;•¦¦¦•• ';/; ,.-• ; ..-. - .„¦•¦: ••...-.¦: OF **> y% t~\ S* t f ',:',-'¦¦¦.¦'.'''¦ "I give thefe. Books j for, the foundiag of a. College in, this Colony ' ' I ' YSsJLM °W&WWHIBTTY° Bought with the income of the Ellen Battell Eldridge Fund 19/2 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH * * * • ELLEN CORNISH, AT SINGAPORE, 1903 [FrOlliispl. THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH. BEING THE MEMOIR OF A PILGRIM OF SCIENCE . . . By VAUGHAN CORNISH DOCTOR OF SCIENCE (MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY), FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, THE ROYAL COLONIAL INSTITUTE, THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, AND THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY WITH SIXTY-FIVE PLATES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR MAPS AND PLANS j* J. J London: W. J. HAM-SMITH, Publisher 6, John Street, Adelphi 1913 Copyright All rights reserved TO OUR FRIEND WILMER MATTHEWS HARRIS WITH SINCERE REGARD I DEDICATE THIS BOOK V. C. PREFACE In the Times of 27th March, 191 1, there appeared the fol lowing obituary notice : — " By the death of Mrs Vaughan Cornish, which occurred at Bournemouth last week, at the age of fifty-seven, the cause of geographical science has lost a valued supporter. " Ellen Agnes Cornish was the elder daughter of the late Mr Alfred Provis, of Thornhill House, Kings ton Lisle, Berks. She married in 1891 Mr Vaughan Cornish, then director of technical education to the Hampshire County Council. In 1895 the appointment was relinquished in order to undertake scientific research. Mrs Cornish possessed a moderate fortune, which made this course possible, though, as the work developed and more distant travel was undertaken, it became necessary to give up her home. The prin cipal object of these travels was the study of the phenomena of surface waves of the atmosphere, hydro- ix PREFACE sphere, and lithosphere, which she had encouraged her husband to undertake. Egypt, Japan, Canada, the United States, the West Indies, and other countries, were visited, and ocean waves were studied and measured on many voyages. The results were from time to time communicated by Dr Cornish to the Royal Geographical Society, and are recorded in the Geographical Journal and elsewhere. Her strong leaning towards engineering science led also to re peated visits to the Panama Canal Works, an under taking which was of absorbing interest to her. The results of these visits were communicated partly to the Geographical Society and partly to the Society of Arts. " It was in 1907 that Mrs Cornish first visited Jamaica, at the time of the great earthquake. On the fatal 14th of January she was in an upper room of an hotel in Kingston. Feeling a preliminary tremor she sprang to the side of her husband, who was sitting nearer the centre of the room, and clasped her arms over his head to protect him in case the ceiling should fall. This act probably saved her own life, for had she followed the instinct of self-preservation and fled from the room she would almost certainly have been killed by a mass of brickwork which fell from above the door, PREFACE XI blocking the exit. As it was, she escaped with minor injuries. On her recovery from these, about three months later, a second visit was paid to the island at her earnest desire, in order that the effects of the earthquake might be studied before its traces were blurred or obliterated. She became attached to many of the residents in Jamaica whom she met in circum stances of stress and suffering, and her last voyage was to the island, where she spent the month of August, 1910, enjoying above all the view of the Blue and the Port Royal Mountains from the Linguinea Plain. This view she regarded as the most beautiful thing seen in the course of her travels. She had at this time not wholly recovered from the effects of a severe operation. In the autumn a second operation was necessary, but the malady again returned, and caused her death. As in the earthquake, so under the ordeal of a severe operation and in the weakness of extreme sickness her courage remained unshaken." -"•tov The scientific results of our journeys, as far as they relate to waves in water, have been published in my book on " Waves of the Sea and other Water Waves." In the days of my wife's last illness I commenced a companion volume on " Waves in Sand and Snow," dealing mainly with xn PREFACE results obtained in journeys up to 1902 in Egypt, Canada, and elsewhere. In our later travels, however, from 1903 to 1 9 10 inclusive, our occupations were more varied, and the incidents had more of human interest. Thus the later travels throw more light upon my wife's tastes and character, and for this reason I put aside at her death the book on " Waves in Sand and Snow," in order to write the present narrative of our journeys during the last eight years of her life. Character is revealed in occupation, and I hope that the reader may be able to divine from the narrative more than I am able explicitly to tell of a gentle and brave nature, and of a mind of wide sympathy and sound judgment. V. c. Royal Colonial Institute, Northumberland Avenue, London. July, 19 1 2, CONTENTS CHAP. PAttK I. London to Kobe . . i II. Japan . . . . 22 III. Yokohama to Niagara Falls 88 IV. The Falls and Rapids of Niagara 105 V. The Panama Canal in 1907 . 150 VI. Our Experiences in the Great Earthquake at Kingston, Jamaica: and a Theory of its Cause . . . 176 VII. The Panama Canal in 1908 and 1910 . 232 VIII. Ellen's Last Visit to Jamaica . 258 Index . . .291 xiii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PHOTOGRAPHS PAGE i. Ellen Cornish at Singapore, 1903 . . Frontispiece 2. The Entrance Gate of Nanzenji Temple, Kyoto 25 3. Pilgrims at the Honenin Monastery, Kyoto . 27 4. Lotus-flower Fountain, Honenin Monastery 29 5. Symbolic Garden of Ginkakuji, Kyoto . 33 6. The "Broad Arrow" upon a Stone Lantern . 38 7. Lantern at Gateway, Priest's House, Honmoku 39 8. Trained Pine-tree at Negishi . 41 g. Interior of Temple of Fudo at Negishi . 45 10. The Jizu who has charge of Children in Purgatory 47 11. Cherry Blossom, Bluff Village, Yokohama 51 12. Before the Shrine, Hommonji Temple, Ikegami 55 13. Interior of Hommonji Temple, Ikegami . . 59 14. Boxes containing Buddhist Scriptures, Ikegami . 61 15. Carp-pond in the precincts of Asakusa Temple, Tokyo 63 16. The Court of the Dragon's Bowl, Nikko . 67 17. The Dragon's Bowl, Nikko . ... 69 18. Religious Procession at Nikko, Shinto Priest and Falconer 73 ig. Envoys of the Emperor proceeding to the Shrine of lemitsu with the Annual Offering . . ..... 77 20. Envoys of the Emperor returning from the Shrine of lemitsu . 79 21. Stone Cistern of Oblation in precincts of Futawara Temple, Nikko ... . . . 81 22. Stone Lanterns and Vases in Temple precincts, Nikko . 83 23. The Torrent at Nikko . 85 24. The Falls of Minnehaha g9 25. The American Falls, Niagara, with s.s. Maid of the Mist . in 26. Standing Wave in the Upper Rapid, Niagara . . 115 27. Canadian Falls, Niagara . . 119 28. American Falls from below, showing the break-up of the water 123 29. Nearing the Horseshoe, from the American side . . 125 30. Leaping Waves at the bend of the Middle, or Whirlpool Rapid 127 31. Standing Waves in the Middle Rapid between the bend and the Whirlpool . ¦ • ¦ . . 129 32. Whirlpool, Niagara, showing waved surface of descending water on near side of entering torrent .... 1,31 33. Whirlpool, Niagara, showing foam of upwellmg water on far side of entering torrent . 135 XV xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACE 34. View looking South, Culebra, July, igio . 161 35. Looking North from Culebra, August, 1910 . . 165 36. The Escarpment of Gold Hill, July, igio . ... 169 37. The Fire as seen from 112 East Street, Kingston, 14th Jan., 1907 187 38. Theatre Royal, Kingston . . i8g 39. St George's Church, East Street, Kingston ... igi 40. East Street, Kingston . . ig3 41. Pillars broken at Junction with Wall .... 195 42. Brick support collapsed, wooden upper story overturned 197 43- A Blocked Exit . . . . 198 44. East end of house in centre of Kingston . . . igg 45. Arrival of ship-load of Bananas and free distribution to the people, 17th January, igo7 . . 201 46. Our Quarters, May, 1907 . . . 203 47. First-floor Interior in East Street, Kingston . 205 48. An East Street Interior . . . 206 4g. The Parish Church, Kingston 207 50. Ball-room at King's House . .... 209 51. East wall leaning, north wall cracked, Orange Street, west part of Kingston : . . 210 52. Myrtle Bank Hotel, Kingston . 211 53. House in east of Kingston where the shock was very severe 215 54. Stone House collapsed at Gordon Town 219 55. Gatun Dam, the Rock Fill . . . 245 56. Gatun Dam, Hydraulic Fill on left . 24g 57. Gatun Locks, the Concrete Floor, igio . . 250 58. Crevassed subsidence, upper part of a landslide, west bank, Culebra . ..... . 251 59. Humping of rock of Canal bottom in a landslide . 253 60. A Country Road on the Linguinea Plain, Jamaica . 261 61. Landward View from Hill Residence, Jamaica . 269 62. Vegetation upon Telegraph Wires, Jamaica . 277 63. Mandeville Church, Jamaica . .... 279 64. Cocoa-nut Plantation and Village, near Montego Bay, Jamaica 283 65. Fringing Coral Reef of the North Shore, near Montego Bay, Jamaica . . . . 287 MAPS AND PLANS Map of the Falls and Rapids of Niagara River .... Page 107 The Panama Canal, (from a paper by the author in the Scottish Geographical Magazine of August, 1910) ... ,, 159 Map showing diminution of intensity of shock of Jamaica Earthquake and the extreme distance at which it was felt by human beings, (from a paper by the author in the Geographical Journal for March, igoS) . . ,, 223 Map of a part of Jamaica showing the relation of earthquake damage to Erosion of Land, (from a paper by the author in the Geographical Journal for September, 1912) . ,, 231 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH CHAPTER I LONDON TO KOBE The one thing which Ellen and I disliked in travelling was retracing our steps. We decided to avoid this humiliating process by going round the planet. Our route was via Japan and Niagara Falls. We wished to see the art and life of Japan and to investigate at Niagara the wave- phenomena of cataracts and waterfalls. The long stretches of sea would show us many varieties of ocean waves ; we should have a glimpse of the tropics, and see the southern stars. So at the beginning of 1903 we took passage by the s.s. Hitachi of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, or Japan Mail Steamship Company, from London to Kobe, and embarked on Friday the thirtieth of January at the Royal Albert Docks. How complete a change of life sets in at the very moment of going on board! We had not been away from land for 1 A 2 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH nearly two years. All the circumstances of ship life came back to the mind with a rush as we passed out through the lock-gates and dropped down Thames with the tide. It was a bright, cold day with strong south-west wind and plenty of bustle and movement in the river. Round the Foreland we met the wind. The weather became rougher down channel, and on Sunday, the first of February, we encountered in the Bay of Biscay the most troublesome cross-sea it had yet been our fortune to meet. There were two sets of waves of about equal size, the one set meeting us from forty-five degrees on the starboard and the other from forty-five degrees on the port. The ship was high amidships, where the passenger accommodation was situ ated, but cut down low fore and aft for convenience of cargo. Our cabin was at the front of the short promenade deck, and had two ports looking forward over the waist of the ship as well as two on the starboard side. Looking forward I saw the green waves come quite over the waist of the ship, first from one side and then from the other. At night the storm grew worse and the din was terrific. From time to time was heard the splintering of wood. Then things broke loose and banged about, and we heard the hoarse shouts of the English officers and the shriller voices of the Japanese LONDON TO KOBE 3 sailors, with much hurrying to and fro. We were rolling through an arc of fifty-six degrees, but neither of us felt nervous as the ship recovered quickly at the end of each roll. We were once in a ship that used to hang at the end of her swing, as if undecided whether to go on oscillating or to turn turtle and have done with it. It was an unpleasant habit to which I never became reconciled. On Monday the weather abated, and meals were again served in the saloon. We were now able to enjoy from the deck that most beautiful aspect of waves at sea when, the wind having moderated, the sky hardens and clears, and the sun illuminates the huge rushing mounds of water, all laced with fretted foam. The great ship swings down and up among them, but with a masterful motion, rejoicing as a giant to run her course, and the waves, no longer forced by wind, do not break aboard. Here and there, however, on the great expanse, a broad-based dome of water shoots up so as to form a pyramid, when the narrowing summit breaks, and combs over in a scroll of seething foam. Often on the voyage to the East the raw damp of the Channel and the roughness of the Bay is succeeded by perfect weather between Lisbon and Gibraltar. In the West Atlantic generally I have often noticed the delicious 4 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH air met with about latitude thirty degrees north. Here, between the damp cold of the north and the moist heat of the tropics, one often finds a refreshing climate where the drier atmosphere has a crispness which almost rivals that of the air from a glacier in the Swiss summer time. In all our six-weeks voyage, mostly in glorious weather, the breeze never came with such exhilarating freshness from the sparkling sea as on the day we coasted by Lisbon and Cape St Vincent. Seen thus from the offing the land scape is etherealised, and it is the deep blue waters around which appear to have real substance. Scanning thus some country where one has never been, it presents, when bathed in mild sunlight, an enchanted aspect. So, as I looked on the coastlands of Portugal, it seemed as if life there must be something much simpler and more peaceful than that which we had left in England. It might well seem so to us, for I had undergone more than twelve months of sickness and suffering during which I came very near death's door. My recovery was due to Ellen's ceaseless care, and the long-continued strain had begun to tell upon her health. This delicious phantasm of elysian lands is, however, often experienced at sea, and is one of the greatest charms of an ocean voyage. LONDON TO KOBE 5 Port Said was our first call. After twelve days away from land the scents of vegetation make a strong appeal. Here the air is pervaded by the aromatic scent of a shrub growing in the desert. We lunched ashore with one of our old friends of the Suez Canal Company, formerly at Ismailia, now transferred to Port Said. The latter place had greatly improved in the last few years, and, if it were not yet respectable, had at all events a self-respecting appearance. During the day a great arc-light was fitted up for'ard on the ship, and that night we slowly steamed along the canal, a broad glare of light revealed the banks, and, dimly, the marshes on either hand. We awoke at six o'clock to see through the starboard port a delicious view of Ismailia in the clear morning sun, the tall casuarinas nodding over the neat houses on the shore of that bluest of blue lakes, Lake Timsah. And beyond were the sand-dunes we knew so well, with long sloping back and steep front ; unstained by weather, unspotted, pure as snow, but with the colour of ripe wheat. Passing from the lake into the narrower waters of the canal we enjoyed a long day of desert sight-seeing from the commanding elevation of the deck. We saw once more the Bedouin and his camel, and there is no group more picturesque. Until one sees him in the surroundings 6 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH to which his colour has been adapted one would never think that a camel could be in any sense beautiful, but the desert is perhaps the finest background in nature. Where, indeed, does vegetation show to such advantage? The little " stations " of the Suez Canal Company with their trees and garden ; how exquisite they look, encompassed as they are by a country the colour of old gold! East of Suez all was new to us. The interest and charm of the six days' steaming from Suez to Cape Guardafui much exceeded our expectations. While in the Gulf of Akabah there were desert mountains to be seen. Those of the Peninsula of Sinai were all scored with valleys shaped as if they had been got out with the implement which carvers call a V tool, and the crest of the ridge between looked narrow as the edge of a knife. Where gentle rains are lacking and grass cannot grow the outlines of the hills show no soft curving lines. Right in the fairway of the Red Sea lie the volcanic islands called the Twelve Apostles. Their fires no longer burn, and the waters of the sea are breaking down the crater walls. One crater now forms a circular harbour with a narrow entrance breached by the waves. The cliffs of this entrance show the layers of ashes sloping towards the LONDON TO KOBE 7 sea on the outer side, and towards the harbour on the inner side. Another island has been dissected by the sea where a lava dyke had protruded through a hill of ashes. It is as if one were privileged to make sections of Vesuvius in order to see the materials of which it is composed and the stages by which it has been built up. Further south we came to a large island, Jebel Zubur, on whose mountainous skyline are repeated again and again the characteristic slopes of the volcanic cone. The most striking feature, however, was a great lava stream descend ing in a valley, and looking exactly like a black glacier. Dark, grim, sterile, shimmering in the noonday heat, Jebel Zubur had a most forbidding aspect. The mountainous outline of the shore of Africa, distant on the west, took on strange shapes as the sun wrent down. Refraction plays all sorts of tricks in this part of the world. First the jagged summits became rounded, then the whole range was detached from its base upon the sea, the bright sky lapping round between the foot of the hills and the dark water. Then, as we receded further from the shore, the base of each detached mountain curved up at either end, so that the mountain appeared as a black drop hanging over the sea. 8 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Stranger still were the optical gymnastics of the sun himself when descending to the sea. First an elongation, so that he was a peg-top with its point in the sea. Then a swelling out below so that he was shaped like a morion. In the final stage he was flattened to the shape of a convex lens. The appearances lasted until we were some distance out in the Indian Ocean, but became less marked in the damper atmosphere of the Bay of Bengal and the Straits of Malacca. While we were in the Red Sea and the first part of the Indian Ocean the sunset colours of the western sky occupied a space differently shaped from that over which they spread in England. Instead of forming a long narrow band they covered a semicircular disc, rising higher in the sky, but not spreading so far along the horizon. The whole of this semicircle flushes rosy pink at once, the colouring beginning a few moments after sunset and increasing in intensity until it sometimes attains the tint of carmine. We afterwards came to associate it with fine weather in the tropics, but have also seen it in hot dry weather as far north as Niagara. Out of the pink glow Venus shone, with the ravs or spikes of conventional star-shape clearly defined and steady in position. Although there was much refraction near the LONDON TO KOBE 9 horizon the atmosphere was evidently uniform and steady above. At first the planet appeared as a St Andrew's Cross, but with each of the four arms sharply pointed. As the background became darker, and the contrast therefore greater, it appeared pentagonal, which is the usual form in which stars are conventionalised in decorative art. As the darkness increased to the blue-black of night the num ber of the rays increased to six or even eight, but always with the St Andrew's Cross as the fundamental form. In years of star-gazing as a boy I had never in England taken note of the form and position of the rays. Here in air unusually dry, steady, and clear, they became, in the case of the planets and Sirius, a marked decorative feature. Now I notice these rays on fine nights in England, according to the well-known rule that things can be seen again under conditions less favourable than those required to attract the attention in the first instance. Ellen did not see the rays in precisely the same position as I did, so we induced others of our company to draw or describe what they saw. It appears that no two people see the stars exactly alike, but that there is a sufficient general resemblance in what they see to make the conventional representation commonly acceptable. The pentagonal star is probably the best repre- 10 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH sentation of the morning or evening planet in twilight. A hexagonal star with longer and more slender spikes better represents Jupiter on a black sky or Sirius glittering on a frosty night. We steamed down the great length of the Red Sea at a quiet twelve knots, not inconvenienced by heat. It often happens in the Red Sea that for nearly half the distance the vessel has a twelve or fourteen-knot breeze exactly follow ing, for the winds follow the line of this canal-like body of water. Thus the steamer carries along an unchanging and vitiated atmosphere, and the framework of the vessel becomes so greatly heated by fires within, and the sun with out, that it is sometimes necessary to turn and steam against the wind to cool and ventilate the ship. We only had one morning when the wind was thus, and the heat became oppressive and the air on deck noxious with smells of cook ing and so forth. Eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit was the highest temperature in our airy deck-cabin at any time during the voyage, so that we were certainly favoured in our weather. Entering the enlarged mouth of the Red Sea called the Gulf of Aden, we saw the coast of Somaliland on the starboard, and passed a promontory " called Mons Elephas LONDON TO KOBE 11 by the Romans," according to our volume of Sailing Direc tions. At length we reached that interesting point in the voyage where we were to enter the Indian Ocean and pass the easternmost point of Africa. I watched the nearer promontory of Cape Guardafui recede, and waited for the more southern point called Ras Jard Hafun to appear. The Hitachi was ploughing her way stolidly along, keeping an even keel, as she had done ever since she entered the Red Sea. All was calm and bright around us, yet at the moment when we passed Cape Guardafui, opening up the Indian Ocean to the south, the bows of the vessel rose, and dipped, and the great ship, swinging slowly and easily from side to side, rose and fell on the waters of an ocean calmly breathing in its sleep. I was standing by Captain Campbell at the time, follow ing with him the course of the ship upon the chart. " Look at that now ! " he exclaimed enthusiastically. His eye brightened, his pose changed to an attitude of vigour, and one saw the new life which the breath of ocean gives to every true sailor. Campbell was a man full of vitality, who had worked his way up. He lost his life in the service of Japan, when his good ship, the Hitachi, was sunk by the Russian cruisers from Vladivostock. 12 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Crossing the Indian Ocean in perfect weather towards the end of the north-east monsoon we had the delight of " learning the constellations " as one did in childhood, but now those of the southern hemisphere of the sky. At this time of year the Cross is low in the east, and lying sideways, in the first part of the night. As people are impatient to see it they are often disappointed by the view, but there is another and more general source of this unnecessary dis appointment. Comparatively few people take the trouble to get an accurate idea beforehand of the size of the Cross as compared to groups of stars with which thev are already familiar. As seen from a few degrees north of the Equator, and when upright on the Meridian, I regard the Cross as a splendid constellation both in itself and by reason of its setting among other stars. Ellen and I used to get up between midnight and dawn and step out from our cabin on to the deck. All the electric lights were now out on deck, and as we did not turn the lights up in the cabin one saw the stars at first with the added brilliance due to the dilation of the pupil of the eye in sleep and darkness. I recall as yesterday the feeling of the smooth, warm planks of the deck beneath my bare feet, and the breath of the pure, warm air on the cheek as I gazed on the glittering star view. LONDON TO KOBE 13 Orion's belt low down in the west, Sirius bright on the right, Canopus low, but still conspicuous, numerous stars of second and third magnitude scattered along and beside the horizontal course of the Milky Way, through Argo, the Cross, and the Centaur, with the red Antares bringing up the rear. Seen thus, the Cross and the two brilliant pointers of the Centaur dominate the star view, enhanced in their beauty by the mild brilliance of the Milky Way, which is set off in its turn by its dark cavities and rifts of starless gloom. The stars of the Cross itself are grouped with more symmetry than at first appears, for their relative lustre imparts symmetry, the greater brightness of the bottom star conforming to the greater length of the lower limb of the Cross. The approximately equal length of the three upper limbs, combined with the greater length of the lower limb, must have made the group peculiarly noticeable to navigators belonging to the Western Church who were accustomed to this form. I suppose that an astronomer of ancient Greece if he had seen this constellation would prob ably not have thought of connecting the stars across and across, but would have connected them by boundary lines forming a trapezium. Much of the beauty of constellations depends upon the 14 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH latitude in which they are seen. Orion is seen at his best hanging over the sea on our own southern coast, or as far south as the Riviera. Near the Equator this figure, rising sideways and setting sideways, is overhead and therefore almost out of sight when on the Meridian. There is one other matter of star-gazing which I would add as a hint to travellers. The greatest astronomical in terest of a voyage to the Equator is to get the completed view of the Milky Way. In this broad girdle which forms a great circle of the sky are set the finest stars, and, when the nights are clear and black, the nebula with its twists and convolutions, its luminous bosses and starless cavities of inky darkness, is itself a most beautiful object. Moreover it is the circle of the Milky Way and not that of the Zodiac about which the lover of stellar scenery should group his views. The Zodiac is for the makers of almanacs and for the astrologers. Navigators and explorers must know it, but the Milky Way is the Zodiac of the student of stellar scenery. During the days, we had among other amusements that of watching the bevies of flying fish scattering before the waves which diverge from the ship's bow and sides. Their flight, short, swift, and straight, is rather like that of quails. LONDON TO KOBE 15 It is only when they take the water that one realises the imperfection of the flying gear. They strike the water with uncomfortable violence and sometimes bang them selves against a rising wave. It was on the twenty-third of February that we passed the Coral Island of Minikoi with the cocoa-nut palms waving in a strong sea-breeze about palm-leaf huts, and boats lying anchored inside the shelter of the outer reef. It was the first coral island we had seen, and it answered exactly to the descriptions and pictures of Marryat's delightful book, " Masterman Ready." Two days later, coming on deck at a quarter to seven in the morning, the warm, hazy air was full of the smell of incense. Ceylon was sighted an hour later, and we landed at Colombo at half-past nine. The fragrance of the air, so delicious in its soothing effect upon the spirits, was a fitting preparation for our first day in a tropical land. We took the tram-car to Victoria Bridge, walked across, and turning to the left, plunged down into groves of tall cocoa- nut palms and banana trees which cast a deep green shade over the huts of a native village. One can see it all more or less well in pictures, but it is the warm, scented air which is the thing unknow to those who have not visited the tropics. 