Liz and Nellie
Page 20
“I have found kind friends everywhere,” I said, with a slight motion towards the doctor, who was now rendered speechless over the ill-luck that had befallen me. “I am sorry to have been so much trouble to you.”
“Trouble! You are with your own people now, and we are only too happy if we can be of service,” he said kindly. “You must not mind about the possibility of someone getting around the world in less time than you may do it. Whether you get in before or later, people will give you the credit of having originated the idea.”
“I promised my editor that I would go around the world in seventy-five days, and if I accomplish that, I shall be satisfied,” I stiffly explained. “I am not racing with anyone. I would not race. If someone else wants to do the trip in less time, that is their concern. If they take it upon themselves to race against me, it is their lookout that they succeed. I am not racing.”
“You could always rent a boat as Phileas Fogg did when he missed the Carnatic in Hong Kong. I’m sure a typhoon won’t blow up to bother you, though,” said the doctor, a sly grin on his face.
“Why, Doctor! You’ve never let on that you’ve read Verne’s book.”
“What? Do you think I don’t read?”
“Yes, but I thought you were one to stick to newspapers and medical journals.”
In quick order, we arranged the transfer of my luggage and the monkey from the Oriental to the Oceanic before visiting the hotel for tiffin. Word of my arrival had spread and several invitations came my way for dinners or receptions in my honor.
The doctor acted as my spokesman and declined them all, knowing the condition of my mind at present. The remainder of the day was spent saying goodbye to my friends on the Oriental, after which, Mr. Fuhrmann, the purser on the Oceanic took me under wing to introduce me to Hong Kong.
We went one night to see Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves as given by the Amateur Dramatic Club of Hong Kong. It was a new version of the old story filled with local hits arranged for the club by various military personnel.
Inside, the scene was bewitching. A rustling of soft gowns, the odor of flowers, the fluttering of fans, the sounds of soft, happy whispering, a maze of lovely women in evening gowns mingling with handsome men in the regulation evening dress–what could be prettier?
If American women would only ape the English in going bonnetless to the theatres, we would forgive their little aping in other respects, and call it even.
Upon the arrival of the Governor, the band played “God Save the Queen,” during which the audience stood. Happily, they made it short. The play was pleasantly presented, the actors filling their roles most creditably, especially the one taking the part of Alley Sloper.
Afterwards, the sight of handsomely-dressed women stepping into their chairs, the daintily-colored Chinese lanterns, hanging fore and aft, marking the course the carriers took in the darkness, was very oriental and affective.
It is a luxury to have a carriage, of course, but there is something even more luxurious in the thought of owning a chair and carriers.
“Mr. Fuhrmann, what does one of those cost?” I pointed to a fine chair with silver mounted poles and silk hangings.
“I figure a little more than twenty dollars. Some women keep four and eight carriers; they are so cheap. Every member of a well established household has his or her own private chair. Many men prefer a coverless willow chair with swinging step, while many women have chairs that close entirely, so they can be carried along the streets hidden from view. You’ll find convenient pockets, umbrella stands, and places for parcels in the nicer chairs.”
On the way back to the hotel, I marveled that at every port I touched, I found so many bachelors, men of position, means and good appearance, that I naturally began to wonder why women do not flock that way. It was all very well some years ago to say, “Go West, young man,” but I would say, “Girls, go East!” There are bachelors enough and to spare!
And a most happy time do these bachelors have in the East. They are handsome, jolly and good-natured. They have their own fine homes with no one but the servants to look after them. Think of it, and let me whisper, “Girls, go East!”
The second day after my arrival, Captain Smith of the Oceanic, called upon me. I expected to see a hard-faced old man; so, when I went into the drawing room and a youthful, good-looking man, with the softest blue eyes that seemed to have caught a tinge of the ocean's blue on a bright day, smiled down at me, I imagine I must have looked very stupid indeed.
