Around the World with a King

by William N. Armstrong

  At the monkey temple, within the city, a priest received us and humbly asked alms for the benefit of these consecrated simians. "If a monkey be the god, what must the priest be?" asked the cynical Frenchman. The one who stood at the gate of this temple as the medium between man, the worshipper, and the monkey gods, was a shrewd-looking person, and, no doubt, could advance conclusive reasons for the truths of simian theology. He led us within, where a thousand chattering divinities were climbing pillars, swinging from the rafters, or picking the meat out of sacrificial nuts offered to them by the crowd of worshippers. Nor did they hesitate to drop upon the shoulders of believers and seize fruit from their hands.

  A venerable goat stood alone in the court-yard; what his part was in this "divine comedy" we were not told; whether or not in this intricate religious system a scapegoat was needed, no one knew. But his patience was indeed divine. Three active young monkeys sat on his back; another sat between his horns; another pulled his tail, but he stood imperturbable, chewing his cud with the resigned air of one who had suffered much tribulation, with a hope of eternal bliss in a Paradise of rubbish. These mischievous divinities swarm over the city, pounce on and carry off, without resistance, the food of the poor, which is the simian method of assessing for church dues, and they are not punished. An attempt was made by the British authorities to place them on the farther side of the river, but they swarmed back on the river boats, for no boatmen dared molest them. When they are old and feeble they are placed in an asylum; this "retreat," the German poet Heine said, was the model for the French Academy of Science. One can imagine the consolation of a devout Hindu who in his last hour, when all other consolation is gone, grasps this flower of faith in immortal monkeys, and refreshes himself with its fragrance in the last darkness.

  I asked the British "Collector" whether he reasoned with the worshippers about their belief in this simian divinity. He replied that he did, but that a cute priest "turned all his points." This belief was based on the writings of the sacred books; if you questioned their authority, the priest replied, "What you need is faith; if you have that, you will believe: you have faith in your own religion, therefore you believe it: have faith in ours, and you will believe as we believe."

  British rule, which is flexible and adroit, must tolerate and protect this institution as well as that of polygamy. These are fixed in the customs and ideas of the people, as human slavery was fixed and protected in the political constitution of the American Republic.

  Of this wonderful city one hundred books have been written. There was nothing which we saw that has not been told in them by many pens.

  We travelled, without rest, to Bombay. The heat was great, and the King had "sucked" up all he cared to know about the Orient. He was the typical tourist, who wished above all things to cover the ground.

  Sir James Ferguson, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Bombay Province, received us at the railway station and invited the party to his summer residence in Mahabheshwar; but the invitation was declined, for the King preferred to remain in Bombay during our short stay.

  The Civil Service officers, the Consular Corps, distinguished natives, both Indians and Parsees, called upon the King, and for three days made him welcome. He saw the docks, the stables of Arabian horses, the silver wares of Cutch, the singular caves of Elephanta with their immense stone images of the three-headed gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and the seven Towers of Silence. The towers are on the brow of a promontory high above and overlooking the ocean. To these the Parsees consign their dead. In the temple at the gateway is the perpetual fire of the Fire-Worshippers.

  The Par sees are said to be the Jews of India; followers of Zoroaster, they are able and shrewd men who hold the money power of Bombay. One of them, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, the only native baronet in India at the time of our visit, and a millionaire, called upon the King, who, in order to see his great residence, assumed his incognito and returned his visit. The large hall in which he received us was an art gallery with a great number of pictures by foreign and native artists. By the side of rich European furniture were pieces of delicate Indian workmanship, and the grounds surrounding the place held all the rare plants of India. When we rose to leave, wreaths of jessamine were put about our necks, and bouquets of lily blossoms put into our hands. Sir Jamsetjee pressed the King to attend a banquet, but his invitation was declined for lack of time.

  Before leaving India the King proposed that we should take home some souvenir of the country. I suggested that we take back the custom of the faithful Hindu who raises only a single tuft of hair on the very top of his head, by which the Divine hand draws him up to Heaven. The King promptly rejected this Ministerial advice, but selected a striking image of Buddha, for the purpose, I afterwards learned, of showing to his own people that nations with some high civilisation used a variety of idols as well as the Hawaiians. His people, he said, were not the beastly pagans that the travellers and missionaries had represented them to be.

  CHAPTER XIX

  From Bombay to Suez — Some Modest British Heroes — Anecdotes of the Candahar Campaign — The Valet's Relations to the King Explained — Aden — No Trace of the Lost Lenore — Black Arab Boys with Red Hair — Diving for Coins; an Old Trick of the King and His Suite — Mount Sinai — An Englishman's Comments on its Possessors — Surprised by the Khedive's Officers at Suez — The King Invited to Be the Khedive's Guest — The Suez Canal — "Sandwiches" at Zigazag — Mohammedan Abstinence — Mussulman Comments on Christianity.

  WE embarked on the "Rosetta" for Suez, with royal salutes from ships and forts.