16 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Here the scent was no longer that of incense but the smell of gardenias and such-like flowers, which, among the native huts of Ceylon, brought back the memory of balls and dances in those delicious days when one was about eighteen and wondered whether dancing or football were the higher good, or whether shooting were really the best of all. There were butterflies which were something like dragon- flies, and strange birds chattering, hidden among the enormous leaves, and pretty, brown children, and handsome women with a quiet manner and beautiful eyes, and pic turesque old men with turban, cotton loin-cloth, and great white beard flowing over the brown chest. Then, as in a dream, we found ourselves in a fruit market, amidst a wealth of colour such as we had never seen : then again in a tram- car, open at the sides but roofed-in against the sun, in which we whirred along suburban roads to see the kind of homes our fellow-countrymen have out here. The houses have unglazed windows and cool verandahs ; everywhere is a wealth of green foliage, every leaf being of a shade and shape unfamiliar to our eyes. What struck us most perhaps was the brilliance of the flowers which grow in profusion upon the spreading crowns of great trees. LONDON TO KOBE 17 One scene succeeding another somewhat blurred their individual images on the mind, and there was, moreover, a sense of intoxication which I associate with the effect of the scented air. I can describe little of what we saw, but the effect upon us was considerable. We decided at once that, as soon as opportunity offered, we would spend some months amidst tropical foliage, and let the effect sink in. How we chose Jamaica for this purpose and what happened there I shall tell in a later chapter. We lunched at the Bristol Hotel, and Ellen bought there some white sapphires, which can be had cheaply in Ceylon. She liked their mild radiance, so different from that of the diamond, but with a charm of its own. We were tempted by a fine Alexandrite, but resisted the temptation. I wish we had yielded. I have never seen a good one in Europe that was not four times the price. Clear dark green by day and flashing wine-red at night, this dichroic gem has something of magic about it, and moreover has never, I believe, been imitated or reproduced. Next day, the twenty-sixth of February, we weighed anchor, and, leaving the shelter of the great breakwater, steamed south along the western shore of Ceylon. Hills 18 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH and even mountains are completely clothed to their very summits in dense forest ; their outline is dome-shaped, the protective action of the vegetation having preserved them from the denudation, or stripping, process, which produces the sharp summit ridges, and steep, straight upper slopes which are more usual on mountains less effectually screened from the weather. Across the Bay of Bengal, down the Straits of Malacca, it was another six days before we reached Singapore, where we stayed two days. Situated within about a degree of the Equator, and with a sufficient rainfall throughout the year, the country around exhibits in perfection that domination of vegetation which is characteristic of the equatorial belt. Not only are the hills forested to their summits, but trees grow with their roots in the tepid sea, and the mangrove shrub, advancing in dense masses from the low shore, year by year grows further seawards, making new land by filling in with falling leaf the interstices of its aquatic roots. If a plant could be found or produced which would do this in colder waters it would go far towards preventing the erosion of our coasts. When we first see new and strange aspects of the world, LONDON TO KOBE 19 ideas sometimes rush in upon one with the overmastering power of a revelation. They may possibly be, sometimes,, mistaken ideas, but there can be no question of their force. As we walked amidst the wealth of foliage I seemed to realise the beginning of life upon the land, and that it started in such a place as this. Almost could one see and hear the plants grow ; and I felt, as I had never felt before, that the life of plants is not so immeasurably far from ours, and that they have consciousness. Even while these things were in my mind I chanced to brush against a bushy hedge by the roadside, and it shrank back from me. More than this,. the shudder spread on in front, and the plant for perhaps twenty yards ahead closed in upon itself and shrank back from the impending contact. Surely the difference of con sciousness among living things is but a difference of degree i We are none of us fully awake to what is around us. The moments when things stand out clearly revealed are few. And at the other end of the scale I suppose the plants are not quite asleep. Round by Kepell's Bay the jungle comes up to the shore road, jungle which stretches hundreds of miles into the interior (for the strait is insignificantly narrow), and tigers lurk on the outskirts of the town. On the other side of the 20 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH shore road are groves of cocoa-nut, far more decorative than the tangled mass of the forest, even though in the forest there may be here and there a giant tree towering majestically. The cocoa-nut here seems to replace the " umbrella " pine in picturesque effect. Of the mixed population of Singapore the Chinese appear to be the most successful. Many of them drive in fine carriages and live in handsome villas. Two such villas were in course of erection, side by side, for the occupation of two brothers. On the gateposts of the one was inscribed " Romulus," of the other " Remus." In the course of the five quiet and beautiful days' sailing to Hong-Kong, always in perfect weather, we were so fortunate as to see some water-spouts. One phase was particularly interesting, viz. when the dark tube of rotating rain, pendant from the cloud, pointed to a wisp of foam rising spirally from the sea, though between them was no visible connection. So in our own less intensive climate we often notice that, when dark clouds are in the sky, the upturning of the leaves on trees, and a whirl of rising dust are followed quickly by a sharp shower of rain. Approaching Hong-Kong we saw Chinese junks ; first one or two, then swarms of them. Truly they are the most LONDON TO KOBE 21 picturesque of all the craft which float upon the waters, and would provide an excellent speciality for an artist. In the harbour we could look down from the superior height of our deck upon the domestic life of the junks moored near by, to our great interest and amusement. CHAPTER II JAPAN Hong-Kong lies just within the tropics. When we sailed northward the weather became rapidly cooler, and on near- ing Japan we met the swell from the Pacific, with cold winds, and lowering skies. Our month of luxurious sailing in summer seas was over ; one of the two objectives of our tour lay immediately ahead, and we began to wonder whether we should be enchanted or disappointed by Japan. We looked at the rocky coast, at a distant burning moun tain, and saw on nearer crags the pine tree with drooping branch. Then we passed through the heavily fortified eastern entrance to that Inland Sea, where ports and shipping are so splendidly sheltered from attack. We landed at the treaty-port of Kobe, but the enchant ment was not in the treaty-port. We went to the great manufacturing city of Osaka and saw the full tide of Japanese industrial life. We went to the great exhibition 09 JAPAN 23 crowded with country people clattering on their clogs. But the enchantment was not there. We went on to Kyoto and arrived at the Miyako Hotel one night in pouring rain. Next morning it still poured, and the air wars cold and heavy with moisture. In the afternoon it still rained so we drove in rickshaws to see the interior of the palace of the Shoguns, built by the great Ieyasu at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Here we saw what can be done to make a wooden palace splendid. The highly polished black surfaces show ing the grain of the wood ; the carved and painted ventilating screens of the partition walls, displaying the pheasant and the peacock, the peony, and the lotus ; the sliding wooden panels with pine trees painted on an adequate background of gold leaf. Metal work here and there, as for the handles of the sliding panels, and everything artistically excellent and mechanically good. Thence we went to the ancient palace of the Mikados where they lived as holy persons, amidst surroundings artistic indeed, but in which decoration was restrained to the limits assigned in ancient and less florid times. We returned impressed profoundly, but not yet en chanted. Fresh from the sunny warmth of Singapore, with the balmy fragrance of Colombo still reminiscent, there 24 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH could be no enchantment in an atmosphere of raw damp, with dripping eaves, and clouds low upon the hills. I sup pose the fact is that when one plunges into this weather fresh from the tropics one gets a liver chill, which does not conduce to enthusiasm. Next day, however, the second of our stay in Kyoto, the sun rose in a sky of unclouded blue and the birds were singing. Sallying out into the freshness of the spring morning we turned our backs upon the city, and, taking the road to the north, skirted the foot of the wooded hills. Presently among a grove of pines we came to a massive but elegant building of wood, with a wide entrance between great wooden pillars, the whole covered by two roofs superposed. Each roof has an upward curve at the corners, a form which by its springiness shows, or suggests, Lhat the massive structure does not feel the burden of its weight. On by a pleasant way, something between footpath and carriage road, we came to the smaller gateway of a temple, with ribbed tiles reproducing the form of the bamboo, and again the elegant upward curve of roof. We looked at every detail of the approach, the white walls with pent-house roof, the low steps, the stone pavement, the wicket-gate. Every thing had a perfection of suitability about it and evidence JAPAN 25 of unerring taste. Already as we passed into the precincts of the temple we had fallen under the spell, and knew the enchantment of Japan. We approached the main hall, or temple proper, a square room with smoothly matted floor 2. THE ENTRANCE GATE OF NANZENJI TEMPLE, KYOTO raised on a platform some feet above the ground. The sliding screens were open, and standing in the bright spring sunshine we looked in upon the appointments of a Buddhist temple, the lacquered wooden stools, the gongs, the gilt- lacquered shrine, and images which were at the same time 26 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH reminiscent of ancient Greek art, and presented likenesses to Christian images. The dim interior, with its rich and exquisite appointments, the calm decorum of the priest, the quiet enjoyment of one or two pilgrims, happy in their religion and in the artistic beauty of its outward and visible signs, these and numberless circumstances, novel and delightful, combined to raise our minds to that ecstatic state, so rarely attained, and only to be evoked by the perfect things of the world. " Such a day," I said to Ellen, " was our first day in Rome." " I think," she replied, " this is more wonderful than Rome." We passed on by pleasant groves and little waterfalls and came to a monastery with a garden in which, in place of flower borders, were plots of grey sand all freshly scored in conventional designs of waves, and the rising sun, and I know not what besides of mystical significance. The sand was of a large-grained size taken from the beds of streams, such that the pattern would not be blurred by a shower of rain. The designs are, I think, renewed daily. Their effect is excellent amidst the verdant surroundings of moss, and pine, and bamboo. There was a large bronze bowl, having the form of a lotus flower, full to the brim and JAPAN 27 running over with clear spring water from the hillside. On the further side of the monastery was a garden with a 3. PILGRIMS AT THE HONENIN MONASTERY, KYOTO little lake, and a bridge of a single-arched stone. We seated ourselves upon a low wooden seat which ran round the 28 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH wooden building to enjoy the quiet beauty of the garden. Presently there came a priest, calm, courteous, well-bred, and with that look of greater strength which scholarship gives to the countenance of the clergy. After several bows gravely given and returned, on both sides, he pushed back the sliding panels behind us and, turning, we looked into the temple itself, or chapel as we should call it. The floor was covered with the smooth surface of the straw mattresses or mats, but the shrine stood upon a platform of nearly black and highly polished wood. Upon this at intervals before the shrine had been placed single blossoms of the red camellia, each blossom reflected in the dark mirror of the wood. It was enchanting, and the priest, seeing that we were appreciative pilgrims, showed us more of the appoint ments of the small monastery. In all there were the same characteristics. Harmony of colour, precision of line, judicious proportion of spaces, with a practical adaptation of things to their uses, perfect neatness, and an absolute, spotless cleanliness. We got into our rickshaws and were trundled along to Ginkakuji, which is situated like the other places visited at the foot of the wooded range of hills. Originally it was a villa where Yosimasa, the Shogun, lived after his 4. LOTUS-FLOWER FOUNTAIN, HONENIN MONASTERY JAPAN 31 retirement, made a small but very beautiful garden, and elaborated the tea ceremony. In this ceremony the inter course of host and guest is raised to a ritual, in which all that is beautiful and sincere in social life is venerated by the acts of those who participate, and by the simple yet beautiful character of the appointments and surroundings. This was towards the close of the fifteenth century, and the villa subsequently became a monastery. The change was not as great as it sounds, for the maxims of art, the rule of manners, and the code of the Buddhist religion are inter woven and inseparable in Japan. From the first floor of the Silver Pavilion I photographed the garden and a part of the villa, pointing my camera down wards, so as to exclude the bright sky from view. It is a habit of mine in photography, acquired from the practice of photographing sand-ripples. The result in this case, as a reference to the plate will show, is to produce something which resembles in composition a Japanese picture. The Japanese artist chooses a much higher point of sight than is usual with us, giving somewhat the effect of a bird's-eye view. Their method has the merit that they can show more objects in the picture. The features in the garden have symbolic significance. 32 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH The imposing pyramid of white sand is typical of what may be done by meditation, in which our ideas, originally scattered as grains of sand, are combined to form great conceptions. Thus in the spring sunshine did we wander from one beautiful scene to another, always conscious of the presence of a great wisdom of which we knew not before. This was why we thought of our first day in Rome, where so much of the wisdom of the ages is in the very breath of the air. There is the wisdom of the art which began in Greece, of the laws of Rome, of the code of Christendom. At Kyoto is the wisdom of the art which began in China, of the precepts of Confucius, the rules of the Samurai, and of the gentle and catholic code of Buddhism. The last of the experiences of the day came after the sun had set and we were resting. Then out of the darkness of the night from somewhere on the hillside there came the deep and solemn boom of a great temple bell. A single note, but prolonged beyond the note of any other instrument, the sound becoming more and more pulsative as it grew fainter, dying away in beats. There is no single sound so fine as that of the Japanese temple bell, and it never fails to awaken the chords of religious feeling. As in all else Japanese, so in the matter of the bell their 5. SYMBOLIC GARDENS OF GINKAKUJI, KYOTO JAPAN 3& method is not that of the western world. The striker, a long, thick and heavy beam of wood is suspended outside the bell by two ropes, and so as, when swung, to strike end-on. This gives a much more solid and less jarring blow than that of a clapper swung sideways against a bell. The bells are not only of great size but of enormous thickness. We were in Kyoto on Sunday, 22nd March, a day of religious holiday, and joined the throng of foot-people making their way from shrine to shrine, in the sweet spring weather, of which Chaucer says : " Than longen folk to go on pilgrimages." This holiday-making with a religious motive, and reli gion of the holiday kind, this " Bank Holiday " without noisy merriment, these crowded streets without horse- vehicles, were new to us. The quietness of Japan is one of its charms. The people do not shout, neither do they swear. Except for the silent rickshaw there is no wheeled traffic. For the most part their pastimes are quiet. They go to admire the cherry blossom, they indite a verse, they return home to work. Quiet and gentle in peace, fierce and terrible in war, clever and industrious always, how much we have to learn from them! I am told to wonder at the 36 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH quickness with which the Japanese have imbibed western knowledge. I think it more important to notice how slow is the western world to learn from Japan. Rejoining our ship at Kobe we made a rough passage round to Yokohama, rewarded by a view in the early morning light of a delicate cone of pale pink far up in the sky, detached from earth by the mere blue of air. It was the snow-capped summit of Fuji, some eighty miles away. As we came nearer, the lower and flatter slopes became visible, and the typical volcanic profile stood out for the whole of its ten thousand feet. We arrived at Yokohama on the evening of March 25th, ,and landed next morning eight weeks after our departure from the Royal Albert Docks. The European settlement is situated upon the Bluff, the inland cliff which terminates a plateau and overlooks a low coastal plain upon part of which the large treaty-port of Yokohama is built. We took up our abode at the Bluff Hotel. From this position eastwards runs the main road of the Settlement, on either side of which are good houses huilt of wood, and constructed in a style familiar in the United States and Canada, in which the balcony or piazza is an important feature. Their gardens are beautiful with JAPAN 37 features of both the Japanese and English styles. Along this road running east and west occidentals pass to and fro to call on neighbours, or on their way to the church, or to the tennis club. From north to south the road is crossed at two or three points by others which ascend steeply from Yokohama and descend again to Japanese villages lying on the south. Along these the orientals pass to and fro upon their affairs, and the two streams, the yellow and the white, mix no more than do oil and water. And it is best so ; for much as there is to learn from each other, the white and the yellow races have met so late that it is not right that they should blend. Following the Bluff road to the east it dips steeply to> another part of the low coastal plain and passes between rice fields to the fishing village of Honmoku. Here in front of the Fisherman's Shrine stand the usual ex voto stone lanterns, on one of which I noticed a curious relic of a phase in the history of the treaty-port which has passed never to return. It is the English broad arrow, cut by one of our surveyors at a time when Japanese jurisdiction did not run in this neighbourhood. The priest's house stands hard by, the small garden enclosed by a formal wooden paling of neat rectangularity. By the gateway is placed a 38 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH lantern, and for lamp-post has been selected a curiously twisted branch in effective contrast with the formal back- 6. THE " BROAD ARROW " UPON A STONE LANTERN ground. The combination is a good example of the aptitude of the Japanese for decorative effect. This is the JAPAN 39 only country where I have seen corrugated iron assume a pleasing appearance. It is used as pent-house roof to walls 7. LANTERN AT GATEWAY, PRIEST'S HOUSE, HONMOKU and small gateways, and by suiting the width of the eave to the pitch of the little roof a good effect is' produced. 40 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Following the road through the rice fields we have the plateau always on our right with its terminal Bluff, a sea-cliff at no very' ancient date. At the point where the road twists westward along the shore of Mississippi Bay stands a pine-tree conspicuously placed and with decora tive possibilities. This the neighbouring village of Negishi has taken in hand to train in the way it should grow. The leading shoot is bent to an S shape and strapped thus to a vertical rod of bamboo. The boughs growing from this shoot are strapped straight to other bamboo rods each in clined downwards at the same angle. There are also screw- twists in the horizontal direction introduced here and there. In a few years the boughs will have set in these forms, and the bamboo rods will be taken away. The uninstructed occidental passing by will admire the natural picturesque- ness of Japanese pine-trees, whilst the Japanese wayfarer will appreciate this example of a favourite art. Ancient pine-trees in Japan have wide-spreading and heavy branches which droop picturesquely, and part of the object of training pines appears to be to obtain a somewhat similar appear ance in the young or small trees. Continuing along the coast-road we are now completely sheltered from the cold north and north-east winds of JAPAN 41 spring by the Bluff on the right, which, facing south, is here clothed with a luxurious and almost sub-tropical vege tation. On our left, that is south, lie the smooth waters of Mississippi Bay dotted with the sails of sampans, and far 8. TRAINED PINE-TREE AT NEGISHI away in the west there rises beyond intervening hills the distant beauty of Fujiyama. Close to the shore lies a fishing village convenient for the purpose of the people's lives but liable to be swept bodily away by any seismic sea-wave. The shoji, or paper windows, are drawn back, letting the 42 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH sunshine into a room where there sit facing one another a mother and a grandmother. The mother holds a baby, the grandmother a razor. The baby has just been lulled to sleep. The grandmother with a swift sweep of the razor removes a good portion of the baby's hair, for the time has come for the baby's head to be shaved, all but a little top knot ; this being the first stage in the progressive fashions of a Japanese woman's coiffure. The touch of the cold steel wakens the baby, who gives a little whimper and half a sneeze, mother and grandmother uniting to lull her once more into false security. Then they perceive our interest, and bow, smiling. We smile and bow, and after repetition of the salutation on both sides, as required bv politeness, we bow our farewell and pass on our way that we may not interrupt this important piece of business. Presently we reach a narrow and densely wooded gully descending straight down the face of the Bluff, and we perceive two flights of stone steps ascending beside it for about one hundred feet to a small temple nestling close under the summit of the Bluff. One flight of steps goes up straight and steep, the men's ascent ; the other follows a more winding course, with a gentler gradient, and is for women. Reaching the little temple we find that it has been built beside the spot where JAPAN 43 the little stream which made the gully leaps from its narrow bed as a waterfall. Beneath this pilgrims stand as a penance, or at any rate as an observance. The stream, where it comes from the cliff, has been made to issue from the mouth of a fierce stone dragon. I often visited this little temple, dedi cated to Fudo, the god, or the idea, of " the impregnability of perfect enlightenment against which the passions cannot prevail." I generally approached it from the plateau, which I crossed from the Bluff Hotel, exposed to the raw cold winds which prevailed during the first weeks of our stay. Thence one dropped suddenly into the sheltered nook where the little temple stands, finding shelter and warmth, and an arbour from which to enjoy a lovely view over Mississippi Bay. The view, perhaps equally with the waterfall, is a reason for the erection of a temple here, for a Japanese almost worships scenery. I think I do also, and the place came to have for me something of the significance of " Fudo " before I had learnt to whom the temple was dedicated, or what Fudo typified. The little temple was evidently but poorly endowed, probably owing to the absence of a cemetery, being more like a hermit's chapel than a parish church. The hermit, however, was married, and his wife was priestess, and wore her hair unkempt. I photographed 44 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH her in her little temple with its big drum, and she used to give me tea while I enjoyed the view of the bay. On the Bluff itself, close to the Settlement, is the Myokoji Temple, which is the parish church of Bluff village. The belfry shows the usual pretty curve of the roof and also the curved base of the supporting stone pediment. This is like the curve of the base of many trees, which was long since adopted for one of the Eddystone lighthouses, and is, I understand, as strong as it is elegant. Within the temple precincts stands a figure of Jizu, the deity who has charge in the Buddhist purgatory of the souls of little children. The caps and other garments which are hung upon the image are those of the departed little ones for whom the intercession of Jizu is sought. I was spending one wet morning in the temple itself when I saw a good example of the way in which the offices of the Buddhist clergy come into the life of the people. I had left my shoes and umbrella on the raised platform outside the closed shoji, and, seating myself on the mats, leaned against a wooden pillar, and remained very still and quiet. After a time a squared wooden post, with an inscrip tion, which I took to be intended for a monument in the ceme tery, was placed before the shrine. Presently there entered g. INTERIOR OF TEMPLE OF FUDO AT NEGISHI JAPAN 47 a Buddhist priest in a gown and hood not unlike those of our own clergy. His head was shaved and he carried, not IO. THE JIZU WHO HAS CHARGE OF CHILDREN IN PURGATORY an academic cap, but a fan. There entered also a family party, the relatives, I supposed, of a person lately deceased. 48 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Priest and mourners bowed to each other, and the priest, kneeling or sitting, for the positions are the same, before a low, lacquered table, removed the cover of a lacquered box therefrom, beneath which lay a copy of Buddhist scriptures. He then intoned the service, which was punctuated every few minutes by a stroke upon a gong, or rather an inverted bell, which gave out a low musical note. Presently one of the family rose, advanced to the front of the shrine, clapped his hands, bowed low, cast a few grains of incense into a brazier, and, bowing low again, returned to his place. Each member of the family did likewise, the last being a little girl of less than three years old, who, under her mother's guid ance, acquitted herself decorously. A refection of tea and sweetmeats was then brought to the family, together with a bowl of hot embers at which pipes were lighted. While the elders smoked and the little girl was regaled with sweets the priest continued the service. The young attendant then brought a separate tea equipage for me and placed it on the mats with a low bow, which I silently returned. At the conclusion of the service the priest, having risen to his feet, bowed to the mats before the mourners, who all prostrated themselves, touching the mats with their foreheads. Thus the service concluded, and the priest, retiring through a side JAPAN 49 exit, slid back the shoji, disclosing a view of the small but daintily pretty garden of the inner courtyard of the mona stery. Such things as these seemed to make one know the mind of the people. By reading one may learn the theology of Buddhism, but a religion is more than its theology, and to be fully appreciated must be seen in its services. From Yokohama we went one bright, cold, spring day to Kamakura, where the great bronze Buddha broods among the cherry blossoms, under the canopy of open sky. By this time we had been sufficiently long in Japan to have become accustomed to the Mongolian countenance, for where but one white man is seen among a thousand of the golden race the latter soon becomes the type ; and the form, and features of the occidental appear as a variation. Thus the features of the statue did not appear ugly to us as they may to one in England who is shown a photograph of the great Buddha. We felt immediately the appeal of this great work of art, which is a perfect embodiment of " the peace of God which passeth all understanding." The most impres sive view is perhaps the profile, where the effect of the bowed head is best seen. During our stay in Yokohama we saw the blossoming of the Japanese cherry which has no fruit but is cultivated D 50 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH for the beauty of the blossom. One day we went over to Tokyo and saw the crowds of holiday people admiring the cherry blossom in Ueno Park as the Londoner goes to Bushey Park on Chestnut Sunday. What took our fancy most, however, was the blossom on a wooded hillside oppo site a village in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. The villagers had decided that the wooded hill wanted a splash of colour so they had planted cherry-trees for the sake of effect. In Japan these things are done by poor people among whom the artistic sense is far more general than even among the wealthier and leisure classes in the Occident. There is on the Bluff a fine nursery of dwarf-trees, a business which takes time to establish since few specimens are worth much until they are thirty or forty years old. The dwarf-tree is also a trained tree, but there are in large gardens trained trees which are not dwarfed. In the Hama Palace gardens at Tokyo, for instance, the trained pine-trees are of large size as well as of venerable age. The theory appears to be that a Japanese garden should represent land scape in miniature, everything being to scale. Thus if the paling of a town or suburban garden encloses a square plot of only forty feet side it would not satisfy Japanese taste to include within the enclosure some full-grown forest trees. 