The Old Navy

by Daniel P. Mannix

  As we entered the palace we passed along a long corridor; the walls were of wood, unpainted, and exquisitely put together. I think the beauty of their workmanship made more impression on me than anything in the ceremony.

  Outside the Audience Chamber we were halted and, as our names were called went in one by one. When my turn came I entered and had my first view of a Son of Heaven.

  The Mikado was dressed in a uniform not unlike that of the old French Army: red trousers and a coat of darker material. His clothes were much too big for him. Later I heard that, as his person was sacred, tailors are not permitted to measure him but must look at him from a distance and make his uniforms by guesswork. I don’t know how authentic this story is but his uniform was certainly too large. He did not look as though he was in good health; his face was pinched and his complexion was bad.

  Everything passed smoothly. I made my pauses and bows, shook hands with him, and backed out without accident.

  Next came our presentation to the Empress. She and her ladies-in-waiting were dressed in European clothes, which certainly was a mistake, from the picturesque point of view. There was nothing particularly striking about her appearance; she looked like any other Japanese lady.

  I made my pauses and bows, eventually arriving directly in front of her where I waited for her to hold out her hand. For a moment she didn’t do it and Admiral Hemphill, who, naturally was very anxious for everything to run smoothly, hissed at me, “Mannix, Mannix, hold out your hand!” I was sorry for the admiral’s anxiety but I hadn’t the slightest idea of offering my hand to her. I had done that once to the wife of the British governor of Grenada and she had refused to take it, “to put me in my place” I suppose. The Empress must have heard the admiral’s hisses for she smiled faintly and offered me her hand. I fell on it like a hungry wolf.

  A day or so later we attended a memorial service in honor of an event which, had it happened ten days earlier, might have involved us in a war with Japan.

  The midshipmen’s training ship Matsushima had paid a goodwill visit to Manila and had remained at anchor in Manila Bay for a week. The Japanese Navy was, and is, very aristocratic and among the midshipmen were sons of virtually every noble house in Japan; there was even a Royal Prince on board. Among them was the son of General Nogi. A few years later, when the Mikado died, Nogi and his wife committed hari-kari so as to accompany him into the Beyond.

  A few days after the Matsushima left Manila Bay, she exploded, exactly like the Maine in Havana Harbor. Most of the midshipmen were killed. Had the accident occurred in Manila, the Japanese would most certainly have thought that we were responsible as relations between the two nations were as strained as ours had been with Spain. Just think of it; a war that would have meant the lives of thousands of men and have cost millions of dollars depending on a fluke. Why the ship exploded, I never found out.

  This was shortly after the Russo-Japanese War and Japan had the entire Western world thoroughly bluffed because of her victory over Russia. The playing of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado had been banned in England for fear that the Japanese might consider it insulting.

  Reception of nobles on ship in Japan.

  Back in Yokohama, Admiral Hemphill gave a big dinner party which included all the naval and military chiefs and a number of other guests. We congratulated ourselves that everything had gone off so smoothly.

  One of the main sights in all Japanese cities is the red-light district; known as the Yoshiwara. In Tokyo the Yoshiwara is enormous, a city in itself. However, both Yokohama and Nagasaki have very — I was about to say “respectable” but perhaps “considerable” is a better adjective — Yoshiwaras.

  At the entrance to these districts one may hire, if one desires, a wicker helmet with a visor that effectually conceals the face; the Japanese nobles frequently use these. Inside the Yoshiwara everything is wide open. Each establishment has a big show window like the shop windows along Fifth Avenue; the windows have no glass but there are wooden bars set rather close together running along the front of them. In the windows, in plain view of the passerby, are the young ladies of the establishment, seated on cushions and provided with their toilet articles, tea sets, etc.

  From their demeanor these young ladies might easily have been mistaken for the pupils of a fashionable girls’ school, they conversed politely with each other, absolutely ignoring the passing crowd looking at them through the bars. There was absolutely no “soliciting” on their part, not even by look; there was no “rough stuff” as in Chefoo where the women stationed themselves in the street and attempted to drag passing men into the houses; nothing like the appalling “cribs” which existed, certainly as late as 1909, in New Orleans where women, in all costumes and lack of costumes, used to lean out of the windows and endeavor to attract the passing males, seamen and landsmen alike.

  What struck me most about these Japanese girls was the youth of some of them. Of course, it is difficult to tell the age of Orientals but many of the younger ones seemed to be mere children, ten or twelve years old. They had two insignia to indicate their profession: instead of tying their obis (sashes) behind, as is customary, they tied them in front and most of them wore a complete circle of ornamental hair pins. “Respectable” women in Japan didn’t wear more than a certain number of these pins, I think it was four.

  There was also a large number of devices offered for sale that were supposed to increase your sexual enjoyment, although they looked more like instruments of torture to me. Some of them had signs in several languages explaining their use. The wording was very striking, indeed.

  One device that looked somewhat like a large mushroom came with the following instructions:

  “Tortoise shaped. Especially made for convenience to carry in the pocket (comes with cloth bag). To use this you feel absolutely the same as you do touching to the human body or more better!”

  Other instructions read:

  “Ball shaped. This article is to use after filled with air (air pipe attached). You can use this when it is necessary in secret.”

  “Night Flower. The name Night Flower is hair on female or male organ or of secret parts and this made of artificial hair technically and you cannot find the difference between human hair and this. There are two colors prepared — Black and Brown. Prepared medicine glue with hair and after attached cannot come off even if you bathed but if you want to take off it is easy.”

  “Patent Blesser. After many times sexual union when man becomes weak use blesser then you can feel very young. Old man must use this without saying.”

  “For ladies. A lady who does not wish a man in bed use this after putting hot water inside then she will dream happy dream.”

  “Musical balls. If you are too short, put these inside a lady and wonderful music will ring inside her organ and both will feel very good.”

  I asked Walter Anderson, “What tune do you suppose they play?” After thinking for a moment he suggested, “Carry me back to old Vagina.”

  In addition there were numerous items such as Sexual Desirous Stimulant, Make Hot Cream, Happy Powder, Vacuum Vessel, Open Mystery, Night Cap, etc.

  I heard that frequently Japanese girls enter the Yoshiwara in order to provide themselves with a dowry and had no difficulty in marrying afterward; this may not be true; I certainly cannot vouch for it. Be that as it may, Japanese psychology is difficult for us to understand.

  I also heard a story about a Japanese noble who handed his wife over to a foreign naval officer in order to learn certain naval secrets and, when she returned having accomplished her mission, he then spurned her as being no longer fit to live with him. A foreigner arriving in Japan is astonished at how casually the differences between the sexes is ignored. If you are in the shower and call for a towel, it will often be brought to you by a pretty young girl. Once at a theater between the acts I went below for a necessary
purpose and somebody lined up alongside of me. I looked around and saw it was a woman. She was a female wrestler, at least six feet tall and built like the hired man. In some mysterious fashion, she was using a wall urinal.

  The famous Geishas are not prostitutes. They are professional entertainers. A famous resort in Yokohama was the Hundred and One Steps Tea House. It was necessary to climb that number of steps to get there. It was presided over by the dean of all the Geishas; she had known everybody as far back as Farragut and had just missed seeing Perry land in Japan. This establishment was extremely pleasant and well run but not all Geisha houses were this outstanding. One evening several of us went out on the town and stopped at a pretentious looking tea house. First removing our shoes and leaving them in the entry we entered the main room and sat down on the cushions prepared for guests. All these places had straw matting on the floors and were spic and span clean. We ordered supper and the national drink, sake. Sake, incidentally, tastes rather like sherry and is deceptively mild. It is served in shallow cups without handles which hold only a thimbleful and it is quite easy to dispose of a dozen of these cups without realizing what you are doing, after which it begins to dawn on you that sake, like the lady of the song, isn’t as mild or as young as it appears.