  We had rapidly travelled through a vast empire and had seen as little of it as one sees of the moo_n through a small telescope. This was, however, a royal tour, and "the King does as he pleases." Not even the splendid mausoleum at Agra, the "dream" of India, tempted my royal master to delay his journey. The edge of his curiosity was dulled, and he was satiated. As to the troublesome problems and stupendous questions which confronted the British in India, he thought that the British had foolishly gotten into a scrape and would have to get out of it the best way they could; they had, he thought, meddled in other people's affairs, and their fingers were burned. This much he had "sucked" out of his travels. No doubt there was some wisdom in his reflections.

  The southwest monsoon set in on the second day. In these dense clouds and strong winds were the airy cargoes of rain which fall in showers of gold over all India. Our vessel was crowded with British officers who were returning home after the Candahar campaign. They w(!re simple, rugged men, modest, and full of that supreme pluck which has won empires. They talked of battles in the mountain passes as if they had been trifling skirmishes; there was no magnifying of their office. They recited no heroic stories, though the campaign was filled with brave acts. A colonel told us an incident of their retreat. While falling back through a gorge in the mountains he commanded a force protecting the rear of the column. It was annoyed by the rifle-shots from scattered bands of Afghans on the mountain sides. With his own force were men of a tribe who fight for hire on either side. One of his officers saw a hostile tribe-man on the mountain side "potting" British soldiers, and he called to one of his own tribe-men, "Do you see that man firing at us?" "Oh, yes," he replied, "he is my father. I've had three shots at him; I'll kill him next shot." The British force had also taken some Afghan prisoners, but there was not force enough to hold them. They were released on promises not to fight against the British. One of them replied: "My religion compels me to fight you always." "Then we must hang you," said the British commander. "Can't help it," the prisoner replied; and he was hung. Prisoners were often taken and released; the next day they became loyal teamsters in the British service and were excellent foragers. It was said by these British soldiers that the Asiatics were indifferent to death from cannon and gun shots, but that they could not stand a bayonet charge; the personal presence and energy of the British enemy upset their equanimity.

  From letters which we received from h
ome, in Bombay, the suite now discovered the curious and rather mysterious relations which existed between the King and Robert. The versatile editor of a local paper had secretly urged the King to keep a record of his travels, which, in the hands of the editor, would be transformed into a brilliant history of his tour. As the editor was politically opposed to the suite, he had recommended that Robert should add to his duties of valet that of keeping a faithful diary of events. The King assented to this without the knowledge of the suite, as it was an assurance of a flattering account of his "ever-glorious" tour. Robert's frailties embarrassed the King; he felt, however, that to discharge him would be to prevent the making of a most valuable record, and he submitted with patience to his irregularities. The sequel proved that Robert, though pretending to keep a faithful diary of events, neglected to do so because he was not relieved from his menial service.

  When the steamship anchored at Aden (the spot where it never rains) the British Governor came on board and invited the King to land and lunch with him. Aden stands as a sentinel guarding the waterway from England to India. On the beach were tethered camels, and Arab peddlers offered ostrich feathers at London prices. Here in this "distant Aden" I suppose we should have seen "a fair and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore," but neither telescope nor eye could discover her. In her place were some shrivelled women crouching on the sand, not one of whom had ever heard of her, but suggested that she might be a resident of an interior village. Groups of Arab boys, with black skins and reddish-yellow hair, were lying on the sand. This peculiar colour of the hair is obtained by covering the head with a thick paste of clay and lime, the acids of which convert the black into reddish yellow. Many of the small boys were walking about with heavy and dirty caps of mud in order to comply with this fashion.

  While the King, from the deck of the steamer, was looking at the swarms of black and artificially redheaded boys who were swimming about the vessel, the British Governor said: "Your Majesty, please notice the great skill of these black chaps, who dive deeply and bring up from the bottom any coin you pitch into the water." He tossed some silver coins into the sea, and they were quickly brought to the surface by the urchins, who sank like lead toward the bottom. The King replied, "It is very clever;" then, turning to his suite, he said in his native language: "Thirty years ago you and I did it just as well in Honolulu harbour." He referred to our childhood days, when our incomes were limited, and we also plunged into the water and brought up coins which American whalemen tossed from the docks. The explanation of this trick is that a coin cast into the water sinks in a moderate zigzag course, and a skilful diver, sinking more rapidly than the coin, turns, looks upward, and catches it as it descends and before it reaches the bottom.

  Steaming up the Red Sea, parched in the hot air which flows over it from the Arabian Desert, the shores gradually narrowed into the Gulf of Suez. Mount Sinai loomed up through the transparent air far to the eastward. One who accepts the faith of Christendom, and for the first time actually sees the rugged and bare peaks from which the Law was given to man, is awed in its presence as if there still remained some of its supernatural wonders; even undying sparks of the Fire in the Bush. An Englishman standing by the King said:

  "It's a beastly shame that Sinai is in the hands of a lot of rascally and thieving monks who swindle the Christian visitors; and Jerusalem too,—the blasted Turks hold all the sacred places."

