so early in the trip. ‘ Wait,’ he says, £ “ until the spicy breezes blow
soft o’er Ceylon’s isle.” ’ And then he goes away, I think, and has
himself put in irons. But we don’t sing it ; we content ourselves
with saying it over from beginning to end, internally, seven times.
By that time it has grown tolerably familiar, and we begin to resent
the slightest inaccuracies in anybody’s quotations from it. It takes
entire possession of us ; we hum it at intervals all day. I have seen
two elderly gentlemen on terms of intimacy suddenly pause in
the midst of an exciting political discussion and chant solemnly and
simultaneously:
1 The heathen, in his blindness,
Bows down to wood and stone,’
Then glare angrily at one another for an instant, and take chairs at
remote and dissociated ends of the ship.
199
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
We fly to literature for surcease from affliction, and find that
every author of ‘ Round the World' travels on board has quoted
the hymn in full on the page we open — doubtless to ease his
mind.
The conjunction of Rubicundo and a certain unfortunate bachelor
named Viall brings our sufferings to a climax. Rubicundo begins to
twit Mr. Viall on his state of single blessedness — to twit him omin-
ously. We wait in nervous anticipation — presently there is a chance
for it and it comes :
‘ Though every prospect pleases,
Yet “ only man is Yiall ! ” ’
I am pleased to state that Rubicundo goes away looking
thoroughly ashamed of himself. The joke is given to the public
simply to show the malign influence of an essentially innocent hymn
upon a person who, under other circumstances, had won a reputation
for humour.
One can’t expect Captain Worcester’s stories to ‘print ’half so
funnily as he told them. The story, for instance, of the first two
Chinese Mandarins the P. and O. brought to England, and the
special instructions the captain got from headquarters to look after
them when they came aboard. How the captain turned in after a
while, leaving the instructions with the ‘ First ’ ; how the ‘ First ’
delegated them to the ‘ Second,’ and the ‘ Second ’ in the course of time
to the first available quartermaster. And how the quartermaster,
with unshaken rectitude, came to the captain in a stilly hour of
night with the terrifying message, ‘Please, suit, they kings is
come aboord, an’ one of em’s fell down the coal-hole ! ’ Or of the
terrible encounter of his chief once, while he was yet only a ‘First, 1
which demanded all the nerve of a commander of a man-of-war, with
two enraged and horror-stricken members of the Bombay Civil Ser-
vice, who confronted that stern person in port with tumultuous
inquiries for their beauteous brides that were to be — and had to be
told, with what fortitude the captain could summon, that the young
ladies, lingering too long among the ever- fascinating bazaars, had been
left behind at Gibraltar !
Or of the occasional contumacious maiden he has had consigned
2CO
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
to liis fatherly care for Indian ports. Of one especial young woman
who refused to ‘ turn in ’ at ten o’clock as beseemed her, but rather
preferred the society of a callow subaltern and the seclusion of the
hurricane deck. How he remonstrated in vain, and finally hit upon
a luminous idea to preserve discipline, and set a quartermaster to
place four lanterns round the young woman wherever she might be-
take herself. This was conspicuous and embarrassing, and as the
quartermaster, acting under orders, pursued her from Dan in the
prow to Beersheba in the stern, her haughty spirit was finally humbled,
I believe. We heard much, too, of the whole bevies of extremely
young persons who are often entrusted to a P. and O. captain, and
succeed in making his life a burden to him. A favourite message
from one lot of Captain Worcester’s was that ‘Amy’ — aetat. nine
— ‘ won’t go to bed ; please come down and slap her ! ’
And I must not forget the time-honoured P. and O. story, at the
expense of a short-sighted young officer who longed to be a Nimrod,
and whom some humourist sent to shoot scavenger crows near
Yokohama, under the impression that they were a species of Japanese
wild fowl. He brought down two brace of birds, and sent them
with lively joy to the wife of the agent at Yokohama with a polite
note, stating that they were the first-fruits of his gun. Meantime
the joke was explained to him, and he sent in severe spasms of
mind to recover the crows, instructing his coolie to buy two brace
of ducks in the market to fulfil the promise of the note. The lady,
who had been out, was delighted to receive the note on her return,
and ordered the first-fruits to be brought to her in the drawing-room.
There was some delay in executing the order, and apparently some
confusion in the back premises. Presently the first-fruits, lustily
pursued and in a state of great excitement, flapped into the room.
The eoolie had only made the interesting improvement of buying live
ones to represent his master’s sport, and probably does not under-
stand the reason of his chastisement unto this day. I believe the
officer is still in the service. He must recognise his own ducks very
often in the course of a year.
Singapore and Penang occurred during the course of this voyage,
but as I am devoting my chapter to a faint picture of the joys of the
voyage itself, I think I will not impart the more or less valuable
20 1
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
impressions we were able to gather during the two or three hours
we spent at each port. Orthodocia took her note-book each time to
pick up any stray statistics that might come in our way, but the
only note I see under ‘ Singapore * is ‘ Three yards Indian mull
for hat, 25 . and Penang has something about fan-palms and
pongee silk.
And the voyage of every day was like the voyage of the day
before, always ending in the cool soft darkness that fell suddenly,
and brought with it a myriad of strange stars. The watching great
V enus slip down into the sea, and the waiting for the Southern Cross
to lift its beauty up from the dark verge of the sky, and the listen-
ing to the meeting and the parting of the waters, as this majestic
black creature of a ship pulsed onward into the infinity about us —
that was all we did at night, yet each night seems to have a separate
chronicle as one reads backwards, a chronicle that vanishes in the
writing and is dumb in the telling.
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XXI
On the wide quarter-deck of the Sutlej , in port at Colombo, Ceylon.
1 Ike !’ said Orthodocia. c Iksmasho !’ 1 My friend clung ten-
derly to the vocabulary of her lost Japan. ‘It is all/ she was
wont to say pathetically, ‘ that I have left/ Which, considering the
amount of room taken up in the ship’s hold by packing-boxes
labelled 1 Miss O. Love, Wigginton, Devon, Eng. Curios. With
Care/ seemed a preposterous statement.
‘ Ike !’ she said.
The man looked at her wonderingiy. He was a short, brown
heathen, of the Cingalese variety, with a round, shining counte-
nance, radiating much guile. He stood before her in his white
draperies in the manner of one who will not be discouraged, and he
held in his hands a tray full of precious stones. He was a 6 tambie/
a pedlar-pest of these waters, and we had foreknowledge of him.
‘ Eekay ! ’ he repeated slowly and thoughtfully. 6 1 doan’ know
dat “go away ! ” De French, dey says “ vatton !” de German, dey
says “ s'eer dich aus ! ” de InTis, dey says “ be off ! ” de Mer’can,
dey says “ clear out ! ” I doan’ know wat lan\vidge dat “ Eekay .” 9
‘ De Cingalese/ he added, politely, ‘ dey says, “ p allay an ! ” ’
Who could say it after that naif confession of familiarity with
the brutality of all Christendom ? Xot Orthodocia, at any rate.
I saw her hesitate and fall. I left her fingering silver stars of
‘ moonystones ’ — little round valueless things like drops of watered
milk, which one gets only in Ceylon ; and wheti I came back from en-
gaging what I believed to be ‘ catamarans/ to take us ashore, I found
that she had ‘remembered’ every inhabitant of Wigginton with one
of then^ and was telling the tambie how inexpensive they were.
1 Go away.
203
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
We arranged to go shoreward in this manner, because it was an
innovation, and we were opposed on general principles to the ordi-
nary and the commonplace ; but I cannot conscientiously urge the
claims of the catamaran as a convenient and comfortable method
of public transport. As we wanted all the innovations we could
get we took three, one for Orthodocia, one for me, and one for her
Chinese tea-pots. I considered the third a measure of over-caution,
and urged my friend to take the tea-pots in her lap ; but she declined,
in the opinion that they would swamp her catamaran.
‘there is no doubt that as an innovation the catamaran is a success.*
There is no doubt that as an innovation the catamaran is a suc-
cess,. but one should have an extreme taste in innovations to appre-
ciate it thoroughly. There is no awning, for one thing — a drawback
in the tropics. There is no seat. There is only a small wet wooden
half egg which protrudes an arm across the waves on one side in
a wild effort to keep its balance. It was extremely wavy in the
harbour of Colombo the day we essayed upon it in catamarans, and
it was only occasionally that I could assure myself that Orthodocia
204
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
and her tea-pots were still extant. And I suppose that two more
water-logged passengers never disembarked at Colombo. We
advised each other warmly, as we wrung each other out, to travel in
future with our luggage in the steam launch.
It was pleasant enough, driving about and drying ourselves, and
choosing a hotel, a quaint old castellated-looking affair in a clump
of cocoanuts by the sea, about half a mile from the town, which was
all we did that day. One’s first tropical hotel is always amusing
enough to keep one in it for a while. It took half an hour to appre-
ciate the points of our bedroom, with its great windows, opening
like shutters on hinges, through which floated the rainy, pattering
sound of the wind-stirred cocoanut palms, and the splash of the
waves on the beach, and the multitudinous cawings of the big black
scavenger crows, that flap heavily in themselves occasionally with
an eye to booty. We became well acquainted with our crows, and
discovered variations in their sage impudence that gave a per-
sonality to each of them. The beds are invisible behind their
mosquito-nets — not casual draperies such as protect one’s slumbers
in America, but securely tucked in and guiltless of the smallest hole
whatever. The partitions stop within three feet of the ceiling —
the terms of rebuke our neighbour had for his wife on the score of
her extravagance were quite embarrassing for Orthodocia and me ;
and several times it was a question of debate with us whether we
should rap resonantly upon the wall and say distinctly, ‘We’re
here ! ’ The bath is a huge tub that looks as if it might have been
hollowed out of solid wood, and our ablutions were frequently shared
by a small green lizard or so. Beautiful and interesting objects —
when one is able to bestow one’s entire attention upon them. The
first lizard that occurs in one’s bath tub is invariably a scorpion —
in fact, with Orthodocia the terms were interchangeable — and this
accounts, I dare say, for the number of scorpions we found in what
books on the tropics we had with us.
At tiffin one has a chance of observing the transplanted European
variety of tropical humanity as it takes its accustomed place, speaks
commandingly to a waiter in bad Cingalese, and subsides behind a
newspaper to await the fulfilment of things. There is the bronzed
young officer in mufti and the bronzed old officer in mufti, the mufti
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 205
in both cases being white; clucks, and differences and distinctions
lying chiefly in the fact that the old officer has the redder nose and
the young one the more deeply bored expression of the two. There
is the up-country planter in town on business for a day or two ; a
jovial fellow he, brown as a nut under his broad double soft felt hat,
keen-eyed, loose-garmented, with an independence of manner and
speech acquired a long way from Mayfair, and a suggestion in all he
says and does of the lavish, hospitable, happy-go-lucky life he leads
under his vanilla vines and his mango trees. And there is the
old resident who came ‘out’ as a boy, thinking to make his
fortune in ten years and go back, but who has meanwhile stratified
into the permanent social body of Ceylon, and forgotten that he
ever intended to do more than earn a respectable living. Then
there are the ladies, all in cool English muslins, a little pale, perhaps,
but otherwise just like ‘ the ladies 7 wherever femininity is gathered
together under the sun ; and the £ planet pilgrims, 7 of which happy
band are Orthodocia and I, looking very new and hot, and proud of
their tropical attire.
Among all these the Cingalese waiters move, tall and sinuous
and silent, each in his white jacket and flowing nether draperies,
each with his long, sleek, black hair drawn back by a large tortoise-
shell comb. We thought at first that the comb might be an idiosyn-
crasy of the hotel — a compulsory measure adopted for the sake of
the soup ; but we soon discovered it to be a Cingalese masculine
vanity of the low country. The Kandyans do not wear combs, and
you will remember that the British had more difficulty in subduing
them than their low country brethren who were given over to the
pomps and vanities. Trincomalee, of the south, was probably taken
while the garrison was making its toilet. However that may be,
it takes time for the tourist to become accustomed to this Cingalese
originality — to acquire a taste for it must take eternity. A heathen
with his hair neatly drawn back under the halo of a tortoiseshell
comb is a disturbing object in nature, and one that the Sunday-
school papers neglect to prepare you for.
Then there are the tropical fruits to make acquaintance with,
and by the ineradicable legacy of Paradise the fruits of a country
are the first interest and the soul’s solace of everybody. The mango,
206
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
the £ custard apple,’ the c bullock’s heart.’ The mango looks like a
large corpulent green pocket-book, about eight inches long and four
wide, and tastes like nothing else in the world, with a dash of tur-
pentine which is sometimes strong enough to spoil the pink ambrosia
inside and sometimes is not. It is extremely juicy, leathery of cover,
and has a large stone inside. It is not, therefore, an easy article of
consumption to the novice from over seas. I shall always remember
Orthodocia and her first mango with emotions that time cannot
mitigate. It was a very ripe fat mango, and looked as if it ought
to be peeled. Orthodocia thought to peel it round and round with
precision as if it were an apple. At the second round she began to
hold it carefully over her plate ; at the third she tucked her sleeve
well up from the wrist ; at the fourth she laid it down blushingly,
looked round carefully to see if anyone observed her, made several
brilliant maps upon her napkin, and tackled it again. This was too
much for the mango, and it bounded with precipitancy into the lap
of an elderly person across the table, who restored it with frigid
indignation in a table-spoon. Orthodocia then harpooned it with
her fork, and took the rest of the skin off in transverse sections,
which left her in possession of a very large amount of stone with a
very superficial amount of fruit irregularly distributed over it. This
she did not consume, having acquired enough mango, as she said,
externally. We learned the proper way afterwards, which is to
slice the fruit longitudinally into three, leaving a bit of skin at each
end of the stone piece, to take the pulp out of the side slices with a
spoon, and to attack the middle slice with an end in each hand,
much in the American manner of consuming green corn. This
makes the mango unpopular as a dessert fruit foi aesthetic reasons,
and confines its consumption, in fact, with many people who are
particular, to the only place which seems to give room enough for it
and the opportunity of properly repairing its ravages — the matu-
tinal tub.
The custard apple and bullock’s heart are related and equally
objectionable, the chief difference being that one is nasty in a sweet
way, and the other is nasty in a sour way. The prevailing flavour
is that of French kid, the consistency that of very thick porridge.
As I have hinted in Orthodocia’s experience, the proper mode of
207
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
consumption of tropical fruits is in itself a liberal education. A
‘bullock's heart,’ for instance, is almost the size of a small melon.
Two were set before us when Orthodocia and I first made their
acquaintance ; and we, with the careless joy of tyros in the tropics,
possessed ourselves each of one. It was not until our spoons were
deep in their pasty insides that we discovered, by the various ex-
pressions of our neighbours’ countenances, that those two ‘bullock’s
hearts ’ were intended to be divided sectionally among at least five
people. It was a matter of the more painful regret to us in that
the defrauded would have liked them so much better than we did.
We spent our first evening in Ceylon as nineteen travellers in
twenty spend it, enraptured on the hotel verandah. As we strolled
up and down there, looking at the evening light on the pale green
sea, and listening to the wind among the cocoanut fronds, there was
nothing and nobody else apparently but half a dozen knotted bundles
and two or three dark, expectant figures, sitting cross-legged behind
them. But we had only to take lounging chairs, and look absently
into space, to work a transformation. Instantly the knots were
untied, and a wealth of colour rolled out of the dingy wrappings.
Silks of India and of China, ‘ puggeries,’ ‘ kummerbunds ’ — scarfs
for belts — woven in all sorts of brilliant combinations, native
cottons, soft and loosely made, strings of pearls, heaps of uncut
rubies and sapphires, real green beetles set in gold and silver, old
swords and daggers curiously carved, round metal boxes for carry-
ing betel paste, curious Cingalese vases in alternate bronze and
silver, tiny hammered silver coffee spoons, with Buddha sitting on
the handle — but I am beginning to read like an auction list. And
the embroideries— before their splendid barbarism my pen fails.
Most of them, wonderfully worked in colours that can only be called
internecine, would profane a modern drawing-room ; but others
were in exquisite patterns of gold thread upon cream silk, and were
altogether ravishing. The Oriental scale of prices we began to
understand, falling back on our expensive Japanese experience, and
in our chaffering and bickering we got a valuable Kindergarten
lesson in the current specie of Ceylon. A rupee, for instance — who,
not an Anglo-Indian, or any connection of his, has not had dazzling
visions of the value of a rupee ? To my untutored American
208
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
imagination a rupee had always been a large and luminous coin of
pure gold, with strange characters cut upon it by dusky Indian
fingers. I knew that viceroys were paid in rupees — in lakhs of
rupees— and a lakh had always represented a pile about as high as
the table. I had had visions of Their Excellencies encanopied by
the British flag, receiving tribute of this sort. It was a little trying
to find that at current rates of exchange it took about three of them
to be worth a single small
ing gold dollar. There
annas to be struggled
per annas and silver
and pies and
plentiful illus-
bargains. And
unpretend-
were also
with — cop-
annas —
pice, with
t rations in
we took to
it all with
great en-
* AND THEN LIE SWEETLY DOWN TO SLUMBER.*
thusiasm,
especially
the illustra-
tions, and
speculated
so late upon the verandah that my first night’s rest in Ceylon was
disturbed by dreams of barter, and Orthodocia went back in her
sleep to the tables in the primary arithmetic. I heard her myself,
sitting up in bed, solemnly say —
4 Twenty pies one scruple,
Three scruples one pice,
Eight rupees one furlong,
Seventeen hundred and sixty annas one mile.*
And then lie sweetly down again to slumber.
OUR 'JOURNEY ROUND HIE WORLD
209
XXII
Belonging as we do to the sex that adorns itself, the first thing
that Orthodocia and I coveted in the Asian tropics was naturally
clothes. Not the vulgar garnishings we had bought all our lives by
the yard, and had made up according to the dictum-— ‘at the can-
non’s mouth,’ Orthodocia said — of a tyrant ‘ Madame ’ This or That,
but these soft, loosely-woven fabrics of silk or cotton, with their
fantastic borders, that had never been classified under the head of
‘ Imports,’ but came to us straight from Indian looms as cheaply as we
had the cleverness to take them. It was for some time a source of
wonder to us that the European lady resident did not buy these native
things for her personal adornment, instead of driving about as she
did dressed very much as she would be on a hot day at home.
How much more graceful than that stiff ‘sailor,’ thought we, would
be the loose end of one of these soft saris drawn over the head and
shoulders as the brown women draw them ; how much more artistic
than that pink cambric the Oriental design and colour of the native
drapery ! And Orthodocia almost meditated, being a seriously
artistic person, appearing in the costume of the native ladies, with
certain amendments, to introduce the idea. But we happily stayed
long enough to find out that this wealth of colour was chiefly in
combinations of red and yellow and green, not wholly to be approved
of on artistic grounds after the glamour had worn off ; that cheap
native silk is apt on the second time of wearing to produce a fungus
of fuzz all over it ; that the better ‘ Indian ’ fabrics are chiefly made
in Manchester for this particular trade ; and that a great mass of
barbarism becomes so revolting by daily contact that even its de-
corative ideas are objectionable by association. By that time Ortho-
docia had dropped the idea of adopting the native costume, and
P
210
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
consigned her saris to the bottom of lier trunk, to be made into
window curtains or twisted over the backs of Wigginton sofas in the
manner that Wigginton approves of.
It was before our initiation that we bought native silks on the
verandah, and listened to the Australian lady who sat beside us at
tiffin, and had ‘ been told ’ that the Cingalese men made very fair
dressmakers. They looked so much like women, with their delicate
features, long hair and flowing garments, that we were not surprised
to hear it. Gathering up our bargains, therefore, we sallied forth
to find the Worths of Ceylon and see Colombo at the same time.
I am instructed by the guide-book to say that Colombo is divided
into the ‘Fort/ the ‘Pettah,’ and the ‘Bungalow District ’ — the
Fort being the business and barracks part of the town, the Pettali
the native and nasty part, and the Bungalow District the outskirts
chiefly, where the British resident keeps house under tropical condi-
tions and a very big fig-tree. All of which I suppose we examined
according to the precepts of the guide-book at the time, but I should
doubt the reliability of anything topographical about Colombo that
survives either in my memory or Orthodocia’s note-book, beyond the
fact that our particular man lived in the Pettah, whither we betook
ourselves first.
After the clothed barbarism of J apan and China, one’s first drive
among one’s Aryan brothers is apt to be interjectional, unless one
is a person of extreme stolidity. The women are too much clad, if
anything, to attend one of Her Majesty’s Drawing Booms, but the
men present a broad glistening acreage of mahogany epidermis that
is startling, while the costume of the small boy consists of a chain
and amulet of some sort which he wears round his fat little waist.
Like other small boys, he outgrows his clothes, and until his
mother lets them out looks much like a plump brown pillow tied in
with a string.
The children, lovely little imps, with eyes like pairs of liquid
lamps in the darkness of their hair and faces, clustered all along the
road, ready to besiege everything on wheels that came that way.
They ran after us with tiny bunches of flowers, a curious jumping,
gliding inflection in their soft voices, as they pleaded, ‘ Nice rose
flower, laidy ! Please buy this, laidy ! You give me sixpence, laidy ! *
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 21 r
There was a world of persuasion in it, and I cannot testify to any
resistance 011 our part. Ortliodocia even stopped the carriage and
got a couple of two-year-old brown Cupids into it, who wept so
lustily, however, that she abandoned her idea of taking them home
to hold lamps in the hall, and returned them to the bosom of their
families with despatch. They were perfect little beings, exquisite
in mould and colour, and could have been got, T suppose, for about
three-and-sixpence apiece — tropical curios of unmistakable genuine-
ness and great artistic merit. But they slipped through our hands,
as we held them over the side of the carriage, like many another
bargain I dare say. The mothers, who regarded us curiously out of
their secretive dark eyes, half hiding their faces in their cotton saris
as we looked, carried their babies astride over their hips, awkwardly
enough. Frequent family tubbings were in process in front of the
small domiciles built of mud and sticks and thatched with cocoanut
leaves or roofed with coarse tiles, that huddled together by the road-
side, the little wet, naked figures positively flashing in the sun.
Bound the street pumps, which seemed to stand at every corner,
there was always a picturesque group — a woman with a pail on her
head, graceful as Bebekah, a coolie splashing the cool water over
his dusty black legs, and the fascinating brown infant everywhere.
I remember one special glimpse— a little beauty of a girl with long,
tangled, shiny black hair and eyes like stars, a bit of red handker-
chief draped round her limbs, and a half-cocoanut in her hand for a
cup. She splashed the water at us saucily as we passed, and one
doesn’t often see anything prettier than she was as she did it.
Europeans were driving as Europeans drive everywhere, but the
popular native conveyance was a two-wheeled wooden cart, attached
to a pair of small buffaloes. When I first heard of the extent to
which buffaloes are made use of in the East, I thought at once of
our prairie buffalo, with his large frontal development and unsoci-
able ways, and reflected on the power of man. You who do not
belong to our continent, and naturally know more about it than its
inhabitants do, would have been able to tell me that ours are not
buffaloes at all, but bison, and that the term properly belongs to the
funny little animals and their kin that we saw going at full trot
through the streets of Colombo. The ox of one’s early primer is
212
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
-
such a meditative animal, and takes such heed to his ways, that it
is a sensation as remarkable of its sort as any Barnum gave you
to see the pace their drivers get out of these small creatures,
and the sense of direction they have. There is a look of having
been surprised into a novel occupation, mingled with an intention
to make the best of it, in their honest little faces, that is very funny
indeed. Many of them are not more than ten hands high ; they
have no horns, and are harnessed to their poor little humps and
driven by a rope through their poor little noses. I have authority
for saying that they will go nine and ten miles an hour, but no ex-
perience, as I declined Orthodocia’s proposition to try them tandem.
One may be a very fair whip and yet not an adept at tail-twisting,
which is the native J ehu’s art of persuasion.
Our vehicle, that once, had a back seat. Afterward, we chose
vehicles without back seats.
Turning into the Pettah we passed a group of natives in the first
position of hotel loafers. Two of them ran as fast as possible after
our carriage, and one of them vaulted lightly into the back seat
aforesaid. He was a good-looking fellow with an impertinent fat
face ; he might have been an imitation 4 end man ’ of an American
minstrel show.
4 What do you want h ’ said Orthodocia, whose nerves were shaken.
4 I’m a puhson pufieckly qualified to act as guide and interpolate^
Miss. I’m fluent in de lan’widge, ye know ! You see dese fellahs
dey cannot speak youh lan’widge, ye know ! You address dem and
dey cannot address back. Dis circumvents trouble fo’ you, laidy.
Now, I’m fluent in de lan’widge, ye know. Ah you from America ?
Gh, indeed ? Oh, indeed ? Well, I’ll tell you w’at 111 do fo’ you.
If you take me to Kandy, I’ll go fo’ five rupees a day an’ fin’ my
own food— an’ you save ten per cent. ! ’
4 Get down ! ’ said Orthodocia.
4 I’m a puhson pufieckly qualified—’
4 Get down ! ’ said Orthodocia.
4 Oh, very well, laidy ! I simply wished a lift down ’ere — dat
was my objeck in coming with you, laidy ! An’ now I’ll say good-
bye to you, laidy ! You won’t forget my numbah — a puhson pulf*
eckly qualified an’ fluent in you’ lan’widge, laidy ! ’
2T3
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
And long before the policeman I had beckoned to had reached
us he was out of sight. He was a Portuguese mixture, and he made
the atmosphere alcoholic. We wondered where he had got his
English — his accent was so affably cockney. His 4 numbah was
ninety-nine ; but if you are thinking of going to Ceylon, lam afraid
you would find him quite too 4 fluent in you’ lan’widge.’ We did.
The dirty little shops that line the narrow, crooked, crowded little
street were full of the commonplaces of European trade. This we
observed with sorrow, expecting to find in the Pettah endless repe-
tition of the wonders of the hotel verandah. But where we looked
for Oriental head-dresses there we found bonnet-shapes ; where we
desired jewelled daggers, linen cuffs. Plenty of Europeans were
chaffering in the shops, which we did not understand until we were
told that these native merchants having no high rents and no wages
to pay, compete everywhere for British rupees against the British.
The soft-voiced, soft-mannered Cingalese with whom we were pre-
sently talking, for instance, would make a silk dress for six, while a
fashionable dressmaker in the Fort would have asked at least twenty-
five. He was squatting on the floor of a room behind when we went
into his dark little shop, with two or three fellow seamsters, all in-
dustriously chewing betel and sewing, one end of the seam neatly
held between their large brown toes.
4 Sala’am ! ’ he said, coming forward with dignity, and then we
went into matters which you find discussed every week in the ladies’
newspapers. He was probably the most affable and amenable dress-
maker that either of us had ever experienced. He was entirely open,
to suggestion, and took up ideas with a smiling appreciation that
was to us as the balm of Gilead after the frowning autocrats we had
known. He fitted us with gentle consideration and politeness in
another dark little room before a mirror, which was his accomplice,
and under a swinging punkah which distracted our attention from
the theory of dressmaking. And he said 4 Sala’am ! ’ again as we
went out, entirely pleased with ourselves. It was some time after,
about the time the dresses came home, I think, that we remembered
that he hadn’t shown us any fashion plates and that we had left a
good deal to his imagination. He, in turn, had left a good deal to
ours wherever he could in both fit and fashion, and especially in
214
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
volume of skirt material. If he had only abstracted a few more
yards we could have attended a fancy dress ball anywhere in those
gowns, and been recognised as representing poorly-draped clothes.-
pins. Moreover, he had changed the silks for cheaper ones of the
same colour. I believe they will always oblige a stranger that way.
And then we began to understand how it was that the European
merchants were not entirely starved out of existence, and to con-
sider our ‘ Sala’ams ! ’ dulcet as they were, a little dear.
The Pettah, I remember, was full of memorials of the rigorous
old Dutch days of the ‘ Deformed Presbyterians/ two hundred years
ago, and we drove past the curious old yellow Dutch belfry, a long
way from the church where the Deformed Presbyterians used to
gather when the rusty bell that still hangs in it told them it was
time. The same old bell rang every night to warn the taverns and
the roystering sailors in them that it was the hour to shut up, in
those quaint times when nobody could misunderstand the law and a
Board of Works was still iniquitously unimagined. And we saw
the church itself, built on the site of its Portuguese predecessor,
‘ Aqua de Lupo/ named after it too, in the burly Dutch tongue.
‘ Wolfendahl ’ — a fine, stern old building in the shape of a Greek
cross. Inside, the guide-book said there were ‘many interesting
souvenirs of Dutch rule/ including the coat-of-arms and memorial-
stones of the old Yans and Yons that governed the island in the
gospel according to Martin Luther ; but the doors were locked, being
still Deformed Presbyterian, and we couldn’t get in.
About this time, the weather being extremely Cingalese, we con-
cluded that the inner tourist required refreshment rather than re-
trospection, and drove to the chief restaurant in sight. There was a
little Scotchman inside — Scotchmen flourish like thistles in Ceylon —
and we made request for ices.
‘I’m sorry to say ’t, miss/ he said sincerely, 1 but we’ve got none
in stock.’
‘ Do you usually keej) them ? ’ asked Orthodocia with disappointed
sarcasm.
‘ Not usually, miss. But we generally hae some aboot the time
the Australian mail comes in.’
It seemed invidious to all the other mails, and Orthodocia thought
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
O
*5
‘the most affable ^xd amenable dressmaker that either of us ilu)
EVER EXPERIENCED.’
21-5
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
we ought to write to the papers about it, but we contented ourselves
for the time by enviously congratulating the Australians, and went
dejectedly away. We told our 4 muttoo ’ to take us to the cinnamon
gardens, having been told that the cinnamon gardens were something
to see.
We drove apparently for miles and miles. Every now and then
the muttoo drew up and pointed at a public building. We had
grown to hate public buildings, but we didn’t know Cingalese and
couldn’t say so. Happily, the muttoo didn’t know English either,
and was unable to tell us whether it was an hospital or a museum, a
college or a gaol, and by whom it was erected and when. This was
merciful and fortunate, and made the muttoo’s society infinitely pre-
ferable to that of the public-spirited citizen whom we had learned to
dread. But he didn’t seem to understand 4 Cinnamon Gardens,’
either, and at each of our vain repetitions of it he stopped and
pointed out another public building. The situation seemed impos-
sible, for there wasn’t a white person in sight. We drove on, staring
hopelessly at public buildings. At last something occurred to me.
Prodding the muttoo diligently, I leaned forward, looked at him in-
telligently and repeated slowly and sonorously —
‘ What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle.’
The effect was instantaneous. A look of relief overspread the man’s
count 3nance, and he whipped up his horse, nodding violently, and
making some remark in his native tongue which Orthodocia inter-
preted to mean 4 Why didn’t you say that before ? ’ and we sped on
with hope and exhilaration. I suppose he had driven several hun-
dred planet pilgrims to the source of the spicy breezes yearly, and
not one of them had ever failed to make the quotation. When we
arrived at the cinnamon gardens, however, we should not have
known it, had it not been for the spicy breezes aforesaid. There
were no gates or enclosures, nothing but a road winding through a
tract of white sand, in which low bushes with pointed, glossy, dark
green leaves were growing in rows, some of them half covered with
ant-hills. But the smell was unmistakable and heavenly. Little
brown urchins, moreover, were lying in wait in all directions with
long green sticks of it to sell, which they bit with their sharp white
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 21 7
teeth to make a freshly odorous place. To be quite sure, we asked
a tall, dark, strong-featured man in semi-European dress, whom we
met sauntering along in meditation, whether we were right. His
complexion was much lighter than the native type, and his features
were markedly different. When he answered us politely in French,
we wondered still more who he might be. Our driver waited till we
were well past, and then pointing his whip back he grinned, and
said, ‘ Arab’ Pasha 9 ! Presently we passed a wooden house, the
upper part closely shut up, not by any means a palatial residence for
an exiled rebel chief. 4 Arab’ Pasha house/ remarked the mutton,
grinning again ; and we found out afterwards that he was right.
We heard that Arabi grumbles a good deal, naturally, when he is
not drawing up beautiful assurances of love and loyalty to the Queen,
and declares that the climate is too moist for him. This we could
quite believe, for the moisture of the climate impressed even Ortho-
docia, who came from England, and we were able to account three
or four casual showers a day as nothing before we left. Arabi ought
however to know enough English to borrow an umbrella, though he
may not have the vocabulary to return it. He was a source of the
bitterest regret to Orthodocia after we discovered his identity. ‘ If
only the carriage had been upset/ she said, mournfully, ‘ and you
had dislocated your collar-bone, what a lot of information I might
have got from him about his Egyptian Past ! ’
We finished up with the ‘Bungalow District/ a wide road with
open pillared tropical white houses on either side, each set far back
in a luxuriant glossy tangle of flowering shrubs, each overshadowed
by its group of waving cocoanut palms or broadly- branching bread-
fruit trees, each with its idle group of dusky servants, waiting com-
mands from the cool and shadowy interior. They had identities,
these bungalows, each painted on its gate-post, which showed an ex-
traordinary sense of humour in the British householder. One was
‘Monsoon Villa/ another ‘ Icicle Hall.’ Why not ‘ Blizzard Bank/
or ‘ The Refrigerator ’ ? But one always wants to improve upon things.
Going back, we passed a wonderful place — a great, shining, green-
brown lake, in the midst of the town, with grassy banks, and man-
goes, and palms, and tulip trees reflected in it, half covered with the
broad green leaves and the marvellous blossoms of the lotus. It was
afternoon, and the shadows were long and grateful, and the native
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
that clustered to-
were full of slow
* THL
HEATHEN
AND THE
TEMPTATION
CAME
TOO CLOSE
TO GET HE It.’
0
groups, clad in white and yellow,
gether and fell apart in them,
OUR JOURNEY ROUND TIIE WORLD S
XXXVI
It came about this way, as of course you know, that the world has
the Taj.
The Taj is a Queen’s tomb, the most beautiful tomb of the most
beautiful queen that ever, when her queenship crumbled away into
the dust of common humanity, needed sepulchring like her subjects.
The beauty of the queen lives in the beauty of the tomb, for with-
out the immortalisation of the Taj, Arjamand Banu would have died
like other ‘ dark stars ’ of the Orient, and when her lord, who only
knew her face, followed her to another Paradise, her memory would
have vanished from the palaces and pleasure grounds he made for
her, and none of us perhaps would have known her name. But
Shah Jahan, who called this lovely Persian wife of his ‘Mumtaz-i-
Mahal 9 — ‘ Chosen of the Palace 7 — exalted her above all the rest in
his love while she lived and his grief when she died, and thought
her last wish for a tomb that would tell the world of her, when she
lay in his arms £ that ill day in the camp at Burhanpur , 7 a light
thing and easily fulfilled. So the Taj was conceived and begun, in
a garden of roses and palms, on the right bank of the J umna, high
above its floods ; and the queen was buried in the garden, where
the bulbuls and the koils sang over her until it was finished.
Prom his lonely palace chamber in the Fort, with the blue river
winding a mile between, Shah J ahan watched the wonderful white
dome swelling and its four guardian towers rising to be the world’s
memorial of his love ; and found more pleasure there than in the
soft eyes of all from whom Arjamand had been the ‘Chosen . 7 For
seventeen years he watched it, teaching Arjamand’s sons and
daughters their mother’s immortality, while the marble and the
sandstone and the jewels came by toiling men and straining cattle
339
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
‘over a thousand wastes, a hundred hills/ to perfect the symmetry
and the grandeur and the inner loveliness of this most worshipful
work that man has left upon the earth — the Taj. Then Shah Jahan
died also, and was buried beside his queen, so that the great tomb
tells of them both. Yet when one sees it, it seems eloquent only
of her who desired it, and who was so dear a queen that her desire
evoked it.
In the sweet, cool starlight that comes like a sudden benediction
when the sun is gone in India, we drove to see the Taj. It was a
long drive from Agra’s one hotel, perched high in midtown, along a
dusty, wide, red road that wound through the native bazaars and
beyond the Fort, and past the shadowy bungalows where the mem-
sahibs ruled. We met patient Indian cattle with their beautiful
eyes and intelligent, confiding faces, and gaudy ekkas and pariah
dogs and water-carriers, and now and then a group of white-
draped natives or a trio of British ‘Tommies/ but the drive had not
many incidents, and I remember only the coolness and silence of it,
and our eagerness. The driver stopped at last beneath some trees by
the road-side, and we looked to the left and found ourselves before
the high dark archway of the outer court. In a state of mental
breathlessness we jumped from th e gharri and went in. Was that
the Taj ? — that great majestic semi-dome of sandstone, arched and
pillared, and written high on all its arches and pillars in white
marble letters with stately script from the Koran — rising between
massive walls adorned with graceful cupolas, and standing there
before us in that mysterious light like a portal to all the East ! For
a moment we thought so, and felt the sensation of an ideal turned
upside down. But if we could have read the Toghra text it would
have said to us, ‘Enter God’s Garden/ even as it bade the poet
enter who sat ‘with Sa’di’ there, as you have learned ; and we
would have known that this was only the screen of the Taj and the
gate of A rjamand’s garden. We could not read the Toghra text, but
a dusky figure stole out from some lurking-place beneath, touched its
forehead with the palm of its hand, and, pointing inwards, broke
the stillness, saying, ‘ Saia’am ! — The Taj ! ’ Then the figure crept
back into the shadows, and we went in together.
After the throbbing heat of the day, after the clattering ekkas
340
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
and the crowded bazaars, we stood in a garden, all softly, tenderly
green and full of silence, stretching into filmy darkness everywhere.
Ghostly marble paths interlaced under the palms and the pipal
trees ; the stars could just tell the difference between the red roses
and the yellow ones. The day would have shown us aloes and tulip-
trees and waxen frangipanni,
• Sheets of fiery Indian marigolds,
Moon-flowers and shell-flowers, crimson panoply
Of the silk cottons and soft lilac lights,
Where sunbeams sift through bougainvilleas.*
But in this sweet half-light we saw only the glamour of the garden,
hiding in its arbours, straying across its paths. Bather, perhaps,
we felt it, for as we stood there in our places in the long list of those
whose feet have entered the portals of Arjamand, we had eyes only
for the strange dream-thing that the garden made sanctuary for,
rising phantasmal at its further end, beyond the roses and above
the palms. The dropping of water came through the odorous air,
and at our feet we saw the stars in a still, dark, glistening stretch,
broken here and there by lily pads, troubled here and there where
the fountain jets played, lying between the wide white marble pave-
ments we stood upon. The pavements clove the garden, and led,
the glistening water-tank always between, the roses shadowing over,
and lines of dark mourning thuja trees on either side, by a long
glimmering vista to the threshold of the dream-thing. We followed
it with uncertain, quiet, timid footfalls ; we could not be sure that
it would suffer itself to be approached, or that a fugitive glance
would find it on returning.
We reached wide, shallow steps and climbed them. Then we
were on a sandstone platform, ‘a thousand feet each way,’ and closer
to the phantasy, which curiously remained. So close, we could see
that it rested lightly upon a great white marble level, that came
down by many steps into the garden — steps that one might ascend,
and so learn of a surety that the Taj was real. But for the moment
we did not ascend them, preferring there in the sensuous mystery
of that starlit Indian place, where was no voice or step but ours, the
feeling of trespassing upon some old enchanted ground, that might
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 341
vanish at any backward wand wave from before our eyes and under
our feet.
The great tomb rose before us like a shapen cloud in the pallor
of the starlight. It seemed to advance, it seemed to recede, it
seemed to stand still. Here and there the pure whiteness of its
swelling dome almost broke into a gleam, but never quite. The
gleam would have fixed it — given it substance and surface, and it
had not these. Whether a creation of the heavens above or the
earth beneath, it hung poised between — a wonder unfamiliar to
either. The great white dome lifted itself between two lesser domes,
among attendant minarets, and the understructure that seemed
to grow out of its snowy base to meet and support them, shaped
like a square, 4 the angles shorn/ was broken by a lovely lofty
Saracenic arch in the middle, and another in each upspringing
face. And from every corner of the broad white field it rested on
sprang the slenderest pale minaret far towards the stars. Then
trees, the bamboos and the palms, and out of the darkness of these
the gentle glimmering curves of the shrine-mosques on either side.
But no talk of plinths or arches, and no comparison — the world has
nothing remotely like it — can make you see the Taj as we saw it
there in the silent starlight of Shah J alian’s garden, the fountains
rippling quietly in his marble watercourses, a drowsy bird stirring
in his grieving thuja trees, the air a dream of perfume from the
flowers that Arjamand loved. For the marvel and the spell of it lie
over and beyond any conception of architecture. We did not think
until afterwards of the beauty of the design, or the skill of the work-
men, or the splendour of the material. Nobody does.
4 You see it with the heart, before the eyes
Have time to gaze 1 ’
And to that subtler consciousness which receives it the Taj tells
its own untranslatable story of Love and Death, and that strange
brooding infinity, the shadow of whose wings falls over both Love
and Death, which is the soul of the world. One may set down the
majesty, the tenderness, the ideality of the Taj, and there seem to
be no more words for this untold story. But that is because one
342 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
is not the poet who sat with Sa’di there; He, with the wisdom of
poets, calls it —
‘ A passion and a worship and a faith
Writ fast in alabaster, so that earth
Hath nothing anywhere of mortal toil
So fine wrought, so consummate, so supreme,
So, beyond praise, Love’s loveliest monument
As what, in Agra, upon Jumna’s bank
Shah Jahan builded for his lady’s grave.’
Behind us, as we sat there mute with the marvel of it, and be-
hind the furthest, duskiest palms at the garden’s verge, had come a
deepening yellow sky-rift ; and there presently the slow beauty of
the moon came up. It touched the gold finial of the fair white
central dome, it crept down the curving sides, it reached the lesser
domes and tipped the minarets — downward the sweet revelation
spread, lovingly, graciously, marking the stern desolateness of the
thuja trees, leaving pale flickering lights among the rose thickets.
And as it lifted itself wan to the moon, with all its delicate traceries
and inlayings, and bearing high scrolls of strange characters we
knew to mean reverence to Allah and submission, we saw the Taj as
the shrine of a tender human grief. And we fell to talking of
Arjamand ^d of her Emperor’s love.
* * * * * *
We sat there a long time, so long that a figure crouched on a
lower step rose and stole up to us, and pointed down one of the paths
and said something which we knew to mean, c The Presence is there ! ’
thinking that we awaited some sahib who was our escort. We had
no words with which to tell him that we were alone, so he crept
back and watched. And presently, as a quick silent black shadow
fell across the path, he started forward again.
£ The Presence comes ! ’ he said.
The shadow stopped before us and removed its hands from its
pockets. 1 So it is you two ! ’ the shadow’s personality observed,
taking off his hat. ‘ I thought you ought to turn up soon, in the
ordinary course of things.’ And Orthodocia said a great deal more
than she knew in her little cry, 1 Jack / ’
THE TAJ,
344
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘Yes ! ’ lie admitted, and then those extraordinary young people,
wholly forgetting the Taj and the palms, and the roses, and the
moon, forgetting everything except their two precious selves and
the fact that they were profoundly interested in one another, said
‘ How do you do ? ’ and shook hands with all the circumstance that,
might have been expected of them in Mayfair ! It was too utterly
absurd, and in contemplating the absurdity of it I did not observe
that Mr. Jack Love entirely forgot to shake hands with me till
afterward. Orthodocia informed me later that there was nothing
at all extraordinary about our meeting him in that particular spot
of that particular corner of the North-West Provinces of India
(meaning that there was nothing at all extraordinary in her meet-
ing him there), that it seemed to her altogether natural and a thing
to be expected there of all places, as soon as he appeared ; but no-
body would have gathered this from the elaborately proper, but
somewhat disjointed conversation that followed. And after Ortho-
docia had inquired tenderly and particularly for the Assiniboian
Aunt, and made a few other references equally suitable to the time
and place, she was inquired of as to whether she had seen the
South-Eastern minaret yet ; and they both prayed me to go with
them to look at it. Whereupon I told them, with a fine inward
scorn, that the Taj was all I wanted to see to-night, thank you,
and they went away into the glamour of Arjamand’s rose garden
together.
Then, I remember, there stole out into the night from a spot
in that garden place where the shadows were thickest and the moon-
light fairest, a low sweet dropping melody, that fell, and ceased, and
throbbingly fell again. It was the Bulbul singing to the Bose. If
we may believe the poet he sang in Persian :
4 Sweet, ever sweeter, sweetest Love hath been
Shirin , shir intar, and shirintarin / ’
And the Bose understood. And it seemed to me, although I
was not versed in Persian, that I also understood.
* * * % *
‘Well ? 7 said I to Orthodocia an hour later, in the privacy olour
apartment, inquiringly.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 345
‘Well V she returned, with a transient defiance of my right to
interrogate, and an inclination to tears.
‘ Do you mean to say that he didn't 1 ’ — for I saw that the situa-
tion had to be taken by the horns, and with decision.
‘ 1 th — th — think he was going to’ my friend replied from the
depths of her pillow, ‘ but we qua — qu — quarrelled again ! ’
4 Crops this time '] ’ I asked, ironically, ‘ or freight rates, or the
duty on binders and reapers ? ’
‘ None of them/ said my friend, sitting up suddenly, with spirit
and indignation. ‘ The tendencies of the age ! ’
‘ Which of you disapproved ? ’
‘ He did ! and I think it was extremely impertinent of him. A
person needn’t say straight out what he means to make you under-
stand very well ! And if he didn’t mean the tendency of girls to
travel by themselves, why did he say he had been thinking about it
ever since he saw us at Corona ? And why did he think proper to
start round the world the other way to meet us, and help us out of
imaginary difficulties, and protect us from imaginary dangers, pure
imagination ’
‘ Did he come for that h ’ I asked.
‘ He — he insinuated that lie did.’
‘It was a long way to come — for that, Orthodocia,’ I remarked
thoughtfully.
‘ I know it was ! ’ rather miserably. ‘Don’t you see that’s just
the thing of it ! When one knows the motive to be — unobjectionable
— one can’t resent the — the covert criticism of the act. I defy you
to do it ! I found it simply impossible ; so I ignored it ! But I
teas angry ! So I told him — very politely and blandly, and quite
ignoring his argument — what a delightful trip we’d had so far, and
how kind everybody ’d been ; and he said yes, he had no doubt of
it ; and that made me simply furious , so I said — not taking the
slightest notice of what was in his mind — what a relief it was
not to have a man bothering about the luggage labels, and feel-
ing injured because he’s kept waiting — which is all Uncle Robert
ever did on the Continent ; and then I distinctly saw him smile,
and he changed the subject. Now, if there is an aggravating
thing, it’s to have one’s subject changed that way ! And he’s at
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
346
the club, and I know he means to call to-morrow afternoon, and I
never told him we had to leave by the midday train to catch the
Oriental at Bombay, and I forbid your doing it, and — well, that’s
all ! ’
4 I can remember,’ I said, 4 a few occasions upon which I would
have been — glad of a man.’
4 So can I ! ’ returned my friend instantly ; 4 but you wouldn’t
have had me admit it ! ’
4 On the whole,’ I said, 4 perhaps it’s as well that you didn’t. It
is difficult to say what the result might have been.’
I could see very plainly next morning by her eyelids that Ortho •
docia’s stern resolution had dissolved in the night, so I sent a note
privately to the club with an intimation of our departure. The
bearer came back in half an hour to say that the sahib had gone
forth with some other sahibs, and would not be back till two o’clock.
So I did not tell Orthodocia that I had violated her commands, and
together we went again, in the full glory of the sunlight, to see the
Taj. Indeed, in flat disobedience to Murray’s 4 Handbook,’ we be-
stowed no thought or care upon Futtehpur Sikri, the deserted city,
or Sikandarah with its sculptures, or the tomb of Itimud Dowlah,
4 Light of the World,’ but jealously gave all the few hours we had left
in Agra to Shah Jahan and Arjamand, grieving only that we could
not learn the beauty of the Taj in the Eastern dawning, and under
the soft long shadows of the waning day. What we would not see
by impotent torch -light that first night in the garden — the interior
of the Taj where the cenotaphs are — we saw next day, entering under
the Saracenic arch and standing beneath the wonderful white dome.