1 y*c II. CHERRY BLOSSOM, BLUFF VILLAGE, YOKOHAMA JAPAN 53 This is in fact what we see done in London gardens, but in Japan such a plot is laid out with dwarfed trees, miniature waterfalls, and so forth. Thus the Japanese has a complete landscape on a small scale instead of walling off a little piece of full-scale scenery. Thus the size of the trained tree is suited to the size of the garden, and this principle is so carried out that one may have a beautiful miniature landscape even though he be so poor that he have no courtyard to his dwelling. A shelf outside an upper window will carry a large tray of earth in which is planted a miniature landscape. When this is nearly on a level with the eye, and the kneeling posture on the mats gives the Japanese an elevation of the eye less than ours, the effect or illusion is remarkably good. The Japanese theory of the use of pictures as decora tion or furniture of a dwelling-room is also very different from ours. The room has plain walls and plain floor. There is one recess provided with a low shelf. In this recess is hung a single picture. On the occasion of the next visit one will find another picture in its place, the first having been rolled up and put away in the store under the floor. The notion is that attention should be given to one good thing and that there should be plenty of plain background so that the eye shall not be distracted. The principle of an 54 THE TBAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH ample background is carried out in the hanging pictures, or kakemonos, which are placed in the recesses. One of their great merits is in the arrangement of the subject in its " canvas," so that the latter is spaced out in pleasing proportions. The principle of concentration, and of ample back ground, is also applied in the flower decoration, and in the display of vases or other objects of art in a room. One object, or one group of objects, is all that is displayed, generally in the recess. The Japanese draughtsmen are particularly successful in their representation of objects in motion, and we saw excellent examples of this in a fine exhibition of colour prints by Hiroshige in Yokohama. One showed rain driven in sheets by a fierce gale. Another a torrential downpour from a leaden sky on a still day. Another falling snowflakes. Another falling fireworks. Best of all was a whirlwind in a harvest field. A man is chasing his hat, which bounds along with its ribbons streaming, and the undulation of the ribbon expresses exactly the rush of the wind. From Yokohama we visited the great Buddhist temple at Ikegami, dedicated to Nichiren, a saint who died a.d. 1282. The photographs which I took by permission of 12. BEFORE THE SHRINE, HOMMONJI TEMPLE, IKEGAMI JAPAN 57 the priest-in-charge in the Soshi-do, or Founder's Hall, show the elaborate decorations. The colours are the pale straw of the smooth matting, the polished black of the grained wood, and the black lacquer of the stools support ing the red lacquered boxes which contain the scriptures, the brass lacquer of the carved pillars and the gold lacquer of the highly decorated shrine, and lastly, the red, white, and blue of the frescoed walls, on which angels are por trayed. The colours are as harmonious as they are brilliant, and the beauty of the interior, as of all Japanese interiors, is enhanced by the mode of lighting, the oiled paper of the shoji diffusing a mild and general illumination, which is, moreover, much in favour of photography. A little side-temple in the front courtyard was in charge of a boy priest, about eight years old, who con ducted services of intercession on behalf of one or two worshippers who came with offerings. He performed his offices with the perfection of clerical decorum, reverting when not on duty to an expression and demeanour natural to a child. During our stay at Tokyo we saw something of another aspect of Buddhism when we visited the highly popular Asakusa temple. Dedicated to Kwannon, the goddess of 58 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH mercy, the temple is the central feature of a great fair and place of amusement. The front court is entered through a crowded and noisy bazaar. The interior of the temple is a strange medley of incongruities. Enormous paper lanterns hang from the roof, pigeons fly about, the intoning of priests is heard, a man comes to rub an aching head against the head of a much-worn image endowed with healing virtue, pictures and printed prognostications are pur chased, and all the time there is a continuous rattle of small copper coins thrown into a huge coffer placed at the entrance for receipt of offerings. As an example of bringing religion down to the people's level, Asakusa resembles the con ventional notion of a heathen temple, and offers a striking contrast to the refinement of Ikegami and the repose of the Honenin Monastery at Kyoto. Yet even at Asakusa, though religion appears in a frivolous or childish aspect, there is nothing of an unpleasant or objectionable character. One of the illustrations shows a crowd of the holiday-makers beside the carp-pond with the temple in the background and a fine bronze ex-voto lantern. A rickshaw ride of no less than three miles around the old castle of the Tokugawa Shoguns (now the Imperial Palace) afforded a good example of what is meant by a Missing Page 14. BOXES CONTAINING BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES, IKEGAMI 15- CARP-POND IN THE PRECINCTS OF ASAKUSA TEMPLE, TOKYO J AP AN 65 castle in Japan. It more resembles one of Vauban's fort resses than the towered and battlemented buildings which were the castles of feudal England. A large area is enclosed by a broad and deep moat backed by a wall built of large blocks of stone irregularly laid, crossed by bridges and by causeways with drawbridges, and provided with guard-rooms and watch-towers at salient corners. The circumvallation is now crowned with ancient pine-trees, whose gnarled branches cast a peaceful shade upon wall and grassy rampart. It was in brilliant weather towards the end of May that we left the capital for the sunny splendours of Nikko. After traversing the fertile plain, where the crops were already golden, the railway ascends to a plateau country of flowering shrubs, and, approaching the entrance of the mountain region, follows nearly the line of the great avenue of cryptomerias which leads on for many stately miles towards the tombs of lyeyasu and Iyemitsu. From the railway station we follow the line of the avenue and the village, until, at a narrow part of the valley, the rushing mountain river is confined in a fixed channel, between the opposing sides of a rocky gorge. Here the stream is bridged, and, crossing over to the true left bank, we enter the sacred groves. 66 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH The sun was already higher than at midsummer in England, and the hundred-and-fifty-foot trunks of the cryp- tomerias threw no long shadows, but their branches, held high aloft, cast a soft shade upon the glades and mossy causeways. No pale light from near the horizon reached the eye, but the illumination in the groves was from the deeper blue of the zenith. The sky, moreover, had some thing of mountain clearness, for the elevation is two thousand feet. The note of the natural colouring is a brilliant green, for frequent rains and mountain mists alternate with a sun which attains in summer an almost tropical intensity. As we wandered in these groves of green we came upon an endless succession of beautiful buildings, the dominant colour of which is a rich and sober red. Black and gold also have their share in the threefold colouring of these wonders of woodwork, and enhance the beauty of the surroundings from which they themselves gain so much in charm. The ribbed-tiled roofs -are dark in colour, but, the texture of their surface being smooth, they show dark or light, accord ing to the angle at which they are seen in reference to the sun's position, sometimes even shining like a surface of water. Stately stairs of mossy stone lead the pilgrim on from lower to higher shrines ; the stone lanterns, too, are l6. THE COURT OF THE DRAGON'S BOWL, NIKKO oa a z oa. \\ Heights in. feet, ~ve°ttJ.l/-o,;f^„ V Nia,gsac. Falls Crest. 517 . Foot. 357 Coroner I. RIVER A MAP OF THE FALLS AND RAPIDS OB NIAGARA RIVER 108 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH that the depth of water is reduced from one hundred and sixty to about thirty feet. This is the Middle Rapid, or Whirlpool Rapid, in which the turbulence is increased by a considerable bend. After a course of a mile and a quarter, during which the surface of the water descends about fifty feet, the great Whirlpool is reached. Here the waters swing round to the left in a basin one hundred and fifty feet deep, and, diving under the entering current, emerge at the exit from the pool, and again start on their headlong race, descending another fifty feet in the next four miles which constitute the Lower Rapid. Where the river emerges from its gorge upon the low plain the channel widens and the stream flows calmly on, descending only two feet in the remaining seven miles of its course to Lake Ontario. Thus, though the total length of Niagara River is thirty- four and a half miles, the descent of three hundred and twenty-six feet is almost wholly accomplished in eight miles from the commencement of the Upper Rapid. The descent of the Falls and that accomplished by the Rapids are nearly equal, the Falls accounting for one hundred and sixty feet and each of the three Rapids for about fifty feet, or one hundred and fifty feet in all. FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 109 Through the Park or Reservation we approached by gravelled paths and across trim lawns the northern extremity of the Falls. The point is known as Father Hennepin's View, and the form of the Falls from here is well known from photographs. The reality, however, differs from the photographic impression in the circumstance that, the nearer water flies over the brink with great speed, whereas in the distant parts of the Fall the motion appears steady and almost slow. It is curious how much these differences of apparent speed affect the impression of the Falls. The fact is, that though a cinematograph may give the true impression of such a fall as Niagara, a photograph, however good, is misleading, for it is the motion of the water which fascinates the eye. A light iron railing, waist high, and a few feet of turf, are all that were between us and the current of the Rapid. No turbid waters, no discoloured foam, but a swift and silent current, transparent, limpid, through which the floor of the slippery rock was a surface of polished aquamarine. Lap ping along, beautiful, deadly, the stream slips noiselessly over the lip of the Fall, the very edge of the limestone visible through the water as a flickering line. The swift waters bend down over the rock's sharp edge in a strong, sweeping curve, at first unbroken, but soon shattered into frothy masses 110 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH which, falling in successive violence far below, send up a sullen sound of " drumming thunder." We passed across the stone bridge to the half-way point of Green Island, and on to Goat Island, the waters of the Rapid always clear, and with those varying shades of greenish blue which come within the range of colour of the aquamarine. This limpidity of the water, due to its recent origin in a lake, is a rare and particular beauty of the Falls of Niagara. We crossed the lower end of Goat Island by paths which lead through a beautiful fragment of primitive forest, where the foliage is maintained in almost tropical brilliance by mists of finest spray wafted from the neighbouring Falls. Emerg ing on the southern side of the wood, we took the footbridge which has been constructed across the shallow waters as far as Terrapin Rock, and thence from a railed platform con templated the greater, or Horseshoe, Falls, and the conflu ence of waters at the Horseshoe itself, distant from us about three hundred yards. Here it is evident that the converging currents have cut a deeper groove, for the water flows both more swiftly and more steadily. Dark and green it glides over the brink with snake-like smoothness, descending into the abyss,, green and unbroken, until lost to our sight behind 25. THE AMERICAN FALLS, NIAGARA, WITH S.S. "MAID OF THE MIST FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 113 the nearer curve of the Horseshoe. A constant steam rises from the foot of the Horseshoe Falls, wafted this way or that by the breeze. But every five or ten seconds a geyser of foam, in jets, sharp-pointed, rocket-like, spouts up through the spray from the confined waters of the hidden horseshoe cauldron, rising above the Falls, and sinking in a silence which would be mysterious were not the sullen roar of the cataract sufficient to merge in itself all lesser sounds. Truly it is a majestic and an awful scene. Turning our backs on the Horseshoe Falls, we walked along the western shore of Goat Island, and, crossing by the bridges, beheld the cataracts which dash through the narrow channels between the Sister Islands. Beyond the last Sister Island, looking across the broad stretch of the Upper Rapid, there stands a great wave whose unbroken crest tops the skyline. It is very unusual for a river-wave to be thus silhouetted against the sky, for torrents are generally in a gorge. The commencement of the Upper Rapid, how ever, is almost flush with the banks. Some hidden ridge of rock causes this wave, the torrent sweeping up and over it in one unbroken convex curve. On the lee-side the downward sweep of the current carries the water below the ordinary level, to rise up again in a back-curling crest, cusped and H 114 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH breaking. This mound and hollow and crest breaking backwards is typical of the waves of the Upper Rapid, for here are no long trains of waves following in dependent sequence from some original obstruction. Probably there are too many cross-currents in the cataract to permit their establishment. Returning through the shady forest of Goat Island, we lingered beside some sheltered channels on its northern shore. Flere the diverted streams, flowing quietly in their small channels, occasionally descended in miniature falls in which the water, unbroken in its short descent, shows steady stripes of silvery reflection instead of a hurrying sequence of frothy jets. Here, also, each obstruction or deflection of the channel produces a regular train of little standing waves. The first of these is usually cusped ; curling over gracefully and scattering a few large drops from the crest, which roll like glass marbles down the antecedent slope. Here, Ellen said, was more real beauty than in all the violent immensity of Niagara. It may be so, for the appeal of Niagara to the human mind is not merely the appeal of beauty. Our survey of the Falls, as seen from above, was com pleted by crossing the upper suspension bridge and follow ing the true left bank of the gorge until we reached their 26. STANDING WAVE IN THE UPPER RAPID, NIAGARA FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 117 western extremity on the Canadian side. From here the American Falls appear relatively unimportant and the Horseshoe Falls assume their true preponderance. Being nearly on a level with the water, the outline of these Falls is seen as a re-entrant curve much longer and narrower than the map suggests. Immediately on our right the clear water, deeper and swifter than on the American side, glides horribly over the cliff. In front, still distant, is the deep bight of the Horseshoe, and from our position we see the waters pouring from the back and from the two sides into one boiling cauldron. Above this cauldron eddies the sullen spray, through which from time to time the geyser of water-rockets shoots skywards in the mysterious silence imposed by the roar of the Falls. Across the confusion of the falling waters hangs the motionless rainbow, its steady arch maintained in droplets of wandering spray. At rare intervals the cauldron of frothy water at the foot of the Horseshoe can be seen for a moment gleaming ghastly white; but the mists rapidly close in and hide its horrors. The view of the Falls from the Canadian side, at first delight ing by its grandeur, is apt, after prolonged gazing, to appal. There is so much that suggests the tragedies of life, particu larly that awful occasion when a terrible doom is seen swiftly 118 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH and inevitably approaching. It may be that this impression is due to the instinctive dread of falling over a precipice. Here we see the act of such falling, and see it from the brink. At all events, I, myself, did not feel any horror of the Falls when viewing them from below. Returning to the true right bank we went to the foot of the American Falls at their northern extremity, and saw the water descending in parallel columns, each column consisting essentially of a string of descending cones, the " comet-like bodies " which Livingstone noticed at the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi. The head or nucleus of each comet, a denser mass of white water, is seen on the background of the tail of the preceding comet.* * Captain Basil Hall, R.N., ascribed this breaking up of the water to the surface friction of the air. If this were the prime cause the break up should come most quickly at the notch of the Horseshoe where the speed of the water is greatest. But here, as Captain Hall himself noticed, the water takes longer to break up, descending, according to his estimate, about twenty feet before the process commences. I attribute the break-up to the necessary instability of a relatively thin sheet of water falling freely under the action of gravity. Even at twenty feet below the lip the velocity of descent is only twenty-six miles an hour which gives what is called at sea "a strong breeze" of air along the surface. This is not sufficient to tear a compact body of water into a mass of white foam. The break-up of the American Falls commences long before the water has descended twenty feet and this is due, in my opinion, partly to the thinness of the sheet of water, about three feet, and also in no small degree to relatively small but rather sudden and quickly repeated changes of velocity m the current above. This unsteadiness of current I recorded 27. CANADIAN FALLS, NIAGARA FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 121 In order to see the remainder of the American Falls, and the Horseshoe Falls from below, one may take a cruise on the little s.s. Maid of the Mist. By this means one sees well the great masses of limestone rock which lie at the fool of the Falls and upon which the hurrying masses of broken near Luna Island by the periodic breaking of a standing wave. At the Horseshoe the deeper water flows more steadily and this greater steadiness delays the break-up. Once the water is broken into lumps, the air resistance must be very great and will rapidly assist its dispersion in spray. At the foot of Niagara the velocity acquired by unhindered descent would be sixty-eight miles per hour. No wonder, therefore, that in very high falls bearing a relatively small body of water, such as are so common in Norway, the water, broken into lumps in the first part of its descent, is so completely dissipated into spray that a breeze will blow it aside, so that it descends as a shower some distance to leeward. The following data provided a rough measure of the thickness of the sheet of water which pours over the cliff of Niagara. At Chippewa, just above the Upper Rapid a line of soundings carried across the river gave depths from 2 to ig feet, with an average of 12.3. As the discharge of the river when full is 222,000 cubic feet per second and it is here a mile wide, the calculated speed would be 3.4 feet per second or 2.3 statute miles per hour. At the Falls the total frontage is 4170 feet and the observed velocity of the rapid at Green Island is 14.7 feet per second, or ten miles per hour. If this were the average velocity the calculated average depth would be 3.6 feet, but as the velocity is in many places obviously greater than at Green Island, the average thickness of the sheet of water must be less than 3.6 feet. At the toe of the Horseshoe, how ever, it is obviously much greater. A laden vessel once drifted over the Falls at this point without touching bottom. It is stated that she was drawing twenty feet of water. With a horizontal velocity of 14.7 feet per second and a time of descent 3.1 seconds the horizontal leap would be 45.6 feet, not allowing any attraction towards the cliff. At the notch of the Horse shoe I think the velocity is probably half as great again as at Green Island, which would give a leap ot 68.4 feet. 122 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH water fling themselves. At the level of the lip of the Falls there lies a bed of this limestone, beneath which are softer materials. The latter, disintegrated rapidly by spray and blasts of air, leave the bed of limestone unsupported and pro jecting. In time it breaks by its own weight and falls. This intermittent breaking off of the limestone cap constitutes the recession of the waterfall, which averages from six inches to two feet a year at different places. Passing the cliffs of Goat Island, the little ship headed straight for the Falls until we were so close beneath them that the falling water filled almost the whole view, and it seemed as if the heavens themselves were descending in a deluge. Forward, and to the starboard, we worked our way towards the awful cauldron at the angle of the Horseshoe, rolling heavily in a steep, smoothly rounded swell, which emerges from its throbbing depth. Our progress was slower and slower, for, work as the engine might, the screw had little driving power in the frothy water. At last the water became so frothy that we could no longer stem the outgoing current, and we drifted away, drenched, and blinded by the spray. So much for the Falls. I pass on now to the Rapids and Whirlpool of the Niagara gorge. FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 123 Crossing the suspension bridge to the Canadian side, we fared along the cliffs on the left bank overlooking the smooth 28. AMERICAN FALLS FROM BELOW, SHOWING THE BREAK-UP OF THE WATER waters of the long, deep pool where a scrollwork of spent foam alone attests the recent turbulence of the water. From 124 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH the commanding elevation of the lower railway bridge we looked down upon the commencement of the Middle, or Whirlpool Rapid, directly below us. Here the water begins to flow swiftly in a narrowing and contracting channel, and standing waves originate from each bank, their ridges extend ing diagonally across and down stream. Some distance lower down the standing waves originating from the left bank meet those originating from the right bank near the middle of the stream, so that by their combination the waves are higher in the centre than at the sides. Everywhere in the Rapid, except at the commencement, the waves break and foam at the crest, so that most of the surface of the Rapid is whitened with foam. But what is peculiar about the Rapid is that not only are there the usual stationary waves but that these wax and wane markedly in size, and, after passing their maximum, disengage travelling or progressive waves, facing diagonally upstream, which make their way, foaming, across the river, preserving the direction of their front but drifting down with the current. Thus as we look down upon the torrent, we see the headlong rush of the water by the progress of patches of foam, we see the vertical heaving and back-and-forward swaying of the standing waves, and we see two sets of travelling waves, one set FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 125 breasting their way from the right bank towards the left, and the other from the left towards the right. The whole effect bt 29. X EARING THE HORSESHOE, FROM THE AMERICAN SIDE is extremely wild and turbulent. Just at the bend of the Rapid, opposite the Whirlpool Rapids Station of the light 126 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH railway, the standing waves at the centre of the stream are largest, and here they displayed a phenomenon, which I did not notice in those higher up. Not only did they heave and sway, but occasionally they leapt up in a column of white water, their form and cohesion shattered. Proceeding along the cliffs on the left bank, I looked down from almost directly above and from a height of about two hundred and fifty feet, upon these leaping waves, and noticed that the leap occurred when two or more of the travelling waves happened to converge simultaneously upon the standing mounds. Later on I went to the view-point on the right bank at the Whirlpool Rapids Station of the Niagara Gorge Railway which is at the sharpest bend of the river, and opposite the place where the waves leap most. The Rapid here is truly terrific. The great mound of water opposite me, I estimated to vary from fifteen to twenty feet high as it waxed and waned.