I looked at the smooth, youthful face, with its light-brown moustache, and I felt inclined to laugh at the long iron-gray beard my imagination had put upon the captain of the Oceanic. I looked at the tall, slender, shapely body, and recalled the imaginary short legs, holding upright a wide circumference under an ample waistcoat, and I laughed audibly.
The captain offered to take me out to see Happy Valley. In jinrickshas we rode by the parade and cricket grounds where some lively games were played; the city hall; and the solid, unornamented barracks, along smooth, tree-lined roads, out to where the mountains make a nest of one level, green space.
“That’s where the racecourse is,” said the captain. “The judges' stand is there.” He pointed to an ordinary, commonplace racecourse stand. “The stands erected by private families are over there.”
“Oh, I like those. Are they built of palms? They are more pleasing because they are out of the usual.”
“I agree. Every year they have races in February lasting three days. Everybody stops work, rich and poor alike come to the racecourse. They race with native-bred Mongolian ponies.”
Happy Valley lines the hillside. There are congregated the graveyards of all the different sects and nationalities in Hong Kong. That those of different faiths should consent to place their dead together in this lovely tropical valley is enough to give it the name of Happy Valley, if its beauty did not do as much.
In my estimation, it rivals in beauty the public gardens, and visitors use it as a park. One wanders along the walks looking at the beautiful shrubs and flowers, never heeding that they are in the valley of death, so thoroughly is it robbed of all that is horrible about graveyards.
Our tour had come to an end, and the captain was needed back on board his ship. He dropped me off at the hotel.
“You were so different to what I imagined you would be,” I said as we separated, explaining why I laughed at our first meeting.
“And I cannot believe you are the right girl; you are so unlike what I had been led to believe,” he said with a laugh, in a burst of confidence. “I was told that you were an old maid with a dreadful temper. Such horrible things were said about you that I was hoping you would miss our ship. I said if you did come, I supposed you would expect to sit at my table, but I would arrange so you should be placed elsewhere.”
I took the joke the way the captain meant it, even though it stung to learn what people say about me. “Did your information come from a reporter trying to race me?”
“No, I did not meet her, though I heard she was aboard the Oceanic last November when Captain Kempson was at the helm. Rest assured we will get you back to America as fast as we can.”
After saying goodbye to the captain, I stopped by the telegraph office and sent a terse note to my editor. They have done me a terrible disservice to keep me in the dark about the race. If her editor is willing to pay in order to speed up her trip, mine ought to be willing to apply more effort for my success. If only I could send out Jules Verne’s Detective Fix and delay her!
Queen's road is interesting to all visitors. In it is the Hong Kong Club, where the bachelors are to be found, the post office, and greater than all, the Chinese shops, where I spent some time, but no money.
The shops are not large, but the walls are lined with black-wood cabinets, and one feels a little thrill of pleasure at the sight of the gold, the silver, ivory carvings, exquisite fans, painted scrolls, and the odor of the lovely sandal-wood boxes, coming faintly to the visitor, creates a
feeling of greed. One wants them all–everything.
The Chinese merchants cordially show their goods, or follow as one strolls around, never urging one to buy, but cunningly bringing to the front the most beautiful and expensive part of their stock.
All it took to shore up my resolve not to buy was thinking of my small bag and how much trouble I continue to have fitting in my cold-cream jar.
“Chin chin,” which means “good day,” “good bye,” “good night,” “How are you?” or anything one may take from it, is the greeting of the Chinese. They all speak mongrel English, called “pidgin” English. It is impossible to make them understand pure English; consequently, Europeans, even housekeepers, use Pidgin English when addressing the servants.
The servants are men, with the exception of the nurses, and possibly the cooks. To the uninitiated, it sounds absurd to hear men and women addressing servants and merchants in the same idiotic language with which fond parents usually cuddle their offspring.
Pidgin is applied to everything. One will hear people say: “Hab got pidgin,” which means they have business to look after; or if a man is requested to do some work which he thinks is the duty of another, he will say: “No belongee boy pidgin.”
While strolling about the Chinese localities, seeing shops more worthy a visit, being more truly Chinese, I came upon an eating house, from which a conglomeration of strange odors strolled out and down the road.
Built around a table in the middle of the room was a circular bench. The diners perched on this bench like chickens on a fence, sitting down with their knees drawn up until knees and chin met; they held large bowls against their chins, pushing the rice energetically with their chop-sticks into their mouths.
I also noticed professional writers stashed in nooks and recesses of prominent thoroughfares. Besides writing letters for people, they told fortunes, and their patrons never went away without having their fates foretold. If I failed in my mission to go around the world in seventy-five days, or if that woman were to beat me, perhaps I could return to Hong Kong in shame and join these writers. I was sure I could make up a fortune as well as they.
One day I went up to Victoria Peak, named in honor of the Queen. An elevated tramway was built from the town to Victoria Gap, which opened in 1887. Before that time, people were carried up in sedans.
At the Gap, we secured sedan chairs and were carried to the Hotel Craigiburn. The hotel – Oriental in style – was liberally patronized by the citizens of Hong Kong, as well as visitors. After the proprietor had shown us over the hotel and given us a dinner that could not be surpassed, we were carried to Victoria Peak.
It required three men to a chair ascending the peak. At the Umbrella Seat, merely a bench with a peaked roof, everybody stopped long enough to allow the coolies to rest, then we continued on our way, passing sightseers and nurses with children. After a while, they stopped again, and we traveled on foot to the signal station.
The view was superb. The bay, in a breastwork of mountains, lay calm and serene, dotted with hundreds of ships like tiny toys. The palatial white houses came half way up the mountainside, beginning at the edge of the glassy bay. Every house we noticed had a tennis court blasted out of the mountainside.
They said that at night the view from the peak gives one the feeling of being suspended between two heavens. Several thousand boats and sampans carried a light after dark. This, with the lights on the roads and in the houses, looked like a sky more filled with stars than the one above.
EARLY ONE MORNING, a gentleman who was the proud possessor of a team of ponies, the finest in Hong Kong, called at the hotel to take me for a drive. We visited two quaint and dirty temples. One was a plain little affair with a gaudy altar. The stone steps leading to it were filled with beggars of all sizes, shapes, diseases and conditions of filth.
At another temple, nearby a public laundry where the washers stood in a shallow stream slapping the clothes on flat stones, was a quaint temple hewed, cave-like, in the side of an enormous rock. A selvage of rock formed the altar, and to that humble but picturesque temple Chinese women flock to pray for sons to be born unto them that they may have someone to support them in their old age.
We whirled along through the town and onto the road edging the bay. We had a good view of the beautiful dry dock on the other side. The gentleman pointed it out to me.
“Constructed entirely of granite,” he said. “It is large enough to take in the largest vessels afloat. Would you like to see it closer?”
“No, thank you. I can see it fine from here.” There had to be other things more interesting left to see in Hong Kong than a dry dock!
Upon returning to the hotel I ran into Mr. Fuhrmann. “Please tell me of some interesting places I can visit. I seem to be down to dry docks and temples.”
He laughed. “You need a real Simon-pure Chinese city. Ask the agent about a trip to Canton. He can tell you all the interesting sights. Make sure you are up for it, though. Some sights are not for women’s sensibilities.”
“Thank you. I’ve never been one for sensibility anyway.” Besides, I knew we were trying to keep the Chinese out of America through the Chinese Exclusion Act, so I decided to see all of them I could while in their land. Pay them a farewell visit, as it were. Thus, on Christmas Eve, I started for the city of Canton.
32
In Which Elizabeth Bisland Visits Singapore, Witnesses An Escape Attempt, And Celebrates Christmas
SUNDAY, WE ARE lounging in our bamboo chairs on the wide decks; the awning flutters lazily in the breeze; and we, swimming between two worlds of burning blue, are endeavoring to recover from the fatigues of morning service.
We sail through the blue days on a level keel. The sea does not even breathe, but it quivers. I lie half the day, warmed to the very heart and soaked through and through with color and light.
There are no pageants of sunsets. The burning ball, undimmed by any cloud, falls swiftly and is quenched in the ocean, and after an instant of violet the tide of light vanishes abruptly, like some vast conflagration blown out suddenly, and as suddenly succeeded by the constellations hanging in the vault of darkness like gleaming lamps trembling in suspension. From the deep beneath whirl up myriads of jewels, glittering with unearthly fires and trailing a broad waving path of silver along the black waters in our wake.
Every hour brings us nearer the equator, and on the morning of the twenty-third of December we sight Singapore, seventy miles only from the centre of heat. The waters of the harbor are curiously banded in broad lines of brilliant violet, green, and blue, each quite distinct and with no fusions of color.
Against the skyline everywhere are the feathery heads of palms. The vegetation is enormous, rampant, violent. It stands 'round about the place like an army with banners, ready to rush in at any breach and destroy.
I pull from the ship’s library a book on Singapore so that I may learn about this distant port. Seven hundred years has this City of the Lions stood, but the never-ending battle with tropic nature's lust for disintegration has left it with no monuments of its great age, no venerable buildings to testify to its antiquity. In the twelfth century Singapore was the capital of the Malayan empire, but in 1824 the British purchased it from the sultan of Jahore, scarcely more than a heap of ruins.
Only those who travel to these Eastern ports can form any adequate conception of the ability which has directed English conquest in the Orient. When they bullied the Malayan sultan into selling Singapore, they were apparently acquiring a ruinous and unimportant territory.
Today, this port is the entrepôt of Asian commerce, a coaling station for vessels of all countries, a deep, safe harbor for England's own ships and men-of-war, and a point from which she can command both seas. The inhabitants of her Straits Settlements number considerably more than half a million, and the exports and imports are each in value something like ten million pounds yearly. The United States alone buys there every twelvemonth goods worth more than four million dollars.
Mr. Maddock, a Ceylon tea-planter twenty years resident in the tropics, is garbed in the ordinary costume of civilization, and apparently suffers no discomfort.
Accompanied by these two and the lady from Boston, I go ashore – Mrs. Kelly in her white walking dress, and I in one of the thin shirtwaists purchased in California.
Queer little square carriages, made for the most part of Venetian blinds, wait for us, drawn by disconsolate ponies the size of sheep. Conveyance in the East is a constant source of unhappiness to me. I was deprecatory with the jinricksha men in Japan, I humbled myself before the chair-bearers of Hong Kong, and now I go and make an elaborate apology to this wretched little beast before I can reconcile it to my conscience to climb into the gharry, or let him drag me about at a gallop.
The earth beneath us is a deep red, the trees are brightly green; to the right spans a rainbow sea, and overhead a sky of burning blue. The town is every color – blinding white, azure, green, red, yellow; the houses heavy squares of lime-washed brick, mostly without windows. Interiors are gloomily cool, and more than enough of the huge fierce glare of day enters through the open door. We pass swiftly through the business part of the town, and beyond to the broad red water-road where the houses face the sea.
One is suddenly aware that the sensory nerves awake in this heat to marvelous acuteness. The eye seems to expand its iris to great size and be capable of receiving undreamed possibilities of luminosity and hue. The skin grows exquisitely sensitive to the slightest touch – the faintest movement of the air. Numberless fine undercurrents of sound reach the ear, and the sense of smell is so strong that the perfumes of fruit and flowers at a great distance are penetrating as if held in the hand. One smells everything: delicious hot scents of vegetation, the steaming of the earth, and the faint acrid odors of the many sweating bodies of workers in the sun.