There we noted how exquisite the marble was, with its delicate
veinings of rose and blue, that closed so tenderly far above our
heads. How marvellous the many lattices, all wrought in marble,
that so refined the Indian sun into a mystery of luminous twilight,
falling gravely all about us on the texts from the Koran, and the
jasper and the onyx, the crystal and the chalcedony, the jade and
the lazulite, that twined in flower-fancies over and around the tomb
of Arjamand. So that she
‘ Who loved her garden lieth now
Wrapped in a garden.’
347
turned to wait for her just outside the inner portal I heard the
sweetest murmurings falling about her. She had evoked them her-
self, and she did not know I heard, so I shall not tell you the
burden of them. But if ever you are in love, she advised me after-
ward, and want a faithful word about it, go to the Taj and ask
Queen Arjamand.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND TI1E WORLD
But far most wonderful, most eloquent, most full of sweetest
mystery, was the Voice of the Dome, a Voice that took up our
lightest word, carried it to the coping-stone, and then sent it down,
down, down, exquisitely softened and attuned, till the echo seemed
to die away in the tomb, as if it had gone to talk with the queen
there. Orthodccia lingered behind here, saying nothing, and as I
‘ MUMTAZ-i-MAHAL.’
3lS
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
So we gathered a red rose each in the garden, Orthodocia for the
rose and I for the sweet sake of my friend, and came away
^ ^ *
In the daytime they sell you slabs of marble in the outer court,
inlaid in the manner of the cenotaphs, and loquats, yellow and
luscious, and pictures of the Emperor and of Mumtaz-i-Mahal,
which I shall borrow from Orthodocia to adorn this chapter with.
And there are many whose forefathers bowed before Shah J ahan
who now demand backsheesh of the pilgrim stranger, with other
afflictions, all of which vanish when the stars come out. Therefore
I adjure you, when you go to Agra, see the Taj by starlight, but
look to it that your visit be upon no occasion of festivity, for I have
it upon excellent authority that the Taj is then glorified by mag-
nesium light and— ah, the atrocity ! — the band plays there I
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
349
XXXVII
Yet another ship, outward bound, steam up, flag flying, in the har-
bour of Bombay ! Decks crowded with the going and the longing
to go, the company’s tug lying alongside, the sea swarming with
lesser craft that cling to the big black sides of the Oriental while they
may. A tall dark man, reluctant, embarrassed, beside his portman-
teaux ; a fair woman, passee , blondined, in widow’s weeds, with red
eyes, waiting for the last word. ‘ I will send for you,’ he says, ‘ next
hot weather.’ She disbelieves him. £ You will have forgotten ! ’
And Orthodocia, restless, pacing, will not go down into the saloon
for a cup of tea. ‘ People are so interesting,’ she says, turning her
head quickly as another pair of broad shoulders appears at the top
of the companion-ladder. Poor dear Orthodocia ! There had been
just one chance of his getting back in time, and that, it seemed, he
had missed, for the last bell rang, and the tug put off, waving hand-
kerchiefs, and a belated box- wallah scrambled down the side amid
the execrations of a quartermaster ; and in the place where the
Oriental had lain at anchor there was presently a blue waste with a
few scattered sampans heaving upon it ; and of the Presence in the
Garden of the Taj there had been no trace or sign.
4 Consider, Orthodocia,’ I said, consolingly, 1 we are in the
Arabian Sea ! It is something, under — under any circumstances,
to be in the Arabian Sea ! And there is tea going on below.’
Orthodocia put both her elbows on the taffrail and looked into
the Arabian Sea with the remark that it was all in the name, and
one body of water was exactly like another so far as she could ob-
serve ; and where was the first place at which one could post letters ]
Aden ! Aden — six days hence !
When a person casts her idealisations overboard, as it were, and
35o
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
finds a personal injury in the disposition of the earth’s surface, and
declines afternoon tea accompanied by cake Avith currants in it, her
case re- A quires strong measures.
‘Or- JPJ thodocia ! ; I said, ‘do you remember that pink-
cheeked woman
at the breakfast-
table at Agra who
said she had tra-
velled in the same
compartment
with Jack ? She
is going to Aden,
too, apparently,
and she looks im-
‘yet another simp, outward bound.* mensely inter-
ested in you ! 9
‘ My deal’/ said Orthodocia, with her most vivid smile, ‘ isn’t it
delightful to be off again ? And don’t you think, if we went below,
we could get a steward to give us some tea ? 9
Two days afterwards, while we were dressing for dinner, I noticed
a small corner of brown paper sticking out behind my looking-glass.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 351
Orthodocia says four bells had just gone, but nobody but Orthodocia
would remember that. I pulled it out with the idle curiosity that
always prompts people to pull things out. It was an envelope with
t Indian Telegrams ’ printed across the top, and it was addressed —
but Orthodocia had it before I had even an approximate idea to
whom it was addressed
c Suppose you ascertain ! 9 I suggested.
‘ Yes/ she said, 4 I'm going to.’ Nervously smoothing it out with
both hands. ‘ Of course / she added decisively, looking at the back
of the envelope, £ there’s something wrong. I am prepared for that 9
— growing paler, though still heroic. c I only hope it isn’t a tiger —
say you don’t think it’s a tiger ! 9
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘ Don’t be absurd, my dear,’ I said, soothingly. 4 How could he
have telegraphed from the inside of a tiger ? Open it.’
‘No,’ she answered, ‘he wouldn’t be in a 'position to do it — it’s
probably sunstroke.’
‘ Orthodocia,’ I exclaimed, ‘if you don’t instantly open that
telegram, which probably concerns some forgotten washing-bill ’ —
witheringly — ‘ I’ll do it myself. I decline to be kept on the rack
any longer.’
‘ I think,’ returned my friend, with a strong effort at self-con-
trol, ‘you might show a little feeling. C — can’t you see I’m only—
w — w — waiting for you to give me a hat- pin.’
Which showed that Orthodocia was bordering upon hysteria, for
never before had I, or since have I, known her to apply an implement
of this sort to any but its orthodox purpose. But she opened the
telegram, read it once, twice, thrice ; then handed it to me, lay flat
down in the lower berth, and stared at the upper one with her arms
under her head. It was rather a long telegram, dated at Agra, and
ran thus :
‘ Lost 5.30 train wish offer heart and life came for purpose if
consent wire here will follow next mail might marry Cairo if willing
would prefer this as do not approve your travelling unprotected if
refuse will go on and no answer expected forgive telegram no other
resource very anxious kind regards to friend.’
I didn’t know in the least what to say, so I counted them and
said, ‘ Fifty-five words.’
‘ Fifty -four ! ’ said Orthodocia.
I counted them again. ‘ This time I make seventy- three ! ’ I
said, for I was several degrees more nervous than Orthodocia, who
looked at me with a quiver about her mouth, put both her hands to
her face and began to laugh in a way that suggested to me that I
should climb into the top berth and laugh too. And for the next
five minutes the only comment upon Mr. John Love’s proposal of
marriage to Miss Orthodocia Love was a peal of hysterical mirth
that brought the cabin steward to the door.
‘ Do you want anythink, Miss ? ’
‘No — yes — ask him,’ said Orthodocia, breathlessly. ‘You’re
ready.’
A A
NERVOUSLY SMOOTHING IT OUT WITH BOTH HANDS,
354
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘ Steward/ I said, confronting him with the brown envelope,
‘when did this arrive V
‘ Morning of the afternoon we sailed, Miss. You ’adn’t come
aboard, I put it in the inirrir, where I thought you’d see it fust
thing, Miss. I ’ope as you got it, Miss/
‘ There ! ’ I remarked, shutting the door after his retreating form.
‘It wasn’t his fault. Reasonable people always come down to their
cabins to sec about things before the ship goes ; and you would not
leave the deck, Orthodocia ’
‘ Don’t,’ commanded my unhappy friend, so I didn’t, and we
silently pondered the situation.
‘ You can telegraph from Aden/ I suggested.
‘Where?’
An interval.
‘ Ceylon/ I said. ‘ He must go there. Care P. and 0/
‘ There is a yacht/ Orthodocia responded, ‘at Calcutta — a friend’s
yacht. He said he might go on in her, and I think now he meant
if he -if I ’
‘Said “No/” I supplemented, and Orthodocia nodded.
‘ Name of yacht ? ’
‘ I forget. And I think she was going up the Yang-Tse-Kiang.
Oh/ with a burst of emotion, ‘ I ivish you’d stop talking ! Can’t you
see I’m perfectly miserable ? ’ And Orthodocia turned her face to
the ship’s side. I went out to dinner and sent her in the most com-
forting things on the bill of fare, maintaining an unbroken absence
till nine o’clock. By that time I had such philosophical reflections
as the situation admitted ready for her, and as we paced the
hurricane deck together in the moonlight I gave her the benefit of
them. I begged her to ask herself what she would have telegraphed.
To which the only reply I got was a small squeeze immediately above
my right elbow. Then I said that for my part I was not prepared
for the results. At which Orthodocia asked me why, in a tone that
suggested that I, if you please, had no concern in the results !
Whereupon I was obliged to point out to her that if Mr. J ohn Love
turned his face westward and took the next home mail it would be
for the purpose of joining us in Cairo, Wouldn’t it ? Acquiescence—
calm, blissful. Then if matrimony ensued — interruption. Ortho-
355
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
docia wouldn’t think of such a thing ! What would they say at
home ? — if matrimony ensued, I had to contemplate the prospect of
finishing up our free untrammelled trip under the eye of a chaperon,
for one thing ; and I asked Orthodocia to reflect upon the austerity
of her probable development, under the influence of Mr. John Love,
in that character. I begged her to consider whether it would be
fair and honourable behaviour on her part to take deliberate measures
to become a person qualified to order me about, and entitled to a
supreme opinion under all circumstances, in view of the good faith
in which we started. T brought the matter home to her by asking
her what she would think of me if I were to turn chaperon on her
hands ! to say nothing of the alluring possibility of coming in at
the end of one’s journey round the world, a very bad second in a
honeymoon ! And set down, ‘ even by you, Orthodocia,’ in the
category of strangers and railway guards and undesirable people
who are always looking on. I have some imagination in an emer-
gency, and I think I made Orthodocia see what this would be to
me. And if matrimony did not ensue — further interruption, un-
necessary to record — one must draw the line somewhere, and I
thought it ought to be drawn at the travelling companionship, on
any pretext whatever, of a young man who was in love with Ortho-
docia— with the young man on the other side. Moreover, to be
personal again, had Orthodocia ever heard of a 1 gooseberry ? ’ and
did I look like an individual who would enjoy that personation ?
And so, on the whole, especially in view of the absurdity of believing
that Mr. John Love would accept such a doubtful ultimatum, also
in view of how greatly travel would enhance the young man’s de-
sirability as a companion in Assiniboia, didn’t she think things had
turned out for the best ?
And Orthodocia, though she implied that the philosophy was all
on my side, gave a dubious assent, which she amused herself by
qualifying and contradicting all the way to Aden.
You know Aden, military station, south coast of Arabia, popu-
lation 34,711, area 66 square miles, acquired 1838. You have seen
many photographs and heard much talk of Aden, and need not be
told how it is a symbol for all desolation. How the sun smites
down upon the gaunt gray heights that come trending forward from
A A 2
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
35o
the horizon to stand in the coolness of the sea ; how they darken
and crowd together thunderously ; how the wind blows white curling
whiffs of rock-dust in their faces out of the roads leading up to the
bare, hard-faced little cluster of roofs and walls that men have had
the temerity to build there. Not a leaf, not a tree, no trace of the
tenderness or gentleness of the human world — yes, one. We saw it
as we turned an angle in the sharp, zigzag road up-hill— it lay in
a hollow, softly green, the grim, torn rocks threatening it all round
about, a tiny place where the people who must always stay in Aden
are comforted with grass and flowers.
Orthodocia had spent a good deal of the time between Bombay
and Aden in the exclusive society of her pen and a big, flat-bottomed
cabin inkstand — so much, indeed, that it began to be rumoured on
deck that she was writing a book, and people became shy of ex*
pressing themselves before her for fear their statements might be
reproduced in print with names attached. Which leads me to say,
by the way, that people who go round the world really to write a
book ought to keep the fact profoundly to themselves, simply out of
consideration for the other passengers, most of whom are thoroughly
persuaded that none of their little ways and words are safe from
being held up to a scoffing public marked as belonging to Mr. J — n — s
or Mrs. S — i — h, in the manner of Punch . It is entirely an un-
necessary fear, but it makes them quite pathetically nervous. I
suppose the P, and O. must carry literary people as well as Jews,
Turks, infidels, and heretics, when such persons demand transport ;
but the commanders ought to take measures with an author as with
a funeral on board, to keep the matter quiet for the sake of the
sensibilities of the saloon. Orthodocia could not convince anybody
but me that she was not a literary character, her note-book being
circumstantial evidence of the most damaging description ; but I
knew that the volumes she wrote between tiffin and afternoon tea
were intended for the most limited private circulation only, and
were addressed in various indefinite ways that seemed to offer a
chance of reaching Mr. John Love before he left India. It was an
occupation for Orthodocia, and it freed her mind so that when she
came up on deck again we could talk about something else occasion-
ally. Therefore I approved it, but I was not at all surprised when
357
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
she decided, after sealing and stamping them very carefully at Aden,
not to post any of them. The idea of a reply to a proposal by tele-
graph falling into any hands but those for whom it was intended
ivcis a little trying ; some of the missives were sure to go to the
Dead Letter Office ; and there was no reason to send one more than
another of them. So Orthodocia cast them in little bits into the
Red Sea, and resigned herself, she told me, in so far as Jack was
concerned, to faith for the present, hope for the future, and charity
for the past. I do not feel at liberty to give you the extracts I
heard from the letters that went into the Red Sea ; but if I could,
I think you would agree with me that Orthodocia might have sent
them harmlessly either to Mr. Love or to the clerks in the Dead
Letter Office ; for, beyond a general expression of forgiveness and
goodwill, they conveyed to the ordinary intelligence nothing what-
ever. But there may have been tangibilities in extracts that I did
not hear.
I defy you to arrive at the Red Sea in a journey round the
world without a sensation of surprise. One hardly knows what one
expects, but it is something that has survived one’s childish idea of
a really red sea and associations with Moses and the hosts of Pharaoh
that is nonplussed a little by a commonplace body of salt water just
like any other. Orthodocia declared that her chief disappointment
lay in being out of sight of land, which is clearly traceable to Moses.
Everybody was astonished in the Red Sea, however, the novices as
aforesaid, and the Anglo-Indian comers and goers, because of the
temperature. For the whole saloon had made up its mind to sleep
on deck in the Red Sea, old and young, squeamish and unsqueamish.
‘ Of course one must do it there, you know ; the cabins will be in-
supportable ! ’ And the gentleman with a tendency to apoplexy had
been dieting for two days, and the lady with asthma had confided
to several of the passengers that she wouldn’t be in the least sur-
prised if she didn’t c come through it ’ ; and the ‘ First ’ had told us
how sometimes they had to ‘ put back ’ to get a breath of air, and
everybody had listened to the person who had once come through
the Red Sea when there had been 1 three deaths’ from the appalling
heat. And every soul on board appeared that first morning of the
Red Sea in the most gossamer-like and coolest garments his or her
353
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
wardrobe afforded, and privately believed himself or herself the
victim of fever and ague, with the fever left out, for shivering
in them. It was actually not until after dinner, when we had
begun to go about clad in ulsters and travelling rugs, seeking the
corners nearest to the engines and envying the stokers down below,
that a deputation was formed to wait upon the captain and request
some justification for the conduct of the weather, regarding which
he seemed to consider himself irresponsible. We succeeded in
making him say, however, that he had ‘ never seen it fresher this
time of year/ which was something. And nobody was warm until we
got to Suez and set foot in Egypt.
It seemed to be a pale, water-colour country, full even to this
outer edge, which had suffered somewhat from foreign usage, as outer
edges in the East are apt to do, of delicate charm. There was a
gray, well -baked wall with a gate in it, that threw blocks of shadow
upon the dust lying white in the sunlight. In the gate an old Arab
sold little fiat oranges, yellow like flame ; a waterway slipped past
giving back the tender sky ; in the near distance the tall, tilted
masts of some dahabeehs grew out of the sand. The Arab was
cross-eyed, and behind the gate were only the Company’s offices ;
but in the soft illusion of one’s first quarter of an hour in Egypt
commonplaces have no consequence. One does not even object to
them. They are not to be accounted.
We sauntered through the dusty little town after our luggage to
the railway station, where it was a shock to find ourselves enlight-
ened in French as to our movements. Up to this point in our
journey round the world, the alternate language had been English.
Orthodocia thought it extremely ungrateful of the Khedive after all
‘ we ’ had done for him, but I suppose that is a matter about which
the Khedive is entitled to an opinion. At the railway station, too,
we made acquaintance with the little virtuous silver piastre, and the
big unprincipled leaden piastre, which is the first thorn in the flesh
in Egypt — carefully paying all the little virtuous ones away in back-
sheesh, and cherishing the big unprincipled ones to settle hotel bills
with, and other matters of financial magnitude. An 1 so we started
for Cairo, in a railway- carriage better calculated to afford passengers
every discomfort than any of our previous experience. The seats
359
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
were narrow and hard, the backs straight and uncompromising, the
floor unclean * the windows rattled and let in the dust as a blanket ;
there was no solace anywhere. And a little, black-eyed Frenchman,
with long hair and a drooping moustache, and a shabby coat, and a
wife and daughter, rather disconsolately debonnaire , shared the car-
riage — which, injustice to the Khedive, I must admit to have been
a second-class carriage — with us. The little Gaul carried a large
framed crayon portrait of himself. It was set carefully on the seat
opposite him and evidently represented his profession. In the por-
trait though, the long hair waved glossily, and there was an affecting
ideality under the pensive eyelids, and the moustache was waxed to
correspond, and there was something like a decoration in the trim
button-hole, which, however, may have been only an artistic detail—
without doubt the counterfeit of Monsieur in a former and more
prosperous state. He regarded it affectionately now and then,
absently twisting the original moustache and running his fingers
through the original locks, to approximate the ideal opposite. The
fat, easily amused, philosophical wife glanced at it proudly, and the
little precocious theatrical daughter stood before it lost in profound
admiration. They did not speak of it — perhaps as a topic it had
been exhausted — but they made it an object of interest to Orthodocia
and me with a pretended unconsciousness and naivete which was
delightful. It was an intimate glimpse of France as we seemed
often afterwards to find her in Egypt, a little seamy and frayed,
with the more ornamental morals a suspicion the worse for wear,
usually travelling in search of better fortunes, happy in the sun
that eases poverty, always bowing, politely, self-respectfully, to the
presence of the ages. The family of the artist, he himself and his
astral body, got out at Zag-a-Zig, and it was an occupation for a
while to wonder what scope and what returns a crayon genius
might find in Zag-a-Zig.
One crosses a bit of desert between Suez and Cairo, with the
white, shifting, wasting sand piled so high beside the track that it be-
comes a marvel how it is kept off the rails. One sees the sharp line
between green life and gray death where the little fields of rice and
lucerne lie bravely against the waste, smiling in the sun, and plainly
thanking Heaven for the old, old gift of the Kile ; and waterways
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
360
that feed the little fields, with deeper greens and a fringe of palms
along their edges, looking as simple and as unrelated to modern en-
gineering as if Joseph had dug them out himself. And little clay-
built, flat-roofed cities, with a mosque dome rising up, and a tamarisk
clump drooping over, and pale-brown heaps of roofless walls and
broken pottery that were little clay-built cities once, and stood on
other heaps that little clay-built cities have crumbled away into
since the days when Nitetis was beautiful and Phanes sailed over
from Greece. The train stops at a little station bearing on a common
wooden signboard ‘ Tel-el-Kebir/ and immediately the carriage
window fills up with newspaper cablegrams and medalled heroism,
and Lord Wolseley ; and one looks eagerly through all this to find,
as one always finds with illogical disappointment, looking for battle
sites, only a peaceful sky and pleasant fields, and people going about
their businesses as if history had never touched them. There are
people at all the stations, the people of the little clay-built cities,
and some are Nubians, and some are Turks, and some are Jews, and
a few are Arabs, while the Egyptians seem fewest of all. One
judges, of course, from the outer man, knowing neither tongue nor
custom. Little boys and hideously old women sell water in clay
water-bottles, and dates in shallow wicker trays, and leeks and eggs
hard-boiled and painted a reddish-purple. Orthodocia bought eggs,
for there was a famine in our compartment, offering three or four
little silver piastres. The wife of Achmed handed up three, and
three more, and three more. I came to Orthodocia’s assistance.
The wife of Achmed continued to hand up eggs. I passed them on
to Orthodocia, who laid them in a careful line along the back of the
seat. When we had received fifteen eggs I tried to discourage the
wife of Achmed, whose tray was nearly empty. She seemed to
understand, and handed up the last egg, nodding and smiling to
reassure me. Then she ran off to colloquy with the wife of Yusef,
returning with an air of integrity and one more egg ! Orthodocia said
it reminded her of the demi-saison sales in Oxford Street, when one
gets so much more than the value of one’s money. This suggestion,
as applied to the eggs, made us very liberal with them to outsiders.
Another slow and dirty little train, and we rattled away through
xnove sand-drifts, with only two hours to wait for Cairo j and OrtliQr
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 361
docia went to sleep over 1 An Egyptian Princess/ which everybody
takes to Egypt, but never by any chance reads there.
‘ Land of Goshen ! ’ I ejaculated to myself as the green fields
came again, and the pleasant palms, and there spread a fatness over
all the landscape.
‘ Another of those awful Americanisms of yours ! ’ my friend
disturbed herself to say. ‘ Why can’t you exclaim in English !
What is the matter h ’
‘Nothing ! ’ I responded with outraged dignity. ‘ Only it is the
land of Goshen — out of the windows.’
‘ I don’t believe it ! ’ said Orthodocia, flatly. ‘ How can anybody
know ? ’ And she slumbered again, despising Baedeker and all that
is written.
And presently, when the two hours had waned to twenty minutes
I saw against a yellow sunset sky, away to the right, where the pale
lines of the desert wandered and wavered, a little gray triangle, and
woke Orthodocia, pointing to it. My friend rubbed her eyes. ‘ It’s
a Pyramid ! ’ she cried, in accents of mortified desolation, ‘and you’ve
gone and seen it first ! ’
We went to Shepheard’s, of course. Shepheard’s is no longer
Shepheard’s, I believe. There is another name on the corners of the
table-napkins and the handles of the spoons and the bottoms of the
soup plates. But Shepheard’s cannot be divorced from its original
godfather ; it is an institution, like the Pyramids, and I doubt if any
of the Ramses enjoy the personal identification with a winter in
Egypt that seems to have fallen to the lot of the obscure and possibly
departed Shepheard.
It is always interesting at Shepheard’s — the place is full of a rare,
fine, distilled essence of the world. The world loves Cairo, and is
happy at Shepheard’s. It is always smiling there, always indolent,
half curious, disposed to make acquaintance, charmingly dressed, a
little relaxed, entertaining, cosmopolitan. We met Rubicundo — it
had become no matter of surprise to meet Rubicundo on any part of
the earth’s surface— on the steps leading from the wide piazza into
the street. Rubicundo, not lost, but gone before — Rubicundo, bub-
bling over with enthusiasm about the cutlets, the donkeys, the Sphinx,
the climate, the Arabian ladies, everything.
362
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
‘You're late for dinner/ lie cried with excitement, as we shook
hands, ‘ but try an obelisk if you can get one-^superb ! 9 Whereat
Orthodocia looked at me gravely, and said it was evident that Rubi-
cundo, at least, had dined.
Inside, people were moving about with an easy familiarity that
was a little dazzling at first — ladies in low-necked evening dresses,
officers in uniform, little groups bending and whispering and softly
laughing so evidently over the last bit of Court scandal — it reminded
one with something of a shock that there was, after all, a modern
Egypt. The walls were hung with photographs of young ladies and
gentlemen taken in Egyptian dress for the mystification of their
friends, of a dark -eyed Roumanian, done with great folds across her
forehead, and before her ears, a travesty a la Sphinx , of the Khedive
and the son of the Khedive, of Generals, and Pashas, and Beys.
We wrote our names under Count Teleki’s, newly parched from
Africa, in the register where Stanley the other day wrote his. A
Duke and a Duchess hobnobbed with J ohn Smith on the same page.
We longed to turn it over and find other distinguished autographs ;
but with a lobby full of people all wondering — nothing could shake
your belief in that — who you are and how you came there, you are
not disposed to flights of inquisitiveness. At the top of the wide
easy-going stairs we were given over to a wrinkled, ambling, bowing
old Frenchman, major-domo of the corridor, whose very coat tails,
as he led the way to our apartment, waggled a deferential sense of
the position of major-domos. Down in the big white dining-room,
with its old-fashioned panels and cornices and groups of palms in the
corners, plenty of people were dining still — a lowering beer-baronet,
with his handsome young son, and newly-acquired pretty young wife,
a comedy of three — a pair of high-coloured, high-spirited Irish girls,
with a tiny old chaperon and a couple of uniforms attached, the
latter attachment much the closer of the two, if one could believe
appearances. We romanced about the little chaperon, whom we
decided to be engaged at a salary, because she looked depressed and
said nothing, even when one of the young women ate raisins with
her elbows on the table. And I was glad afterward, for the sake of
my native continent, to verify the fact that they were not Americans,
as Orthodocia said they must be, with reference to this slight uncon-
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 3^3
ventionality. Opposite us a gentleman, with three medals cn his
coat (two Victoria’s, one the Khedive’s), told stories of active service
under Gordon. An American lady at our elbow pointed out
another with blue eyes and fair hair who she said was Captain
Haggard. £ It was so embarrassing ! ’ she gossiped. £ When
Captain Haggard was introduced to me, I said, quite thoughtlessly,
“ I suppose you are very tired of being asked if you are any connec-
tion of Eider Haggard’s ? ” and he said, “ Yes, as I happen to be his
brother ! 57 He is literary, too. I don’t see how he could helj) being
so with such a brother, do you ? But he writes poetry chiefly.’
Then she indicated Mr. Cope Whitehouse, and his plan for redeeming
a great desert tract, £ which he declares was thought of in the Bible,’
and a black-haired blue-eyed Russian notability, impervious, imperi-
ous, who swept out past us with a very lofty head, her suite after
her, and the young lady artist who was painting the portrait of the
Khedivia, and a Polish princess, with pale gray eyes and hair tightly
drawn back from a prim narrow forehead. We picked out for our-
selves the people who were just starting for, or who had just re-
turned from, the Holy Land. They w^ere unmistakable, not only
the three fat priests from Chicago and the Presbyterian minister
with his little Scotch wife, and the distinguished Ritualist and
party, but all the little lay brethren and sisters as well. Clothes,
manners, physiognomy — something of the three and yet not any
single characteristic — wrote £ Holy Land’ all over them. One might
have challenged them to produce their tickets, if it had been proper,
with perfect security. The world of the baronet and the Polish prin-
cess was not going to the Holy Land — it had always been told that
Jerusalem was disappointing — but to the races. It was a world that
moved in a different orbit that was minded to make this pilgrimage
— a great many middle-aged ladies in it, and superannuated clergy-
men, and quiet family parties and shy young men who taught in
Sunday-school at home. And here and there a face telling a pathetic
story of pinching and saving that a disciple, nineteen centuries
after, might look upon the fields and the skies of the Master’s
country.
We passed a little smoking-room on our way to the salon , where
sat our old- maid Princess in the blue clouds of her cigarette. Perhaps
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
364
the drawing-room, to critical and satiated eyes, might be a little
aggressively Egyptian ; but Orthodocia and I found its divans and
its potteries a revelation of the arts of Cairo and the history of
dynasties, and walked about and looked at them with all the pleasure
of the uncritical and the unsatiated. Scraps of low talk, of street
music, the tinkle of glasses, and the fragrance of real £ Egypt iennes ’
floated past the palms and between the curtains from the piazza out-
side, where the world in low-cut waistcoats bent over the world in
embroidered opera-cloaks, where turbaned dragomans and donkey-
boys, and the sellers of great bunches of pink roses at a piastre
apiece, hovered thick as near as they dared, and the gentle air
caressed one in the darkness, full of soft sounds and odours. We found
the little American in a corner out there, and while Orthodocia dropped
into her usual train of meditation in another, the little American
gossiped to me about the Khedivia, and didn’t say I was not to tell.
It had been quite recently that the first man except the Khedive had
seen the Khedivia’s face — and he was a photographer ! Her High-
ness had been immensely amused at the interview, and had mimicked
the fortunate professional afterward to all her Court. ‘ Dear no \
she never receives with the Khedive, or dines, or anything of that
sort, and when he gives a ball she has to stand behind a gauze
curtain to look on, poor thing !
‘ Oh, yes ! she receives ladies — on certain days, when she sits on
a dais and all the ladies in a semicircle round her ; and one never
knows ivho she may address in French, and one must answer, you
know — before all the rest — and it’s so embarrassing ! ’ The semi-
circle being fortified, however, by coffee and sweetmeats. Very much
‘ petted and spoiled ’ is this Turkish princess, according to our little
friend who seemed to know-— speaking French but not English, and
being withal an ‘ intelligent ’ princess, good-natured and easily
amused. One sometimes met her with the whole harim, driving in
close carriages out towards the desert. To contemplate the monu-
mental Pyramids and guess at the riddle of the Sphinx ? Dear no !
To sit and eat bon-bons, each out of her own embroidered bag ! She
is thirty-one, complains of getting 6 fat and very old,’ but is still
happy and still queen. Next day I had a privy glimpse of the por-
trait the young lady w^s at ^ork upon, between sittings at the
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 363
Palace, in lier studio— a rich warm colour scheme of golden-browns
in the fur-edged velvet robe, with yellow lace inside ; pearls in the
dark braided hair, a pomegranate face — a little while ago. Still
lovely enough, in a slightly heavy way, with liquid brown eyes, a
pretty pouting mouth, and a dimple in the chin — unmistakably,
however, a double chin !
But I am retailing scandal. Let me hasten to inform you that
Egypt reached the very highest point of its historical prosperity in
the reign of Amasis, the successor of Apries. I can’t say this comes
to me at first-hand, and you know a story never loses, but I got it
from the Rev. Barham Zincke, and the Rev. Barham Zincke got it
from Herodotus — so it ought to be true !
366
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XXXVIII
It was ten o’clock in the morning on the piazza at Shepheard’s. The
air was full of wine and sunlight. Cairo was all astir. From the
gardens of the Esbekeeyah came dainty odours of new budding things.
We had come through India’s endless summer to find the spring in
Egypt.
The street we looked out into was broad and pleasant and
European. The signboards spoke of France, the cafes of Italy, the
saunterers of all countries, nothing of Egypt except the Arab guides
and the donkey boys, loitering among the comers and goers, and an
occasional ass trotting, or camel pacing beside the carts and carriages
in the highway. The real Cairo was — I have asked Orthodocia, and
she says five minutes’ walk straight on and turn to your left ; but I
should describe the distance as a thousand miles and several centuries
from this Cairo of Shepheard’s and the shops and the gardens of the
Esbekeeyah, which it was the boast and delight of the ruler Ismail,
twenty years ago, to make into an imitation Paris.
Orthodocia and I were consultatively putting on our gloves. You
may put on your gloves on the piazza at Shepheard’s. It is one of
the advantages of that famous hostelry. Nobody suspects you of
not knowing better.
‘There is the Citadel,’ said I, out of my Baedeker.
c Sunset for that ! ’ returned Orthodocia.
c The Mosques — Sultan Hassan — Kait Bey ?
‘ I don’t feel like Mosques.’
‘ Tombs of the Caliphs ? ’
‘ Gloomy.’
‘ Ostrich Farm ? ’
‘ Commonplace ! Isn’t there anything else ? 9
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 367
interest in the
‘ The one
ine sensation —
‘The Pyramids, if we may believe this author, have been for
some time located in Egypt. Could you summon up a transient
Pyramids ? ’
single sensation — genu -
have left ! And
would take it
casually, in
the middle
of the morn-
ing, like a
glass of Apol-
linaris ! ’
you
368 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Orthodocia reproached me with all her soul. ‘We must plan for
the Pyramids.’
£ Bazaars then — the Mousky — attar of roses ’
‘Frivolous !’ cavilled my friend, and took the guide-book from
my unresisting hand. This conversation is registered to show the
parlous state into which one may fall in the course of a journey round
the world, especially when one has failed, at any point, to make proper
connections.
Orthodocia glanced over the pages of Herr Baedeker’s ‘ Lower
Egypt ’ with an indifference which was not assumed. ‘ It’s quite
time we were beginning to improve our minds,’ she said. ‘ Let us go
to the Museum at Boulak. There are the very beginnings of history
at Boulak, and we can go by tram. Besides, they’ve got Pharaoh
there. I should love to see Pharaoh.’
So we went to the Museum at Boulak, crossing the ages ‘ by
tram.’
A dusty disordered quarter, squalid but for the sun, of low houses
and straggling streets, tenanted chiefly by poor Europeans — this is
Boulak, where Egypt has lodged Mariette’s museum. A portal, where
they sit at the receipt of piastres, and you go through to an outer
court, which looks a little, just at first, if I might be permitted the
sacrilege, like premises where they put you up —
‘ Marble urns and cherubims
Very low and reasonable.’
This is the effect of King Usertesen I., much larger than life, of
four lion-headed goddesses from Karnak, a double statue of the
god Ammon and an Ethiopian queen, and some fragments, all in
granite, standing about in that undecided way which is always cha-
racteristic of stonecutters’ monuments ; and it is a pity, because, as
Orthodocia says, it interferes with one’s impression.
Beyond this there is a garden, at least Baedeker says it is a
garden. I saw only a clump of acacia trees and some grass. The
little low-roofed unpretending museum, all painted blue and green
and red in the Egyptian manner, opens into the garden ; and
Mariette lies buried there in a stone sarcophagus for the confusion
of posterity, that will not understand the compliment, and will trace
through it the direct connection of the Hyksos with the French
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 369
Revolution. The Nile slips past, dreaming of the days of Mena,
King of This — surely of That, Father Nile, since it is six thousand
eight hundred and ninety-four years since the shadow of his sceptre
fell upon the land, according to Baedeker ! And under the acacias,
with the grass springing about them, are gathered together a com-
pany of those strange imperishable imperturbable teachers of antiquity
who will still be talking of Ramses II. and Thothmes III. and
Psammetikh, when you and I are the dust that blows upon their eye-
lids and about their feet. There is something pathetically inconsistent
about the effort to embower these granite Things with their prodigious
memories. They have seen the sweet grasses wither and the tall
trees die so many times. They belong to the desert, gray and grim
like it, to the time- desert too, that lies out and away beyond the
furthest verge that is green with any touch of common human sym-
pathy. Orthodocia didn’t say all that, but I saw her looking at a tiny
red ‘ ladybird ’ creeping between the paws of a rose-coloured sphinx,
and I am certain she was preparing an Impression very like it,
which I hereby plagiarise.
My own impressions were less valuable. There was a delightful
old thing described by Baedeker as a fragment because it had lost
its head, that stood in an iron support Avith its hands clasped in front
of it, and wore its hieroglyphics in a tablet down its back, exactly
like a Watteau pleat, that charmed me immensely ; and I was
deeply interested in the official French label attached to the sar-
cophagi in 1 gray granite from Sakkara, belonging to two brothers
named Takhos, who were high officials in the time of the first
Ptolemies’ (see B.). We would have printed, brutally ‘Sarcophagi
of the Brothers Takhos,’ as we speak of the Caesars or Shakespeare.
But the dear French people understand much better than we the
deference that is due to ‘high officials,’ even to high officials who
obtained decorations from the Ptolemies, and inform the public of
Victoria and the Khedive that these are sarcophagi ‘du General
Takhos ’ and ‘ du General en chef Takhos ’ ! It is sweetly polite of
them.
We went inside, under the winged disc of the sun ; and to go
inside the museum at Boulak is to enter a strange soulless elder
world, peopled with stores instead of shadows, with dried and crack -
B B
37 °
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
ling Realities, beside which a ghost of times we know would seem
reasonable and comprehensible and pleasant to meet. At least we
would understand his tastes, and his ways, and his prejudices, and
his political opinions ; he would be no ghost if we couldn’t, but an
essence, a vapour, something that would not frighten us. But from
these stony immutabilities who can gather anything ? From what
they have left us, and what we have guessed, we can see the Cave
Men, fighting, grovelling, gambolling, on the beaches of a silent
world. We understand and pity them as crude beginners — a little
imagining easily fills out their lives. But how shall we begin to
imagine about these mocking old personalities that the sands round
the Fayoum have been flowing over for three thousand years, and that
yet reflect in their wonderful faces, motives and scruples and passions
and pleasures complex as our own ! Not the ‘steles ’ — the picture-
slabs— they, when Baedeker explains them, seem comprehensible
enough. There is a proper artistic primitiveness about the tri-
angular petticoats and the impossible legs of the kings and queens
arriving to sacrifice before the Dog-Headed Ape of Thoth. They
belong naturally to a time a great distance off, the casual gazer at
Boulak does not trouble himself any further than that. But King
Khafra, in diorite, might be met to-day sauntering through Picca-
dilly from his club with a silk hat on — Tih might have looked up
from the ‘ Sporting Intelligence 9 of a daily newspaper. I found
Orthodocia wringing her hands before the wooden man. ‘Six
thousand years old ! 9 she cried. ‘ And so like us ! ’ This is the
startling difficulty — I am talking always of the Baedeker-person at
Boulak who doesn’t know anything. I can’t say how it is with
learned people — this is what throws one’s imagination back upon
itself, and makes conjecture impossible and printed facts vain things.
This club-land Khafra and sporting Tih, this intellectual wooden
man, who speculated as we do on the riddle of the Sphinx, six
thousand years closer to the answer. Khafra built the Second
Pyramid — how could he have been a club man ? Tih perhaps talked
with Abraham — how could he have been frivolous ? The wooden
man lived sixty centuries before Herbert Spencer, and wore an
apron ; why should he have suffered unrest about the Wherefore of
tilings ?
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 371
And all the walls of the little salles are lined with picture-slabs
of painted limestone, telling in fresh colours how this desert-drowned
world lived, and fought, and died, and worshipped, and even loved,
while round about sit its strange old inhabitants with their hands
on their granite knees, and read their own history. A green basalt
coffin of a woman named Betaita ! The jewels of Queen Aah-hoteb,
who must have been a queen indeed to wear these golden lions and
jackals and lapis-lazuli winged vultures upon her breast and arms,
and to count a fierce axe and a wicked dagger among her precious
possessions. Yet she was a woman too, with soft moods and vanities,
for here are her gilded fan and her tarnished mirror. I caught
Orthodocia regarding the mirror of Queen Aah-hoteb from every
possible angle. How little we change !
Best of all, I remember a cluster of leaves that is lying in the
Salle du Centre of the Museum at Boulak. Somebody broke it off
where it drooped in an olive-garden of Thebes, I think, one sunny
yesterday — some woman, I know. One can see her, reaching up,
pale with grief, and failing to understand the red of the pomegranate
blossoms and the playing of the fountains and the song of the blind
harper on the other side of the wall ; for the cluster is to lie through
the centuries beside her beloved dead. And there, in the Museum
at Boulak, it holds its graceful form and slender substance — one
can hear the soft wind rustle in it — still telling of that sunny
morning, outliving grief, outdying death.
‘ Pharaoh ! ’ said Orthodocia, with a little shudder of expectancy,
as we entered the Salle des Momies Royales.
W e walked across to where three or four great coffins stood in
the bright light of the eastern windows. The attendant drew the
loose cover of one of them away, and there, under the glass, with
his long fingers loosely crossed upon his breast, and a wisp of red 4
hair visible behind his ears — black and shrivelled, but tall and '
kingly still — lay Pharaoh, whose heart the Lord hardened so that
he would not let the Children of Israel go.
Not a dead man. Death had been here once, ages and ages ago,
and had gone away again, discouraged, discomfited, cheated, leaving
little permanent impression. Death was a phase to Pharaoh — he
lived through it, so to speak. And now he has nothing further to
372
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
do with it. A country churchyard, full of friendly people you knew
before they went to stay there, would be a much more alarming
place to walk through at night than the Salle des Monties Royales
of the Boulak Museum, who lie in their ragged Egyptian cerements,
their wide mouths stuffed with gummy drugs, and smile, the world’s
sincerest cynics, at both death and life.
He was placarded 4 Ramses II./ but we did not care about him
as Ramses II. or 4 The Sesostris of the Greeks/ and the fact that he
encouraged culture and the arts and presented a library to Thebes,
had no weight with us. How should it matter what Herodotus
said about him ! He held our eyes as the stubborn old Pharaoh
of a hundred sermons and Bible stories — distinctly, as I looked
at him, I saw the scratched paint on the back of a Presbyterian
pew in Canada, and my own small boot, and felt the emotions
of a culprit — and we stared, shocked and angry with the defiant
old mummy, in spite of Herodotus, thinking of the tale of bricks.
It was those lips that said to the oppressed of Israel, 4 Ye are idle !
Ye are idle ! ’ — that arm that pointed, imperial, 4 Get you to your
burdens ! ’
4 You wicked old man ! 9 said Orthodocia. Then, thinking of his
slain first-born, when there was a great cry in Egypt and not a
house where there was not one dead, she softened. Just then, I
remember, came up the Scotch elder and his wife who were going to
the Holy Land. A nice old gentleman leaning on his cane, a dear
old lady known to her friends, I’m sure, as 4 a real practical body.’
We had a breakfast-table acquaintance with them. 4 Not Pharaoh ! ’
she exclaimed.
Her husband explained that there was 4 no dout whateffer
aboot it.’
4 The Pharaoh that commanded the same day the taskmasters o’
the people and their officers, saying : 44 Ye shall no more give the
people straw to mak’ brick, as heretofore — they must go and find it
for theirsels ! — and o’ the tale o’ brick ye s’all not diminish owt ’’ —
the verra same ? ’
The old gentleman reiterated his conviction.
4 Weel/ said she, inspecting the oppressor with the keenest dis-
approbation, 4 1 could quite believe him capable o’ doin’ it ! ’
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 373
Poor old Pharaoh ! It was very crushing, and it excited Ortho-
docia to valorous pity. ‘ Dear Madam/ she said, deprecatingly,
‘ this — gentleman — has been preserved three thousand years ! One
* I COULD QUl'rti BELIEVE HBI CAPABLE o’ DOIN’ IT 1 *
does go off in one’s looks in that time — it’s only natural ! Don’t
you think you do him some injustice in not considering what ho
might have been when he was —newer ? For my part, I think he
374
A SOCIAL DE PA RTURE
wears wonderfully — and at his age one couldn't expect him to be
prepossessing, really ! *
‘ “ Gentleman ! ” } responded the old lady, with a sharp rap of
her fan on the sarcophagus. ‘ The Lord hasna made me a judge nor
a divider over him, but I'd no call him a gentleman ! y
Orthodocia smiled sweetly, but I saw the sparkle of enthusiasm
in her eye, and as I did not care about being involved in a dispute
about fore-ordination as Pharaoh illustrated it, I took her away to
see his papa, who occupies a sarcophagus adjoining. She went back,
however, while I was looking at Thothmes II. and Queen Hest-em-
Sekhet and the other people, and I find in her note-book a page
which explains what she was doing. It tells me that she heard
matters made up to Pharaoh while she was there, by a lady who
came and clasped her hands, and regarded him with that sad resigna-
tion which comparative strangers always use at coffinsides, and said
in an undertone, £ What a perfectly natural expression ! *
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
375
XXXTX
hthodocia maintains tliat we walked straight
. on for five minutes and turned
S' V/ A.
left when
go to Cairo anybody except a policeman will tell you the way to
the Mousky, and after you get there you will not care how you
came. 1 Mousky/ you will observe, and not ‘ Muski/ which is the
modern, orthodox, and accepted version. £ Mousky 7 is disreputable,
odorous, tattered, picturesque, abounding in fleas. £ Muski’ might
be anything.
Xo, we had seen nothing like this. Cairo is nowhere dupli-
cated ; nowhere even suggested. Orthodocia went the length of
admitting that we had felt nothing like it, that Cairo was a distinct
and genuine sensation, entirely apart from what she expected of the
Sphinx and the Pyramids.
The sun was warm and life was light. The Mousky was full of
cheerfulness, of sweet rascality, delightful to breathe. It has be-
come ambitious lately, and is Europeanising; but it is still more
we went to the real Cairo, and you may
believe her if you like. I am not certain,
and I can’t find anything in Baedeker about
it. But it is not important. When you
A SOCIAL DEPASTURE
3?6
Eastern than respectable, and it is hard to believe that it can ever
be very smug or very clean. We sauntered along among Jews, and
Copts, and Arabs, and Egyptians, and Erenchmen, and Greeks, and
Italians, and Turks, and bold black stalwart creatures from inner
Africa, with happy placidity, having nothing to do, and feeling
exactly like doing it, which is the charm of Egypt. Baedeker told
us who the people were, but their commingling was dazzling, and we
could not apply Baedeker. To us they were an endless twisting
throng in sandals and tarboosh, and floating robes of blue and
yellow and white, that moved against the dusky mystery of the
shops, and made fascinating bits of colour where the shadows deep-
ened in the distance. Their faces had as much of the pallor of the
East as of its deeper tints, and differed, of course, in type, but they
all wore the dignity that seems to be the Oriental substitute for a
soul, and were full of that agreeable unconcern which, after our con-
science-wrangles of the West, it is worth travelling a few thousand
miles to look upon. Only the negroes we could tell — they were so
black, and so big, and so supercilious, and so gay of vestment. To
turn a corner of old Cairo and come upon a large, self-satisfied
negro, habited as he knows nature intended him to be, and expanding
in the sun he loves, is not a matter to be looked over in noting the
pleasures of El Kahir.
Women, too — we regarded them curiously ; and they looked at
us often with a smile in their eyes — conscious, tantalising eyes that
shine lustrous between their blackened fringes, with a gilt wooden
tube between and a yard long strip of yashmak hanging from it,
making a mystery of nose and lips and chin. They may all be
beautiful — the presumption is against it, but the possibility is always
there, and until crow’s-feet gather too palpably above the yashmak ,
the eyes express the possibility in the most alluring manner — know-
ing very well that you are thinking of it, secure in the knowledge
that you can’t find out. Otherwise the ladies of Cairo are not at-
tractive. Their figures express more than a suspicion of embonpoint ,
and their garments carry out the idea. A dame we saw in the
Mousky that morning seems to have passed my elbow this minute.
She was loftily mounted on a very superior donkey, whose ornaments
jingled as he went. Her own ears and arms and fingers were heavy
377
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
With bedeckments, and as she trotted by her copious swathings took
the wind and bellowed out about her like a sombre cloud. But her
eyes shone forth from it like stars, and started Orthodocia upon a
theory that if for generations and generations one were allowed to
exhibit only one’s eyes, one’s eyes would, in the course of time —
without the slightest effort or desire upon one’s own part — become
very charming indeed, which I suppose is true. And at the stage
of natural development which the orbs of the Cairene ladies have
reached already, one can easily imagine a susceptible person’s first
walk in the Mousky to be, from beginning to end, a sympathetic
study of eyes.
But I have not told you of the indescribable din of this street of
Cairo ; how the carriages dash recklessly — whips cracking — among
the people ; how the water-sellers clash their brass vessels and cry,
‘ Drink, O Faithful ! ’ and the pedlars of lemons and of lupins, of dates
and sweet cakes, call upon Allah to make their baskets light ; and
the money-changers sit at the corners of the streets endlessly chaffer
ing and clinking, and the donkeys bray, and the people talk in many
tongues, and the camel joins the chorus in his own distinctive
voice. Ah, the camel of Cairo ! I tremble on the verge of a para-
graph about him ; I know I cannot do him justice, but the emotions
that came with the first one that gladdened us in the Mousky that
morning crowd back upon me and will not be dismissed. He was
immediately behind us — we turned suddenly and saw him, a great
pack of green clover on his back, looking down at us with a bland
and level condescension which seemed intended to allay our nervous-
ness, though it had not precisely that effect. We had grown used
to the donkeys. They trotted, and obeyed a stick from the rear.
When they elbowed us it was with apology, and when we turned to
speak to each other and found an asinine countenance close to our
own it was always full of deference. They occupied the human
plane, moreover ; their joys and sorrows were, in a manner, ours ;
they shared the common lot. And one didn’t get out of their way ;
one kept them waiting. But this slow, strange beast, with his lofty
and deliberate assertion of precedence — we made room for him at
once, and without cavil, as he mutely requested us to do, and as he
passed we stood and looked at him. We saw that everybody made
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
378
room for him, as if lie were incarnate fate. lie went quietly and
comfortably through the narrowest lanes and the densest crowds by
the mere force of his personality. He was the most impressive
living thing we saw in Egypt, not excepting two Pashas and a Bey.
He was engaged with large philo-
sophies, one could see that, and the
superciliousness in the curve of his
neck was unavoid-
able. Ages ago he
had tried to make up
for it by a smile, a
smile of the simple
primary sort, ac-
quired before the
world learned smil-
ing hatred, a mere
pulling up of the
corners of the mouth,
expressing pure ami-
ability, and from
generation to gene-
ration the smile had become a
fixture, though he gives one the
impression that he would dis-
pense with it now if he could.
For he thinks and remembers
and compares. The people have
changed and have divided their
inheritance ; he is a solitary
survival, and has preserved his.
Their traditions are his history:
he knew the desert world ; he
‘we never saw one that was not walked in the train of the
INDISPUTABLY SECOND-HAND.’
Queen of Sheba ; he could re-
tail scandals of the Court of Solomon. And he bends his back
to the modern burden, neither more nor less than he carried then,
because it is, and has always been, part of the formula of life for
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
37 9
“1
him. When they took it off I
suppose he was relieved, but he
did not show it in any way ;
when they made it too heavy he
simply looked round communi-
catively and declined to get up.
J Ie did what was required of him
with a superior leisurely dignity
that was elevating to observe. H e
never hurried ; I did not see him
beaten. As to his personal ap-
pearance, it is difficult to say
that he is beautiful ; but I defy
you to go to Cairo and there-
after call him ugly. He seems
to belong to a world of different
standards in these matters. His
skin is the most interesting thing
about him, to a lover of the
antique. It seems to have been
in constant use since the original
camel took it out of the ark
with him, it is so battered and
tattered, so seamy and patched, so dis-
reputably parchment-coloured. Ortho-
docia did not love this Egyptian as
I did ; she said he was known to have
a vicious bite, and his airs were in-
supportable. ‘ Moreover/ she remarked, 4 1 want
to see a neiv camel ! * But, though we gazed on
many clover-laden trains winding through many
sharia of Cairo, we never saw one that was not
indisputably second-hand.
Our feet turned naturally with the shuffling
multitude's into the bazaars, where the throng
grew thicker and the babel less, for a donkey
in the Khan el Khaleel is a serious matter, and * INT0 TIIE BAZAARS ‘
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
380
two donkeys, properly applied, bar the way. The only merchants in
the world live in the Khan el Khaleel, where the sunlight comes
seldom, and from a great distance, down through the ruined flapping
brown awnings that stretch across from the dilapidated lattices on
one side to the dilapidated lattices on the other, and falls in flecks
and patches on the green turban of a descendant of the Prophet as
he chaffers with a J ew in yellow about the price of a keff iyah. The
only merchants in the world, though they cannot show you the
jewels of India, or make you the bows of Japan, nor have yet
mastered the significance of ‘ clearing 9 sales. Though their shops
are only cubes in the wall, wherein they sit cross-legged, and draw
at their coiled ‘ hubble-bubbles/ and stroke their long beards and
smile in your face, and cry, ‘ Take it ! I give it thee ! Allah will
recompense me ! 9 when you dispute their conscienceless prices.
There is somewhat about themselves of a subtler essence of barter
and somewhat about their goods, which are not gorgeous or wonder-
ful, but full of quaint colour and conscious charm, that makes the
only true merchandise of them in a most satisfying way. Though,
as Orthodocia says, it may be only an after-glow of ‘ The Arabian
Nights/
‘ But one can see it all in Begent Street \ 9 No, dear lady. Not
the piles and piles of pointed Turkish sandals, red and yellow,
flaming out against the shadows where one mysterious vista twists
into another. Not the pale embroidered stuffs that age has withered
into fancies more exquisite than any modern loom could imagine.
Not the queer little saucerless coffee services, in brass and blue
enamel, with their slender, long-necked urns and thimble cups !
And if you can by chance buy a koran-holder, a set of doyleys, a
gold- embroidered vesr, a brass lamp studded with coloured glass, in
London, what is it ? You miss the profusion, the people, the bar-
gaining, the delicious sense of making a tiny bit of all that pictur-
esqueness your own. And your Begent Street things will never have
the smell of Cairo that mine have.
One sees them all at work, that is another charm. Fashioning
the bright slippers, pulling the gold thread in and out of the drago-
man’s vest, hammering and chasing the brazen lamp, laying each
completed thing on the shelf to be sold and beginning another on
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 381
the spot — the very poetry of commerce. There were the little
people who sat outside, a foot from the ground, and tinkered and
gossiped, and cheated and smiled, and praised Allah. There were
richer merchants, whose possessions filled two rooms. Of these was
Abu-el-Hassan. Abu-el-Hassan, portly and courtly, speaking
French, producing, with much grace, a box of Turkish Delight to
assist our deliberations on his inlaid cabinets, his heaped-up em-
broideries, his Persian antiquities. As we sat in the tempting
little back room of Abu-el-Hassan, and wondered how much over-
charge one was honourably bound to submit to after partaking of
the double confection of his politeness and his sweets, he showed us
his chiefest treasure. It was a soft, rich carpet, deep piled and
velvety, full of flickering colours, with here and there a sparkle of
gold. Its price was one hundred and fifty pounds. Abu-el-Hassan
stroked it fondly. There came a real, beautiful pleasure into his
face. 4 It is my lofe ! ’ said he. On account of which sentiment
Orthodocia paid him, I am convinced, a great many unnecessary
piastres.
Coming out and away, we stopped before handsome young
Abdallah, a seller of perfumes, of kohl for blackening the eyelashes,
and henna for staining the finger nails, and bought tiny heart-
shaped green bottles of attar of roses. As we bought, a friend of
Abdallah’s came that way — such a dainty young lady with tripping-
little feet, and a piquant face, unveiled. Her dress and her chatter
were French ; but she was a Spaniard, we thought. And we learned,
from her conversation with Abdallah that she wished to borrow his
clothes for a romantic rendezvous that evening under the acacias in
the garden of the Esbekeeyah. And Abdallah, assenting, kissed
her lightly on both cheeks, whereat she nodded at him smilingly and
was gone. Much we wondered who she was and how the escapade
would end ; and she made a vivacious little contrasting episode,
passing lightly through the mazes of the Khan el Khaleel, that stays
in my memory of it.
Many mosques saw we that afternoon, with a 4 guide ’ ; but there
is getting to be a great paucity of material in Orthodocia’s note-
book, and I can find out from it only the more or less uninteresting-
fact that one mosque was striped. As I remember them, they were
382
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
all great gaunt places, extremely brown and ragged and hollow, and
usually splashed with the blood of a person we had never heard of
before. The guide was invaluable. He never failed to tell us to
take our shoes off, or missed an opportunity of making us pay
piastres. For the rest, he walked round the places we visited with
the deepest interest, and showed an intelligent curiosity on a num-
ber of points, which, by means of Baedeker, we were happily able to
gratify. In the black, oily water of a fountain in the Mosque of
Hassan some women were washing their faces and their feet. As
we came in, they hurried on their yashmaks — the guide was a man
— but went on bathing their extremities with serene composure.
And then the guide made the one illuminative remark in his reper-
toire. ‘ Sultan Hassan very good doctor ! J he said, and that was
all. Neither the gate whereon the faithful leave their toothaches
and their cares, with molars that grind no more and wisps of hair
and other personal tributes, nor the tombs of the Caliphs, nor eko
of the Mamelukes, nor any other object of interest or of admiration,
could elicit a further statement from him. Orthodocia told him
that he was a most original and interesting type of guide — so willing
to learn — and that he might come again to-morrow ; but as it was
a little fatiguing to support the entire burden of the conversation
for so long, he might go then, if he could find the way home alone.
So he went, but we saw nothing of him next day. He was probably
unable to ascertain the whereabouts of the hotel.
And we drove alone to the strange little Coptic church that rises
out of tenements and potteries and dilapidations all round about,
with its tarnished interior and quaint Byzantine saints, once gilt
and red. A boy in priestly garments showed us the trough where
these later Christians bathe their feet, as they did who listened to
Paul and Apollos, and the divisions for the men, and the women,
and the children, and the inscription in strange characters on the
right of the high altar, ‘ Greetings to the Temple of the Father.’
Then he led the way down a dark narrow stone stair into a vaulted
crypt, at one end of which stood an altar like a tomb-niche, to mark
the spot where, in the early light that came before the full dawn-
ing, rested the Mother and the Child. Perhaps if we had been in
Palestine and had had a surfeit of traditions, this one would not
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 383
have impressed us — there were plenty of scoffers at the hotel who
told us it was humbug. But there is one consoling thing about
being disillusionised — it presupposes the illusion ; and both Ortho-
docia and I were glad we had gone down, credulous, into that quiet
little place, and thought, believing, of the sweet eyes with the
motherhood of Christ in them, that looked upon it when the chroni-
cles of time, for us, had just begun.
The British ‘Tommy/ in uniform, is not imposing upon a
donkey. His legs hang stiffly to within a few inches of the ground,
he holds himself with the martial erectness of a Life Guardsman,
and he reflects an idea that his character justifies any position in
life which even the donkey finds amusing. We met numbers of him
mounted thus trotting down out of the Citadel, wearing a notable
air of occupying Egypt, which did not go well with the donkey
either.
And there, when the day was done, lay Cairo all about our feet.
Cairo, the city of the genii, and of our dreams, always farthest away
of all the cities in the magical distance beyond the rim o’ the world
which edges the fields of home — for did not the way thither lie
through the air on wishing carpets? Cairo, pale and fair in the
glow of sunset, brooding over her rich stuffs and her dead Caliphs,
still cherishing and exhaling, there in her tranquil beauty, the fool-
ish old thought that she is the Mother of the World ! The mosque-
bubbles rose into the mellow light, and the slim minarets pierced it,
and mingling with the old, old hum of humanity that rose from her
bosom and floated up to us in her high Citadel came the voices of
her blind mueddin in the minarets, calling the people to their sun-
set prayers. Eastward the sheer high lines of the Mokattum Hills,
unsoftened even by this yellowed air ; then Cairo in their valley,
her old Nile lover still at her feet, slipping between Arabia and
Libya to the sea ; and beyond and about it all the gray-wliite
speechless desert with the Pyramids on its verge.
Immediately beneath us, and in full view, was the spot where the
Mamelukes were massacred ; but I could not get Orthodocia to pay
any attention to it. Her excuse was that so far as she knew there
was no record whatever of such an event in the ‘Arabian Nights’
3§4
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
— and what other historical records of Cairo had we that could
possibly be depended upon?
* * x # *
4 One always hears/ said I, ‘that it is the proper thing to do. J
4 1 have only seen one lady doing it/ said Orthodocia, £ and she
looked like a cook.’
We were discussing how we should go to Heliopolis to see the
obelisk there, and I was urging the donkey way of going. Up to
this time we had been spending what was left of our substance at an
alarming rate upon victorias.
From the first I had regarded the donkeys longingly, feeling
instinctively that I should adorn one ; that I, who am no horsewoman,
would sit a donkey with composure and grace. They inspired me
with a confidence and a desire to get on which I had never felt in
connection with any other quadruped. But up to this time Ortho-
dccia had said it was 4 infra digf and when Orthodocia used Latin
I knew that there was nothing for it but to accept the situation.
On this particular morning, however, I confronted her with serious
considerations of finance, and donkeys are as cheap in Cairo as
carriages are dear. Just then Bubicundo passed at full trot, with
an hilarious hammar 1 behind, an inspiriting sight to see. 4 Dear
man ! ’ said I, with enthusiasm, 4 what a glorious time he is having !
Do, Orthodocia ! J I did not then suspect my friend of any ulterior
motive in thus setting her face against the national animal. Ortho-
docia was usually so straightforward. But as we have often told each
other since, people must travel round the world with their friends to
know them.
4 Do, Orthodocia ! ’ I supplicated, restating the argument of the
exchequer. And Orthodocia did.
We found a group of donkey-boys round the corner from the
hotel. Orthodocia said that the amount of our entire expenses in
Cairo would not induce her to mount in front of the piazza. The
boys were tossing coppers, and the donkeys stood about a little dis-
tance off in a three-legged, neglige manner, apathetically nosing the
ground. Boys and donkeys surrounded us in a moment with an
enthusiasm which made a choice difficult to me.
1 Donkey-boy.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 385
1 My donkey numb’ one donkey, lady ! He name Lily Langtry ! ’
4 Lily Langtry he kick ! ’ — confidentially from a rival — 4 my
donkey she go easy ; she name sometime 44 Gran’ Ole Man ” sometime
“ Granny ! ” ?
I hesitated for pleasure and delight. I deeply desired each
donkey in turn. Had time permitted I would have taken a gay and
fanciful excursion into the unknown on the back of every one of
them. But time did not permit, so I selected, for his serious
deportment and other excellent features, an ass named Mark Twain.
Orthodocia vacillated also, but not from love. She regarded the
lot with frowning criticism, and considered the testimonials, spoken
and written, with stern incredulity. Her final decision was a meek
little white quadruped, 4 Bose of Sharon.’ 4 Bose of Sharon ’ had
a 4 character ’ from an English nobleman of distinction — I think
it was the Duke of Hamilton — in which a certain prominence was
given to her tractability and sweetness of disposition. Then the
elect donkey-boys scuttled off to change the trappings for side-
saddles. 4 Not that it will make much difference ! 9 remarked Ortho-
docia, with something very like a groan.
4 Get on first, dear ! 9 said my friend persuasively, when the
quartette came back, stroking her white donkey on the neck and
nose. 4 I’ll follow you in a minute. I like to — to get them to know
me ! 9 At this the white donkey tossed his head and made an
‘allemande left,’ Orthodocia going patiently after it.
I may say, in no boastful spirit, that I vaulted lightly into the
saddle, and that Mark Twain and I participated in a spirit of perfect
good-fellowship from the beginning. He was my very, very first
donkey, and the emotions he inspired were of that deliciously pristine
character that one loves to look back upon in after life. No other
donkey can ever be to me what Mark was — I called him Mark. We
were on terms that permitted the use of his baptismal name at the
end of the first half-mile. There was something about the manner
of his going that combined the exaltation of a tandem with the
security of a tram, and gave one a joyous thrill of daring, together
with the divine feeling of mistress-ship and the opportunity of look-
ing round. His pace was steady and serene. He required no rising
in the saddle, no tugging at the bridle-rein, no whip, no voice of
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
386
command. Indeed, the bridle-rein was a mockery, and the whip
a vain thing ; he recognised no authority except his master’s, who
ran behind and discoursed to him ; and his rider had no care or
responsibility on his account. This is what made donkey-riding
so superior an attraction to me. I had only to bounce naturally
and be happy. Some people, especially equestrians, would not have
liked it, I know. For instance, when it became apparent that
Orthodocia was not catching up, and I wanted to go back to
look for her, I communicated my desire to the donkey in the usual
way. He did not take the slightest notice of me. I exhorted him,
and clung with both hands to one rein. He trotted on with that
composure which is the special talent of his kind. I was obliged
finally to ask the donkey-boy to turn him round. He said one word
— I have always been sorry not to remember the word ; in going
through life one meets so many of Mark Twain’s connections who
are difficult to persuade — and the donkey swerved round as if he had
been arranged on a pivot. An equestrian doubtless would have con-
sidered this humiliating. I am not an equestrian, and I thought it
satisfying to a degree. It so thoroughly relieved one from all
complicity in case of accident.
I found Orthodocia still stroking the nose of the Hose of Sharon ;
and there were some fragments of biscuits lying about which she did
not explain.
4 I think she knows me now ! ’ my friend remarked uncertainly ;
then, diplomatically, 4 How beautifully you sit, dear ! Do go on !
I’ll be with you in one moment.’
Thus flatteringly adjured I trotted off again, and gave myself up
to the delirium of my first donkey without restraint until Orthodocia’s
voice from the rear, full of woe, smote me upon the heart. £ Ha-ow
— very fast — you go ! ’ quoth she, quothing shrill and breathlessly.
Then when I looked upon Orthodocia I could by no means refrain
from laughter, of such prodigious sort that Mark Twain, taking it in
some personal way, broke into a gallop and left the Hose of Sharon
further behind than ever. My dear friend occupied her saddle with
what might be called distressed decorum, in which was written plainly
the air of being accustomed to better things. She held her bridle-
rein to a nicety, and her elbows might have been glued to her side.
But the Rose was doing her best in the way of pace, and the motion
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 387
somehow did not harmonise with the lady’s bearing. Moreover,
she wore an inexplicable expression — I mean Orthodocia — in which
grief and awe and terror were blended in a way that is funny in
connection with a donkey. And her eyes were fixed, to the utter
disregard of the landscape, upon the Rose of Sharon’s left ear.
‘Why,’ said she, as Mark Twain, entirely of his own accord,
obligingly waited for the Rose, ‘ does she lay it down that way ? ’
referring to the ear. ‘ Do you think she’s got any tricks — does she
look as if she had ? If she has, I think it was positively criminal
of the Duke of Hamilton not to mention them ? ’
The Rose was probably the most inoffensive and amiable little ass
in Cairo, and I assured Orthodocia of this, I fear a little witheringly,
fcr I felt very superior.
£ It’s all very well for you ! ’ she responded. £ You seem born to ride
donkeys’ — crushingly— £ but ’ — here came the revelation — £ I know
exactly how it will be. I’ve tried them at Mentone, at Capri, every-
where — do walk a little ! — my friends are always donkey-mad like you
• — and I never can stay on ! ’ This in a tone of real melodrama.
£ I observe,’ I said, £ that when these Jiammars wish these Komars
— I speak according to Baedeker — to stop, they say ££ Bus !” to go on
faster, ££ Ha? cirga ! ” This is not according to Baedeker ; but perhaps
our hammars have not been brought up by a well-principled guide-
book. If you can master these two terms you are safe, for though
your liomar will pay no attention to them, your Kammctr will heed,
and thus it shall be as you desire.’
£ Thanks ! ’ replied Orthodocia. ££ Bus ! ” ££ llcCar-ga ! ” ££ Bus ! ”
“ Ilaar-ga /” Not at all difficult to remember.’
‘No ! ’ said I ; £ and now, since we are well outside the city ’ — -
we were throwing grotesque shadows on the yellow white road that
winds past the barracks, high above a crumbling waste of old pot-
teries and dusty olive trees — ‘suppose we u ha'ar-ga ” a little. What
do you say to a race ? ’
‘No — no — xo!’ cried Orthodocia, explosively; and indeed I
would not have insisted, though I was highly incredulous of her
disabilities, but the donkey-boys, catching my idea, laid forthwith
about the flanks of Mark Twain and the Rose in a spirit of wild
exultation ; and instantly we were off, all six of us, in a shouting,
c c 2
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
388
gesticulating, dusty, delirious whirl. I do not know the pleasures of
the chase. I had never before ridden anything that went at the rate
of x n as Mark Twain did, keeping always a good neck ahead of the
Rose, who also exhibited wonders. To me it was pure, undiluted
happiness, and I patted Mark Twain softly on the neck, and
whispered my applause into his large and receptive ear.
This was all in the course of the first sixty seconds, at the end
of which I looked round to cheer and encourage Orthodocia. She
sat erect as ever, pale and determined of countenance, a world of
concentration in her eyes, but bumping in such a hysterical and
highly-agonised manner that it was impossible to predict by three
square feet, when she rose, where she would come down. I called
aloud to her in her distress, ‘ Orthodocia ! 9
4 Ildar -ga ! ’ she answered wildly. ‘ Ildar-ga! Hdar-ga ! 9 bump-
ing more convulsively
than ever, and clutch-
ing madly at the Rose
of Sharon’s ear. Her
hammar hammared
with renewed zeal, and
the Rose galloped ear
and ear with Mark.
‘Don’t be rash, Ortho-
* TO HELIOPOLIS
and ' Ildar ga ! ’ screamed my friend despairingly
‘ Good for the Rose ! Go on, Rosy !
docia ! ’ I cried
for answer.
‘ All right ! ’ I returned.
Get up, Mark ! Ildar-ga ! ’
The donkeys galloped against one another, and just then Ortho-
docia, swerving, made an impetuous attempt to sit down in my
saddle. ‘ Oh, what an ass ! ’ cried she. ‘ Can’t you keep to your own
side of the road ? 9 And to this day I can’t be certain whether she
meant Mark Twain or me. Orthodocia is so excitable. ‘ What are
you encouraging them for ! Hdar-ga / you young lunatic ! ’ to the
donkey-boy.
Mark was leading again, and Orthodocia’s hammar said the last
word of persuasion to the Rose of Sharon, who literally kicked up
her heels — at least Orthodocia said she did, but I don’t consider that
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 389
she was in a position to see — in her effort to overtake us. Three
more distressful communications reached me from Orthodocia at this
point. They came in rapid succession. 4 I’m going off ! ’ con
expresdone — 4 Tm going off ! 9 crescendo — 4 I’m OFF ! 9 forte.
After that silence reigned for a space while Orthodocia
rearranged her draperies and removed the lime dust from her front
teeth with her handkerchief. After having ascertained that she had
suffered no fracture anywhere I fear that I gave myself up to
‘ TIIE ROSE OF SHARON.’
‘Would you mind telling me/ she said frigidly after an interval,
‘ if you had any special reason for not ha’argaing, when I so parti-
cularly desired it ? ’
Whereupon the truth dawned over me, and I very nearly perished
untimely. 4 You wanted to stop ! 9 I said, leaning against Mark
Twain, who had come up for his share of the humour of the situation.
4 Then 44 Bus ! 99 was the proper expletive, my dear — 44 Bus ! ” 9
4 Oh ! ’ said Orthodocia ; 4 don’t you think we had better be get-
ting on to Heliopolis ? 9
Orthodocia had such lovely ways — to borrow a phrase from the
Irish politicians — of burking the situation.
39o
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
So we went on to Heliopolis, under the acacias, and past the
labouring dripping water-wheels in pale green fields, where graceful
white ibises were bowing and stepping — on to Heliopolis in the
caressing sunlight, in much the same circumstance as people went
in those early days when Heliopolis was there to see. Occasionally
we met other donkeys, with whom Mark Twain and the Hose
invariably exchanged the statement that it
was a fine day in their own musical tongue,
and a way that was highly embarrassing to
us, for we did not know any of the tourists
attached to the other donkeys. We did all
we could to prevent it; but you couldn’t
4 i’m OFF ! ■
prevent a donkey with a genuinely emotional nature from giving
expression to his feelings by Act of Parliament, much less by moral
suasion. I had learned in my natural history that when a donkey
wants to bray he always twists his tail round in the instinctive way
in which we put our hands to our mouths when we yawn, and
that if anybody interfered with the first part of the function it would
be impossible for him to carry out the second. I mentioned this to
Orthodocia, who might have interrupted Mark Twain in this way
very conveniently if she had chosen to do so, but she said she didn’t
like to be interrupted herself, and she was quite sure he would be
annoyed about it. And it was not a thing that one cared to urge.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 331
When we arrived at Heliopolis we found an obelisk there, set up
some time ago by Ra-Kheper-Ka Usertesen, Lord of the Diadems
and Son of the Sun, the like of which can be seen only on the Thames
Embankment in London, or in Central Park in New York. But
the interest that remains in my mind about Heliopolis concentrates
itself upon the way we got there.