* Ever and anon it flung its waters on high and a deluge of spray flew to leeward. Moreover the position I had taken up on the margin proved to be insecure, for at intervals great surges rushed in upon the shore submerging rocks which had stood a foot and more- * Taking the depth of undisturbed water at centre of the stream as- 40 feet, which the available data makes a probable value, the depth at wave-crest would be 50 feet and at trough 30 feet. FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 127 above the water. These surges may have been partly due to the travelling waves seen from above, but were partly, I think, due to down-stream progressive waves which are invisibly present in the centre of streams with a V-shaped * .. ¦ _ BrS' " ^ s |^*3Jj£r»5cP'*; '¦%;*£>¦ : 30. LEAPING WAVES AT THE BEND OF THE MIDDLE, OR WHIRLPOOL, RAPID section, but become obvious when they discharge themselves laterally upon the shelving banks. Thus did I watch the conflict of waters and the maze of motions, now lost in awe and admiration of the splendid display of force, now crushing down the imagination and compelling myself to reason 128 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH closely upon the mechanism of the whole thing. Though less pictorial, this part of the Rapid is in some ways finer than the Falls themselves, there being more variety of motion in the heaving, swaying and leaping of these stand ing waves through which the current courses. The Middle or Whirlpool Rapid, descending fifty feet in the course of little more than a mile, discharges into a deep pocket formerly open at its lower end but now blocked there by sedimentary rocks. Once in the course of its long history the Niagara River must have flowed to Lake Ontario by this route, but, later, a breach was made on the right hand, and the river found a new outlet, which it now follows, to the lake. The current from the Whirlpool Rapid does not, how ever, bend sharply round so as to flow at once along this channel. It continues, on the contrary, in a straight course, its momentum carrying it past the opening where it leaves the Rapid for the Whirlpool. Here standing waves cease, and the water progresses in whirls ; travelling vortices which follow one another in endless succession past the exit, and on through the right centre of the pool. In these whirls the circulation is about a vertical axis, the water being sucked down at the centre with a corkscrew motion. Much drift wood finds its way into the pool. Logs and even trees may FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 129 be seen whirling in one or other of the travelling vortices, and presently one end of the pole will be sucked down so 31. STANDING WAVE IN THE MIDDLE RAPID BETWEEN THE BEND AND THE WHIRLPOOL strongly that the other end is tilted up into the air and the pole then goes down, standing, into the depths. The opposition of the bank compels a general circulation of the water towards the left, and as it comes round south wards under the left bank, the travelling vortices become 130 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH fewer and less active. The position which we took up was on the edge of the cliff near the entrance to the pool on the Canadian side. Below us the water was dark green, and free from foam, and a little further out its surface was un dulated in little smoothly rounded waves. This was near the margin of the foaming, inflowing current, and here, more over, there was a fringe of driftwood. This is where the water which has swung round from our left dives under the inflowing torrent. Beyond, opposite the exit, we could clearly see the upv^elling of the water where it comes again to light on the further side of the inflow. There the surface of the pool is foaming and without waves, instead of being green and wavy, as on the near, down-flowing side. Another difference is that the upwelling water near the exit bears no flotsam and jetsam on its surface. The foam on the surface reveals the mode of motion of the upwelling water. This is anti-cyclonic, flowing outwards from the raised •centre, and the foam is mostly collected in a ring at the circumference of the circular boss. The curvature of the surface is very slight at the centre of the boss, but greater at the margin. In the travelling whirls or vortices the motion is cyclonic, the surface water flowing towards the centre. In them the surface gradient is greatest near the centre, 32. WHIRLPOOL, NIAGARA, SHOWING WAVED SURFACE OF DESCENDING WATER ON NEAR SIDE OF ENTERING TORRENT FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 133 and much greater there than in any part of the upwelling anticyclones or " boilers." The Whirlpool itself is about one hundred and fifty feet deep. The water escapes over a shelf where the depth is only fifty feet. Flowing on with, at first, only moderate velocity it soon enters on a steeper bottom and flows swiftly along the Lower Rapid, which extends to the edge of the Lake Erie plateau, where the river debouches on the Ontario plain. The total descent of the Lower Rapid is about the same as that of the Middle or Whirlpool Rapid, viz. fifty feet, but the length is greater and the velocity con sequently less. I examined the Lower Rapid during several visits to different spots on the right, or American, bank, which I reached by means of the Niagara Gorge Light Rail way. The standing waves were in more regular series than in the Whirlpool Rapid, were of great size, and were very beautiful and imposing. They did not heave and sway nearly so much as those in the Whirlpool Rapid, and they never leapt or burst in columns of foam as do the standing waves at the bend of the Whirlpool Rapid. Considering the terrific speed of the Whirpool Rapid I had expected an ever finer display of standing waves than I saw there. Afterwards I was surprised to find the standing waves so 134 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH large in the somewhat slower water of the Lower Rapid. On the other hand there was not nearly so great a development of the cross-stream travelling waves in the Lowef Rapid. I now attribute these differences mainly to the circumstance that the Whirlpool Rapid has a fairly sharp bend and the Lower Rapid a much straighter course. In regular waves there must be a forward current at the crest and a backward current at the trough, and these two currents must be in the same vertical plane. The late Professor James Thompson showed experimentally that when a river flows round a bend, the surface water continues in its forward course towards the outside of the bend whilst the bottom water slips back diagonally under it towards the inner side of the bend. This therefore must occur opposite the Whirlpool Rapids Station of the Niagara Gorge Railway. Now, what is the effect of such divergence between the direction of the surface current and of the water below it ? It must tend to set up horizontal rotation about a vertical axis, in other words, a whirling motion, in place of waves. In the Lower, Straight rapid there are fairly regular standing waves ; in the pool there are no standing waves, and no large waves of any kind, but a procession of travelling whirls or vortices, and at the bend of the Middle or Whirlpool Rapid, there is, I suggest, a 33- WHIRLPOOL, NIAGARA, SHOWING FOAM OF UPWELLING WATER ON FAR SIDE OF ENTERING TORRENT FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 137 struggle between the conditions which produce standing waves and those which produce whirls. The remarkable development of cross-stream travelling waves in the Middle Rapid is, I think, not wholly due to the great velocity of the water, but largely to this struggle which, presumably, produces alternate congestion and release of the water, and therefore a strongly pulsating current.* When observing on the right bank of the Lower Rapid, between Giant Rock and Devil's Hole, I found that from time to time freshets came down from the Whirlpool. They were not waves, for their high water lasted as much as a minute and a half. Doubtless there had been a block in the " traffic " at the throat of the pool followed by the release of a large quantity of water. This is an exaggeration of the process which, I suppose, to assist the formation of cross-stream travelling waves in the Middle Rapid. On more than one occasion I saw in the smoother parts of the Lower Rapid some of the smaller bodies of water disengaged from up above travelling down-stream as whirling entities. These whirls travelled as a pair, an anticyclone and a cyclone side by side, the former being a dome of upwelling water, * This is an advance upon the treatment of the problem in my book on Waves of the Sea and other Water Waves." 138 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH the latter a conical depression of descending water. The difference of level between the boss of the anticyclone and the pit of the cyclone must have been some feet. I have been told that in the smooth stream below Lewiston " boilers " occasionally come up from below, which are dangerous to small boats. Such were the phenomena which I saw between the Railway Suspension Bridge and the Lewiston Suspension Bridge in the course of our three weeks' stay at Niagara Falls. I well remember how I rested in the pretty and peaceful village of Lewiston beyond the turmoil of the Rapids. Their headlong and irregular motion, noise and spray, make close observation and accurate thought ex tremely exhausting. The Whirlpool Rapid, moreover, in its confused haste and cruel buffetings is unpleasantly sug gestive of the struggle of life. When I reached the calm waters and the pleasant fields beyond the gorge, I used to dream of an old age spent in placid enjoyment of the beautiful world. On the morning of July 27th we looked our last on the Falls from Father Hennepin's View at Prospect Corner. The low sun on the left threw the sloping shadow of the cliff upon the cloud of floating spray. Below, from time FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 139 to time between the gusts of spray, black rocks were seen with water streaming from them. Over all was a double rainbow. Running to Lewiston by the light railway down the gorge, we embarked on a steamer, and crossed the placid waters of Lake Ontario to Toronto, where we arrived at one o'clock in beautiful summer weather. Toronto is a city where one feels at home. It is thoroughly British, having; neither the foreign language prevalent in Montreal nor the foreign manners of St Paul and Chicago. The city is finely situated on the lake, the business portion is imposing,, and the residential quarters beautiful, with their long boulevards of shady trees. The place has an air, domestic but enterprising, prosperous but not aggressive. We admired the imposing buildings of the Parliament and enjoyed the beautiful stretches of lawn on which it stands. Both in Canada and the United States there is indeed no lack of fine green turf. We enjoyed our dinner in a good restaurant, and took pride in all our surroundings until the time came to go on board the train for the last of our night journeys. We were to do the three hundred miles to Montreal, partly by rail, partly by steamer. The railway 140 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH portion was about one hundred and thirty miles along the north shore of Lake Ontario; the part done by steamer one hundred and seventy miles of the River St Lawrence. After a very hot and stuffy night in the train we embarked at Kingston, and looked with tired eyes upon a Martello tower and other picturesque features of this old town, which was still sleeping in the early morning light of the long summer's day. Comfortably established upon the deck of the fine river steamer, we presently regained strength and freshness to enjoy the scenery of the St Lawrence. The first portion is the broad expanse called the Lake of the Thousand Isles, lying between the Province of Ontario on the left bank and the State of New York on the right. Some of the low rocky islets are picturesquely clad with pines, others are crowned with houses whose conspicuous situation has often tempted their owners to indulge in architectural feats of a startling kind. A mediaeval castle, obviously replete with the latest improvements, is perhaps the highest ideal. The course of the St Lawrence is much straighter than that of most rivers. Its wider reaches give the impression, with their low shores, of a mere or lake. These are connected by somewhat formidable rapids down several of which we FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 141 shot, guided by the hand of an Indian pilot at the wheel. Not gifted with the mechanical aptitude of the white man, the Red Indian can nevertheless assist him with his quick and accurate perception of the untamed forces of nature. In the afternoon we passed the forty-fifth parallel of lati tude and there left behind the State of New York, having Canada on either hand for the remainder of the way. In a broad mere-like reach of the river we looked past low islets on the right to an undulating plain and hills or low moun tains in the far distance, a beautiful and varied country. Extending my arm with the hand crooked I found that the whole extent of plain and mountain was covered by the breadth of one finger, so small is the angle subtended by that more distant part of landscape in which its interest so often lies. No wonder that an ordinary camera, made to include in its field of view perhaps as much as half a right- angle, should give a picture of the distant parts of a landscape less satisfactory than that of a sketch in which the artist may give the whole width of his paper to a vertical angle of four or five degrees. By five o'clock we sighted Mount Royal. Soon after wards we shot the Lachine Rapids, with, I think, not much 142 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH water to spare under the ship's bottom, and berthed at Montreal, the only place where our traverse of the Con tinent intersected the route of our former visit two and a half years before. The Park of Mount Royal was less beautiful in the heavy summer greenery than when seen in its winter garb, but the great panorama to the south was finer, for the St Lawrence was a broad band of blue flowing in the green and fertile prairie, instead of showing the leaden waters of late autumn or the frozen current of winter. Socially, Montreal was at its dullest, and most of the people we knew had gone either to the mountains of the west or to one of the innumerable lakeside or riverside resorts for the boating, fishing, and outdoor life of a Canadian summer holiday. We spent three days at the Windsor Hotel, going on board the Allan liner Tunisian on the evening of Friday, July 31st and sailing early on the morning of Saturday, the first of August. At first the broad river, with its low shore, had the appearance with which we had become familiar, but presently we came to that part where it flows between well-defined banks, imparting an appearance more characteristically river-like. Houses with steep grey roofs and white walls came into view, replacing the flat-roofed red-brick boxes which disfigure the environs of Montreal. The churches of FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 143 this Roman Catholic district are numerous and large. Many of them have two spires at the western end, and they greatly enhance the charm and beauty of the landscape. Arriving at Quebec at half-past four in the afternoon we had two hours to wander in that picturesque and interesting city. There is nothing English about it, and nothing American. Its architecture is that of the Continent of Europe and, more particularly, that of France. This applies to the modern as well as to the older buildings. The Church is, accord ing to all testimony, the dominant factor in the life of this city; the culture of the priests is that of Europe, and the taste of the community is educated by the standards of France and Rome. From the citadel there is a wide view embracing the river, with its high bluffs on the right bank, beyond which is plateau country, whilst from the left bank an extensive plain rises gradually northward towards a distant range of mountains. The broad lands of the Province of Quebec lay smiling and peaceful under a varied canopy of blue sky and white cloud. Leaving Quebec on the same evening we waited for the mails on the following, Sunday, morning off Rimouski, on the right bank of the St Lawrence, and then started on 144 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH the uninterrupted voyage to Moville on the north coast of Ireland. That night we passed the Island of Anticosti and on the morning of Monday, August 3rd, turned northward for the Straits of Belle Isle, between Newfoundland and Labrador. The morning was balmy until about 10.30 a.m., when the air became suddenly chilly, and by 5.30 p.m. we sighted icebergs ahead, glimmering through a thin white veil of gauze-like mist, attendant on them. They were of strange and fretted forms, and one of them could be recognised by the vertical dirt-bands as a portion of a glacier which, owing to irregular melting, was now floating on its side. The thin cold mist lying on the water gave a look of such stillness to the scene that it seemed as if sounds were hushed, and the whole weird, northern effect stirred the heart within one with the " call of the wild." I fretted that I had no power to turn the ship northward to seek the arctic shores whence these messengers come, borne along by the cold current which sweeps the coast of Labrador. Many icebergs were passed at night, and we saw the last at nine o'clock next morning, having had their company for a hundred miles before reaching the northernmost point of Newfoundland and for a hundred miles afterwards. Once past them, and the ccl^1 current in which they were drift- FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 145 ing, we got into warmer weather and the sky lost its, wintry look. And so from this Tuesday we steamed on pleasantly,, drowsily, uneventfully, across the Atlantic till Saturday, when we could smell the wet moorlands of the Irish hills ahead of us in the rain and mist. We touched at Moville, that night, landed at Liverpool next morning, and ran up to London by the North- Western special train, through the green fields divided by hedgerows whose trim neatness had become a marvel to us, already accustomed to the crude countryside of America where there has not yet been leisure to make things tidy. Thus we reached Euston on the afternoon of Sunday, August 9th, having been absent one hundred and ninety- one days and travelled some twenty thousand miles round the planet. We had seen the southern stars, ex perienced the charm of a voyage in tropic seas, viewed the marvel of tropic vegetation, and watched the sails of Chinese junks on the fringe of the wonderful Chinese world. We had gazed our fill on the glories of Japanese temples, had realised Buddhism, and admired the strange and beautiful life of the Japanese people. We had crossed in summer time the American prairies where the wheat was K 146 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH ripening. At Niagara we had seen the glory of cataracts and waterfalls, and added something to the science of waves. We had again seen Canada and felt the pride of it, and we were well content.* In the two years, 1904 and 1905, following our visit to Niagara we made long sojourns in Switzerland, studying * Lest anyone should overestimate the extent of the earth's surface which is seen in a journey round the world I append the following calculation of the distance which must be traversed, and the time required, really to see the world. Travelling round the world from west to east or vice versa by rail and steamer we see a strip of about 10 geographical miles wide, viz. 5 miles on either side of us. Hence, as the distance along the earth's surface from Pole to Pole is 10,800 geographical miles we should have to make 1080 such circuits in order to see the whole of the earth's surface. The length of the circuits varies according to the latitude in which we circle the planet, from nothing at the Poles to 21,600 geographical miles at the Equator. Taking the average length of a degree of longitude at 38 .geographical miles the average length of these circuits is 13,680 miles. The total distance to be traversed in order to see the world is therefore 13,680 x 1080 = 14,774,400 geographical miles, or about seventeen million statute miles. Now the highest average speed which we can at present attain is not more than 26 geographical (about 30 statute) miles per hour by train (for trans-continental journeys) and 14 geographical miles per hour by steamer (for long voyages). Supposing half the travelling to be done by rail and half by steamer and these means of transit to be everywhere available, we .get 20 geographical miles per hour as a maximum limit of speed. If we be content to view part of the land and sea by starlight and moonlight, then the daily run is 480 miles, and the total time required is only S5 years- but if we mean to see the world by daylight then, allowing 15 hours a day for our scenic run, we only make 300 miles daily and the time required to see the world will be 136 years. FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 147 cataracts and progressive waves in streams, and the wave- tracks of ships which are so wonderfully revealed by the glassy mirror of Swiss lakes. The observations are re corded in my book on " Waves of the Sea and other Water Waves." In all we visited Switzerland seven times be tween 1896 and 1909, and how much we gained from the beauties of that life-giving land! Sometimes we would stay at Grindelwald in spring or early summer when the valley is quiet, and gaze at the Eiger Wall of ten thousand feet, or walk under the castellated cliffs of the Wetterhorn. Then I would get a guide and go up the glacier to sleep at the Strahleg Hut and see the sun rise on the higher peaks, and puzzle over the mechanism of crevasses, and watch the avalanches gliding snakily on the steep slopes, or plunging like waterfalls over cliffs. Or we would explore the region near the foot of a glacier, where Ellen would follow out the way in which plant life makes a beginning where the ice has abandoned the ground. Sometimes we would stay at Gunten on the Thunersee, whence lake and foothill and snowy peaks are all in view. This Ellen regarded as more truly beautiful than the higher resorts where the great peaks hang, foreshortened, immediately above. It was Ellen's habit to impress a favourite scene upon 148 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH her mind indelibly and in all its details. Many hundreds of times seated under the shelter roof on the after part of the lake steamers did she traverse the lake in the long summer days, always gazing on the passing panorama of meadow and mountain, chalet and castle, pine wood and snowy peak. These and numberless other scenes from many parts of the world she could visualise at any time and place, and by recalling a succession of past scenes and land scapes could surround herself with beautiful images in the dullness of a winter night, or during hours of pain or sickness. If I had more actively the faculty of research Ellen had in greater degree the power of communion with Nature. The latter is the more precious gift to its possessor, but the wisdom which it brings is less communicable than the knowledge obtained by investigation. Sometimes we would sojourn at Montreux, quartering ourselves in the quaint village of Veytaux under the steep slopes of the Chillon Woods. The expanse of Lake Leman, which viewed from Montreux is unlimited in the direction of Geneva, gives the sense of space which we have with the sea, but which is wanting by the Lake of Thun. There is, it is true, the drawback of unpicturesque houses in the fore ground. These worried me as they worry most people who^ FALLS AND RAPIDS OF NIAGARA 149 combine a love of the beautiful with but small artistic faculty. Art, they say, is selection, and Ellen had that faculty so highly developed that her attention, rapt in lake and moun tains, was not distracted or disturbed by the trifles of the foreground. Gifted with a faculty to concentrate on the great things in life she had been in like manner able, without repining, to sacrifice luxuries and a home that we might acquire knowledge, and do something for its advancement. CHAPTER V THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 In December 1906 we sailed from Liverpool for Colon and Kingston. Ellen was anxious to see the Panama Canal works which had lately been resumed by the Government of the United States. At this time the reports that reached Europe, most of them from American writers, were not as a rule hopeful of ultimate success. Looking back to that time it appears remarkable that Ellen should have divined that it was important to me, as well as interesting to her, to see these works. As it turned out we could have chosen no place where, as a geographer, I should have found so much good material conveniently at hand. Considering her family record it was perhaps natural that she should have an instinct for engineering. Her mother's five brothers were all civil engineers and all men of more than ordinary capacity in that direction. It was our intention after visiting the Canal works to 150 THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 151 spend the remainder of the winter in Jamaica, in pursuance of a project formed during our flying visit to Colombo. Our object was to spend a sufficient time quietly and residentally amidst tropical scenery to let its charm and beauty sink in. Sailing from Liverpool we steered for Mona Passage, between Hayti and Puerto Rico, passing north of the Azores. For the first twelve hundred miles we had cold, rough weather, a heavy swell always coming from the stormy region to the north-west of us. Reckoned at right angles to its direction of travel the swell had a " wave-front " of a thousand miles. After passing the Azores we reached the second stage of the voyage, that of the brighter sky, drier air. and pleasant temperature which are associated with sailing in the " thirties " of latitude. Entering a region of easterly winds the waves raised thereby crossed and over rode the north-westerly swell, the combination waves rising to a peak and bursting, the blue water and white foam giving animation to a scene which had been gloomy till the advent of the sun. On the morning of the fifteenth day, we were close under the palm-fringed shores of Puerto Rico and a balmy fragrance filling the whole air wafted the mind back to the East Indies. So perfectly is their scenery and atmos- 152 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH phere reproduced that it is little wonder Columbus was deceived.* We entered then the Caribbean Sea, bearing down in a south-westerly direction straight for the mouth of the Magdalena River on the Spanish " Main," i.e. mainland. The brisk trade wind, directly aft, blew pleasantly by, for we only steamed at ten and a half knots, the waters around were pleasantly warm, and the unfailing sun was a friend in his winter aspect, reaching scarcely higher in the sky than he does at midsummer in England. When one remembers the many pleasant ports and havens of the Caribbean and the advantage of a reliable and constant wind, one can scarcely wonder that the life of a buccaneer in these regions had charms in old days for the man before the mast. He escaped the intense discomfort of the life on a small ship during cold, rough weather, when his clothes were never dry, and he never got a meal properly cooked. He also exchanged the daily bullying of the merchant skipper, sup ported by law in the brutal exercise of his necessary * The difficulty of determining longitude before the days of accurate timepieces led to an exaggerated estimate of the eastward extension of Asia. Thus the globe of Martin Beheim, constructed before the discovery of America, shows the eastern coast of Asia and its off-lying islands where the West Indies and the coasts of America actually are. The incorrect shapes of the continents on old maps are, I believe, mainly due to distor tion in the east-and-west direction, the north-to-south distances being fairly accurate. THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 153 authority, for the less harassing control of a captain of free booters, ultimately dependent for everything upon his crew. As midnight passed on the last day of 1906 the hoarse, vibrating boom of our steam horn sounded over the lonely and silent waters, for thus does a ship's community record the passing of each year of our short life, and greet the advent of the unknown. It was on New Year's Day of 1907, at eleven and a half degrees from the Equator, that we first sighted South America, and what we then saw was a group of three glaciated peaks. These were the crowning sum mits of the isolated mountains known as the Sierra Nevada de Santa Martha, situated not far from the shore and attain ing an elevation of more than sixteen thousand feet. The group is so short and compact that it is better described as a mountain massif than a range of mountains, and this massif rises an Alpine island from a low plain intensely tropical in character. On January 4th, twenty days out from Liverpool, we arrived at Colon, the Atlantic, or Caribbean, terminus of the Panama railroad. Here the trade wind blows home, but its breeze is damp as well as warm, and the sunlit scene is frequently bemused by scudding showers, whose raindrops evaporate all the time from the heated ground. Thus the 154 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH residents of Colon enjoy for eight months in the year the unusual privilege of a simultaneous shower and vapour bath. The low shore is picturesquely fringed with rows of the cocoa-nut palm, the most decorative tree of the tropics ; and Christobal Point is further decorated by the pretty bunga lows of the official suburb erected with French taste and neatness in the days of de Lesseps. One important altera tion has, however, been made since that time, viz. that the windows, and even the verandahs, have been covered in with copper gauze of so fine a mesh that no mosquito can pass through. The doorway to the verandah shuts with a strong spring so that the mosquito cannot follow even a careless or forgetful householder. The discovery that malaria is due to the attack of those anopheles mosquitoes which themselves happen to be infected by the germ of the disease was made between the date of the winding-up of the old canal company and the recommencement of active work by the American Government. This discovery made an immense difference in the prospect of American success, and it was followed by the discovery that yellow fever was due to the attack of infected stegomyia mosquitoes. The latter disease had been peculiarly prevalent among visitors to the city of Panama. Inhabitants born and bred on the Isthmus were for the most THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 155 part immune from the disease, but whenever large bodies of white strangers gathered there an epidemic broke out. The disease is so swiftly fatal that an epidemic is peculiarly alarming, and an outbreak which occurred in 1905, the year after the Americans took over the work, produced such a stampede among them that it was apparent that unless the disease were mastered the Canal works would have to be abandoned. Knowing the source of the disease and having in fact, though not in theory, complete control of Panama, the Isthmian Canal Commission adopted drastic measures. Turning on a small army of four thousand men to the work they cleared out the movables from every house in the city, burnt large quantities of pyrethrum powder in every empty room, and in the streets and squares burnt up all dust and refuse matter removed from the houses. Thus all the stegomyia mosquitoes were, apparently, destroyed, for the stegomyia is a mosquito of towns and does not occur gener ally on the Isthmus. The epidemic ceased in November, 1905, and there had only been a solitary case in 1906. I may add that between 1906 and 191 1 there has only been one other case. The eradication of the disease is the more strik ing because the city of Panama, on its different sites, had been known as a pest-house of yellow fever for something like 156 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH four hundred years. The complete success obtained is due to the following circumstances, which I give on the authority of Colonel W. C. Gorgas, M.D., U.S.A., head of the Sanita tion Department of the Isthmian Canal Commission. These - circumstances are that the life of the stegomyia is three months, and that there are only three days of the disease dur ing which a man suffering from yellow fever can infect the stegomyia. Thus, since the germ or organism causing the disease in man requires for its propagation the services of man and stegomyia alternately, it is sufficient for the eradica tion of the disease in a district that there should be no case of yellow fever for a little more than three months. The disease will not again occur in the district unless it be introduced from outside, and if the stegomyia be exterminated a case of yellow fever introduced from outside cannot spread. The complete eradication of malaria is a more difficult matter, partly because the anopheles mosquito is almost ubiquitous in the tropics, and partly because the parasite of malaria can live in the blood of man for no less than three years, during the whole of which time the man is infectious to healthy mosquitoes. Thus the Canal Commission have not at any time been able to eradicate malaria from the Canal Zone. Even by January 1907, however, it had been greatly THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 157 reduced, and since then it has been year by year diminished by the adoption of the following measures. First the em ployees are housed in gauze-screened buildings. Thus they sleep protected, and it is chiefly at night that the anopheles attack. Secondly by getting rid of all stagnant water in the neighbourhood of dwellings, or by covering with oil stagnant waters which remain, the larvae of the mosquitoes cannot be hatched. For deciding on the area to be drained or " oiled " it is important to know how far the visiting neighbourhood of the anopheles extends. Fortunately he does not travel a long distance. Colonel Gorgas assigns two hundred yards as his longest migration.* The third, and last, precaution is to cinchonise the blood. Quinine in the blood is poisonous to the malarial parasite. By taking small daily doses of quinine the blood is kept permanently cinchonised, and it is then comparatively difficult for the organisms injected by the anopheles to increase and multiply. For this reason all canal employees are supplied with quinine and are enjoined to dose themselves daily. * Recent research by the Sanitation Department has shown that this is an underestimate. During my visit to the Canal works in April-May 1912, they informed me that having hatched larvae of anopheles albamanus they stained the adults and let them fly. Many of the stained individuals were collected at a distance of one thousand yards, some at a mile, having flown this distance against a light wind. 158 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH I have dealt at the outset with the campaign against yellow fever and malaria because it was the only part of the preparation for canal building which was properly organised at the time of our first visit. I do not include in this statement the political and strategic preparations, but refer only to the aspect of construction. It was proposed to con struct a canal at a maximum level of 85 feet above sea, but in January, 1907, the advocates of the sea-level scheme had still a fighting chance. In a high-level canal, construction is of two kinds, excavation and the building of dams and locks. For a sea-level canal excavation only is needed. Whatever scheme were to be ultimately adopted the backbone of the Isthmus, the Culebra Hills, must be cut through, and at the time of our visit the deepest part of the cutting, opposite the town of Culebra, was the place of greatest interest. We therefore took train for this spot. A considerable part of the way was through swamps where the vegetation grew not out of mud, but water. This vegetation is very beautiful and luxuriant, and the railway journey would be well worth undertaking if it were only for the opportunity which it affords of seeing the heart of a tropical swamp without having to wade through it. At one place called the Black Swamp the train crawled cautiously, while the sagging road-bed THE PANAMA CANAL From the reports of" the Isthmian Canal Commission CA&IJB&EiAir, SEA 160 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH caused bubbles of air or gases to rise and burst in the thick and inky waters on either side of the line. The Black Swamp has imbibed an enormous amount of material since the railway was first made, and in spite of everything which has been thrown in or been accidentally engulfed the railway is still, practically, floating. In the eight miles of elevated ground comprising the dividing range of hills is the Culebra Cut, which is the main part of the excavation required for a high-level canal. Now and again the train was brought in sight of the cuttings made by the French. The rapid growth of the vegetation in this warm and moist climate had clothed the bottom and sides of the cuttings with a green covering which so blended with the colouring of the surrounding forest as to render the excavations incon spicuous, leading the casual observer to underestimate the extent of the work done. Alighting at Culebra Station we walked in the hot noonday up a steep road to the point where a view is obtained of the deepest part of the cutting between Silver Hill on the west and Gold Hill on the east. This is the great trench of which we had heard so much. Here the vegetation which clothed the older work made the cutting look almost like a natural gorge in the hills. 34- VIEW LOOKING SOUTH, CULEBRA, JULY, Igio THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 163 The portion done by the Americans in the two years and a half of their occupation being all bare rock was readily distin guished from the older French work, and I perceived at once that it was insignificant in comparison with the great green slopes above which represented work of the French. Their bottom cut was 152 feet below the original level of the saddle on the centre line of excavation opposite Gold Hill, and the cliff which they cut in the face of the hill was no less than 374 feet in vertical height. It came upon me with a shock that I had fallen into a vulgar error in thinking poorly of the work done here by the French in the days of de Lesseps. Everything I have seen since has convinced me that the French engineers must have been men of energy and ability who did fine work under circumstances of difficulty and danger. It has been their misfortune that unsuccessful and unscrupulous finance gave the whole undertaking a bad name and the world would not believe in the great progress which had really been made. From the same post of observation we saw another evidence of popular error with reference to the French work. It has been the fashion to say that their machinery was both bad in quality and unsuitable in character. Opposite our post of observation was one of their old locomotives, of Belgian manufacture, hauling a dirt train along the roughly laid 164 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH tracks. These old engines proved to be still efficient when put again into operation and to be excellently suited to the rough conditions of work. Again, it has been the fashion to publish photographs of old French machinery overgrown with creeping plants, which was supposed to be wasted. Much of it no doubt has been necessarily superseded by the advance of mechanical science, but much of the more valu able machinery was so well preserved by a special prepara tion of anti-corrosive paint that it was almost ready for the uses to which it has since been put. The principal machine of the present-day work is the bucyrus or steam shovel, of which a number could be seen at work below us. With its bulky black body and long proboscis, its form and movements suggest a mechanical elephant. In deed, at a distance, or from any position from which the con trolling men are not visible, the machine appears to be en dowed with volition. Raising a great scoopful of broken rocks, it drops them upon the railway truck, and, if one larger than the rest, or awkwardly shaped, lie inconveniently or insecurely, the proboscis may be seen to pat and push the piece until it has been coaxed into a proper position. We noticed, however, that the machinery for transportation had not been supplied in quantity sufficient to remove the rock 35- looking north from culebra, august, igio THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 167 which was handled by the steam-shovels, and these and their crews stood idle for a large part of the day. Thus, though the work was being prosecuted with vigour, it was evident that its organisation was as yet imperfect. Moreover I found an antagonism between the American foremen and their gangs of West Indian negroes which was not conducive to progress or efficiency. How all these things were changed, when we visited the Canal in 1908, after the installation of Colonel Goethals as chairman and chief engineer, I shall tell later. At the dinner-hour work ceased in the Cut, and the white mechanics, almost all Americans, but with a few British among them, flocked to the large screened building which is the restaurant or hotel where the Commission provides three meals a day for the white employees of " gold roll," or skilled labour class. We went there also for our midday meal, and for two shillings each obtained an excellent luncheon, with cold iced tea to drink, nicely served at separate tables. There were nearly three hundred American mechanics lunch ing there, many of them men of very fine physique, and all appearing to be in good health and condition. The Ameri can mechanic follows the commendable practice of working in gloves, so that even though he has to handle black and oily 168 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH objects one can take one's place at table beside him without discomfort. He generally uses overalls which, when dis carded, leave him clean-suited. I do not see how, without these precautions, it is possible for a mechanic, other than a worker in wood or stone, to preserve his self-respect, for how can any man maintain self-respect if his physical condition is habitually and permanently objectionable? The table man ners of the American skilled mechanic are good, his general manners on an equality with those of the average American man of business, and his conversation is interesting. The next passenger train to Panama would have taken us through the scenery after dark, so we prevailed upon the breaksman of a freight train to take us in his van, and we saw the Pacific slope of the Isthmus by daylight. It enjoys a different climate from the Atlantic slope, with less wind and much lower rainfall ; and the vegetation, though rich, is not so riotous. The relief of the Pacific coast-line is also quite different, presenting conical or dome-topped hills with steep, rocky islands off the shore, in place of the long, low and level land about Colon. In fact, though the distance from Atlantic to Pacific is only thirty-six miles as the crow flies, one quite feels that a Continent has been crossed. We were lucky in our accommodation at Panama, being able to avail ourselves 36. the escarpment of gold hill, JULY, 19 10 THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 171 of the newly opened American hotel in the hilly suburb of Ancon. The " Tivoli " was originally intended for the accom modation of Canal officials only, but it had just been decided to open the building to tourists, while keeping the prices too high to compete unduly with the Panamanian hotels. The structure, except for its inflammability, is an ideal one for the climate. It is built of wood and painted inside in cool colours. The corridors and public rooms are large and lofty. These rooms occupy the whole width of the house, and they are provided on both sides with numerous French windows of great size which face each other so as to secure a through ¦draught. The glass-containing frames of these windows are kept hooked back except during heavy rain, the apertures being covered by spring folding doors of copper gauze. These necessarily check, though they do not stop, the breeze, but the increase of actual warmth due to this cause is partially compensated by the fact that the inmate is saved from heating combats with flies or other winged insects. During every visit which we have paid to the tropics we became more confirmed in the opinion that every house in these latitudes should be screened with wire gauze. If mosquitoes are many, it is necessary ; if few, it enables the inmate to dispense at night with the stuffy mosquito net. 172 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH And, in a climate where the coefficient of putrefaction is so high, every fly which touches food must be a possible danger. Next day we visited the city of Panama, which in situa tion and architecture is reminiscent of the Riviera, but suffered then from the disadvantage, since remedied, of unpaved streets. Partly on this account, no doubt, ants abounded, and the ant-eaters were protected animals. When they strolled into the town from the forest or savannah they received every attention ; and in the Cathedral Square we saw a Panamanian policeman respectfully scratching the back of one of these aboriginals. The present city dates from the time of Henry Morgan, who, in a.d. 1670, sacked Old Panama, which was situated a few miles to the east. As a. port, though not as a metropolis, Panama is destined soon to migrate westward a second time to the entrance of the Canal at la Bocca, now to be called Balboa, on the other side of Ancon Hill. Few other occidental cities in the tropics have- so long enjoyed great opportunities, yet with the exception: of the services of the Cathedral we could not find anything which was well done in Panama. The plea of climate is of course advanced, but I cannot help thinking that a very different stage of development would have been reached if it: had been four hundred years colonised by, and connected THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 173 with, Japan. It was unfortunate for the yellow races that the narrower waters of the Atlantic allowed the Europeans to take early possession of the two defenceless and almost empty Continents which the congested millions of the Far East could have colonised. The reticence of diplomacy only allows us to speculate how far the present eastward pressure of the yellow populations is responsible for the construction of the Panama Canal. On our return journey we saw at work some gangs of European navvies, chiefly Italians and Spaniards. The health problem having received an approximate solution, that of the supply of unskilled labour was now pressing. How great was the fortune of de Lesseps in that his first enterprise was in the classic land of enforced labour, where a despotic Khedive commanded the services of an industrious and ser vile population ! In this respect no land differs more from Egypt than the country of Panama, which has never, at least in modern times, had a supply of native labour sufficient either in numbers or capability for the accomplishment of a large undertaking. Chinamen were imported for the con struction of the Panama Railroad in the fifties, and the tale of their sufferings is as gruesome as of those borne by Indians under the early Spanish conquerors. The French Canal 174 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Company relied mainly upon the labour of West Indian negroes. They could be imported in sufficient numbers and at small cost, for the price of a deck passage from the Islands is but trifling. They had further the great advantage of being, by heredity, immune from yellow fever. But by the eradication of the disease the Americans had abolished this advantage. Moreover, they got on badly with these negroes, and the Commissioners reported to Washington that the West Indians were both by character and physique incap able of doing a good day's work. The proposal to replace them by Chinese fell through, and the Commission embarked on the policy of recruiting unskilled labour in southern Europe. There were now about five hundred European navvies at work, the Americans were very pleased with their performance, and there were hopes that they would quite dis place the West Indian negroes. It was an experiment of the highest interest in its bearing upon the momentous question of the future of the white race in the tropics. Here, with modern sanitation, full governmental control, and the com missariat resources given by modern cold-storage plant, the experiment of white labour in the tropics could be tried under favourable conditions and on an adequate scale. Certainly Ellen's intuition of the importance of the Panama Canal as a THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1907 175 subject of study was being justified. Before we re-embarked for Jamaica we had decided to return to the Canal, make a detailed examination of the undertaking in its various aspects, and see for ourselves what results would come from the experiment of white labour. Events were, however, waiting for us in Jamaica which caused our return to Panama to be delayed until a later date than we expected. CHAPTER VI OUR EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON, JAMAICA: AND A THEORY OF ITS CAUSE Heading east-of-north from Colon we faced the strong trade wind and pitched to the north-easterly swell. A run of five hundred and forty-six miles brought us to Jamaica, nearest of all the Antilles, and to the spacious and fortified harbour of Kingston, strategically situated upon the route from Colon to Canada. At 10 a.m. on the tenth of January the Blue Mountains, rising to a height of seven thousand feet, were above the horizon, though concealed by a thin haze, at a distance of sixty-two miles. The strong trade wind, however, revealed the distant land, wafting its perfume in a balmy breeze. Later, when we came under the shelter of the island, we ran out of the main north-east current of the trade wind, entering a local breeze from the south east, in which we lost the scent of the land. This local 176 THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 177 current of air is the sea breeze which gets up each morning, bringing coolness and refreshment to Kingston, and is welcomed as " the doctor." The mountains which form the eastern third of Jamaica, grassy to their summits, now stood out before us, bathed in hot sunshine. The spurs from the main range have sharp ridges and steep slopes with subsidiary spurs also sharply ridged. The skyline of the main ridge is serrated. The forms are those imparted by active erosion to strongly folded mountains, and there are no volcanoes or volcanic forms, although some of the rocks are eruptive in their origin. Away to our left lay the western two-thirds of the island, mainly a limestone plateau, though the edge facing us pre sents a saw-like skyline of wooded eminences. They are of much less altitude than the Blue and Port Royal Moun tains to our right, never rising to three thousand feet. The western border of the eastern mountains trends back from the coast in a north-western direction, meeting the margin of the western plateau which runs back east-and-north to meet it. Meeting thus in a re-entrant angle they bound on the landward sides a district, based on the sea, which is known as the Linguinea Plain. The coast-line westwards for some miles from the eastern end of this plain is sheltered by M 178 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH a sand-spit, connecting, and strengthened by, coral quays, which encloses the seven thousand acres of water which form Kingston Harbour. This magnificent natural haven has a depth of about forty feet in the approaches and about thirty feet at the wharves. The protecting sand-spit, with cocoa-nut palms towards the sea and mangroves at the back, is called the Palisadoes. At its westward termination stands Port Royal, the naval station of Jamaica, where are situated some of the forts which guard the harbour. Rounding the point of Port Royal we approached the town of Kingston, its brick houses, with roofs of wooden shingles, half-hidden by the foliage of its gardens. Behind the town the Linguinea Plain was in sight all the way to the foot of the mountains, some six miles back, beyond Constant Spring. This " Plain," though it has a perfectly plane surface, is not nearly horizontal, but slopes almost uniformly from the mountains to the sea at the rate of about one hundred feet in the mile. It is, in fact, a large fantalus of gravelly deposits brought by rivers from the mountains. The chief of these agents was the Hope River, but this has so incised its bed that it now flows past the point where it formerly debouched upon the plain, and reaches the sea east of Long Mountain. THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 179 Our ship arrived at her berth on the afternoon of Thurs day, January ioth, and we took up our quarters next day at a newly opened hotel, the " Grenville," 112 East Street. The electric tram-cars which run to Constant Spring and to Papine Corner are an excellent means of seeing some thing of the rural, but residential, Linguinea Plain at the back of Kingston. Indeed electric tram-cars in the form of an open trolley, with a shady roof, are a great boon in the tropics. Shielded from the high sun and from the reverbera ting heat of the ground, the passenger is refreshed by the strong and steady breeze caused by the rapid motion of the vehicle. Thus a " run on the cars " has become a popular method of taking the air among the residents in tropical cities. At Kingston the occupation is particularly delightful on account of the beauty of the suburban gardens and of the mountains beyond. The changing lights on the Blue and Port Royal Mountains are an endless delight, and make the environs of Kingston beautiful beyond the ordinary beauty of the tropics. In the foreground what strikes the new-comer most is a feature familiar to all dwellers in the tropics, viz. the presence of large and spreading trees, whose spacious dome-shaped canopies are a mass of brilliant flowers, the whole of which are simultaneously lighted by the 180 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH high sun which shines down upon them. Most conspicuous of all is the scarlet pointsettia or flamboyant tree whose spreading crown is almost equally composed of small bright green leaves and of flowers of flaming vermilion. The negroes, who constitute by far the largest part of the population of Jamaica, use the cars on terms of equality with the white people, there being neither "Jim Crow" cars nor back seats for them. As I watched their happy faces in the holiday mood of Sunday afternoon and listened to their merry laughter 1 wondered if they understood life better than the white man with his anxious forethought and brooding brow. Within twenty-four hours my question was answered in the negative, for, a great earthquake having occurred, the black people were plunged in a hopeless despondency with no power of foreseeing a better morrow. The white men, though harder hit by the catastrophe, were, on the whole, calm, resolute, and even cheerful. The black soldiers and police, officered and led by Englishmen, also remained cool and efficient. It was at half-past three on Monday, the fourteenth of January, that the earthquake came. The day was hot, and Ellen and I were sitting in our room after a long morning THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 181 spent out of doors. This room was at the south-west corner of the house on the upper or top story. The outer walls of the room were solid fourteen-inch brickwork, the ceiling of wooden planks. The exit was by a French window opening into an upper verandah which ran the length of the house. A tram-car came rattling up the street from the south, its noise increasing until it was opposite the house, and then, just as its travelling sound should have begun to diminish, there was a sudden increase of noise, which made me think for a moment that an accident had happened to the car; but almost immediately this noise became of appalling in tensity, like that of a hundred railway trains in its progres sive roar, accompanied, however, by a savage sound as of tearing and rending. For an instant I felt no shock, and did not realise the cause of the din, but Ellen, who was sitting nearer to the outer wall, felt a tremor of the floor, and, realising that it was an earthquake, sprang to my side and clasped her arms over my head to shield me from the danger of falling masonry, to which she thus remained fully exposed. Immediately the whole house was rocking violently. The west wall facing me gaped open in a long horizontal fissure, and this rocking wall, shaken to pieces, discharged a cannonade of brickwork into the room. Ellen 182 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH was struck, and a large block of brickwork hit me such a blow on the shin that I thought my leg had snapped. A shower of brickwork fell on the threshold of the exit, so that had Ellen's instinct been to save her own life she would almost certainly have been struck down and killed or maimed in the act of flight. But love, casting out fear, saved her. A cloud of dust and mortar now filled the air and darkened the room, and the din became terrific, from the roar of falling houses, and the nearer rattle of the falling brickwork and furniture. A heavy mahogany wardrobe, behind me, but which Ellen faced, executed a clumsy dance on the jumping floor and finally pitched over, its heavy cornice being flung over our heads and striking Ellen on the hip in its descent. We were being bombarded from both front and rear, but even had there been any direction in which safety could be found we could hardly have fled on account of the violent and irregular movements of the floor. As the boards opened and shut we could see into the unceiled room below. Until now, though the danger was manifestly great, we had not given up hope, and strove to afford each other mutual protection ; but a more awful moment came when the house suddenly seemed to lose its cohesion, the floor became like quicksand, and it seemed that in another second it would THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 183 give way, the walls would collapse, and the roof fall in upon us. A poignant feeling of regret for the life I was leaving gripped me. I realised the richness of the life which had closed. I said to Ellen: " I am afraid this is the end," but my voice was lost in the din. Scarcely, however, had I lost all hope of life when the bitterness of death passed away. I realised that the swift end was not unmerciful, and I thought with thankfulness that death together would save a second pang. As I felt my clasp returned by my wife's firm hand I knew that she also was reconciled to our fate. At this supreme moment the quaking floor suddenly stiffened under our feet, the house ceased to rock, the din died away, and the earthquake was over. I sprang up, raised the wicker chair over our heads to ward off any further falls of masonry, and stumbling over the debris in the dark and dust-laden room, we emerged on to the upper verandah, ran down the outer staircase, and found our selves in the sunny garden with the earth once more firm beneath our feet. I then observed that Ellen had rescued, and was holding in her left hand, my card-case. She must have picked it up from a table as we left our room, needless to say, without thinking what she was doing. I returned to our room to get our cameras. Glancing at the 184 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH bed on which Ellen had been resting a few minutes before the earthquake, I saw lying on the pillow a solid fourteen- inch block of brickwork which had fallen from the outer wall, whilst numbers of smaller fragments of brickwork lay on the coverlet. I sickened at the thought of what I should have seen there had not a persistent mosquito caused Ellen to abandon, a few minutes before the earthquake, the attempt to get an afternoon sleep. With difficulty I extricated the cameras from the overturned wardrobe. We left the walled-in garden and entered East Street. Only now did I realise the extent of the disaster. As I looked on the ruined city the thought rushed upon me, " Has man come upon the earth too soon? " " If," I thought, " this sort of thing were to become fairly general might not the human race be soon wiped out ? " Then, as I saw the stream of wounded and maimed people painfully making their way up from Harbour Street I felt that I could not commence a photographic record of seismic effects amidst all this misery. So I put the cameras back in the house, and we went down town without them. The people were dusty as millers with mortar and lime. The blood showed scarlet on white faces and sickeningly dark on the wounded negroes. On both the blood was loath- THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 185 somely mixed with mortar. But what made Kingston worse than a battlefield was the sight of children and babies in jured, dying, and even decapitated. No wonder that the negro women were frenzied. Some wandered aimlessly with rolling eyes and wriggling hands. Others cast themselves on their knees with arms upraised to Heaven, calling, " Oh, Lard Jesus, take me as I am! " A Seventh-day Adventist strode to and fro in the triumph of prophecy fulfilled, crying aloud, " Dis am de second coming of de Lard Jesus Christ! " On either side of the street houses and churches lay in ruins, across the street an entanglement of electric wires of the tramway suggested possible electrocution, and away to the west and south dense masses of smoke were rising from burning houses. The tale of the wreck of Kingston has been often told and I shall not repeat it at length. When I record the bare fact that about twelve hundred persons were killed outright in the city, or one in fifty of the whole popula tion, that thousands were wounded, and that the loss of property by earthquake and fire was some two million pounds, it will be realised how easily I might tell many tales of woe. The following anecdote is, I think, of some value as 186 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH showing how, in what appears to us to be the extremity of human suffering, the Divine Mercy may for a time have freed the mind from the pains of the flesh. A girl of about thirteen, daughter of a gentleman of Kingston, whom we later came to know well, ran along the landing towards a staircase to escape from the rocking house. A partition brick wall fell, crushing her to the floor, and driving some object into her side. The opposite wall fell across the first, so that the child was crushed beneath the weight of two walls. It was an hour or two before her brothers, found, and with difficulty, extricated her. She was conscious, and her appearance was pitiable and shocking. The rest of the story she told to Ellen. She said that from the moment that she was struck down fear passed away. More than this, during all the pleasant years of the childhood from which she was just emerging she had never known such happiness as that which took possession of her whole being while she lay wounded and helpless beneath the weight of masonry. In only one thing did the happiness of the whole hour fall short of the ideal of heavenly bliss, and this was in the apprehension that the searchers would find and move her. for she was conscious of the search and could hear voices, though unable to speak. The recovery, though THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 187 slow and painful, was complete, and now death for her has lost its terrors. It was dark soon after six o'clock on the evening of the earthquake. The supply of electricity had failed, and there 37. the fire as seen from 112 east street, Kingston jan. 14TH, 1907 was no moon, so that the night was spent in darkness save for the glow of a dense column of lurid smoke which rose from the great fire in the lower part of the town. The negroes, who thought the Judgment Day was at hand, concerned themselves but little with the fire. They con- 188 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH gregated in thousands upon the race-course, at no great distance from our hotel, where they sang hymns which never ceased for a minute all that night. Indeed the chant continued, with fewer voices, throughout the whole of Tuesday, swelling again in volume as the second night came on. There was no break or intermission until the small hours of Wednesday morning, when rain began to fall. Then the monotonous cadence from the race-course changed to a buzzing noise as of a hive of bees disturbed, and " Jerusalem the golden " ceased to annoy our nerves. The rain was, however, an unpleasant interruption to the little community at our hotel in. East Street, as, the walls of the house being badly riven, and minor earthquakes oc curring every hour or two, we all had to sleep on the open lawn. When the rain began we huddled under the stone arches of the verandah. Just as we were beginning to doze the earth began once more to tremble, and we bolted out into the rain again. Fortunately, the rain soon ceased, and except for want of shade and shelter from the hot sun by day, the camping-out was not unpleasant. The situation was so extraordinarily full of interest, human and scientific, that not even the unaccustomed horrors which I saw pre vented me from living those few days with uncommon zest. THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 189 There was necessarily much to do, though the circumstance of being an entire stranger greatly hampered one in any attempt to be useful. Things were happening at all hours 38. THEATRE ROYAL, KINGSTON of the day and night which called for study, observation, .and record. At one moment it was the grass lawn gently undulating from a southerly direction, the waves tilting the wicker chair on which I sat. Then would come the news that a volcano had broken out on the north of the island, 190 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH followed by a report that the Isthmus of Panama had sunk beneath the ocean. Neither piece of intelligence was sub sequently confirmed. I have said that the earthquake strikingly exhibited the difference in the natures of the black and the white man. Among the whites themselves it obliterated many customary distinctions but accentuated one, that, namely, between the selfish and the unselfish. Minor troubles generally evoke a display of selfishness among travellers and chance acquain tances, and I was prepared for the same thing in this great trouble. I was unprepared, however, for the heroic un selfishness of some of those around us whose worth we should never have known under ordinary conditions. It tame as a revelation to me that among those of one's acquaintance who appear to be ordinary there will always be some who only need the stimulus of disaster to display splendid qualities. There was no doubt in the Kingston earthquake an " upsetting of form," and though some may have been humbled there must be not a few who have resumed life's journey with greater confidence, having found there was better stuff in them than they knew of. We had intended to stay on in Kingston in order that I might study the physical effects of the earthquake. In- THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 191 deed, having chosen as my chief subject the study of all kinds of waves which concern geography, I regarded our presence in Kingston as a great stroke of good fortune. 39. ST GEORGE'S CHURCH, EAST STREET, KINGSTON Unfortunately, the earthquake and the excitements which followed brought back the insomnia from which Ellen had but recently recovered. On Thursday she was still sleep less, not having obtained so much as a momentary doze since Sunday night. The strain of this sleeplessness was 192 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH becoming serious, and we left by the afternoon train for Port Antonio, on the north of the island. The other tourists had already left the hotel and Kingston. The train was crowded with refugees, many of them badly wounded. Children cowered with fright at the dark ness and roar of the tunnels which recalled recent horrors. At each station inquirers learnt of the death or wounding of relatives or friends at Kingston. It was amidst these accom paniments that I scanned the scenery of Jamaica which we had purposed to enjoy in placid leisure. Ellen slept at last, and my chief anxiety was removed. In due course we arrived at the Titchfield Hotel at Port Antonio. The fine wooden building, since burnt down, was scarcely damaged. I first sought a bathroom, for I had had my clothes on since Monday morning, and it was now Thursday night. I found that I was a light-grey colour, being thickly coated with mortar-dust which must have got through and under my clothes during the earthquake. It took several baths to remove all this. Even at Port Antonio, which was distant from the most disturbed parts of the island, after-shocks occurred from time to time. Ellen, however, had recovered the power to sleep and offered to return to Kingston. This, however, 40. EAST STREET, KINGSTON 1 41. PILLARS BROKEN AT JUNCTION WITH WALL THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 197 I did not think advisable, and on January 23rd we sailed for England via the United States. The voyage commenced in the full heat of the tropics, but on the morning of the 28th we were awakened by the 42. BRICK SUPPORT COLLAPSED, WOODEN UPPER STORY OVERTURNED grinding of our ship's bows against heavy ice flows in the Delaware River. On the same afternoon we reached New York. Thus, travelling in the reverse direction, five days takes the New Yorker from his severe and inclement winter to the tropical climate and scenery of the West Indies. 198 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Staying in London, where our head-quarters were, we found that we had acquired a novel and unwelcome sensi bility to the vibrations of a house. The approach of a motor omnibus with its progressive rumble and the attend- 43. V BLOCKED EXIT ant jarring vibration of the floor was particularly reminiscent of the after-shocks. Ellen was lame from a blow on the knee received at Kingston which, moreover, caused much pain, and it was not easy to free the mind from the past horrors owino- to 44. EAST END OF HOUSE IN CENTRE OF KINGSTON 45- ARRIVAL OF SHIP-LOAD OF BANANAS AND FREE DISTRIBUTION TO THE PEOPLE, JANUARY 17TH, I907 THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 203 the constant demand of friends to hear what had happened. Taking these things into account, I gave up the idea of returning to Jamaica. Wnen, however, I was invited to •give an account of the earthquake at one of the evening 46. OUR QUARTERS, MAY, I907 meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, Ellen pro posed that we should return at once, being strongly of opinion that I had not facts enough to deal adequately with the subject. I was reluctant; but she said that the !knee was much better, that her nerves were quite steady 204 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH enough, and that she felt strongly drawn towards the Jamaicans in their troubles. So we sailed on May 4th by the direct mail, s.s. Port Kingston, arrived in Kingston on the 1 6th, and went to the same hotel in East Street. The house was under repair, and the lawn was dotted with tents of the army pattern, one of which was alloted to us. The streets had been cleared of debris and the electric cars were running, otherwise everything looked exactly as it was immediately after the earthquake. The four months between our two visits to Jamaica had told visibly on those who had been carrying on the public and private affairs of the community. To get things straight again required five times as much work as that necessary for " carrying-on " in the ordinary way, and death, injuries, and sickness made all departments very short-handed. The black day-labourers were the only people who were having a good time. When we had left the island in January people were still buoyed with excitement. Now the excite ment was over, and the prolonged discomfort of living in makeshift quarters was telling on health. Also the citv was not healthy, and many of the men whom I met were working under the disadvantage of a troublesome and weakening ailment which had become prevalent, and was THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 205 generally ascribed to the septic character of the clouds of dust which blew everywhere in the city. As I made my way about from one abandoned house to another I once or twice had to retreat before the awful smell of some 47. FIRST-FLOOR INTERIOR IN EAST STREET, KINGSTON covered corruption, and dead bodies were still being occa sionally uncovered. It was heart-breaking work exploring the interior of beautiful homes in Kingston abandoned in disorder, furniture smashed, knick-knacks lying on the mortar-strewn floors. What with holes in the floors and 206 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH shaky ceilings, it was moreover not very safe. The owners were generally living in the servants' huts, where some sick or injured member of the family was being nursed. All had their tale of suffering to tell, and sadness 5. AN EAST-STREET INTERIOR took possession of me until the excitement of research again drove compassion from my mind. The investigation of the character and cause of the earthquake from the traces which it left behind was not unlike the tasks of Sherlock Holmes. The intelligent reader does not think the worse of Sherlock 49- THE PARISH CHURCH, KINGSTON THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 209 Holmes because he put the sentimental side of his work as far from his mind as possible, and I must ask for a similar indulgence. Ellen saw further into the human side of these things SO. BALL-ROOM AT KING'S HOUSE than I did, with my mind tightly glued to my problem. She confirmed former friendships and made new ones ; and by the time we sailed for England, which was not until July, the beautiful land of Jamaica had become very dear to her. 210 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH In the time which had elapsed between our two visits little had occurred to obliterate the traces of the earth- 51. EAST WALL LEANING, NORTH WALL CRACKED, ORANGE STREET, WEST PART OF KINGSTON quake, whilst the renewal of ordinary occupations by the community made my work easier than it would have been 52. MYRTLE BANK HOTEL, KINGSTON THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 213 if I had begun in January. Fortune therefore favoured us, and during the next seven weeks I was able to get together a considerable body of facts relating to the physical aspects of the earthquake, both by personal observation and by collecting the evidence of reliable people. In the latter task I was much helped by Mr John D'Aeth, I.S.O., Assistant Director of Public Works, then acting as Director in the absence of his chief. Mr Maxwell Hall had also published an investigation of the earthquake to which I have made full reference in my paper in the Geographical Journal for March, 1908. Kingston, a town of about sixty thousand inhabitants, is built of red brick, with roofs of wooden shingles. There are no chimney stacks, fires not being required for warmth, and the kitchen being a separate building. The larger houses of the white people have separate quarters where the negro ser vants live. The houses are of two stories, a ground floor and first floor, the servants' quarters of only one story. The town is laid out on a rectangular plan, streets running from south to north from the harbour front straight up the gentle slope of the alluvial plain, crossed by another set of streets running from east to west. In Harbour Street and King Street, where the principal shops and offices were, the buildings 214 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH were continuous ; in the greater part of the town, detached. Harbour Street and King Street having been ravaged by fire, the effects of the earthquake were best seen among the •detached houses. Almost all of them faced the four cardinal points of the compass. It was common to find the north and south outer walls of a house standing, but the east and west outer walls of the upper story fallen. In the west part of the town where the damage was least, these east and west walls were often leaning. The north and south walls remained vertical, but were riven through by cracks. There were generally two sets of these, crossing each other, each inclined at about forty-five degreees to the horizon. These facts indicated that the houses rolled in an east-and-west direction, so that the east-and-west facing walls swayed, whereas the north-and-south facing walls were only rocked parallel to their length. Further, of the east-and-west facing walls which fell, many more fell towards the east than towards the west, so that it appears that the eastward roll of the ground was more violent than the westward roll. As I went from west to east through the town I found that even south-and-north-facing outer walls had fallen ; until in the extreme east, especially in the south-east corner near the harbour, it was common to find all four outer walls 53- HOUSE IN EAST OF KINGSTON WHERE THE SHOCK WAS VERY SEVERE THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 217 dejected. In the intermediate positions I found more southern than northern walls fallen, and more walls fallen to the south than to the north. Thus it seemed that the rolling of the ground must have been from rather south-of-east to rather north-of-west, and vice versa. From a large number of observations, I judged the direction towards which the houses tended to fall to be about fifteen degrees south-of-east. Situated in an upper room as I had been during the earthquake, I could not observe the movement of the ground, but others did. Thus Mr Tremlett, of the Con stabulary, running out into Hanover Street from a building on the east side, was nearly thrown upon his face, but when he turned and stood facing southward he easily kept his footing upon the pavement, which was visibly undulating. Mr Sullivan ran out westwards from a building on the east of St John's Lane, near the harbour, and was nearly thrown upon his face. He noticed that the west-to-east rolls were much stronger than the east-to-west rolls, as the direction of fall of walls also indicates to have been the case. Some observers refer to the occurrence in the midst of the earth quake of one strong jerk. Others record that there was a pause in the middle, the shock being in fact two sets of shakings. Observers agree that several rolls of the ground 218 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH took place in each second during which the earthquake lasted, and that the crest of one visible surface wave was separated by a distance of only a few yards from that of the next. Although I was indoors at the time of the earth quake I was out on a lawn during one of the after-shocks in January, when there was a visible undulation of the turf, and the chair on which I was sitting tilted gently from side to side. There was then no jarring sensation such as I experienced when I happened to be in a room with a boarded floor during after-shocks. It is certain that what overthrew the walls in Kingston was this east-and-west rolling of the ground, and the term " shock," as applied to an earthquake, does not seem to be a good one, as Mr Herschel has already remarked. People who were on country roads at the time, for instance, do not report that they saw the stones jump up, or dance up and down. Thus there is no evidence of there being any shock, in the sense of a blow, from below. With regard to the number of oscillations of the ground, the general estimate is that the earthquake lasted thirty seconds, and that there were several, perhaps as many as four, complete oscillations in each second. 1 was anxious to obtain some measure of the difference 54- STONE HOUSE COLLAPSED AT GORDON TOWN THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 221 between the overturning effect of the earthquake in different parts of Kingston and its suburbs. I chose the square brick pillars which ornament the walls of the gardens, yards, or compounds, as the only structures suitable for providing a standard of measurement. I examined two thousand six hundred of them, and recorded the proportion of broken ones, in different parts of the town. I found that on the east of the town the proportion of fallen pillars was about twice what it was in the parts of the town one mile further west. Such a rapid fall of intensity to the west strongly indicated that the source of the tremors or undula tions could not have been many miles to the eastward of Kingston. ON THE CAUSE OF THE EARTHQUAKE * The Geographical Journal for March 1908 contains the results of the investigation in Jamaica in May- July, 1907. A map is appended to that paper showing in detail the relative intensity of the shock in different parts of the island. The outstanding feature of that map is the narrow zone crossing the island at its narrowest part, between the lines * The remainder of this chapter formed a paper in the Geographical Journal for September 1912. 222 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Harbour Head to Buff Bay on the east and Port Royal to Enfield on the west. This was the zone in which buildings fell. It was generally in the eastern half of the zone that the damage was worst. From the evidence of the earthquake itself combined with that of the after-shocks, I came to the conclusion that there were two regions from which the tremors of the earth quake originated, viz. one near the shore south-of-east from Kingston, and the other, less precisely located, in the mountainous region within the triangle formed by the points, Newcastle, Buff Bay, and Glengoffe. In the before-mentioned paper I did not attempt to de scribe further how the earthquake was brought about. That there was fracture or faulting of rock near Harbour Head, and probably also somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hardware Gap, I take to have been pretty well established. by the facts I set out, but I was not able at the time to discover evidence of any physical action by which these fractures had been produced. In 1907 I had looked for a subterranean agent, and my attention was fixed on the geological map and sections,. upon the outcrop of strata, the folds of the mountains, and the position of known faults. The conclusion I came to- THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 223 was that the earthquake had shown a cynical disregard for these things. Z62 Grand Cjy NAUTICAL MILES O ZJO Aun Cdyes Por-L du PriftC- MAP SHOWING DIMINUTION OF INTENSITY OF EARTHQUAKE SHOCK AND THE EXTREME DISTANCE AT WHICH IT WAS FELT BY HUMAN BEINGS Further, if we were to suppose that the island was being folded or faulted along a new structural line running from 224 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH west-of-south to east-of-north, from near Kingston to near Buff Bay, then the earthquake must have resulted from a process descending deeply into the bowels of the earth, and its effects would have been very marked at great dis tances. Now one of the outstanding features of the earth quake was that, although violent on the spot, its intensity fell off very rapidly. Indeed, the small records of seismo graphs in England led to the statement that the first tele grams of disaster were probably exaggerated. After spending the month of August, 1910, in Jamaica (the narrative of which visit, apart from earthquake investigation, forms the subject of the final chapter), I realised that there was an agent visibly at work which could have produced the whole of the effects of the earthquake of 1907, and that the agent was superficial, not subterranean. I saw that the whole thing could have been produced by the redistribution of load by the existing rivers flowing in their present courses. The map which is wanted for under standing the Jamaican earthquake is that of the modern orography more than that of the solid geology. Orographically, Jamaica consists essentially of two parts. First there is the eastern third of the island traversed by a ridge of mountains, largely of conglomerated rock, rising THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 225 to seven thousand feet, with sharp-edged spurs and narrow valleys between. Secondly there is the western two-thirds of the island, which is largely a limestone plateau nowhere exceeding three thousand feet, with " cock-pits," dry valleys, sink-holes, and underground rivers. The whole of the zone of greatest intensity of the earth quake lay in the eastern third of the island. Now in this eastern part of the island there is one region which far exceeds all others in orographical importance, viz. the region of the Gaps (Hardware Gap, etc.), which is the great radiant point of the rivers. Thence the Hope River flows south. The descent from the mountains above its source to its mouth is five thousand feet in about eleven miles. The Buff Bay River descends to the north a similar amount in a similar distance. Thence also the Wag Water and other rivers flow to the north-west, and the Yallahs River and others to the south-east. The zone of greatest earthquake damage is parallel to the line of the Hope River and Buff Bay River, and on the eastern margin coincident with them. The region already specified in 1908 as that of the southern origin of earthquake tremors is close to the delta of the Hope River. 226 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH The region already specified in 1908 as the area from which another set of tremors probably originated is that of the head waters of the above rivers, at which place, and at which place only, the eastern mountains are so cut into and eaten away by weather that their residual ridges form a knot, with a network of radiating valleys. Here, too, is the only place where the main range has been so eaten into that a road has been carried across it from south to north. The map in the Journal for March, 1908, shows that the area of moderate damage (force 9, where walls but not whole buildings fell) extends on the south coast eastwards of the mouth of the Hope River to that of the Yallahs River, and on the north coast westwards of the zone of greatest damage along the debouchures of the Wag Water and other rivers originating in the neighbourhood of the Gaps. My theory is that the cause of the earthquake was due to a disturbance of pre-existing equilibrium by this modern redistribution of load, that the southern tremors came from subsidence with fracture near the mouth of the Hope River, and that the northern tremors were produced by elevation with fracture near the Gaps. THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 227 The above theory was suggested to me by what I saw in 1910 of gravitational movements resulting from redistribu tion of load on the Panama Canal works. In the landslides which occurred on the Canal banks there was an area above where there was a subsidence with fractures of the surface and, at the lower end, an area of upheaval, also with fracture of surface.* Between, there was no fracture of the surface. Here there was no movement perpendicular to the original surface. The subsidence had a concave surface, and the elevation a convex surface. Thus gravita tion, in causing the land to slide, did not reduce a steep plane surface to a flatter plane surface but (while diminish ing the average gradient) converted the form of the surface to that of a single wave, with trough, node, and crest with fractures at trough and crest. This is how gravity reduced the slope of materials not under stress but standing too steeply for their weight, cohesion, and internal friction. In the case of the eastern Jamaican mountains I assume that there is still stress (originating, presumably, in a neighbouring subsidence of earlier date) from which a squeeze is transmitted horizon- * See Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, gth December, igio, paper by the author on " The Panama Canal in 1910." 228 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH tally. The elevation of coastal platforms of corals quite similar to the fringing reef shows that there has been stress exercised on Jamaica in the most recent geological times. Thus the action of the rivers flowing south and north from the Gaps has put the profile of the island at this part >of its cross section out of regimen with the stress. To the east and west in the eastern third of the island, where the redistribution of load by weathering of the mountains has been less emphatic, equilibrium is still maintained. Along the south coast, near the mouth of the Hope River, I sup pose the horizontal squeeze to have been insufficient to hold up the added load, and that a subsidence took place with fractures which produced the tremors by which Kingston was wrecked. Near the head waters of the rivers in the mountain area about the Gaps, I suppose the diminished weight of the mountains to have been insufficient to hold down the surface against the squeeze (with the impetus from the southern subsidence added *), and that an eleva tion immediately followed with fractures which sent out the tremors by which stone villas and churches were wrecked, * The rise might come first, but at Kingston, at any rate, the first shaking seemed to come from the southward. THE EARTHQUAKE AT KINGSTON 229 roads were fissured, and landslides produced in the surround ing neighbourhood. * There is this much connection with the petrology that the ridge of the eastern mountains is much eaten into where it is crossed in this neighbourhood by the friable Richmond beds. Equilibrium is now, presumably, restored ; and as the redistribution of load by rain and rivers is small in one year, or five years, or even ten years, there should be no recur rence of severe earthquake from the same cause in this region for a long time to come. There was no very severe earthquake in the neighbourhood of Kingston between 1692 and 1907. It is impossible from lack of data to say if the earthquake of 1692 were caused in the same way as that of 1907, but at all events the redistribution of load by rivers occasioned no great earthquake for two hundred years before 1907. It may be a satisfaction to those interested in the island * The stripping of the upper slopes of the eastern mountains by- weather is intermittent, occurring after heavy rains, when patches of the shallow soil, acres in extent, slide into the deep and narrow valleys. Lower down the water courses, and also on the Linguinea Plain itself, large deposits of boulders and gravel are left by flooded rivers. In igio I saw both things on a large scale as a result of the great rains of the preceding autumn. 230 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH to understand these reasons for thinking that the recent earthquake was caused by a familiar, everyday agency, which we can see at work, and which operates at a slow and fairly regular rate ; and not by any gigantic and deep- seated cause, unlimited in its possible powers of destruction and liable, for ought we know, to act destructively at any moment. I have only to add that I had in 1910 the advantage of again discussing the earthquake with my friend, Mr John D'Aeth, I.S.O., Assistant Director of Public Works, whose intimate knowledge of the topography of Jamaica was of great help to me. I remember, in particular, that he stated his opinion that the greatest severity of shock nearly coincided with the line of the Hope and Buff Bay Rivers. CHAPTER VII THE PANAMA CANAL IN I908 AND I9IO As soon as the results of the earthquake inquiry had been worked up, our thoughts reverted to the Panama Canal, and we prepared for a second and longer visit in 1908. In order that we might have all facilities for making a full and independent examination of the undertaking I approached the Foreign Office, who communicated with Mr Bryce, H.B.M. Ambassador at Washington. We then went out to Washington, where I saw Mr Bryce. Through his good offices the United States Department of War sent the desired instructions to Colonel Geo. W. Goethals, U.S.A., Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission. Thus, when we arrived on the Isthmus in April, sailing down from New York by the R.M.S.P. Magalalcna, I was free to prosecute my inquiries as I pleased. To my great relief I found that the tales I had heard in America, and read in American journals, as to a rotten state of affairs on the 232 THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 233 Isthmus were, at all events, no longer applicable to the state of affairs there. The new chairman had rapidly per fected the organisation, and a force of forty thousand men were working together with admirable precision. The health conditions had been still further improved since 1907, there had been no return of yellow fever, and, in consequence, the Commission had been able to increase the number of European labourers from a few hundreds to five thousand. These had come from Mediterranean countries and chiefly from Italy and Spain. The Spaniards, being equally efficient and more amenable, the Italians had been weeded out, and at the time of our visit almost the whole five thousand were Spaniards. These men we saw doing pick-and-spade work in the Culebra Cut under a vertical sun. They were in European kit, some with no more protection for the head than a cap, and yet they did not suffer from the heat. Quartered in wire-screened buildings where they slept protected from the malarial mosquito, the sick-rate was low ; in fact, both sick-rate and death-rate were about the same for the European and for the negro navvy. The negroes, as before, were all West Indians, most of them British subjects from Jamaica and Barbados. They numbered about twenty-six thousand. Although 234 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH the American foremen greatly preferred to deal with the white navvy, yet there was no longer the same friction as before between them and the black gangs. They had each in fact learnt something of each other's ways. The foremen had discovered that the West Indian must be " handled " differently from the American negro. The West Indians on their side were now less inclined to say, as one of them had expressed himself to me, " Dese yeer Amuricans am ignorant ob all knowledge." The eradica tion of yellow fever having deprived the West Indian of his climatic advantage, it was a case of competition on fairly equal terms between white and black labour in the tropics, and therefore an experiment of great importance. In describing our visit in 1910 I shall show how the experi ment has worked out. The necessary machinery of excavation and transpor tation had now been collected, and " the dirt was flying " in Culebra Cut in a way to rejoice the American heart. Standing upon the banks of the great gorge we could see all that went on in this centre of activity. There were the rock-drills boring holes for blasting, each drill driven by air supplied by an air pipe, every drill shifted daily : every air pipe having to be kept clear of the dirt trains. There THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 235 were steam shovels, in greatly increased numbers, gobbling up their meal of rock with much puffing and apparent gusto. Each steam shovel was dependent upon a water pipe, supplying its boiler, each shovel with its water pipe shifted daily ; all these movements being regulated so as not to interfere with the drills, or with their air lines, or with the trains. Lastly, there were the dirt, or spoil, trains. For the accommodation of these the bottom and the ter raced sides of the Cut were laid down in numerous railway tracks. Excavation was so regulated that a summit level was maintained about half-way along the Cut, and from this it was down hill to the Atlantic on the north and to the Pacific on the south. Thus the loaded trains went off down hill to the dumps at either end, and only the empties had to climb the gradient back again. Once every minute- and-a-half throughout the eight-hour working day a train of seventeen loaded trucks lumbered off towards the dumps. xArrived there, a plough at the rear end was drawn along the whole length of the trucks, their platforms being flush with one another. By this means the unloading was accomplished with great rapidity. The whole scene in its ordered activity was interesting and stimulating in the highest degree. 236 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH It is worth while to reflect upon the mental exercise pro vided by the planning and organisation of this Canal exca vation. A visit to the office of the divisional engineer at Empire helps one to understand this. There one sees upon the wall a large-scale plan of the Cutting, and a pin with a numbered label represents each shovel and each rock drill. WTien news comes that a shovel or a drill is ready to shift, a reference to the plan shows what move ment is possible consistently with the neighbouring impedi ments. A far more severe mental exercise however is pro vided by the necessity for thinking out, years ahead, what will be the condition of everything at each stage of excava tion, so that there may never occur a combination of incom patible conditions. When the Canal is finished, and no trace is left of the transitory stages of its construction, how few will think of the succession of difficult problems which occurred at different stages of increased depth and narrow ing bottom ! In one important respect our studies in 1908 were in conclusive. The work had not yet reached the stage when the most serious natural difficulties would be encountered by the engineers. Even the difficulties so far met with were at a minimum during our visit owing to its beino- near THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 237 the end of the dry season. As, moreover, I have already described the condition of the Canal in 1908 in my book on " The Panama Canal and its Makers," I shall not dwell further on our visit of that year, but pass on with as little delay as possible to our last visit in 19 10. I shall only add here that the order and decorum of life in the Canal Zone were remarkable, and a great credit to the Commis sion as well as to the American people. In 1909 I published the book on the Canal and was engaged also in working up all the observations on waves of the sea and other water waves which had been made during our travels from 1895 onwards, so that during this year we only got as far as Switzerland.* Ellen showed no sign of ill-health when we returned from there in Septem ber, but trouble came later in the year. On the third of January, 19 10, the trouble was pronounced to be cancer and an immediate operation was declared to be necessary. Ellen did not expect to survive the operation, which was sure to be a very serious one, but saw clearly that the best chance lay in calmness. When we left the consulting- room it wanted but an hour to the time of one of the after- * See note at end of chapter. 238 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH noon lectures at the Royal Geographical Society. She pro posed that we should go on there, which we did, and she was able to follow the lecture with her usual close attention. Recovery from the operation was very slow, and the result for long remained doubtful. It was nearly two months before she could leave the nursing home, and she still suffered much pain. When it was possible to travel, I suggested that we should seek some quiet health-resort on the Continent where there would be advantages of climate and scenery as well as the opportunity of hearing good music, in which she delighted. Ellen, however, had other views. She said that she would rather go back to Panama where things were being done which were worth doing, in the interest of which she would perhaps forget the ordeal through which she had been. We accordingly went to Panama, via Barbados and Trinidad, and, later, on to Jamaica, returning the same way, and the result was as she hoped. Care passed away, and she had health for a time. We reached Panama in July, 19 10, and found the Canal works at a very interesting stage. The quarters of the American officials had acquired the THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 239 appearance of settled homes. They stood in lawns gay with flower-beds, orchids were cultivated in the screened verandahs, and in most homes there was some kind of pet animal, usually a monkey or a parrot. The children play about in the sun, often without hats, and sunstroke appears to be almost unknown. What are the precise conditions which make sunstroke prevalent in certain countries I do not know, but on the Isthmus there is seldom a very high, dry-bulb, shade temperature. The summer temperatures during a heat wave in New York State are certainly higher. The neighbourhood of the sea, the sea breezes, the copious rainfall and the luxurious vegetation combine to prevent the dry-bulb temperature from rising very high. Ninety degrees Farenheit is regarded as very hot. In the rainy season, May to December inclusive, the wet-bulb temperature is not much lower than that of the dry-bulb. In July, 1910, in the Tivoli Hotel, Ancon, the sheets on my bed were palpably wet every night, and my flannel shirt was clammy with damp when I put it on in the morning. This was in weather when there was not on an average more than about one hour's rain during the day, with many hours of bright sunshine. There was no ill effect from these damp gar ments, owing, I presume, to two circumstances ; firstly, 240 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH that they were warm, and secondly, that the air being satur ated there was scarcely any evaporation to cause chill. The opinion of American officials upon the climate question is almost unanimous. They recognise that the problem of living in an average tropical lowland is so far solved that, given prosperous conditions and good govern ment, fair health can be maintained for years, and that chil dren born there can be properly reared, at all events for some years. They all say, however, that for the permanent maintenance of vigour, holidays in a cold climate are necessary. Certainly the vigour which they themselves display on the Canal works is largely due to the extraordinary and unique interest and importance of their temporary task. This stimulus has a tremendous effect. Though but a foreigner, and therefore without national pride in the work, I feel this stimulus every time I go there. While in the hotel at Ancon I feel lazy from the damp heat and disinclined to catch my train, but once on the works fatigue vanishes. The proportion between the number of European navvies and of the West Indian negroes was the same in 1910 as in 1908, the latter still being in a majority of five THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 241 to one. Thus the anticipation that white labour would steadily oust the black had not been fulfilled. Moreover, in one class of work, commenced since 1908, the black man had proved himself the better. This was in the " steeple jack " jobs in connection with the building of the gigantic locks. The Spaniards had no stomach for the work, whilst there were always West Indian negroes available who undertook these tasks with perfect sang froid. Again, in some awkward diving jobs it was the coloured men who undertook the task. There are no employers in the world who are more inclined than the Americans to discriminate in favour of the white labour as against black. The Panama experiment therefore, while it has demonstrated that the white labourer can carry out in the tropics the tasks hitherto performed by coloured men, suggests that he will find it difficult to compete with the negro. The Isthmian Canal Commission pays the white navvy twice as much as the West Indian negro, but on the reconstruction works of the Panama Railroad the labourers are almost all negro, the directors being apparently of opinion that it does not pay to employ white labour at the higher rate. I must remind the reader that, in order to avoid the delay and difficulties of excavating the whole way across Q 242 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH the Isthmus to forty-one feet below sea-level, the Ameri cans decided to construct a high-level canal. With the exception of a short piece at each end the whole of the waterway will have a surface level of eighty-five * feet above sea, with a minimum depth of forty-five feet, the final exca vation being thus carried down to forty feet above sea-level. The water has therefore to be held up by dams, and it was important that the principal dam should be placed as near the mouth of the Chagres River as practicable in order to retain in the artificial lake as much water as possible. This necessity arises from the circumstance that much water is necessarily used each time a vessel is passed through locks. The position chosen for the principal dam is at Gatun, about seven miles from the commencement of the dredged channel near Colon. Here the valley of the Chagres and its tributaries is contracted to a width of about a mile and a half by two approaching ranges of hills. Between them, in July, 1910, we saw the great dam in course of con struction. It is no part of my present purpose to give a systematic account of the features of the Panama Canal. but I will describe this dam sufficiently to enable the * This is reckoned to be the usual level but the highest level at the end of the wet season will be eighty-seven feet. THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 243'. reader to realise the ingenuity of the men who think out such things. I also wish the fascination of the problems presented by the dam to appear, in order that the reader may better understand the mind which delighted in such great works, so that in their presence the shadow of sick ness and death was forgotten. The plain of the Chagres, one and a half miles wide between the bounding hills, is composed of alluvial deposits laid down by the river. In places these go down to a depth of two hundred and eighty feet before other rock is reached. The alluvium consists of gravel pretty firmly cemented with mud or clay, and almost all of it is water tight. Thus the engineers who designed the Gatun Dam were not afraid that the water of the lake would make pas sages for itself underneath the dam. The relatively soft nature of the foundation, however, made it impossible for them to build such a dam as that which holds up the Nile at Assouan. There, having a granite floor, a solid wall of masonry was attached to it, impervious in substance and having its parts so tied and bound together that it, and its foundation form an immovable and impenetrable structure. Such a wall, if built at Gatun, would have thrust away the ground at its foot, and itself have sunk. So soft is the 244 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH ground that it would not bear an ordinary railway embank ment about ninety feet high, i.e. considerably lower than the dam must be. When the new railway line was com menced an embankment was made having the usual slope of about forty-five degrees. The soil below it sank, the soil at the sides moved away horizontally, and at a little distance on either side the ground bulged up. The material of the embankment itself subsided. The only way to have prevented the soil from flowing would have been to have laid a smaller but sufficient load upon the ground on either side of the embankment. This would have held the ground down, preventing it from bulging. Thus, also, the soil would have been prevented from flowing horizon tally outwards, and this, in turn, would have prevented the soil beneath the centre of the embankment from sinking. In other words, the only way in which a high embankment can be placed on this alluvial foundation without making the soil flow is by making it very broad in proportion. Thus only can the soil at the sides be held down and enabled to resist the squeeze from the lofty centre. The Gatun Dam has to be one hundred and fifteen* feet high, the depth of * Finally, it is now being roofed over at 105 feet, an improvement, I think, as it diminishes the load which the ground has to bear (June 191 2). THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 247 water to be held up being about eighty-five feet. The breadth of the base is nearly half a mile. In July, 1910, the dam had been built up to a height of seventy feet, upon the broad base, and there was no deformation of the sur rounding soil. This great structure is not of solid masonry, but is entirely composed of fragments of various sizes, from large rocks to minute grains of sand and soil. Not only is there no central core of masonry but there is not even a core of puddled chalk or clay. This great heap of frag ments has to fulfil two principal duties. In the first place, it must be able to withstand the horizontal thrust of a head -of eighty-five feet of water, so that it shall not be pushed bodily into the Atlantic. For this it must be heavy. In the second place, the water of the lake must not be able to trickle through it. The mode of construction by which these ends are attained is as follows. At the north and south " toes " a great bulwark of large rocks is built up. The space in between the two bulwarks of rock is filled by pumping up the ordinary alluvium of the valley mixed with water, in the form of silt. The surplus water is allowed to drain off through pipes. Meanwhile the pressure of the atmosphere slowly squeezes down and con solidates the silt, so that it packs very tightly. This 248 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH " hydraulic fill " secures the impermeability of the dam, for water loses " head " very quickly in penetrating such minute pores. Thus, although no part of the dam is per fectly impervious the dam as a whole will not be penetrated by water. Its southern face will be wet, and its lower layers will be wet for some distance in, but this moisture will never reach its northern face. Thus is being constructed a dam heavy enough to with stand a great horizontal water-pressure, but whose weight can be supported by soft ground ; porous in every part, and yet as a whole impervious. At present the River Chagres escapes by a " spillway " left in the dam. This is a channel with walls and floor of concrete, at the upper end of which falling gates or doors are being provided to close completely the entrance. When the dam itself and the Canal excavations have sufficiently advanced, these gates will be lowered.* Once the channel is completely blocked the country south of the dam will be slowly submerged by the accumu lating waters of the Chagres and its tributaries. The ship-channel through " Lake Gatun " has been cleared of trees and brushwood, but the rest is, forest, and this, * This was done 30th April, 191 2. THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 249 will be flooded, so that the trees will stand in water, in some places reaching nearly to their top. All these trees will die and rot, and for some years the spectacle will be dismal indeed. As the water rises so will it creep back up 56. GATUN DAM, HYDRAULIC FILL ON LEFT the lateral valleys until finally a lake of unusual form with a multitude of long, narrow and winding arms is produced. Its area when full will be one hundred and sixty-four square miles, i.e. it will be twice the size of the Lago Maggiore, or four-fifths the size of the Lake of Geneva. It will be 250 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH bounded everywhere at the eighty-five-foot level of the natural hills except at Pedro Miguel, at the southern end of Culebra Cut, where it will be retained by a second dam con necting the walls of a lock with a hill on the west. This 57. GATUN LOCKS, THE CONCRETE FLOOR, 1910 great lake, the reservoir which will supply the water required for passing ships through the locks, depends for its replenishment upon the copious rains which fall on the Isthmus for eight months out of twelve. I have explained how the Gatun Dam, built up with Missing Page Missing Page Missing Page 254 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH bulge up,* and the engineers, recognising this, are making the sides flatter wherever the soil or rock behaves badly. This flattening is to be continued until gravity no longer produces these wave-like " slides." Then the Canal will be allowed to fill, and the weight of forty feet of water upon the bottom of the Cut will give additional security, holding it more firmly down.f When the American Government made their bargain with the Republic of Panama they leased a strip of land extending five miles back on either side of the Canal. They have now constructed some good metalled roads in this " Canal Zone " as it is called. It was interesting to see how quickly a settlement of West Indian negroes followed. They are now cultivating many small holdings in the zone, bringing in their produce for sale to the towns along the line of the Canal. The extent of such cultivation is greater than is at first apparent, for there is little con trast of colour between the natural forest or bush in the * See, however, a paper on the Panama Canal and its Relation to the British Empire, in United Empire (the Journal of the Royal Colonial Institute) describing my visit to the Canal works in 1912. t The bulgings usually occur where the beds of rock on the sides slope towards the cut. Some seams are weak and rotten, and it is believed that these are crushed up by the superincumbent weight so that they flow, and thus transmit pressure laterally. Missing Page 256 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH NOTE. ON "DICKY"; THE LITTLE BIRD FROM CARTHAGENA. In Switzerland we had with us " Dicky," a beautiful little bird generally described as a small green parrot, but properly a " brown-throated conure." He came from Carthagena in Colombia whence he was brought when very young, in igo8, when we were homeward bound from Colon, by R.M. S.P. Orinoco. One day in the train on the way from Spiez to Montreux, a French lady entered the carriage with a tortoise which she had just purchased for her little boy. Dicky, his cage covered up in my ulster cape, was grumbling inarticulately. " But,'' said the lady looking at her tortoise, " I thought the man said they didn't make a noise." "Come along," said Dicky, "come along quick! quick! quick/" " Ah, mon Dieu,'' ejaculated the lady, her face the picture of dismay, "but it also speaks." We introduced Dicky and her mind was relieved. We took Dicky to Panama in 1910. At the Hotel Tivoli, the maid servants are negroes, mostly from Jamaica. These people, in the simplicity of their devoutness, see the intervention of Providence at every turn. With them also the natural and the supernatural blend imperceptibly into one another. Dicky was the humble means of illustrating these abstruse reflections, as follows : — The chamber-maid addressed Ellen one day, saying : — " Oh, Missis, I did ab such a turn dis morning ; I was doin' out yer room, Missis, and I was just leanin' on me broom restin' when I heard a voice calling ' quick ! quick,' and I thought it was de Lard reproving me for bein' idle, and I turn roun' to say suffin, and — it was Missis's little green bird ! " As adventures happen to the adventurous, so do amusing experiences come to those who have a sense of humour. Ellen had this admirable quality well developed. In the course of our travels I began to suspect that I might be somewhat lacking in the sense, because it was always to Ellen that the amusing things happened. Dicky was a most valuable companion during the long period of help lessness and suffering when Ellen was recovering from the operation alluded to in the former part of the chapter. He was absolutely devoted to his mistress and spent the whole day pottering about her couch, amusing THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1908-1910 257 her with his pretty ways. When tired of making up games for himself, he would creep under the bed-clothes, and, nestling into her hand, would go to sleep there. He required much waiting on and would only take his breakfast if allowed to sit on one's finger. During the illness of his mistress he allowed me to wait upon him. Indeed, in a patronising way, he had a regard for me. He also understood the beneficent part played by servants in one's daily life. To them he would say "thank you" with much empressement when things to eat appeared upon the scene. To us he never volunteered this expression. Although otherwise friendly and sociable he was jealous of any inter ference with his mistress. During her last illness when I shifted a pillow, or the like, Dicky would come scuttling up to attack me, his feathers fiercely ruffled, and his soft brown eyes transformed to yellow flame. R CHAPTER VIII ellen's last visit to Jamaica From Panama we went to Jamaica, where for a month we devoted ourselves to the placid enjoyment of tropical con ditions at their best. This we had planned seven years before when, at Colombo, we had seen for a single day the beauty of the tropics. We landed at Kingston in the breathless heat of that morning hour before the sea breeze rises. By the time we were through the Customs and on our way to the Manor House at Constant Spring the strong salt breeze was blow ing through the rustling leaves of the palm-trees. The house, now an hotel, is an old estate-house, and stands in its gardens amidst a sea of green, relieved by splashes of vermilion from the flamboyant trees. The atmosphere is fragrant from the foliage, yet there is sufficient dryness in the air to remove the habitual languor of Panama. I will describe the pleasant round of the tropic 258 ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 259 day as we spent it here. At noon the sun is vertical for so it stands in Jamaica in August and May, and the world is hushed in the blaze of the midday hours. The landscape, brilliant in its polished greens, lies almost fea tureless under a vertical illumination in which the great rock throws no cool shade, and the tree-trunks show no shadowed side. Then, sitting restfully in the shade of a deep verandah we watch the dainty humming bird as she dips her slender bill in the trumpet-shaped flowers of the creeper, now poised upon invisibly vibrating wings, now darting swiftly to another blossom. Late in the afternoon shadows appear and rapidly lengthen, the ridges of the eastern mountains standing out in sharp and solid relief. Then is the hour to wander in the cool gully or to climb the slopes of the foothills for the wider view. At length the sudden approach of darkness makes us retrace our course in some haste. The sun plunges down in the west and all the circuit of the horizon is lit with orange and red, crimson and carmine, for there is rain about and we no longer have the rosy western flush of the dry-season sunset. What are the reflected colours of the foliage beside our path ? I cannot say, for all is suffused in an un familiar atmosphere of chromatic shade. Solemn, beauti- 260 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH ful, and strange, the circumstances of this short hour are those of paradise on earth. Hardly have we reached our house when blue darkness rushes up into the sky, and all over the dome the stars light up at once their lamps, while the blacker shades of the gully below are lit by hundreds of wandering sparks where the fireflies flit unceasingly. Now the hush of the tropic day is past, for with the darkness the insect world awakes and the hum and drone and whir of thousands of invisible creatures make music of all the tropic night. The hum and drone and whir go on throughout the hours of man's repose, while the constel lations, rising steeply and steeply descending, traverse the sky in orbits unfamiliar to the stranger from a northern land. The sea-breeze has long died away, but now, in the hours of night, the light curtains which screen the open windows stir and rustle in the land breeze, blowing cool and fragrant from the mountains. The balmy night wears on, and at length a paleness in the east suggests returning day ; it is not however the dawn, but the light which heralds the rise of the morning star above the ridge of the eastern mountains. Shaped like a spur, with stellate rays and steady light, Venus rides, " apparent queen," for one short 60. A COUNTRY ROAD ON THE LINGUINEA PLAIN, JAMAICA ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 263 hour, when her brightness and that of all the stars, pales, suddenly before the swift suffusion of the sky with the light of the true dawn. The sun springs up from behind the mountains, the sudden brightness of his slanting rays- making diamonds of the dew-drops pendant from every blade of