  The King asked his English acquaintance why Christendom did not seize the holy places and hold them as sacred memorials of the most memorable event in the history of man. His plain-speaking friend replied: "Can do it, you know, just as easy as a mastiff throws up a rat; but all that's sentiment,—no trade in it; if you found gold mines on Sinai or in Bethlehem, Christendom would clear out those devilish Turkish beggars in a jiffy; if Nelson or Wellington were buried there, we 'd have them now."

  In this way was the royal Polynesian instructed in the moral sentiment of Europe toward the Holy Land. He had read about the Crusades, and he asked this stranger why they were abandoned after they had been prosecuted for nearly two hundred years. The stranger told him the Mohammedans said it was God's will that they should keep those places, and he fancied they were right about it; the Christian nations, if they got possession of them, would only make a dog-fight over the ownership.

  My royal master was much impressed with the statements of this stranger. He said the people of Christian lands seemed to be more indifferent than even his own people toward sacred places; at any rate they did not show as much respect for them as he had believed.

  Our steamer anchored near the town of Suez late in the evening. We were told that she would enter the Canal at three o'clock in the morning. We made our plans to leave her and land at that early hour, and take the railway train for Cairo.

  We had sent no notice to the Khedive, or requested any to be sent, of our intention to visit Egypt, but pursued our safe policy of inviting no repulse or snubbing. We suspected that his Highness had never heard of the Hawaiian Islands; moreover our kingdom was without any treaty with Turkey, and we were not entitled to any courtesies.

  The King was asleep below in his stateroom, and I was dozing in a deck chair about two o'clock in the morning, when one of the vessel's officers woke me with the statement, "An embassy, sir, from the Khedive." I stood up, rubbed my eyes, looked into the darkness, and by the dim light of the hanging lantern saw six persons in full uniform, with fez caps, standing before me. I was surprised and confused at this apparition of gold lace and fez caps. One of the party introduced himself to me as Sami-Pasha, and his companions as Abbati-Bey and Ali-Saroudi-Bey, and others, who had been directed by the Khedive to proceed from Cairo to Suez and invite the King to become his Highness's guest as long as he remained in Egypt. Sami-Pasha had formerly represented the Khedive in London, and spoke English fluently, and, though he was no longer in active service, had been requested to join in receiving the King. Abbati-Bey was another noted member of the vice-regal court, and Ali-S.aroudi was the Director of Railways.

  I roused the Chamberlain, who directed the valet to wake up the King, who was soundly asleep on a sofa. After several minutes' shaking the royal personage awoke, and was told that an embassy from the Khedive was on deck. The valet dressed him, and he reached the deck, though not fully awake. In the dim light he stood leaning against the sides of the saloon while the members of the embassy were presented to him and gave him the Khedive's invitation, which he graciously accepted, though he was too drowsy to understand it. He began to take a nap in a standing position, but we all entered the dining-saloon and some coffee woke us up. The chief of the embassy said that they had just arrived from Cairo on the Khedive's private car, and they asked the King to breakfast in Suez and then take the train, which would be kept waiting for him. We thereupon boarded the yacht of the embassy just as it began to dawn. As it was now three o'clock in the morning, and breakfast would not be served for several hours, we steamed into the Canal for a mile, and then returned. In the clear morning air the ranges of mountains on both sides of the Red Sea loomed up barren and desolate, with Sinai towering in the middle range to the eastward. Suddenly a flash of light from the rising sun shot across the sky, and the mountains of the African range were tinted with purple. The King, now well awake, wished to know where the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea. He was told that many men had studied the matter, but could not agree on the route; that Napoleon, in his expedition to Egypt, had tried to follow it under the direction of his savants, but came near being swamped. According to the Arab story he was fished out of the water in a very sad plight; according to the French account he had been saved by his own fertile genius.

  The desert, like a great sea, stretched away until lost in the horizon. Not far off was a camp of Bedouins, the camels tethered around the tents. At some distance toward the east were the two green spots known as "Moses' Wells," and over all was the silence of centuries.

  On landing in Suez an elaborate breakfast was served in t
he hotel by cooks and servants who were brought by the train from the Khedive's palace in Cairo. We entered the vice-regal car, which was furnished in silk and embroideries, and to which was attached another car containing the servants and luggage.

  As we ran for many miles on a line parallel with the Canal, there appeared the strange phenomenon of huge steamers ploughing their course through the sands of the desert; for the water of the Canal was below the plane of the sand and not visible.

  When we reached Zigazag an amusing incident occurred. It was arranged before we left Suez that at this station we should have luncheon at one o'clock. Entering a private room, we saw upon a table a large tray upon which was a mountain of sandwiches. His Excellency Sami-Pasha was enraged. Calling for the keeper of the station, he shouted: "What does this mean? I ordered lunch for his Majesty the King; you give us sandwiches, bah! "The station-master trembled, bowed low, and, when our vice-regal escort would listen, explained that he had received a tete..: gram ordering sandwiches. "Where is it?" Abbati-Bey shouted. It was brought. The despatch dictated at Suez was: "Prepare lunch for the King of the Sandwich Islands." The telegram received read: