He nods. “I bring out Chinese returning home; passengers for the East, like yourself; flour; Connecticut clocks; hats; shoes; and other such select assortments of Yankee notions.
“On the return trip home, we bring hundreds of bales of raw silk which must be rushed across the continent immediately upon arrival. In fact, these goods have left the ship and are on their way across the country to the eastern mills before the passengers have even landed.”
“What would one of those bales be worth?” asks the businessman.
“Seven hundred apiece. The usual cargo is from 1200 to 1300 bales.” The captain pauses, presumably to let us work out the calculations. “In June the tea trade begins. The whole of the Formosa crop, some six million tons, comes to us since the English will not drink the Oolong.”
The Brit weighs in, “Of course we don’t want it. Too light, perfumed. We prefer something coarser. Stronger.”
“Spices, pepper, and tapioca come from Singapore. Also, an extract called gambier is transported in great quantities for coloring American beer. Thousands of bales of gunnysacks from Calcutta for American wheat, and, hemp and jute from Manila.”
This information written down is not romantic enough for Molly, but to watch the Captain’s bright eyes sparkle as he speaks, one can know it is romantic for the Captain!
“And you,” the businessman turns his keen eye on me. “Aren’t you the one traveling around the world?”
“Nellie Bly?” pipes up Mrs. White, suddenly interested in me.
“No, I am not Nellie Bly,” is all I answer.
“I’ve heard she has a terrible temper,” she whispers loud enough for the table to hear. “I can tell you’re not her. If you were, you would have ordered us all around to your liking by now. She is unscrupulous, the way she hides who she is from everyone, then goes and tells secret conversations!”
I suppress my smile as I wonder what secrets, if any, this woman holds. “I’m sure she is not as dramatic as you make her out to be.” Admittedly, my protest is not strong.
Mrs. White leans around me to get a better angle at the captain. “Really, you should be glad she is not Nellie Bly or she’d have spoilt all the fun we had at table tonight.”
“Thank you for your warning, ma’am. I shall take care if I ever meet her.”
WITH MILES AND MILES of open sea to go, we must find amusement amongst ourselves. I take to my fancywork in the women’s salon and meet a kindred spirit named Madge. She is traveling with her uncle but is at an age where she is straining for independence, and so she has made it a habit to join me at every possible moment. I do not mind, nor does the uncle. We talk of poems and books and how eager we are to see land, especially if it is Japan.
She will have a month’s time in the Celestial land to fall in love with the son of her mother’s best friend from childhood (or so the mother and the best friend hope). I will have only a few days, but then again, my traveling purpose is not to fall in love.
“I shall like to continue on with you around the world,” she tells me one day as we are playing quoits. The sun has warmed the air, and we are taking advantage of the deck games. It is her turn to throw a rope hoop at the target.
“The company would be nice, but I don’t believe your parents would allow it.”
“No, they would not,” she agrees, looking forlorn. “But until we part, I can pretend otherwise.”
I toss my hoop, and it lands wildly off target. “But this young man might be the perfect one for you. Handsome and witty and caring? Give him a chance before you run away from him.”
She pouts. A pretty thing she is and likely to catch the eye of said boy. She will not think of me for long after I am gone.
“But you’re not married, and you are older than I,” she points out as evidence that she should become a world traveler. Now I understand why Molly gets irritated when I tease her this same way.
“It is not because I do not want to be married or that I’ve never had a suitor.” I pause to consider my words more thoughtfully. “I want the right one, and I think he will be worth waiting for.”
Charles Wetmore’s thoughtful face comes to mind. He appeared wounded when he handed me the roses and I rushed away from him to catch the train. He said he would cancel all his appointments and join me as my chaperone, but I wouldn’t let him. Not because I didn’t want his company, but because I didn’t want him as a chaperone.
“Handsome and witty and caring, you say?” She considers this. “I suppose if those are his primary characteristics, he may be hard to resist.”
After our game on deck, we walk by a man we have seen several times, always deeply engrossed in a book. We raise our eyebrows at each other in familiarity and curiosity as we pass and he ignores us.
He is a grave, mysterious-eyed person, who has not spoken to anyone during the voyage. He usually has his dark, smooth, mask-like face hidden behind a French novel. It is rumored he is the Japanese poet Kachi, returning from travels in America, where he has been arranging for translations of his works into English. Though I am not particularly shy, I cannot bring myself to speak with him directly and confirm the matter.
We settle in the salon again with our fancy work, barely noticing the ship’s rise and fall, as we now consider ourselves seasoned travelers.
“What do you think Nellie Bly is doing right now?” Madge asks as she threads her needle.
I puff out a breath. When I am busy playing games or at meals, I am sufficiently distracted as to my purpose for travel. But when I am alone, the absurdity of my adventure comes back to mind and I wonder. Has she fallen behind schedule, or have the winds been in her favor? Has anyone been able to reach her yet, and tell her that she is not alone in her race? I doubt she will be pleased to find out.
“I don’t know,” I relent. “I suppose she is also on a ship, maybe in the Mediterranean or the Red Sea.”