the drenched pastures, and the brilliant round of the tropic day has begun again. Manor House, Constant Spring, is situated on the upper part of the Linguinea Plain not far from the foothills of the eastern mountains. Perched on the sharp crest of the first ridge a white house was visible two thousand feet above. Invited there, I mounted a pony soon after sun rise and jogged off on what seemed to be the right path. As the house frequently came into view I was not likely to follow the wrong track for long. There is no driving road to the house and the household stores are taken up on donkey-back. The range slopes south and west, and much of this path remained in shadow during the ascent, and the hill air was fresh and fragrant. The steep slope of the opposite side of the valley was scarred in places by land slides caused by the '.phenomenal rains of the previous autumn. They were slips of the kind common in such 264 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH situations, where a layer of shallow soil, insecurely held by vegetation, is torn away and hurled in a heap into the bed of the stream below. So completely are these mountains carpeted with greenery that they convey a misleading impression of permanence. The rains of the year 1909 showed in a convincing manner that the covering of vegeta tion is no adequate protection against a heavy or continuous downpour. The case is somewhat similar to that of the sandy covering of the foreshore which conceals the ravages of former storms, but is stripped away when the erosive forces of the sea set seriously to work. Presently I came to a landslide on my own side of the valley which had carried away the path. This had been restored, however, in a fashion, and I was able to proceed. The ridge which I was ascending was knife-edged, so that any landslide from the crest lowers the ridge. I was at the house by 9 a.m., and the Linguinea Plain lay as a map below, and beyond it the harbour of Kingston with Port Royal and the Palisa- does, and many a league of sea. As noon approached, clouds formed, and I watched them and their shadows as they moved across the plain. They grew more dense, and some showers fell. In one case I could see right away over the top of a rain cloud, distinguish its well-defined limit to ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 265 right and left, and discern, through the translucent veil of the falling rain, Kingston, bathed in sunshine, beyond. Later, the clouds increased, whirling up around us, and heavy rain poured down in torrents on the hot barbecue, or coffee-drying platform, in front of the house. Anon, a stronger light came through the pall of vapour, which pres ently parted and rolled away, the afternoon sun blistering down upon us and making the barbecue smoke with the reek of evaporating moisture. The plain once more came into view, but with a new feature. In the morning no river had been visible ; now a broad and shining stream meandered to the west two thousand feet below. The Great Sandy Gully was flowing. In the morning it had been a broad but inconspicuous line of drab-coloured sand. Following with the eye its onward course to the west I found that the flowing waters did not reach the sea, or any river flowing to the sea; they disappeared, soaking away in the gravelly soil of the great fantalus called the Lin guinea Plain. Thus every particle of sand and silt carried down the gully from the mountains must have gone to raise the height of the plain. Before coming up I had seen something of this process in the boulders, stones, gravel and sand which had buried some of the pastures on the way up 266 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH to Constant Spring, this detritus being left after the great rains of 1909. Day closed with cloudless sky, and the Centaur and the Southern Cross hung over Port Royal. With my host's three-inch astronomical telescope I saw for the first time the component stars of alpha Centauri, the finest double star in the skies of either hemisphere, a sight not to be missed by those who visit the tropics. We sat late, and I heard the story of the hurricane of twenty years ago which struck this house. I listened also to stories of the negro peasants, and of their grandfathers, newly freed from slavery. The father of my hostess came from England as a Missionary among them. He was received by his congregation with appreciation. The native preacher, or lay reader (I am not sure of his exact position) put up the following prayer at service, " We tank de, oh Lord dat dow has sent dis white man to teach us poor coloured folk de gospel. Dow knowest, oh Lord, dat dough him young in years him old in sin ! " No doubt he meant that he was experienced in the ways of combating the devil. The following story is probably known to many, and it may have been to some extent worked up, but is believed to have originated in the genuine effort of an early negro ELLENS LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 267 preacher to teach the Bible to his fellows. It is the story of King Neber-could-make-a-razor and Massa Daniel. " Once upon a time, my de' frens, der was a great, great king call' King Neber-could-make-a-razor, and one day him put on him tall hat and him top-coat and him high-heel shoes, and him go out for walk, and as him walking him hit him toe 'gainst ole iron hoop ; and him take him hoop back to him palace and put him on de grinestone, and him grine, grine, grine. Him grine — grine — grine, all de day and him not able to get no kine ob edge upon de ole iron hoop, so people call him King Neber-could-make-a-razor to dis day. " Now dis great, great king, King Neber-could-make- a-razor, 'ab a great big bobbery golden image set up, and him make a decree dat when all de people hear de soun' ob de cow's horn, an' de trombone, an' de Jew's harp, dey all bow down an' worship de great big bobbery golden image. So when de people hear de soun' ob de cow's horn, an' de trombone, an' de Jew's harp, dey all bow down — 'ceptin' Massa Daniel who fold him arms an' 'tan' 'tiff. Den, when King Neber-could-make-a-razor hear dis, him bery bery angry and sen' for Massa Daniel an' say ' Massa Daniel, you got to bow down 'fore my great big bobbery golden 268 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH image.' And Massa Daniel say ' Massa King I not gwine to do no such ting.' Den King-neber-could-make-a-razor com manded and dey cast Massa Daniel into de den ob lions. Now, my de' frens, dese lions were not just or'nary little Aprican lions, but great, great lions big as um donkey. So dey take Massa Daniel and trow him into de den wid four great donkey-lions and dey roll a 'tone to de door ob de den, and dey teal de 'tone wid wax and de king 'tamp him wid him own 'tamp. Den de king go home to him palace to make himself comfor'ble. Him sit in him rockin' chair ; him put toe on table ; him drink him rum and water, but him not able to get comfor'ble no-how cos ob tinking ob Massa Daniel in de den ob lions. So when de daylight come King Neber-could-make-a-razor go to de door ob de den and him call ' Massa Daniel, am you dar? ' and Massa Daniel say ' Yes, Massa King ! ' So de king ab de 'tone roll away from de door ob de den. Dey had 'spected, my de' frens, to see dat the four donkey-lions ab eaten Massa Daniel, but when de 'tone am rolled away dey see dat Massa Daniel ab eaten de four great donkey-lions ! " Next morning before sunrise I looked from my window over the hilly region through which the Wag Water River 6 1. LANDWARD VIEW FROM HILL RESIDENCE, JAMAICA ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 271 flows to the north and west. The tops of the hills stood out as islands from a great lake of cloud. The upper sur face of cloud was in rounded masses, a collection of con tiguous convexities. I have often seen such a " cloud sea " described as being " all in waves " but the inequalities which I saw did not seem to me to be waves at all. As morning advanced, the cloud evaporated and bit by bit the whole varied landscape was revealed. It is indeed from the ever- changing aspect of cloud and atmosphere as much as from the extent and variety of landscape that the views from these hill residences derive their pre-eminence. Descending towards the plain while it was still early, I noticed the alert and elastic step of the negroes who, mostly as peasant proprietors, cultivate the hillsides. Arrived on the plain I felt the heat, and lost the vigour I had enjoyed in the hill air. I noticed then the languid movements of the negroes on the plain, and it was more than ever impressed upon me that the Jamaican negro feels heat as much as the white man does. The reproach of laziness, under which he lies, though not wholly undeserved, is, I think, often applied under the misapprehension that the heat which makes their white critics feel lazy does not affect the black man. 272 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH Being only a visitor in Jamaica I should not like to make positive assertions on the subject of the negro's industry, but I have a notion that the peasant proprietor, at his own times and in his own way, gets through a very fair amount of work in the year, considering his light diet. That he is always energetic in appointed tasks I would not assert. A friend of ours had a gardener whom she roundly accused of being the laziest man she knew. " Oh no, Missis," he replied, " I not really lazy, you should see how I work in my own garden." Now the peasant proprietor is always, so to speak, working in his own garden, and this makes a considerable difference. The work of the women and girls who bring in the produce of the small holdings to distant market towns is physically great, and is cheerfully per formed. They like the weekly jaunt and do not shrink from the foot journey of many miles, often with a load on the head which it takes two persons to raise. Sometimes the loads are borne by a donkey, and the number of tethered donkeys at some of the country markets is quite a remark able sight. The donkey and his mistress are on good terms with each other, and it is a gratifying spectacle to watch a negro-woman and her donkey eating a mango in alternate bites. ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 273 The late summer is the mango season, and the imported fruit which now grows wild in Jamaica, forms at this time- the chief article of the peasants' food. Apparently it makes their skin very smooth and silky. The rugosity of skin which is sometimes noticeable in negroes in cold weather is not characteristic in their proper climate ; indeed the sleekness of their skin, its fine texture, and freedom from blemish go far to counterbalance the effect of their uncouth features. Of all the characters of the Jamaican negro, that which is perhaps of most importance to us is his voluntary respect for white women. The women and children of our English race who live in Jamaica traverse the loneliest roads and paths at any hour unprotected and unarmed, and they never receive any but respectful and kindly greeting from the black neighbours who outnumber them in the proportion of fifty to one. They sleep in safety in country houses which are neither guarded nor locked. The history of political disturbances in the Island shows that the Jamaican negro is not always placid, and he is also readily offended. I think, therefore, that it is reasonable to conclude that their exemplary conduct in the most important of all their rela tions with the white people shows that they recognise the s 274 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH unfailing justice which they receive in the Law Courts, and appreciate the civility with which they are treated. The pure-blooded negro is not naturally a very political person. I think the following phrase, heard on the tram- car, is fairly characteristic : — " Well, well, ma fren, as long as I let alone, an' ab my bilious pill, I don' quarrel wid no man's politics." But while the qualities of the white and the black man admit of definition, and their spheres are sharply separated, the Mulatto, or brown, people are not homogeneous, and their life is associated with that of the whites at the one end of the chromatic scale and of the blacks at the other. Generally speaking, they seem to inherit intellectually from the white and emotionally from the black race. I have repeatedly noticed that psychic manifestations, both aural and visual, are far more general among West Indians of mixed African and European blood than among white people. With the West Indian negroes the normal and the " spiritualistic " senses seem to be so jumbled as seriously to affect the reliability of their evidence in many matters. The amusement provided by the negro is one of the advantages of West Indian life. Many of his quaint sayings are not the result of humour, but of a curious misunder- ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 275 standing of words or phrases. The following are one or two examples. On the tram-cars running to and from Kingston there are frequent disputes between the con ductor and market women, who endeavour to stow under the seats baskets of inordinate size. Said the owner of the offending basket: " Dat very wicked ob you, Mister Conductor, to be cross wid me." ' Woman,'' retorted the conductor, " I quite right to be cross ; you not know, woman, dat it say in de Bible ' no cross, no crown '? " White clothes are usual in the tropics, and if in white garments one should sit on a garden-seat newly painted green the result is conspicuous. Such a misfortune having happened to the master, he set his negro manservant to renovate the trousers, but the latter returned after a time, and with much show of concern declared that he " couldn't get de paint off no-how." "Well," said his master, "then you had better try ammonia." " I ab taken de liberty to do so, massa," replied the servant, " and dey fit me beautiful." Their proverbs, however, show humour and shrewdness. 276 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH " I no bill bush for monkey to run race in," expresses a characteristic attitude of the negro. " No can measure snake till him dead," is a model of cynical comment. Leaving Constant Spring we travelled westwards by the railway, and stayed at Mandeville in the limestone country. It is a relief to emerge from the tropical forest of plains or valleys on to the park-like country of the limestone plateau. Indeed, a country completely forested, though at first attractive from its wonders, is by no means the most beautiful type of scenery. The neighbourhood of Mande ville is a sort of tropical Derbyshire, and its homeliness is enhanced by stone-walled fields and a very English-looking church. Only when one looks into details does one realise how tropical it all is, as is shown, e.g. by the great number of orchids upon the trees. I saw and photographed in Jamaica a striking instance of the fact that plants can be truly " epiphytic," deriving none of their nourishment from the body which supports them. The case in point is that of a bushy growth upon telegraph wires, from which cer tainly no plant could suck nourishment. The monuments in the church and graveyard at ELLENS LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 277 Mandeville remind one of the names of some of the many English and Scottish families who have been connected with the long history of Jamaica. The town is important as the market of a large agricultural district and a centre of £2. VEGETATION UPON TELEGRAPH WIRES, JAMAICA administration. It is, however, quite small, being neither the seat of factories nor a centre of villadom. Here I was interested to notice that the passing negro did not greet me as "Colonel" or "Doctor," the usual appellations in Kingston, but always as " Squire." Missing Page Missing Page 280 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH morning and evening, throughout almost the whole year, the fragrant air is at the perfection of temperature, people ¦can do without many things. At these times, before and after the work of the day, man, no longer restless and dis satisfied, almost attains to the placidity of the contented beasts of the field. The railway westward of Mandeville passes along the edge of the curious " Cockpit Country," where the limestone is eroded not in long valleys but in cup-shaped depres sions which are so close to one another that they are only separated by narrow ridges of rock. If one should trv to strike across this country he would find neither a con tinuous valley bottom nor a practicable crest-ridge to follow, and the whole is densely forested. This was the district in which the Maroon outlaws long held their own against all comers. At present it is chiefly noticeable as a problem for geologists, and as, perhaps, the only district in Jamaica not ripe for agricultural development. Later we passed down a long and beautiful valley where banana cultivation is greatly extending. Already the export of bananas from Jamaica has reached the total of one million pounds per annum, being much the largest item of export, ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 281 exceeding not only sugar but all the products of the sugar cane, including rum. The banana is, I suppose, the most important addition to the diet of white people since the introduction of the potato. New land is constantly being broken in the tropics to form banana plantations, particu larly in the countries bordering the Caribbean, whence the market of the United States is accessible. Railways have been made, wharves constructed, towns have arisen, and fleets of ships have been built for the banana trade, and the supply is not yet equal to the demand. The United Fruit Company, an American concern, largely controls banana cultivation in Jamaica and other countries which supply the United States. On the one hand its operations increase business and employment in Jamaica ; on the other there is the disadvantage that the scale of these operations is such that the schedule of payment and the restrictions imposed by the company have almost the force of economic legis lation. Such is the power of a great Trust managed with consummate ability. In the neighbourhood of Montpelier is a fine cattle- raising country. There are many breeds, some, as the Herefords, familiar in England, but there are also herds of great white Indian cattle, humped on the shoulder and with 282 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH immense horns, which have a splendid appearance on the savanna. Descending to the plain at the back of Montego Bay, we reached again the sugar cane, the cultivation of which is once more profitable, and by the shore itself great groves of cocoa-nut palms, which, if planted on a large scale, afford after the lapse of years a secure source of wealth. The coastal strips on which they flourish are seldom valuable for other crops, the tree costs nothing when once planted, the gathering of its produce is inexpensive, and new uses and applications of the fruit are being found. So we came to the town of Montego Bay, western ter minus of the island railway, a haven visited by Columbus, the discoverer of Jamaica. We subsided into rocking chairs on the hotel verandah limp with the oppression of humid heat. It was in the latter half of August. At Kingston the sea- breeze had ceased, and there was no drying wind to chase away the moisture exhaling from the hot ground after the heavy showers. At Montego Bay it was similar, but rather worse. The dry-bulb temperature, that which people usually call " the thermometer," had risen to about 93" F., and the wet-bulb was only a few degrees lower, standing as high, I suppose, as it would with a dry-bulb temperature 64. COCOA-NUT PLANTATION AND VILLAGE, NEAR MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 285 of no9 F. in the dry season of the Indian plains. Thus when there was no breeze to dry the skin, beady drops of perspiration condensed from every pore, and collecting in rivulets trickled unceasingly down one's anatomy. The clerk in the office while plying his pen with the right hand kept his left equally busy with a handkerchief which, passing unceasingly over his face and throat, saved his manuscript from the obliteration of perspiration. On one such day as this I was collecting statistics in the Government Departments at Kingston. When some simple calculation was involved a junior was called in to assist, for few people care to trust their calculations when the weather is like this. Fortunately it does not last long. The early part of August had been agreeable, and I had found the weather pleasant in a former July. In September, I believe, there is still the airless weather in Kingston, but at Montego Bay we had very little way to go in order to get out of it. On the morning after our arrival we drove by the coast road along the low coraline platform of the north shore. Here on a dry and porous rock, covered with short turf and dotted with cocoa-nut palms, the direct trade wind blows strong and fresh, dry moreover instead of being damp and sticky as it is at Colon. The open sea was sapphire, and here 286 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH and there in little bays a white beach of coral sand invited a plunge in the smooth waters, green as chrysoprase, which are sheltered by the barrier reef. Elsewhere the coral grows as a rocky platform from the shore, here just above the waves, there awash, further out submerged. Standing on this shore the long low breakers glide over the rocky platform with a cool and " sizzling " sound, while the branch-like leaves, or leaf-like branches, of the cocoa- nut palms rustle unceasingly overhead. The breeze has all the life and vigour of that on our own east coast, but is benign as well as bracing. Black children splashed about in the shallows. Behind were palm-leaf huts of the negroes, a simple form of dwelling well suited to the situation. The sea, and the trade wind, the coral and the cocoa-nut, and over all the blue sky and a sun flooding the scene with limpid light. Whoever comes here from moist, sheltered, and superheated valleys will feel in five minutes as Christian felt when the burden he had borne rolled from his back. Returning to Constant Spring we were confirmed in our opinion that the Blue Mountains (if one may so call the whole of the eastern mountains of Jamaica) are much the most beautiful feature of this beautiful island. We spent &t*< : 'j'*", ^ti£*a& _jE^SBl!l 65. FRINGING CORAL REEF ON THE NORTH SHORE, NEAR MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA ELLEN'S LAST VISIT TO JAMAICA 289 a day with some of our " earthquake friends " at a hill- house overlooking the mountains, the plain, and the sea, and luxuriated in that magnificent prospect. We had waited to sail with our friend, Captain Lang- maid, on R.M.S.P. Oruba, and our last Jamaica evening was spent on board the ship in Kingston Harbour. At sunset the whole scene was suffused in rosy colours from sky and sea, whilst the well-known fragrance from the land filled the air. Then we sailed for England via the Spanish Main, and as we neared the close of the long, pleasant voyage, Ellen pronounced this to have been the most perfect of all our tours. And so her travels ended. She rests in the churchyard of Salcombe Regis, in that peaceful Devon valley sheltered by two hills save on the south, where the gap between their sloping sides is spanned by the level horizon of the English Channel. From far below down the combe comes the sound of the sea which was to her as the voice of a friend. While I stood looking at the coffin as it rested in the chancel during the funeral service I realised with the force and suddenness of revelation that twenty years of married life had produced a union which survived companionship ; T 290 THE TRAVELS OF ELLEN CORNISH that I was not merely the man I had been before marriage, but that something of the other being had entered into me, and become part of me. While I had Ellen at my side I had not known this ; I had regarded her close companion ship as my best possession, but did not know how far it was from being merely external. I realised now that though I could no longer listen to her counsel, the guidance of her nature was within me, and that I was not left quite alone. INDEX American Mechanics, 167 Ant-eaters, 172 Banana, the, 280 Bay of Biscay, waves in, 2 Belle Isle, Straits of, 144 Blue Mountains, Jamaica, xi, 177, 286 Bluff, the, Yokohama, 36 Buccaneers, the, 152 Buddha, the great, at Kamakura, 49 ,, carved in rock, at Nikko, 76 Buddhist Code, 31 ,, Services, 49 ,, Temples, see Ikegami, Kyoto, Negishi, Nikko, Tokyo, and Yokohama Canada, 96 Cape Guardafui, 1 1 Ceylon, 15, 17 Chagres River, 242 Cherry blossom, 49 Chicago, 102 Cloud, of Continental dimensions, 89 . ,, effect of distance given by, 94 „ sea, 271 Cockpit Country, of Jamaica, 280 Cocoa-nut tree, 20, 282 Colombo, 15 Colon, 153 Constellations, the Southern, 12, 13 Cryptomerias at Nikko, 65, 66 Culebra Cut, 160, 234, 251, 253 D'Aeth, Mr John, I.S.O., 213, 230 Desert, scenery of, 5, 6 "Dicky," 256 291 Earthquake, the Jamaican descri bed, 180, et seq. ,, the Jamaican, physi cal effect of, 213, et seq. ,, the Jamaican, the cause of, 221, et seq. Ellen Cornish, ix, 1, 4, 9, 12, 17, 26, 76, 114, 147, 148, 149. 150, 174, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 191, 192, 198, 203, 209, 237, 238, 256, 289, 290 Flying Fish, 14 French, work of the, on the Panama Canal, 163 Fudo, Temple of, at Negishi, 43 Fuji, 36, 41 Gatun, dam at, 242 Ginkakuji, 28 " Globe trotters," in defence of, 88 Goethals, Col. G. W., U.S.A., 167, 232 Gorgas, Dr W. C, U.S.A., 156 Great Northern Railway, U.S., 92 Greek art, and Buddhist temples, 26 Hall, Mr Maxwell, 213 Ffama Palace, 50 Hiroshige, 54 Hitachi, s.s., 1, 11 Honmoku, 37 Icebergs, 144 lemitsu, 75 Ieyasu, 23, 71, 72 Ikegami, temple at, 54 Indian Ocean, 8, 12 Indian Pilots, 141 292 INDEX Jamaica, first visit, 176, et sea. ,, second visit, 204, et seq. ,, last visit, 258, et seq. ,, country life in, 278 ,, earthquake see Earth quake „ negro see Negro. ,, north shore, 285 ,, scenery of, 258, 276 ,, Linguinea Plain, see also Kingston, Mandeville, Montego Bay Japan, 22, 35 ,, see also Kamakura, Kyoto, Negishi, Nikko, Tokyo, Yoko hama, etc. Japanese pictures, 31, 54, 87 ,, national characteristics, 35 ,, love of natural scenery, 43 ,, artistic sense among, 50 gardening, theory of, 50 ,, principles of decoration, 53 ,, castles, 65 Jebei Zubur, 7 Jizu, the, 44 Junks, Chinese, 20 Jupiter, rays of the planet, 10 Kamakura, 49 Kingston, Jamaica, 176, 258 Kyoto, 23, 26 LABOUR, European and West- Indian, on the Panama Canal, 173, 233, 240 Landscape, etherealisation of, from the sea, 4 Landslides, 227, 252, 263 Lanterns, ex voto, 37, 58 Linguinea Plain, xi, 178, 263, 264 London, Ontario, 103 Malaria, 154, 233, Mandeville, Jamaica, 276 Mangrove, and coast protection, 18 Mikados, ancient palace of, at Kyoto 23 Milky Way, the, 13, 14 Minikoi, Island of, 15 Minneapolis, 97 Minnehaha, Falls of, 98 Mississippi Bay, Japan, 40 ,, River, 97 Missouri River, 95 Monastery, the Honenin, at Kyoto, 26 Montego Bay, Jamaica, 282 Montpelier, 281 Montreal, 142 Mosquito, the anopheles, 154, 156 ,, the stegomyia, 154, 155, 156 Myokoji Temple, 44 Negishi, Japan, 40 Negro, Jamaican, 180, 185, 187, 266, 271, 273 ,, West Indian, 233, 240, 254, 256 Niagara River, general description of, 105-108 ,, Falls, Father Hennepin's View, 109, 138 ,, the " Horshoe," no, 117, 122 ,, ,, the "Geyser," 113, 117 ,, ,, Upper Rapid, 105, .113 ,, ,, rainbow over, 117, 139 ,, ,, break-up of water, note page 118 Middle or Whirl pool Rapid, 124, 134 ,, ,, Lower Rapid, 133- 138 Nikko, 65 Osaka, 22 Panama Canal in 1907, 150, et seq. ,, in 1908, 232, et seq. ,, in 1910, 238, et seq. ,, Zone, 254 City, 154, 172 Republic, territory of, 255 Plants, sensitive, at Singapore, ig Port Said, 5 Prairie, 93-95 Priests, Buddhist, 26, 28, 37, 47, 57 ,, Shinto, 72 INDEX 293 Quebec, 143 Red Sea, 6, 8, 10, n Refraction, effect on setting sun, 7 Sandy Gully', Jamaica, 265 Scenery, desert, 5, 6 ,, Jamaican, 258, 276 ,, rivers and, 96 ,, stellar, 14 ,, terrestrial, from the moon, 91 Shoguns, the Tokugawa, Castle of, at Tokyo, 58 ,, palace of, at Kyoto, 23 Shoji, effect of on lighting of interiors, 57 Sierra Nevada de Santa Martha, 153 Sinai, Peninsula of, 6 Singapore, 18, 20 Southern Cross, the, 12, 13 Stars, rays of, 8, 9, 10 Steam Shovel, 164, 235 St Lawrence, River, 140, 142 St Paul, city, U.S., 97 Suez Canal, 5 Switzerland, 146 Tea Ceremony, 31 Temple, see Ikegami, Kyoto, Negi shi, Nikko, Tokyo, and Yokohama bell, 32 „ steps, 42 Thousand Isles, the, 140 Tokyo, 50, 57 Trade wind, 285 Trees, artificially trained in Japan, 40, 50 Tropics, scent of, 15 „ forms of hills in, 18 ,, swamp vegetation in, 15S ,, climate of, 240 „ white versus black labour in, 173, 233, 240 „ day and night in, de scribed, 259 Twelve Apostles, Islands, 6 Venus, rays of the planet, 8 ,, producing a false dawn, 260 Victoria, B.C., 91 Waterspouts, 20 Waves, in the atmosphere, hydro sphere, and lithosphere, ix ,, in the Bay of Biscay, 2, 3 ,, in the Upper Rapid, Nia gara, 113 in the Middle or Whirl pool Rapid, Niagara, 124 ,, made by ships on Swiss Lakes, 147 ,, Atlantic, 151 „ Earthquake, 189 ,, in landslides, 227, 252 ,, swell of the Indian Ocean, n World, on the time required to see the whole, note, 146 Yellow Fever, 154, 174, 233 Yellow Race , relations with the white, 37, 173 Yokohama, 36 Yosimasa, 28 PRINTED AT THE NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS, WATERLOO HOUSE, THORNTON STREET, NEWCASTLE-UTON-TYNE 3 9002 A-"-