392
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XL
I was an unhappy white slave of Baghdad, and a genii of benevo-
lent intention had just arisen before me out of a sodawater bottle,
when I heard a repressed voice in my ear and saw an unnatural
shining through my eyelids. ‘ Get up ! ’ said Orthodocia. 4 It’s long
after three ! ’
We were not on the point of departure, as you may think, by
any unnatural train or ship. We were only going to see the Sphinx
and the Pyramids, at the hour Orthodocia considered most fitting
for the last Impression of our trip which she intended to capitalise
— the hour of dawn. To see the day break upon the countenance of
the Sphinx, however, at Orthodocia’s rate of going, though we had
only seven miles to ride, it was necessary to start at least two hours
earlier. I recognised the situation, therefore, especially when I saw
upon the table in the dim and ghastly gaslight the revolver which
Orthodocia had borrowed from Bubicundo the night before for our
protection in the event of brigands by the way — and with an in-
ternal malediction upon all impressions of an unseasonable nature,
I arose.
A quarter of an hour later, we slipped past the sleeping cham-
berlains in the upper corridors and down the wide staircases to the
outer portals, which the drowsy Luigi guarded alone. He started
up when we indicated our desire to be let out, and stared at us,
Orthodocia said afterwards, as if we had been guilty of some un-
conventionality. Orthodocia also says that he shuddered as the
cold light of the hall lamp fell upon the silver barrels of her revol-
ver ; but I did not see the h udder. I suppose he concluded that
since we were not taking our luggage with us, it could be no con*
cern of his or Shepheard’s, for he let us out without comment.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
393
It was very dark and silent out on the broad verandah ; a little
chilly wind rustled among the palms ; nothing stirred or spoke but
that. Cairo was asleep under a sprinkling of stars. There were
no lights anywhere in the tall houses that stood obscurely against
the sky. 4 Let us go back, Orthodocia ! ’ said I, for I am not a brave
person, and I did not expect it to be so dark.
4 Never ! ' returned Orthodocia. Then, leaning over the verandah,
1 Achmed ! 5 she called, softly ; 4 Achmed ! ’
A little figure rose up in the street and stole quickly to the
verandah steps. 4 1
go bring donkey ! ’
into the night,
his appointment
absolute. In a quar-
was back, however,
Twain and the
an apology for the
mar, who, he said,
to visit his
in Alexandria
words, did not
the expedi-
We mount -
away into the deeper
Cairo. There came
between them as we
stars in the narrow
heads grew fewer ;
only that we were
high-walled mystery
casements and mush -
stillness was very
ingful, and the patterin,
here/ it said ; 4 1
and it sped away
Achmed’s faith in
with us had not been
ter of an hour he
with Mark
Lose, and
other ham -
had gone
grandfather
— in other
approve
tion.
ed and stole
shadows of
gray breadths
went, and the
spaces above our
but we could see
riding into a
of lattices and
ribekeyahs. The
soft and mean-
of the donkeys’ hoofs, which seemed to be
AWAY INTO THE DEEPER
SHADOWS OF CAIRO.’
the only sound abroad in all the city, made it a palpable thing, so
that we said nothing to break it. Achmed, behind, ran silently.
Occasionally there floated out to us from a dark garden thicket some
scent th^t told of roses and pomegranates*
394
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
We left the tall old clustering houses and rode through the
wider streets of Ismail’s city, where the grayness was lighter and
fell upon white walls and yellow ones, and upon the dark indistinct-
ness of olive trees, and so across the great bridge, with the daha-
beeyahs sleeping under it, that spans the Nile — it was in itself a
curious thing to be crossing the Nile. Then we looked back from
the other side at Cairo, crowding wan along the shore, and saw by
the paling sky behind her minarets that we must make haste.
The path twisted through dusky sand heaps piled on the edge of
a little river that wound its way to the Nile. From behind one and
another of these, dark figures began to steal forth, turbaned, mys-
terious, with long robes flung over one shoulder. They seemed to
grow out of the sand and to slip back into it again, so silently they
went ; and in that creeping Eastern half-light they suggested all
the romance of Arabia. Nevertheless they made me nervous.
4 Orthodocia/ said I, £ is that revolver loaded i ’
4 Certainly not ! ’ responded my friend. 4 Do you think I would
touch such a .king ? What would prevent its going off at any mo-
ment, and then, with this animal, where should I be ? ’
4 The Rose is excitable,'* I concurred ; 4 but I suppose you’ve
brought cartridges ? ’
4 Yes/ said Orthodocia, 4 a dozen and a half ! 9
Then she turned very pale and suddenly reined up. 4 It has
just struck me, my dear/ she said, 4 that I’ve got them in my
pocket ! ’
4 Well ! 9
4 Well ! 9 Orthodocia repeated with concentration, 4 don’t you know
that cartridges will go off, as well as pistols, with sufficient concus-
sion ! You haven’t the slightest idea of how this donkey concusses !
I’ve been running the most frightful danger all this time ! And
you laugh ! I consider you inhuman ! ’
4 No, my love ! ’ I responded, with an effort at self-control, and
in proof of my sincerity I offered to carry the cartridges. Ortho-
docia said that she thought it would be more prudent to throw them
away. I asked her if she thought she had any right to throw away
a dozen and a half of Rubicundo’s cartridges, probably all he had ;
whereat Orthodocia consented to hand them over to me. 4 After all/
395
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
she said, ‘it is really only fair that we should divide our ammunition.*
And the Rose made a detailed statement of relief as Orthodocia
emptied her pocket.
We were trotting under the long avenue of acacias that leads to
the Pyramids, and already we could see them, away to the left, in
glimpses between the tree trunks, for the day was growing. We
began to meet camels, clover-laden, pacing silently to find the sun
in Cairo’s market-places, and to catch the fragrance of their burdens
as they passed. Their masters and Achmed exchanged grave salu-
tations.
The still morning air was a dream of peace. Behind us, where
Cairo was, the sky gleamed white and silver ; nearer, fields of young
grasses, tenderly green, with the reedy river winding through bear-
ing the dawn in its bosom ; and by the river the palm-shadowed
dusky huts of the fellaheen. Tranquil beyond all telling — even the
white ibises flew softly in the rice fields — with no rejoiceful tint of
rose and gold, but brooding and fair, the soul of that Eastern dawn-
ing came on before its sun. We gazed and gazed at the sweet
wonder of it ; then, remembering our chief desire, adjured Achmed,
so that the donkeys sped with one accord and ceased not to speed
until we all arrived at the Desert of Sahara, and picked our way
past the Great Pyramid, through the sandy debris of the desert’s
edge, to where, in a wide hollow, scooped out of the sand, the great
gray Sphinx upreared itself, watching for the sun.
We were not a moment too soon. Even as we dismounted, all
the east, behind the river and the cloudy palms, trembled in faint
pale yellow, and the desert world grew full of light, so that we saw
very plainly the majestic form before us, that also waited, in infinite
silence, in infinite patience.
‘All ! ’ said Orthodocia, as we sat down together in the sand and
watched the face of the marvel.
There had come a sudden joy upon it with the rays that struck
golden on the unblinking eyeballs. They regarded each other, the
great Sphinx and the great Sun, exulting, understanding — the only
changeless ones, who had known it all from the beginning, old com-
rades who had yet to fail each other. As the sunlight spread
splendidly down over her the solemn gladness grew in the face of
396 A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
the Sphinx, and we saw also in her shattered features their strange
divinity, their power to comprehend, their tender human sympathy.
THE SOLEMN GLADNESS GREW JN THE FACE OF THE SPHINX.
39 7
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
She seemed to carry the mystery of life in her heart, to have know-
ledge of it, to answer our feeble 4 Wherefore % 9 with an inscrutable
4 Therefore ! ’ yet to brood always upon the pity of it. Somewhere
about her strong, calm lips an answer shaped itself for every bub-
bling question of ours ; a grief might have slept in the shadow of
her breast. With her face and her soul the Sphinx led me to be-
lieve that she was the foster-mother of all humanity. Yet she is
only a great stone image, sixty-six feet high, badly mutilated,
crouching upon the edge of the Desert of Sahara, with her paws
half buried in its sands.
4 Orthodocia,’ said I, 4 what is your Impression ? ’
My friend, sitting in the sand two paces off, regarded the Sphinx
earnestly a little longer. Then, 4 1 think she is a woman/ said
Orthodocia, 4 and I think she Made the World ! ’
Whereafter there was nothing for a considerable space, I being
scientifically unable to contradict Orthodocia ; and we both sat on
the edge of the sand-hollow and gave ourselves up to thought, each
believing the other to be wrapped in sacred idealisations which
neither would venture to intrude upon. We confided to one another
afterwards that most of the vague sentiments that inspired us after
a time bore upon our breakfasts ; but both Orthodocia and myself
would have been ashamed to confess that such material considerations
could dwell with us for a moment in the presence of the Sphinx. So
we sat there before her, turning a deaf ear to our inward complain-
ings, doing our best to feel properly ; each believing that any word
of hers would break the spell that bound the other. If Mark Twain
had been equally considerate, I really don’t know when we should
have got away, but he was not. He knew no concealment of the
emotions, and respected none. He stood silhouetted against the
flaming Eastern sky alone ; Achmed and the Rose had wandered
off. He felt the silence, the impressiveness, the loneliness of the
situation, and he stretched out his neck, and curled up his tail, and
brayed bitterly. Nob an ordinary bray, a bray that ran up and
down the chromatic scale and knew all the chords of woe — a
genuinely emotional bray, proceeding from the most badly-oiled
donkey interior in Cairo ; a long, long lyric that sounded far out
upon the waste and returned again, burdened with tears I suppose
3<}S A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
it was because of Orthodocia’s instinctive aversion to his kind that
she could never see anything fine or pathetic in a donkey’s bray, and
she looked at Mark Twain with some annoyance while he relieved
his feelings.
‘ What a voice ! ’ said she.
I retorted that I thought Mark had a very nice voice indeed for
a donkey ; and in the discussion which followed we suddenly began
to descend the sandbank. We went with a certain rapidity to the
bottom, and by the time we reached it our desire for elevating senti-
ments seemed to have disappeared for ever. Orthodocia declared,
as she shook the sand out of her hair, that the Sphinx looked like
an Irish washerwoman from that point of view, and I considered
the washerwoman libelled by the comparison. This did not lead me
to consider Orthodocia’s first impression less valuable, but it confirmed
my belief in the instability of all sentiment evolved out of its proper
connection with meals.
Pieces of the paws of the Sphinx, with rough, primitive mortar
attached, were lying about in the sand. If there was a person
jointly considered by Orthodocia and myself a thoroughly disreput-
able individual with a small mind, it was the person who carries
off 1 relics ’ of famous objects he sees in foreign countries. This
severe opinion not being upon the surface of our minds, however,
we carefully picked up and cherished lumps of the Sphinx’s paws,
not, I think, because of the Sphinx, but because of the mortar.
It brought us — we fancied we could see the very finger prints in it
— into such close, homely, intimate relation with the people who laid
it on the other side of the centuries ; it seemed to tell us more than
Mariette had at Boulak. And, indeed, was it not very likely, as
Orthodocia said, if Pharaoh had fancied any alterations in the Sphinx
at that time, that Moses himself might have spread it !
If it had not been for our misadventure, we would doubtless have
resented the uncomprehending sacrilege of the smiling Arabs wait-
ing at the top to offer us ‘ cofiy wi’thespinx ’ — thick, hot, black Turk-
ish stuff, in tiny cups. That had left us in so frivolous a state of
mind, however, that we pledged her with the most impertinent senti-
ments, bestowing much backsheesh for the opportunity. How gro-
tesque it all was— the wide, gray desert, the imperturbable Guardian
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 399
of Secrets staring triumphantly at the sun, the Pyramids standing
a little way off in their eternal angle against the sky, and we two,
in exuberant foolishness, in happy, mocking ignorance, with our feet
in her shifting sands, wishing the Sphinx and ourselves £ Many happy
returns ! ’
There had been nobody at all but the Sjohinx when we arrived,
piastre the desert began
tants, and in ten minutes
Bedouins. They said
of coffee, but stood about
every possible form of
furtive watch upon our
saw, approaching from
camels, of insinuating de-
ridden by Arab youths,
straight to the
thodocia, Mark
Sharon, Ach-
but at the clink of the first
to give forth her inhabi-
the place was alive with
nothing, except the vendor
in groups which suggested
backsheesh, and kept a
movements. Presently we
the direction of Gizeh, two
portment. They were
who guided them
group formed by Or-
Twain, the Bose of
med, and me.
‘ Like ride camel,
£ No/ said Ortho -
£ Every lady like
best quality camel,
Orthodocia care-
brown paper parcel
revolver — I omitted
done it up thus on
there was light
The knots took her
Then she folded the
neat parallelogram,
and grasped the re-
IT WAS A PROUD MOMENT
FOR ORTHODOCIA.’
lady f ?
docia, firmly,
dis camel, lady ! lie
low’st price ! ;
fully untied the
which contained the
to state that she had
the way as soon as
enough to see it,
some little time,
brown paper into a
put it in her pocket,
volver determinedly
with her left hand.
£ No ! ’ she said again, and with repressed significance. £ Go
away ! ’
The camel-boys said no further word of persuasion but went away
immediately, and we noticed a slight simultaneous movement of
4o 6
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
departure in the groups looking on. It was a proud moment foi*
Orthodocia. ‘ This is Bedouin bravery ! 9 she said scornfully. Then
she unfolded the brown paper again, and tied the revolver nicely up
in it, using the same piece of string. ‘ One should never waste
anything ! ’ said Orthodocia. ‘ I always keep my pieces of paper
and string. You see how valuable the habit is ! 9
‘ Yes, Orthodocia/ said I, ‘ but aren’t you going to ride the camel ? *
* Certainly not ! Would you like me to make another exhibition
of myself ? 9
‘Orthodocia/ said I, solemnly, ‘one ought not to consider any-
thing — in connection with an Impression ! ’
‘ I will not be coerced ! 9 responded my friend with firmness.
‘ Then lend me the revolver/ I requested. Orthodocia lent me
it. I put it in my pocket, and beckoned to the camel-boys re-
assuringly. I found an approximately clean place near one camel’s
shoulder, and patted him on it. Presently I saw him looking at
me from the other end of his neck, and desisted. In the meantime
the camel-boys came up.
‘ Are you ? ’ said Orthodocia.
‘ I am.’
‘ How are you going to get on ? ’ she inquired.
‘He will come down/ I responded confidently. ‘He will bring
his upper flats to the ground floor. I’ve seen them do it.’
‘Well/ said Orthodocia, ‘I should certainly come off.’
I sighed heavily. ‘I will not coerce you, Orthodocia/ said I,
‘but I cannot lose the opportunity, occurring perhaps once in a life-
time, of riding the shqa of the desert over his native element !
Bring him down ! ’ to the camel-boy.
If you care to ascertain accurately how that camel came down, I
must ask you to look in your book of natural history. Orthodocia
and I cannot agree upon the matter. She says he took his back
legs down first, and I am almost certain he folded up his front ones
and sat down on them, as it were, before he effected any re-arrange-
ment to the rear. It is not a point upon which there ought to be
any difference of opinion among commentators ; however, you will
have no difficulty in settling it for yourself. He came down in
sections, at all events, and it took him some little time, during
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
401
which Orthodocia vacillated. I took no notice of her vacillation,
but calmly sat down upon the sheepskins which formed his saddle.
The camel looked round and told me to get off, but I would not.
‘Send him up ! ' said I to the elevator-boy — as we say in America
— in attendance.
The boy went through one formula, and the camel went through
another. I can’t describe it, because of the same difference of
opinion between Or- thodocia and me about the
order of his going up, as about the order of his com-
ing do wr * T lrr» r\\\j d 'Tkv&WV?: * t.llPrP WPTP fwr» qtutIoc r>f
I reached the climax, and looked down upon Orthodocia in the sand
below, from the camel’s third story, the sensation was delightful.
To the hotel by the Pyramids, for breakfast,’ I commanded the
camel-boy. ‘I suppose you will follow on your white donkey ! ’ to
Orthodocia.
‘Thank you ! said Orthodocia, with prodigious sarcasm. ‘If
you can ride a camel, I can 1 ’
to the other, together with
such a rise in the world as
it had not been my lot to ex-
perience before. But when
sudden transition from one
‘ THE SCENE THAT FOLLOWED.’
D D
402
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
Of the scene that followed I possess a jumbled, tearful, hysterical
mental picture with which I would not part, as people say of other
amateur canvases, for many times its value. In the camel -back
mode of transport there is a swing and a toss and a thud, chaos, the
lost chord, the ragged edge of despair. Worst of all there was Or-
thodocia, bleating piteously a little way ahead that it was no use —
she could not stay on. The camels ambled faster — I embraced my
camels neck — we rounded the Great Pyramid at an alarming gait.
‘we all went up together.’
The world reeled, the Great Pyramid stood on its apex. ‘ I can’t
help it ! ’ I heard Orthodocia say, as in a dream. . . . The sand
was very soft where I descended, and I much preferred my fate to
Orthodocia’s. As she said, dear girl, she couldn’t help it, but it is
possible, for safety’s sake, to assume positions that are forcibly in
elegant on a camel. Happily, however, the sight of my misfortunes
induced her camel-boy to stop before they got to the hotel, so that
nobody saw but the Sphinx and me — and neither of us will ever tell,
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 403
Some people we knew liad driven out from Cairo to climb the
Great Pyramid, and after breakfast we all went up together. As
you are probably aware, this remarkable old pile covers thirteen
acres. The blocks of which it is built are usually about three feet
high, and one climbs a slope of live hundred and sixty-eight feet to
the top. Ascending pyramids is rather a violent form of exercise,
‘he had left his white tie and his dignity eighty feet below.’
therefore, for people weighing more than ten stone. Two old ladies
answering this description were of our party, and they preferred
the view from the bottom, they said.
The rest of us took a couple of swarthy Bedouins apiece and
started. Others followed, carrying water in bottles of hard-baked
Nile mud. One guide went ahead and pulled us up by the arms,
the other came behind and lifted us from stone to stone. It was
d d 2
404
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
not a comfortable mode of ascent — ‘ hot, risky, and fatiguing,’ as a
clerical gentlemar of the party remarked at the first resting-place,
one-third of the way up. He had left his white tie and his dignity
eighty feet below, and didn’t care about losing either. The guides
told us all that we were the heaviest people that had ever made the
ascent in safety, and suggested an instalment of backsheesh on that
account. We were dragged up another third, and rested again ;
and this second halting-place two or three gasping and perspiring
scalers found the height of their ambition. Not, I am proud to
say, either Orthodocia or your chronicler. We, with a struggling
remnant, got to the top.
There was room enough up there to dance a quadrille. That
was our first astonishment. We had expected the Pyramid, some-
how, to be pointed, as it is in the pictures. Then came a sense of
its awful rugged vastness, spreading down on four sides of us,
block outedging block, into the waste lapping round its thirteen
acres. It was a little like standing on a symmetrical pile of the
centuries.
6 Remarkable view ! 9 said the cleric of High Church tendencies
and the advanced opinions of 1889 A.D., tapping with his stick
the capstone Cheops laid upon his Pagan tomb somewhere about
3,070 b.c. ‘ Remarkable view ! 9
Two deserts that rolled, gray and yellow and white, as far as
one could see beneath the sky, the Libyan at our feet, the Arabian
beyond, Cairo, lying fair between the two under her palms, beside
her Nile. Rising round us out of the restless Libyan sands, the
time-defying monuments of those old, old kings who made their
immortality with stones, and the half-buried Sphinx, gazing with
that strange eager joy eastward. And sharp on the white heaving
waste below, a great triangular western shadow. It was, after all,
not the view but the shadow that was so notably worth climbing to
the top of the Pyramid to look down upon ; and the shadow, strangely
enough, as we gazed, grew more significant than the Pyramid.
Cheops had stood in it, and Moses, the shepherd kings, the
Ptolemies, Herodotus, Mahomet perhaps, and it had gradually
lessened and withdrawn itself from them, even as it did before our
eyes. It was only a shadow, and we were beings, young and strong
405
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
and human, who could think, and yet for thousands of years before
we saw the sun it had travelled silently from west to east in those
two exact long lines, darkening just that desert section and no
more, and would travel for other thousands after we who mock at
shadows should be less than shadows. It talked of immutable,
inscrutable law and of eternity, and we felt ourselves, looking down
at it there, pathetically ill-equipped to understand it.
‘ A remarkable view ! 7 said the cleric, dusting a place upon the
capstone of Cheops, adjusting his coat-tails, and sitting down on it.
‘ A very remarkable view ! 7
Orthodocia wishes me to ask you, when you go to the top of the
Great Pyramid, please to look for our initials somewhere near
* Jenny Lind/ which is cut very deeply in the stone. If there was
a person severely reprobated by Orthodocia and myself as a
thoroughly disreputable person with a small mind, it was the
person who goes about the world disfiguring everything in it with
his uninteresting name. This opinion did not occur to us at the
time, however, and now that we’ve done it Orthodocia says it will
be a comfort to know that somebody has seen it. And yet it is
commonly believed that the feminine mind is not logical !
4 c6
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
XLI
I pleaded for another week of Cairo, the place was so seductive,
even then when the Nile was at its lowest, the sun growing hot, and
the hotel emptying day by day — but Orthodocia denied me abso-
lutely. She said by way of excuse, that she knew it was simply silly
and ridiculous, and that she was sure I couldn’t understand it ; but
that in -spite of all the pleasures of the Orient and my delightful
society, she was getting homesick ! I had observed a diminution in
Orthodocia’s interest in most things for some little time, so I begged
to know since when. And she replied, ‘ Oh, for the past three or four
weeks ! ’ which space, though a little indefinite, dated back quite
conclusively enough to Agra. So I mused upon the nature of
impressions, and mourned inly ; but packed my trunk, and said
no more. With a motive power dating from Agra in Orthodocia’s
mind, probably located close to founts of tears, resistance would
have been imbecile. But I little thought, when I contemplated
our journey round the world, that it could be wrecked, so to speak,
by a little thing like the Wigginton Post-Office.
Orthodocia’s spirits rose all the way to Ismailia to such an extent
that she was quite willing to gratify me during the two or three
hours we had to wait for the ship there, by looking at the place from
my favourite point of view — the top of a donkey. This fact registers
her state of mind as well as anything could, I fancy. So we had a
cup of tea in a vacant little room of a vacant little hotel, with the
usual Frenchman’s fat wife in charge, and sallied forth. I regret
that I cannot set down much that is favourable regarding the Ismailia
donkey. He does not compare in any one particular with his aris-
tocratic connections of Cairo — he is altogether a different quadruped,
smaller, feebler, very ragged, without any self-respect whatever. He
has resources of cunning, however, that have not yet occurred to his
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 407
Cairo brethren. When I, with many compunctions, finally decided
upon my donkey and mounted him, he said nothing at all in protest,
but calmly, systematically, and with beautiful unanimity, he gave
way. What I mean by ‘unanimity ’ is that he did not tumbledown
in any rickety or hysterical manner, but reached the ground by a
gradual and general subsidence. I felt it to be considerate on the
donkey’s part, but it did not add to my sense of the dignity of the
situation, or I may say, to Orthodocia’s, who laughed in a most un-
becoming manner. She was more fortunate, but I had to go through
this mortifying process in connection with three donkeys before I
found one that avowed himself equal to me.
Fortunately, though, there seemed nobody to see. With the ex-
ception of the donkeys and the donkey-boys, the streets of the sandy
little town were almost empty. The sun struck down hotly, ther\>
were no trees to speak of, and the flat colourless houses belonged
very properly to their flat, colourless surroundings. But a delicious
breeze had stolen up from the Mediterranean, and gave the air a
sweet exhilaration.
W e clattered through the main street, that had some insignificant
shops in it, whose somewhat slatternly proprietors chattered with
one another in the doors ; there seemed to be no customers. Here
we stopped to buy those odds and ends that are always the last
things one thinks of on embarking ; and from the startling experi-
ence of paying for them, I should say that Ismailia is probably the
most expensive commercial centre in the world. After which, with
the donkey -boys at our heels, we took a long canter out upon a
road that led to the Canal, a road moderately shaded, straight and
hard, where we met three or four beings of a superior order upon
horseback. This convinced us that people did live in the bare bright
little town behind us, but we were not disposed to envy them.
The Canal, from a point of view on land, is a great surprise.
There is no understanding, a hundred yards off, whence it comes,
whither it goes, or even where it is. A great smoke-stack slants
itself into the air a little way to the left, growing apparently out of
a dusty tangle of sycamore trees, and a line of masts have somehow
pushed up through a long sand-heap to the right. Your donkey
trots a little further on, scrambles over a heap of sifting debris that
THE CANAL.
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 4°0
rises before you, and there at your feet, stretching this way and
curving that — the smoke-stack still seems an abnormal growth of
the sycamore trees — lies the Suez Canal. It is more radiantly blue
and more extraordinarily narrow, cleaving the wide, white desert on
either side, than any body of water you have ever seen before. The
gigantic task of making it seems altogether out of relation to this
simple ribbon brightening the waste, and the marvel of it is that it
should be a marvel.
It was quite night when our little company of belated tourists
huddled themselves on board the tug beside the wharf, a,nd steamed
away to where a great black hulk lay indistinctly outlined by the
electric light at her prow. The wind blew cold across from the sea,
I remember, and the dreariness of Ismailia had grown upon us so that
we were glad to climb the Peninsular’s companion ladder and find
ourselves again among the familiar Lascars and quartermasters and
home-going Anglo-Indians of the P. and O. We had grown to
feel at home in these great steamships, and to learn to depend upon
the kindness and courtesy, and even protection, which unfailingly
met us on board them. There was no special reason why this should
have been the case — neither Orthodocia nor I were anybody in par-
ticular, only two young women of good constitution and sanguine
temperament who had elected to go round the world by themselves
— but it so invariably was the case that I think in this last chapter
I should like to say so. And as I have said, it was pleasant to step
into the warmth and brightness of the saloon, where dinner lay in
waiting for us, to find our cabin with happy confidence and fill it with
the pink roses of Cairo ; and afterwards, among the groups gathered
on deck, watching the great white shaft of electric light on the dark
narrow water-way, to discover friends of other journeys and hear
and tell many things.
The Mediterranean toward the middle of last April was ambiti-
ously Atlantic in its tendencies, and Orthodocia and I were solidly
comforted in the thought of all the unnecessary pieces of baggage
we had had labelled, ‘Wanted at Brindisi/ We had looked for
balmy breezes from the gardens of Theocritus, with other anticipa-
tions more or less accurately classic, and warm sunlight behind
Mount Ida ; but our path round the planet thus far had been strewn,
410
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
as it were, with shattered expectations, so we were not surprised to
leave a few in the Mediterranean. Orthodocia found the cold wind
‘ bracing/ she said, and paced the deck with a demeanour that grew
daily more joyous. Her exuberance of feeling let itself off in various
ways, noticeably in dragging steamer- chairs about for old ladies, and
borrowing small white pulpy babies from their ayahs to dance up
and down deck with before breakfast, and singing £ White Wings 9
to herself in her upper berth at an entirely unnecessary hour of the
morning. The organ-grinders have got ‘ White Wings 9 now ; it has
become a noise and abhorrent ; yet in whatsoever alley way I hear
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD 41 1
it, I stop a moment and listen for some note in its rickety rendition
that reminds me of Orthodocia’s homeward voyage.
It was Easter-tide when we got to Brindisi, and my first vision
of Italy was a very shaky and very bouffante Virgin in black and
white, carried by men in scarlet with long white masks in a procession
along the wharf, and followed by little girls in flimsy white and paper
flowers. A ragged, brown-eyed little crowd brought up the rear,
and they all disappeared in the warm sunlight that lay for them
as it did for Claudius over the Appian Way. The loungers on the
wharf seemed rather disreputably cosmopolitan — Brindisi is another
battered outer edge — but there were swarthy ones among them who
cried oranges, and two or three insouciant in the brave and boasted
attire of Customs’ officers that made Italy enough of the place to be a
pleasant picture in one’s memory. Nobody could tell us of anything
in particular to see at Brindisi; but we found for ourselves the
pillars that commemorate that march to Rome, and the market-place,
gay with fruits and kerchiefs, and an ancient moat and castle, where
we sat and let the sun warm us through and through, while Ortho-
docia counted the days between that point and the Boyal Albert
Docks and made a daisy chain. My friend renewed her extreme
youth to such an extent upon this voyage that I hourly expected to
see her sucking her thumb. This, however, was spared me. She un-
blushingly proposed that we should go home by the mail train from
Brindisi. ‘ Simply to escape the Bay of Biscay, dear ! ’ but I found
matter for strenuous protest in missing Malta and Gibraltar ; and
she withdrew the proposition, watching the departure of the people
who did get off at Brindisi, however, with a pathetic resignation
which I found aggravating.
And by-and-by, sailing southward, we came to Malta, where the
Peninsular found the most geometrical haven that could be imagined,
all hard straight lines and parallelograms and sharp angles. Malta,
cherishing her old Crusaders high up from the sparkling sea, and
throwing back the strong white sunlight from the tops of her huddling
roofs. The Peninsular waited an obligingly long time at Malta, and
we were able to be rowed ashore and climb the steep, narrow, stone
street-stairways into the town, and there engage a vehicle and a
guide, a pleasant, broad-faced, smiling old soldier guide, whose lack
4 f 2
^ SOCIAL 1)7. PASTURE
of English to convey information with was made up for by the superior
quality of the politeness that was thrown in. He took us first to the
shops intheStrada Reale, but beyond photographs, and silver Maltese
crosses, and thick Maltese lace, and serpent bracelets made of pink
sea-shell, the shops had no particular fascinations. Moreover, it was
Sunday, and it is impossible to shop deliberately on Sunday with
any degree of enjoyment. As Orthodocia said, however, when we
clattered off among the church-goers to St. John’s, it was a satis-
faction to have seen what they were like, and it freed our minds
for the contemplation of higher things.
Service was just about to begin at the famous old church when
we reached it. Already it was half-full of people with serious faces.
The men were chiefly in ordinary English clothes, but many of the
women were picturesque in the Maltese dress of their foremothers —
full black silk skirts and plain bodices, with sombre capes gathered
half-way round the edge of a large stiff hood so as to partly conceal
the face inside. As a costume it was rigorous and select. It almost
talked of sanctity. It was the most unmistakably ‘ Sunday 9 dress
either of us had ever seen.
I have no words for architectural description, but the Church of
St.John’s at Malta is a lovely place to be in. Not only that the
vaulted roof glows in all the imaginative colour that the art of other
times invested the Saviour’s life with ; or that the world has brought
tribute of all her treasure of porphyry and silver and gold for the
chapel sanctuaries ; or that grave old pictures glow with the candle-
light that gleams everywhere on pale sculptures and rich fashionings
in wood and precious metals. All this, and more ; but beside, the f
place is so full of knightly memories, lying under their quaint old
Latin inscriptions on the floor, that it seems almost to hold its service
for a solemn congregation that look over the heads of the frivolous
human interlopers of to-day — kneeling unseen, responding unheard.
I cannot believe that there is a church anywhere so full of distinct,
dignified, important old personalities, all governed by the same idea, j
all holding their earthly character and mission in such noble conceit
as this Church of the Knights at Malta. Walking over them from
chapel to chapel, reading the lofty phrase of what they had to say
for themselves deep-set in the paving stones, and regarding the nciij
413
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
sentiments and types of death inwrought there before men learned
to accept the mystery of it in silence, one feels something very like
envy of the life that ended so. It must have been, in the main,
simple and self-respecting and unquestioning, never doubting the
high necessity of its creation, or the sublime importance of its mis-
sion, and knowing little but that. And that was imaginably more
satisfactory than our great knowledge and little belief, our univer-
sal interest spread out thin, our self-pity, our growing wonder why
we should be at all, and whether it is quite worth while. At least,
Orthodocia thought so.
The skeletons were a most interesting and amusing study in
themselves, done as they were in black marble and white and
coloured, draped and undraped, uttering all sorts of convictions that
go with skeletons. One, which must have represented the under-
structure of a very frivolous person indeed, wore a bow under its
chin. Orthodocia did not consider that an advantageous way, how-
ever, of having one’s skeleton done. This year, she said, bows were
worn under the left ear ; next year, perhaps, no bows would be worn
at all. She said she thought skeletons ought to be represented quite
simply, in unaffected positions, and with natural expressions, which
would make the whims of fashion in millinery a matter of indiffer-
ence to them. She could not quite understand the depth of reality
of my interest in them — I, who had never seen such a thing on a
tombstone in my life — and remarked that she sat under one every
Sunday in church at Wigginton. I stated that the skeleton was not
a popular form of church decoration in America. £ Of course,’ re-
plied my friend, sweetly, c you are such a young country, I suppose
you haven’t got any ! ’
Just as we passed Count Beaujolais’s effigy, in purest white mar-
ble, the young man lying gracefully, breathing softly, his head on
his hand, 1 serenissimus et dulcissimus,’ a chant arose in the distance,
muffled, sonorous, as if the old knights beneath once more called the
people to armed prayer, and they listened quiet in their places but
would not go. And then with slow ceremony came the white-haired
bishop up the aisle, in gold-broidered alb and cope and chasuble and
trailing purple, the crozier going before, a train of priestly youths
with fine pale Greek faces coming after. The chant grew louder
H 4
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
and ceased ; a vo'ce raised itself in the Latin tongue. Then we
came away and left the knights with their descendants to pray. At
the door I caught Orthodocia looking back with a sentiment in her
eyes, and, following them, I saw, high upon the southern wall, and
splendid amid all that splendour, the arms and the flag of England.
After that we drove across the wide moat and drawbridge, where 1
great guns lurked in the corners and weedy grasses were growing j
on the walls, to the Church of the Capuchins, to see the dead j
monks in their vault-niches there. We had the expectation of
being much horrified and a little afraid, as we followed the guide
down the dark passage into the vault ; but Brother Carlo Somebody,
who was the first we met, dispelled this idea entirely. His de-
meanour was thoroughly reassuring, and apart from that he was
much too absurdly dry and musty to affect anybody’s nerves. Like
the rest, he laughed, a wide, noiseless laugh. He was almost
doubled up with mirth, was Brother Carlo, and leaning forward to
chuckle with his neighbour in the next niche. They were all
gowned, these old Capuchins, and one or two of them were bearded.
Their hands were crossed on their ancient breasts, and, so far as
possible, their superiors of the present day had endeavoured to give
them an appearance of respectability. But the attempt was
quite futile and did not impose upon one in the least. They were
all arrantly and inherently disreputable, and when they weren’t
convulsed with mirth over jokes that were not holy, they stared
with the most impudent curiosity in their empty eye-sockets at
people who came to look at them. There were seventeen altogether
in the vault we saw. One was confined behind a wire netting,
doubtless not without good reason— probably for the enormity of his
puns. They stood in a sardonic row on each side of a narrow dark
passage, down which our single candle shone flickeringly, and they
were not decorative from any point of view. There was also that
quality in the air which the presence of a well-kept mummy alone
can impart. And so, in spite of their having given us such a cordial
welcome, as it were, and having made us feel so entirely at home,
we spent very little time in making our adieux ; and Orthodocia
declared that she had never seen anything so utterly horrid as
a preserved Capuchin.
OUR JO UR ARY ROUXD THE WORLD 415
Then came the day we sailed under the frowning front of Gib-
raltar, quaking a little. It was quite unreasonable, but there was
not a passenger on deck that morning as we slowly steamed under
the guns bristling in the face of that mighty rock, that did not look
subdued by the situation. Once inspected and admitted, the pre-
vailing feeling changed at once, and everybody began to say to
everybody else, 4 Do you know the description of Gibraltar in the
Spanish geographies ? No ? An important fortification of Spain,
in the temporary occupation of the Queen of England ! ’ I think
(he captain started it, but it was one of those active jokes that skip
restlessly from mouth to mouth ; and I am sure it came to my
own personal ear at least eleven times - and I say 4 eleven ’ because,
so near the end of this chronicle, I wish to avoid exaggeration.
Orthodocia revenged herself by answering the question : 4 Do you
know what the Spanish geographies say about Gibraltar ? ’ — its form
varied — by a bland 4 Yes/ which was disconcerting and annoying,
and I am sure made her enemies ; but she didn’t seem to mind.
We had only a brief two hours to stay, so we spent them in a
desultory drive about the town and the Alameda gardens, and the
outer fortifications. Arum lilies and geraniums looked over the
private garden walls, and acacias gave what shade there was. As I
remember the market-place it seemed to hold nothing but roses and
Jerusalem artichokes, which must be incorrect. Perhaps though,
at this point, you will be willing to excuse a few vegetables — it would
be an act of kindness that you would never have reason to repent
of. The narrow streets were full of colour and picturesqueness,
chiefly Spanish, and across a long narrow sandy tract came an end-
less stream of market-folk from Spain, shawls over their heads,
baskets on their arms. The shops were altogether delightful, and
full of the East, from Japan hitherward ; but we looked sadly
upon the Moorish potteries, and Morocco cushions, and tasselled
Spanish hats, and fans with the gay bolero painted on them, and
turned away. I leave the reason to your sympathetic intuition.
Gibraltar, Orthodocia said, did not inspire her happily. It
spoke, she complained, always of war and demolition — nowhere of
anything else. Even through the climbing roses of the beautiful
public gardens there pointed down upon the harbour a gun, and a
416
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE
gun of a hundred tons. It was inhumanly strong and massive
and impregnable, and Orthodocia couldn’t say she liked it. But I
had to set down against that the fact that a delay occurred at
Gibraltar which retarded our arrival at the Royal Albeit Docks by
an hour and a half.
I think I see her now, with those letters. She was very pretty
to look at, and so absorbed in them that she didn’t mind my looking
at her a good deal. They were handed to her by the purser at
Plymouth ; and though they must have been written in the space
of a week, under unfavourable conditions, they would have made a
volume of respectable dimensions, and, if Orthodocia’s face was
anything to go by, of an interesting nature. We were passing
Margate or Ramsgate, or some such place, when she told me in a
rapt manner, which neither your choppy Channel nor your English
^ast wind had any effect upon, something of what they contained.
And I understood that Mr. John Love had determined, after two
days and nights of reckless despair, to go round the world the other
way as rapidly as possible to Wigginton, where he would arrive,
Orthodocia calculated, in about three weeks, and where he was ex-
pected — with an emphasis that made me understand in what capacity.
She also stated that when he did arrive he felt confident that he
would be able to persuade her to telegraph properly ; but that may
have been a slight excitement in Orthodocia’s mind. And if he
did, and she would, they were to live in Vancouver, where Jack had
some new interests, which would be ever so much nicer than Assi-
niboia, wouldn’t it ? And Jack, though he entirely disapproved of
her speculation there, had managed to buy the very lot that once
was hers to build their house upon, and could anything be more
idyllic ! And much more which my regard for Orthodocia, and
charity for her state of mind at the time, induces me to suppress.
You may be interested, however, to know the leading points.
A few hours later a motherly lady, driving Orthodocia and me
in a pony-carriage through St. Eve’s-in-the-Garden, where the
japonica was beginning to redden the walls of the cottages and
spring had come to stay in the hedges, reproached me for my lack
4i7
OUR JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
of experience and gray side- curls. She was so gratified to get
Orthodocia back again alive that the reproaches were not very
bitter ; and she said we would say nothing more about it if I would
give her a candid opinion upon one point. ‘ Do you think/ said she,
‘as the result of all your experiences, that it is entirely safe and
wise for young ladies to travel by themselves h ?
‘ Dear Mrs. Love ! ? I equivocated, ‘ I am afraid the wisdom of
it must always depend upon the young ladies themselves ; and as to
the danger — you see what befell Orthodocia ! 7
‘Yes/ put in my friend at my side, thoughtfully, ‘but then —
that might have happened anywhere \ ’
And I suppose it might.
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LONDON
E E
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
ON
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE.
By SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN.
With 111 Illustrations by F. H. Townsend.
‘The book is throughout one of the cleverest, and freshest, and funniest books of travel
ever written. The key of humour is struck in Miss Duncan’s first page, and the fun never
flags to the last. A book containing hundreds of such things needs no recommendation in
the holiday season, or any other.’ — S cottish Leader.
‘ A bright and pleasant book. ... We have not seen for a long time any sketches more
truly artistic, more picturesque, more lifelike, more delicately humorous, more full of touches
and tones of beauty. . . . The whole impresses the reader as a pleasant enterprise out ol
which has come a pleasant rtcord.’ — D aily News.
‘ The readt r who does not have “ a good time” over “ A Social Departure ” must have a
blunted appreciation of fun and pluck. There is not a dull page in it. . . . The story is told
w itli wonderful dash and cleverness ; and the illustrations are as good as the text.’ — S cotsman.
‘ It is a long time since an 5 thing so freshly and brightly written has co ne iuto our
1 ands. . . . An amazingly original book. ... It is not too much to say that there is not a
single dull page in it.’ — W orld.
‘ It is because Miss Duncan has written what most of us like to read that we admire
her book so much. ... It seems to us more than likely that this volume will become one of
the books of the season.’ — W hitehall Review.
‘That delightfully refreshing book, “A Social Departure” . . . amusing and withal
instructive. . . . There is not a dull page in the whole book.’ — Woman.
‘Globe-trotting, undertaken in a novel manner, and with a cargo of excellent spirits, is
the foundation on which rests the fascinating volume entitled “ A Social Departure.” . . .
Ihe story is told in the raciest style, and possesses the sovereign recommendation of not
including a dull page. ... It is profusely illustrated.’ — D aily Telegraph.
* The narrative of a real journey, as interesting and instructive as any we remember
reading. ... It is impossible to read more than a page of this delightful book without
coming upon something that calls up a broad smile, it not, indeed, a hearty laugh.’ — G lasgow
Herald.
‘ One of the brightest and most readable books of the season. ... A thoroughly uncon-
ventional and delightful book.’ — C ourt Journal.
* This is about the most charming book of travels it has been our good fortune to come
across.’— P all Mall Gazette.
‘ The characters of the two girls are not only attractively drawn, but their individuality
is we 1 and carefully sustained ; the illustrations, which are for the most part very clever,
skilfully bearing out the text. . . . Tnere is a stream of fun running through the entire
volume, rarely forced, and often decidedly amusing.’ — A thenaeum.
4 This charming volume. ... No greater treat could we bespeak for all who in this sorry
world love at times to be amused as well as interes:ed than the perusal of “ A Social
Departure.” ’ — Toronto Globe.
‘In the way of a holiday book, full of the most delightful humour, set off with
innumerable charmingly picturesque touches, and illustrated with singular felicity, we
do not remember to have encountered for a good many years anything quite so fresh and
enticing as this altogether unconventional volume.’— T imes of India.
4 The book is fascinating from cover to cover. It reads like a fairy-tale, only the fairies
are real and the story is true.’ — A talanta.
4 Readers will be at a loss whether most to admire the charming descriptions or the clever
style to be found in this notable book of travel. . . . The volume is full of countless gOv,d
things, bright, clever, fanciful, and, once read, never to be forgotten.’— N orthern Whig.
* Here is the most amusing record of “ globe-trotting ” that has yet been penned in
English. ... It is fresh, sparkling, and feminine.’— S cots Observer.
4 There are few readers blessed with any sense of humour who will not be delighted with
this book. The East, whether China, Japan, or India, is sketched from a thoroughly
feminine as well as humorous pcint of view.’ — M orning Post.
London : CHATTO & WINPUS, 214 Piccadilly, V/,
April, 1891.
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LISTS OF BOOKS CLASSIFIED IN SERIES.
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THE MAYFAIR LIBRARY.
A Journey Round My Room. By Xavier
DE MaISTRE
uips and Quiddities. BvW.D. Adams.
he Agony Column of “The Times.”
Melancholy Anatomised : Abridgment of
“ Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy."
The Speeches of Charles Dickens.
Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies,
and Frolics. By W. T. Dobson.
Poetical Ingenuities. By W. T. Dobson.
The Cupboard Papers. By Fin*Bec
W. S. Gilbert’s Plays. First Series
W. S. Gilbert’s Plays. Second Series.
Songs of Irish Wit and Humour.
Animals and Masters. By Sir A. Helps.
Social Pressure. By Sir A. Helps.
Curiosities of Criticism. H. J. Jennings.
Holmes’s Autocrat of Breakfast-Table.
Pencil and Palette. By R. Kempt.
Post 8vo, cloth limp, 2s. Gd. per Volume.
Little Essays: from Lamb’s Letters.
Forensic Anecdotes. By Jacob Larwood
Theatrical Anecdotes. Jacob Larwood.
Jeux d’Esprit. Edited by Henry S. Leigh,
Witch Stories. By E. Lynn Linton.
Ourselves. By E. Lynn Linton.
Pastimes & Players. By R. Macgrkgor.
New Paul and Virginia. W.H.Mallock.
New Republic. By W. H. Mallock.
Puck on Pegasus. By H. C. Pennell.
Pegasus Re-Saddled. By H. C. Pennell.
Muses of Mayfair. Ed. H. C. Pennell.
Thoreau : His Life & Aims. By H. A. Page.
Puniana. By Hon. Hugh Rowley.
More Puniana. By Hon. Hugh Rowley.
The Philosophy of Handwriting.
By Stream and Sea. By Wm. Senior.
Leaves from a Naturalist’s Note-Book.
By Dr. Andrew Wilson.
THE GOLDEN LIBRARY.
Bayard Taylor’s Diversions of the Echo
Club.
Bennett’s Ballad History of England.
Bennett’s Songs for Sailors.
Godwin’s Lives of the Necromancers.
Pope’s Poetical Works.
Holmes’s Autocrat of Breakfast Table.
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Holmes’s Professor at Breakfast Table.
Jesse’s Scenes of Country Life.
Leigh Hunt’s Tale for a Chimney
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Mallory’s Mort d’Arthur: Selections.
Pascal’s Provincial Letters.
Rochefoucauld’s Maxims & Reflections.
THE WANDERER’S LIBRARY
Wanderings in Patagonia. By Julius
Bekrbohm. Illustrated.
Camp Notes. By Frederick Boyle.
Savage Life. By Frederick Boyle.
Merrie England in the Olden Time. By
G. Dan 1 1 l. Illustrated by Cruikshank.
Circus Life. By Thomas Frost.
Lives of the Conjurers. Thomas Frost.
The Old Showmen and the Old London
Fairs. By Thomas Frost.
Low-Life Deeps. By James Greenwood.
. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 3 s. Gtl. each.
Wilds of London. James Greenwood.
Tunis. Chev. Hesse-Wartegg. 22lllusts.
Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack.
World Behind the Scenes. P.Fitzgkrald.
Tavern Anecdotes and Sayings.
The Genial Showman. ByE.P. Hingston
Story of London Parks. Jacob Larwood.
London Characters. By Henry Mayhew.
Seven Generations of Executioners.
Summer Cruising in the South Seas.
By C. Warren Stoddard. Illustrated.
POPULAR SHILLING BOOKS.
Harry Fiudyer at Cambridge.
Jeff Briggs’s Love Story. Bret Harte.
Twins cl Table Mountain. Bret Harte.
A Day’s Tour. By Percy Fitzgerald.
Esther’s Glove. By R. E. Francillon.
Sentenced l By Somerville Gibney.
'Ihe Professor’s Wife. By L. Graham.
Mrs. Gainsborough’s Diamonds. By
Iulian Hawthorne.
Niagara Spray. By J. Hollingshead.
A Romance of the Queen’s Hounds. By
Charles James.
The Garden that Paid the Rent. By
Tom Jerrold.
Cut by the Mess. By Arthur Keyser.
Our Sensation Novel. J. H. McCarthy.
Doom I By Justin H. McCarthy, M.P.
Dolly. By Justin H. McCarthy, M.P.
Lily Lass. Justin H. McCarthy, M.P.
Was She Good or Bad? By W. Minto.
That Girl in Black. Mrs. Molesworth.
Notes from the “News.” By Jas. Payn.
Beyond the Gates. By E. S. Phelps.
Old Maid’s Paradise. By E. S. Phelps.
Burglars in Paradise. By E. S. Phelps.
Jack the Fisherman. By E. S. Phelps.
Trooping with Grows. By C. L. Pirkis.
Bible Characters. By Charles Reade.
Rogues. By R. H. Sherard.
The Dagonet Reciter. By G. R. Sims.
How the Poor Live. By G. R. Sims.
Case of George Candlemas. G. R. Sims.
Sandycroft Mystery. T. W. Speight.
Hoodwinked. By T. W. Speight.
Father Damien. By R. L. Stevenson.
A Double Bond. By Linda Villari.
My Life with Stanley’s Rear Guard. By
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27
MY LIBRARY.
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Four Frenchwomen. By Austin Dobson. I Christie Johnstone. By Charles Reade.
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THE POCKET LIBRARY. Postsvo,
The Essays of Elia. By Charles Lamb.
Robinson Crusoe. Edited by John Major.
With 37lllusts. by George Cruiksh^nk.
Whims and Oddities. By Thomas Hood.
With 85 Illustrations.
The Barber’s Chair, and The Hedgehog
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Gastronomy as a Fine Art. By Brillat-
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, printed on laid paper and hf.-bd., 2s. each.
The Epicurean, &c. By Thomas Moore.
Leigh Hunt’s Essays. Ed. E. Ollier
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Gulliver’s Travels, and The Tale of a
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The Rivals, School for Scandal, and other
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Anecdotes of the Clergy. T. Larwood.
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By GRAIVT ALLE\.
For Maimie’s Sake.
The Devil’s Die.
This Mortal Coil.
The Great Taboo.
Philistia.
Babylon
In all Shades.
The Tents of Shem.
By ALAN ST. AIBYN.
A Fellow of Trinity.
By Rev. S. BARING GOIJLD.
Red Spider. | Eve.
By W. BE SANT & J. RICE.
My Little Girl.
Case of Mr.Lucraft.
This Son of Yulcan.
By Celia’s Arbour.
Monks of Thelema.
The Seamy Side.
Golden Butterfly. Ten Years’ Tenant.
Ready-Money Mortiboy.
With Harp and Crown.
’Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay.
The Chaplain of the Fleet.
By WALTER BE SANT.
All Sorts and Conditions of Men.
The Captains’ Room.
All in a Garden Fair
The World Went Very Well Then.
For Faith and Freedom.
Dorothy Forster.
Uncle Jack.
Children of Gibeon.
Herr Paulus.
Bell of St. Paul’s.
To Call Her Mine.
By ROBERT BUCHANAN.
The Shadow of the Sword.
A Child of Nature.
The Martyrdom of Madeline.
God and the Man. The New Abelard.
Love Me for Ever. Foxglove Manor.
Annan Water. Master of the Mine.
Matt. Heir of Linne.
By HALL CAINE.
The Shadow of a Crime.
A Son of Hagar. | The Deemster.
UIORT. & FRANCES COLLINS.
Sweet Anne Page. | Transmigration.
From Midnight to Midnight.
Blacksmith and Scholar.
Village Comedy, | You Play Me False
By Mrs.II. LOVETT CAMERON.
Juliet’s Guardian. | Deceivers Ever.
By WILKIE
Armadale.
After Dark.
No Name,
Antonina. | Basil.
Hide and Seek.
The Dead Secret.
S ueen of Hearts.
y Miscellanies.
Woman in White.
The Moonstone.
Man and Wife.
Poor Miss Finch.
Miss or Mrs?
New Magdalen.
COLLINS.
The Frozen Deen.
The Two Destinies.
Law and the Lady.
Haunted Hotel.
The Fallen Leaves.
Jezebel’s Daughter.
The Black Robe.
Heart and Science.
“I Say No.”
Little Novels.
The Evil Genius.
The Legacy of Cain
A Rogue’s Life.
Blind Love.
By BUTTON COOK.
Paul Foster’s Daughter.
By W1EUIA1TI CYPLES.
Hearts of Gold.
By ALPHONSE DAIDET.
The Evangelist; or, Port Salvation.
By JAMES BE iTOEUE.
A Castle in Spain.
By JT. JLEITM BERYVENT.
Our Lady of Tears. | Circe’s Lovers.
By Mrs. ANNIE EBWARBE'*.
Archie Lovell.
By PERCY FITZGERALD.
Fatal Zero.
By R. E. FRANCILLON.
8 ueen Cophetua. I A Real Queen,
na by One. | King or Knave?
Pief.bySirBARTLE FRERE.
Pandurang Hari.
By EDWARD GARRETT,
The Capel Girls.
23 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels —continued.
By CHARLES GIBBON.
Robin Gray. I The Golden Shaft.
In Honour Bound. | Of High Degree.
Loving a Dream.
Queen of the Meadow.
The Flower of the Forest.
By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Garth. I Dust.
Ellice Quentin. Fortune’s Fool.
Sebastian Strome. | Beatrix Randolph.
David Poindexter’s Disappearance.
The Spectre of the Camera.
By Sir A. HELPS.
Ivan de Biron.
By ISAAC HENDERSON.
Agatha Page.
By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT.
The Leaden Casket. | Self-Condemned.
That other Person.
By JIB A IV INGELOW.
Fated to be Free.
By R. A .SUB KING.
A Drawn Game.
“The Wearing of the Green.”
By HENRY KINGSLEY.
Number Seventeen.
By E. LYNN LINTON.
Patricia Kemball. I lone.
Under which Lord? Paston Garew.
“My Love!” I Sowing the Wind.
The Atonement of Learn Dundas.
The World Well Lost.
By HENRY W. LUCY.
Gideon Fleyce.
By justiiv McCarthy.
A Fair Saxon. I Donna Quixote.
Linley Rochford. Maid of Athens.
Miss Misanthrope. | Camiola.
The Waterdale Neighbours. „
My Enemy’s Daughter.
Dear Lady Disdain.
The Comet of a Season.
By AILNES HACDONELL,
Quaker Cousins.
By FLORENCE MARRY AT. I
Open! Sesame!
By IK CHRISTIE MURRAY.
Life’s Atonement, i Coals of Fire.
Joseph’s Coat. Yal Strange.
A Model Father. | Hearts.
A Bit of Human Nature.
First Person Singular.
Cynic Fortune.
The Way of the World.
By MURRAY MERMAN.
The Bishops’ Bible.
By LODGES Oil NET.
A Weird Gift.
The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels — continued .
By Mrs. ORIPIIANT.
Whiteladies.
By OUIDA.
Held in Bondage.
Strathmore.
Chandos.
Under Two Flags.
Idalia.
CecilCastlemaine’s
Gage.
Tricotrin. | Puck.
Folle Farine.
A Dog of Flanders.
Pascarel. | Signa.
Princess Naprax-
ine.
Two Little Wooden
Shoes.
In a Winter City,
Ariadne.
Friendship.
Moths. | Ruffino.
Pipistrello.
AYillage Commune
Bimbi. | Wanda.
Frescoes.
In Maremma.
Othmar. | Syrlin.
Guilderoy.
By MARGARET A. PA A I.
Gentle and Simple.
By JAMES PAI N.
Lost Sir Massingberd.
Less Black than We’re Painted.
A Confidential Agent.
A Grape from a Thorn.
Some Private Views.
In Peril and Privation.
The Mystery of Mirbridge.
The Canon’s Ward.
Walter’s Word. Glow-worm Tales.
By Proxy. Talk of the Town.
High Spirits. Holiday Tasks.
Under One Roof. The Burnt Million,
From Exile. Sunny Stories.
By E. C. PRICE.
Valentina. ] The Foreigners.
Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival.
By CHARLES READE.
It is Never Toa Late to Mend.
The Double Marriage.
Love Me Little, Love Me Long.
The Cloister and the Hearth.
The Course of True Love.
The Autobiography of a Thief.
Put Yourself in his Place.
A Terrible Temptation.
Singleheart and Doubleface.
Good Stories of Men and other Animals.
Hard Cash. Wandering Heir.
Peg Woffington. A Woman-Hater.
ChristieJohnstone. A Simpleton.
Griffith Gaunt. Readiana.
Foul Play. The Jilt.
By Mr*. J. II. RIDDELL.
Her Mother’s Darling.
Prince of Wales’s Garden Party.
Weird Stories.
By F. W. ROBINSON.
Women are Strange.
The Hands of Justice.
By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
An Ocean Tragedy.
By JOHN SAUNDERS.
Guy Waterman. \ Two Dreamers.
Bound to the Wheel
The Lion in the Path.
CHATTO Sc WINDUS, 214, PICCADILLY.
The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels — continued.
ByKATIURIIVE SA17NDERS.
Margaret and Elizabeth.
Gideon’s Rock. I Heart Salvage.
The High Mills. | Sebastian.
By HAWLEY SMART.
Without Love or Licence.
By B. A. STERNDALE,
The Afghan Knife.
By BERTHA THOAIAS.
Proud Maisie. | Cressida.
The Violin-player,
By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE.
Like Ships upon the Sea.
Anne Furness. | Mabel’s Progress.
The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels — continued.
By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
Frau Frohmann. I Kept in the Dark.
Marion Fay. | Land-Leaguers.
The Way We Live Now.
Mr. Scarborough’s Family.
By IVAN TLRGENIEFF, Sec.
Stories from Foreign Novelists.
By C. C. FRASER.TYTLER.
Mistress Judith.
By SARAH TYTLER,
The Bride’s Pass. I Lady Bell.
Noblesse Oblige. | Buried Diamonds.
What She Came Through.
The Blackhall Ghosts.
CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS.
Post 8vo, illustrated boards. 2s. each.
By ARTEMIS WARD.
Artemus Ward Complete.
By EDMOND ABOUT.
The Fellah.
By IIAMIETON AIDE.
Carr of Carrlyon. ( Confidences.
By Mrs. ALEXANDER.
Maid, Wife, or Widow ? | Valerie’s Fate.
By BRET IIARTE.
Flip. I Californian Storie3
Maruja. | Gabriel Conroy.
An Heiress of Red Dog.
The Luck of Roaring Camp.
A Pnyllis of the Sierras.
By HAROLD BRIDGET
Uncle Sam at Home.
By GRANT ALLEN.
Strange Stories. I The Devil’s Die.
Philistia. This Mortal Coil.
Babylon. I In all Shades.
The Beckoning Hand,
For Maimie’s Sake* | Tents of Shem.
By Air, AN ST.AIJBYN,
A Fellow of Trinity.
By Rev. S. BARING GOULD.
Red Spider. | Eve.
By FRANK BARRETT.
Fettered for Life.
BySHEJLSXiEV BEAUCHAMP.
Grantley Grange.
By W. BE SANT Sc J. RICE.
This Son ofYulcan.
My Little Girl.
Case of Mr.Lucraft.
Golden Butterfly.
Ready-Money Mortiboy.
With Harp and Crown.
’Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay.
The Chaplain of the Fleet
By Celia's Arbour.
Monks of Thelema.
The Seamy Side.
Ten Years’ Tenant.
By WALTER BESAN’P.
Dorothy Forster. I Uncle Jack.
Children of Gibeon. | Herr Paulus.
All Sorts and Conditions of Men.
The Captains’ Room.
All in a Garden Fair.
The World Went Yery Well Then.
For Faith and Freedom.
By FREDERICK ROYLE.
Camp Notes. | Savage Life.
Chronicles of No man’s Land.
By ROBERT BUCHANAN.
The Shadow of the The Martyrdom of
Sword. Madeline.
A Child of Nature, Annan Water,
God and the Man, The New Abelard,
Love Me for Ever, Matt,
Foxglove Manor, j The Heir of Linne.
The Master of the Mine.
By IIALL CAINE.
The Shadow of a Crime.
A Son of Hagar. | The Deemster.
By Commander CAMERON.
The Cruise of the “Black Prince.”
By Air*. LOVETT CAMEKOX
Deceivers Ever. | Juliet’s Guardiar
B y A UST 5 N ( L A R E .
For the Love of a Lass.
By Air*. ARCHER CLIVE.
Paul Ferrell,
Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wif*.
By M ACL AREN COBBAN,
The Cure of Souls.
By C. ALLSTON COLLINi.
j The Bar Sinister.
| MIHiT. & FRANCES COLLINS
Sweet Anne Page. | Transmigration.
; From Midnight to Midnight.
A Fight with Fortune.
Sweet and Twenty, j Village Comedy,
j Frances. I You Play me Faise.
| blacksmith and Scholar.
30
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY
Two. S hilling Novels— continued.
By WILKIE COLLINS.
Armadale.
After Dark.
No Name.
Antonina. | Basil.
Hide and Seek.
The Dead Secret.
Queen of Hearts.
Miss or Mrs ?
New Magdalen.
The Frozen Deep.
Law and the Lady.
The Two Destinies.
Haunted Hotel.
Legacy of Cain.
A Rogue’s Life.
My Miscellanies.
Woman in White.
The Moonstone.
Man and Wife.
Poor Miss Finch.
The Fallen Leaves.
Jezebel’s Daughter
The Black Robe.
Heart and Science.
“I Say No.”
The Evil Genius.
Little Novels.
By M. J. COLQUHOUN.
Every Inch a Soldier.
By BUTTON COOK.
Leo. | Paul Foster’s Daughter.
By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK.
Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains.
By WILLIAM CYPLES.
Hearts of Gold.
By ALPHONSE DAI BET.
The Evangelist; or, Port Salvation.
By JAMES BE MILLE.
A Castle in Spain.
By J. LEITH BE R WENT.
Our Lady of Tears. | Circe’s Lovers.
By CHARLES BICKENS.
Sketches by Boz. I Oliver Twist.
Pickwick Papers. | Nicholas Nickleby.
By DICK BONO VAN.
The Man-Hunter. | Caught at Last!
Tracked and Taken.
Who Poisoned Hetty Duncan?
The Man from Manchester.
A Detective’s Triumphs.
By CONAN BOYLE, Ac.
Strange Secrets.
By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES.
A Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell.
By M. RETHAM-EDWARDS.
Felicia. I Kitty.
By EDWARB EGGLESTON.
Roxy.
By PEBCY FITZGERALB.
Bella Donna. | Polly.
Never Forgotten. | Fatal Zero.
The Second Mrs. Tillotson.
Seventy-five Brooke Street.
The Lady of Brantome.
ALBANY BE FONBLANQUE.
Filthy Lucre.
By R. E. FRANCSLLON.
Olympia. I Queen Cophetua.
One by One. King or Knave?
A Real Queen. | Romances of Law.
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Seth’s Brother’s Wife.
The Lawton Girl.
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One of Two.
By EDWARD GARRETT.
The Capel Girls.
Robin Gray.
Fancy Free.
For Lack of Gold.
What will the
World Say?
In Love and War.
For the King.
In Pastures Green,
ueen of Meadow.
Heart’s Problem.
The Dead Heart.
In Honour Bound,
Flower of Forest.
Braes of Yarrow.
The Golden Shaft,
Of High Degree.
Mead and Stream,
Loving a Dream.
A Hard Knot.
Heart’s Delight.
Blood-Money.
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By WILLIAM GILBERT.
Dr. Austin’s Guests. I James Duke.
The Wizard of the Mountain.
By HENRY GREVILLE.
A Noble Woman.
By JOHN IIARBERTON.
Brueton’s Bayou. | Country Luck.
By ANDREW IIALLIBAY.
Every-Day Papers.
By Lady BUFFUS HARDY.
Paul Wynter’s Sacrifice.
By THOMAS IIARDY.
Under the Greenwood Tree.
By J. BERWICK HARWOOD.
The Tenth Earl.
By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Sebastian Strome.
Dust.
Beatrix Randolph.
Love— or a Name.
Garth
Ellice Quentin.
Fortune’s Fool.
Miss Cadogna.
David Poindexter’s Disappearance.
The Spectre of the Camera.
By Sir ARTHUR HELPS.
Ivan de Biron.
By Mrs. CASHEL HOEY.
The Lover’s Creed.
By Mrs. GEORGE HOOPER.
The House of Raby.
By TIGHE HOPKINS.
’Twixt Love and Duty.
By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT.
Thornicroft’s Model. I Self Condemned.
That Other Person. | Leaden Casket.
By JEAN INGELOW.
Fated to be Free.
By HARRIETT JAY.
The Dark Colleen.
The Queen of Connaught.
By MARK KERSHAW".
Colonial Facts and Fictions.
By R. ASHE KING.
A Drawn Game. | Passion's Slave.
“The Wearing cf the Green.”
WHAMO * W I N DUS; 214, PICCADILLY. *1
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By HENRY KINGSLEY.
Oakshott Castle.
By JOHN LEY^.
The Lindsays^
By MARY LIN8KILL.
In Exchange for a Soul.
By E. LYN.Y LINTON.
Patricia Kemball. I Paston Carew.
World Weil Lost. “My Love!’’
Under which Lord? I lone.
The Atonement of Leam Dundas.
With a Silken Thread.
The Rebel of the Family.
Sowing the Wind.
By HENRY W. LICY.
Gideon Fleyce.
By Justin McCarthy.
A Fair Saxon. I Donna Quixote. 1
Linley Rochford. Maid of Athens. I
Miss Misanthrope. | Camiola.
Dear Lady Disdain.
The Waterdale Neighbours.
My Enemy’s Daughter.
The Comet of a Season.
By AGNES M A CDONELL.
Quaker Cousins.
KATHARINE S. MAC QUOAD.
The Evil Eye. | Lost Rose.
By W. II. MALLOCK.
The New Republic.
By FLORENCE MARRY AT.
Open! Sesame! | Fighting the Air.
A Harvest of Wild Oats.
Written in Fire.
By J. MASTERMAN
Halfa-dozen Daughters.
By BRA NOE R MATTHEWS.
A Secret of the Sea.
By JEAN MI D OLE M ASS.
Touch and Go. | Mr. Dorillion.
By Mrs. MOLES WO R Tiff.
Hathercourt Rectory.
Ry J. E. HUDDOCK.
Stories Weird and Wonderful.
The Dead Man’s Secret.
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A Model Father,
Joseph’s Coat,
Coals of Fire.
Yal Strange.
A Life’s Atonement,
By the Gate of the Sea.
A Bit of Human Nature.
First Person Singular.
Old Blazer’s Hero.
Hearts.
Way of the World.
Cynic Fortune.
By MURRAY and HERMAN.
One Traveller Returns.
Paul Jones’s Alias.
By IIENRY MURRAY.
A Game of Bluff.
By ALICE O'HANLON.
The Unforeseen, | Chance? or Fate?
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Doctor Rameau* | A Last Love.
By Mrs. OMPIIANT.
Whiteladies. | The Primrose Path,
The Greatest Heiress in England.
By Mrs. ROBERT O'REILLY.
Phoebe’s Fortunes.
Held in Bondage.
Strathmore.
Chandos.
Under Two Flags.
Idalia.
CecilCastlemaine’s
Gage.
Tricotrin.
Puck.
Folle Farine.
A Dog of Flanders.
Pascarel.
Signa.
Princess Naprax*
ine.
In a Winter City.
Two Little Wooden
Shoes.
Ariadne.
Friendship.
Moths.
Pipistrello,
A Village Com-
mune.
Bimbi.
Wanda.
Frescoes.
In Maremma.
Oth mar.
Guilderoy.
Ouida’s Wisdom,
Wit, and Pathos.
By Ol IDA
MARGARET AGNES PACE.
Gentle and Simple.
By JAMES PAYN.
£200 Reward.
Marine Residence.
Mirk Abbey.
By Proxy.
Under One Roof.
High Spirits.
Carlyon’s Year.
From Exile.
For Cash Only.
Kit.
The Canon’s Ward
Talk of the Town.
Holiday Tasks.
Bentinck’s Tutor.
Murphy’s Master.
A County Family.
At Her Mercy.
Cecil’s Tryst.
Clyffards of Clyffe.
Foster Brothers.
Found Dead.
Best of Husbands.
Walter’s Word.
Halves.
Fallen Fortunes.
Humorous Stories.
Lost Sir Massingberd.
A Perfect Treasure.
A Woman’s Vengeance.
The Family Scapegrace,
What He Cost Her.
Gwendoline’s Harvest.
Like Father, Like Son.
Married Beneath Him.
Not Wooed, but Won.
Less Black than We’re Painted*
A Confidential Agent.
Some Private Yiews.
A Grape from a Thorn.
Glow-worm Tales.
The Mystery of Mirb ridge.
By C. L. PIKK1S.
Lady Lovelace.
By EDGAR A. POE.
The Mystery of Marie Roget.
By E. C. PRICE.
Valentina. I The Foreigners.
Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival.
Gerald.
32 CHATTO & WINDUS, 214, PICCADILLY.
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Two-Shilling N ovels— continued.
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It is Never Too Late to Mend*
Christie Johnstone*
Put Yourself in His Place.
The Double Marriage.
Love Me Little, Love Me Long.
The Cloister and the Hearth.
The Course of True Love.
Autobiography of a Thief.
A Terrible Temptation.
The Wandering Heir.
Singleheart and Doubleface.
Good Stories of Men and other Animals.
Hard Cash. I A Simpleton.
Peg Woffington. | Readiana.
Griffith Gaunt. I A Woman-Hater.
Foul Play. | The Jilt.
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Weird Stories. | Fairy Water.
Her Mother’s Darling.
Prince of Wales’s Garden Party.
The Uninhabited House.
The Mystery in Palace Gardens.
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Women are Strange.
The Hands of Justice.
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Skippers and Shellbacks.
Grace Balmaign’s Sweetheart.
Schools and Scholars.
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Round the Galley Fire.
On the Fo’k’sle Head.
In the Middle Watch.
A Voyage to the Cape.
A Book for the Hammock.
The Mystery of the “ Ocean Star.”
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An Ocean Tragedy.
GEORGE ALGUSTLS SAEA.
Gaslight and Daylight.
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Guy Waterman. | Two Dreamers.
The Lion in the Path.
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Joan Merryweather. I Heart Salvage.
The High Mills. | Sebastian.
Margaret and Elizabeth.
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Rogues and Vagabonds.
The Ring o’ Bells.
Mary Jane’s Memoirs.
Mary Jane Married.
Tales of To-day. \ Dramas of Life.
Tinkletop’s Crime.
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A Match in the Dark.
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The Mysteries of Heron Dyke.
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Hoodwinked, &c.
The Afghan Knife.
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New Arabian Nights. | Prince Otto.
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Cressida. | Proud Maisie.
The Yiolin-player.
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Tales for the Marines.
Old Stories Re told.
T. ADOLPHES TROLLOPE.
Diamond Cut Diamond.
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Like Ships upon the Sea.
Anne Furness. | Mabel’s Progress.
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Frau Frohmann. I Kept in the Dark.
Marion Fay. | John Caldigate.
The Way We Live Now.
The American Senator.
Mr. Scarborough’s Family.
The Land-Leaguers.
The Golden Lion of Granpere.
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Farnell’s Folly.
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Stories from Foreign Novelists.
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Tom Sawyer. | A Tramp Abroad.
The Stolen White Elephant.
A Pleasure Trip on the Continent.
Huckleberry Finn.
Life on the Mississippi.
The Prince and the Pauper.
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Mistress Judith.
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The Bride’s Pass. I Noblesse Oblige.
Buried Diamonds. | Disappeared.
Saint Mungo’sCity. Huguenot Family.
Lady Bell. | Biackhall Ghcsts.
What She Came Through.
Beauty and the Beast.
Citoyenne Jaqueline.
By J. S. W INTER.
Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legends.
By Iff. F. WOOD.
The Passenger from Scotland Yard.
The Englishman of the Rue Cain.
By Eady WOOD.
Sabina.
CELIA PARKER WOOEEEV,
Rachel Armstrong ; or, Love & Theology
Castaway.
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