“Do you know each other?”
“No. Well. I know of her, which is different from knowing her. But I doubt she knows me by name since we travel in different circles. Though now that I am doing a stunt, I wish I kept my pen name.”
“You have a pen name?” she asks, eager at learning about my secret identity.
“When I was first published, I went under the name B.L.R. Dane.” I pause to tie off my stitch, and then continue. “Nellie Bly is not her real name, either. It comes from a song. I don’t know her real name.”
“Then why are you traveling under your real name if it isn’t the thing to do?”
“I thought I had a respectable editorial position at The Cosmopolitan. I’m known there as Elisabeth Bisland. Never did I imagine they would launch me around the world with only a few hours' notice.”
“Oh, look! There are the missionaries again. I don’t know how they can stand to leave home for so long.”
The young ladies are tucked into the corner, whispering amongst themselves.
“I fear not all of them are cut out for the business they have signed up for.” As I say this, I am looking at the pretty one who has probably left a bevy of suitors at home. “But with enough faith perhaps they can move mountains.”
16
In Which Nellie Bly Experiences The Suez Canal And Assists A Juggler
IT WAS IN the afternoon when the Victoria anchored at Port Said. We were all on deck eagerly watching for the first sight of land, and though that sight showed us a wide, sandy beach, and some uninteresting two-storied white houses with arcade fronts, still it did not lessen our desire to go ashore.
The most urgent reason for our going to land was the fact that this was a coaling port for the Victoria, and having to stay on board a ship during the coaling operation is an event much worse than death.
Before the boat anchored, the men armed themselves with canes.
“What are those for?” I asked innocently.
“To keep off the beggars,” they said, and pointed out that the women carried parasols for the same purpose.
“I have
an extra,” said one of the Scottish women, looking concerned for me.
I shook my head, having an idea, probably a wrong one, that a stick beats more ugliness into a person than it ever beats out.
Hardly had the anchor dropped when the ship was surrounded by a fleet of small boats, steered by half-clad Arabs, fighting, grabbing, pulling, yelling in their mad haste to be first.
When the ladder was lowered, numbers of them caught it and clung to it as if it meant life or death to them, and here they clung until the captain was compelled to order some sailors to beat the Arabs off, which they did with long poles, before the passengers dared venture forth. This dreadful exhibition made me feel that probably there was some justification in arming one's self with a club.
Our party was about the first to go down the ladder to the boats. It had been our desire and intention to go ashore together, but when we stepped into the first boat, some were caught by rival boatmen and literally dragged across to other boats.
“Wait! They are with us,” I called out.
The men in the party used their sticks quite vigorously, all to no avail. The conduct of the Arabs justified this harsh course of treatment; still, I was sorry to see it administered so freely and lavishly. And yet they stubbornly persisted even while cringing under the blows.
“Go on,” waved one of the men from the other boat. “We’ll meet up on shore.”
So we ordered the Arabs to pull away. Midway between the Victoria and the shore, the boatmen stopped.
“You must pay now,” they demanded in very plain and forcible English.
“Miss Bly, we are completely at their mercy,” whispered one of the women, digging in her meager purse.
I could tell she was used to her husband paying.
“They will not land us either way until we pay what they ask.” Her voice choked.
“Half our party is on the other boat with the money. We will pay you at the shore,” I tried to reason with them.
“No. Many years with English and their sticks. If we land before he pay –” He mimes a beating.
We pay.
Walking up the beach, sinking ankle-deep in the sand at every step, we came to the main street. Almost instantly, we were surrounded by Arab boys who besought us to take a ride on the burros that stood patiently beside them. There were burros of all colors, sizes and shapes, and the boys would cry out, most beseechingly, “Here's Gladstone! Take a ride; see Gladstone with two beautiful black eyes.”
If one happened to be of a different political belief and objected to riding the former British prime minister, a choice could be made of almost any well-known, if not popular name. There were Mrs. Maybricks, after the American woman convicted of murdering her much older British husband; Mary Andersons, after the actress; Lillie Langtrys, after the singer and actress, and all the prominent men of the time.
I knew all about burros, having spent that time in Mexico, but they proved to be quite a novelty to many of the passengers, almost all of whom were anxious to take a ride before returning to the boat. So, as many as could find animals to ride mounted and went flying through that quaint, sleeping town, yelling with laughter, bouncing like rubber balls on their saddles, while half-naked Arab boys goaded the burros on by short, urgent hisses, and by prodding them from behind with a sharp stick.
After seeing about fifty of our passengers started off in this happy manner, a smaller number of us went to a gambling house. In short time we were deep in the sport of placing our English gold on colors and numbers and waiting anxiously for the wheel to go 'round to see the money at last swept in by the man at the table. I do not think that any one of us knew anything about the game, but we recklessly put our money on the table and laughed to see it taken in by the man who gave the turn to the wheel.
The longer we remained at this gambling house, the less money we had to spend in the shops. I went ashore with the determination not to buy anything, as I was very anxious not to increase my baggage. I withstood the tempting laces which were offered at wonderfully low prices, the quaint Egyptian curios, and managed to content myself by buying a sun hat, as everybody else did; and a pugaree, a long scarf used to wind about the hat and drape down, thus also protecting my neck, which is customary in the East.
Having bought a hat and seen all I cared to of the shops, I went strolling about with some friends, feasting my eyes on what were to me peculiarities of a peculiar people.
Old houses with carved-wood fronts that would have been worth a fortune in America were occupied by tenants that were unmistakably poor. The natives were apparently so accustomed to strangers that we attracted very little, if any, attention except from those who hoped to gain something from our visit.
Unmolested, we went about finding no occasion to use sticks on the natives. A great number of beggars who, true to their trade, whined forth, with outstretched hands, their plaintive appeals, but they were not so intrusive or bothersome that they necessitated our giving them the cane instead of alms.
While standing looking after a train of camels that had just come in loaded with firewood, I saw some Egyptian women. They were small in stature and shapelessly clad in black. Over their faces, beginning just below the eyes, they wore black veils that fell almost to their knees. As if fearing that the veil alone would not destroy all semblance of features, they wear a thing that spans the face between the hair and the veil down the line of their noses. In some cases, this appears to be of gold, and in others, it is composed of some black material.
In comparison, down at the beach we came upon a group of naked men clustered about an alligator that they had caught. It was securely fastened in some knotted rope, the end of which was held by some half dozen black fellows. What a contrast to see the overly-covered women compared to the underwhelmingly-covered men.
Darkness came on us very suddenly and sent us rushing off for our ship. This time we found the boatman would not permit us even to enter their boats until we paid them to take us across to the Victoria.
“But that is double what you charged to bring us to land,” said one of the men.
“It is the law. Price doubles after sunset.” Again, we were at their mercy.
The coaling was just finishing when we reached the ship, but the sight we caught of the coal barges, lighted by some sputtering, dripping stuff, held in iron cages on the end of long poles, that showed the hurrying naked people rushing with sacks of coal up a steep gangplank, between the barges and the ship, was one long to be remembered.
The next morning, I got up earlier than usual so anxious was I to see the famous Suez Canal. Rushing up on deck, I saw we were passing through what looked like an enormous ditch, enclosed on either side with high sand banks, and we seemed to be hardly moving.
Mr. Gregory, one of the fellows I’d often eaten tiffin with, was already up and keeping watch. “Why are we going so slowly?” I asked him while I fanned myself with a paper, trying to get up my own breeze.
He rested his elbows on the rail and answered in his light British accent. “By law, a ship must not travel through the canal at a speed exceeding five knots an hour. A rapid passage would make a strong current that would wash in the sand banks.” He splayed his hands. “When first completed the surface of the canal was three hundred and twenty-five feet wide, but the constant washing in of the banks has reduced it to only one hundred and ninety-five feet.”
The hours through the canal were tedious and stifling. Mr. Gregory tried to make it more interesting by telling us its history. Started in 1859, the canal took ten years to build, claiming the lives of 100,000 laborers. He says the trip through can be made from twenty to twenty-four hours. I’m hoping for twenty.
About noon of our first day in the canal we anchored in the bay fronting Ismailia. Here passengers were taken on, which gave us time to see the Khedive's palace, which is built a little way back from the beach in the heart of a beautiful green forest.
Continuing the journey through the canal, we saw little else of in
terest. The signal stations were the only green spots that met the eye, but they were proof of what could be done, even in this sandy desert by the expenditure of time and energy.
The one thing that enlivened this trip was the appearance of naked Arabs, who would occasionally run along the banks of the canal, crying in pitiful tones, “bahkshish.” This we understood meant money, which many of the kind-hearted passengers would throw to them, but the beggars never seemed to find it, and would keep on after us, still crying, “bahkshish” until they were exhausted.
We passed several ships in the canal. Generally, the passengers would call to the passengers on the other ships, but the conversation was confined mainly to inquiries as to what kind of a voyage had been theirs. We saw at one place in the canal, a lot of Arabs, both men and women, at work. Among them were a number of camels that were employed in carrying stone with which the laborers were endeavoring to strengthen the banks.
In the night an electric light was hung from the front and by moving it from side to side, we were able to continue on our way. Before the introduction of electric headlights, the vessels were tied up in the canal overnight because of the great danger of running into the sandbanks.
Near the end of the canal, we came across several Arab encampments. First we would notice a small dull red fire, and between that fire and us we could see the outlines of people and resting camels. At one encampment we heard music, but at the others we saw the people either working over the fire, as if preparing their evening meal, or in sitting positions crouching about it in company with their camels.
Shortly after this, we dropped anchor in the Bay of Suez. Hardly had we done so when the ship was surrounded by a number of small sailboats that, in the semi-darkness, with their white sails before the breeze, reminded me of moths flocking to a light, both from their white, winged-like appearance, and the rapid way in which numbers of them floated down on us.
Liz and Nellie Page 10