  Our supper being served we also “ordered” Geishas to entertain us during the meal with their posture dancing and singing; to the Occidental ear the singing sounds very like caterwauling. After an hour or so of this we asked for our bill and, looking at it, realized that we had been charged about four times the legal rate for our entertainment.

  We were in civilian clothes and evidently the mistress of the establishment thought we were American tourists. Paying no attention to the bill we carefully laid down the exact legal charge for our entertainment adding a generous tip, and, returning to the entrance, commenced putting on our shoes.

  As we did so we noticed that the head Geisha had manned the telephone. Whom was she calling? We made one guess and decided it was the nearest police station. Grabbing our shoes, we fled in our stocking feet down the main thoroughfare and a tolerably scandalous spectacle we must have presented.

  Incidentally, I have heard a number of stories of how Americans have made monkeys of the ridiculous foreign police. Speaking from considerable experience, I would say that if there is a class of people it is wise to avoid it is foreign police, any foreign police. I would much prefer attempting simian conversion of a New York traffic police officer — and that would be a big mistake. Americans who attempt games with police abroad are in for a lot of trouble.

  We made several trips while we were in Japan. On one which lasted for three days, we went from Nagasaki to Karatsu, traveling by jinrickshas, boat, and train. We stayed at all the best hotels and saw everything. The cost came to $8 a man.

  From Yokohama we sailed for Hong Kong, arriving on June 2nd.

  Hong Kong, like Port Arthur, is surrounded by high hills forming a sort of amphitheater. Here we met with a curious experience.

  After dropping anchor it was necessary for us to fire several salutes; first one of twenty-one guns to the Port and the British flag, which the British would answer gun for gun; then one of fifteen guns to the British vice admiral which they would answer with thirteen guns to our rear admiral; then the British commodore would fire thirteen guns to our admiral which we would answer with eleven.

  All of this was punctiliously performed, but as the last of the eleven gun salute was fired by us our officer of the deck, a young ensign who was directing the firing, distinctly heard the British fire an additional salute; he naturally replied to it gun for gun.

  Hardly had our guns ceased firing than the British fired still another salute. We could see the smoke of the black saluting powder coming from the muzzles of their guns. We, naturally, replied to this salute gun for gun. The moment we completed our salute the British fired STILL ANOTHER salute to which we commenced replying. A haze of incredulity commenced descending on us; it was like one of those bad dreams in which the dreamer runs at top speed and doesn’t advance an inch.

  Just as we started replying to their last salute we noticed a British picket boat speeding toward us; it came alongside and out jumped Vice Admiral Sir Hedworth Lambton, hero of Ladysmith, whom I had met in London. During the Boer War, Sir Hedworth had commanded the Powerful and when Ladysmith was about to be invested he took his men and guns ashore and helped defend the place during the long siege. Some years later an old lady, Lady Meux, took a liking to him (he was very good-looking) and offered him a great fortune if he would change his name to Meux, which he promptly did.

  As Captain Sowerby of the British Navy remarked to me in London, “For that amount of money I would call myself anything.” Sowerby, by the way, was later killed at Jutland.

  Sir Hedworth ran up our gangway ladder, very like a midshipman, saluted the quarterdeck and inquired cheerfully, “What in the devil’s name is going on? Let’s stop and commence all over again.”

  It seems that the “extra” British salutes to which we replied was the echo of our own guns, bouncing off the enclosing hills. Naturally, after we fired a salute in reply to the echo, the British fired one in reply to ours and there we were, like two kittens chasing their own tails.

  Admiral Hemphill was so annoyed that he ordered the officer of the deck placed under suspension for ten days. Sir Hedworth heard of it and paid us another call in which he persuaded our admiral to cancel the order of suspension and forget all about the affair, a very generous and kindly thing for an officer of his rank to do on behalf of a young ensign.

  I always liked and admired him. Later, when he and his flag lieutenant, Molyneux, called officially, except for the uniforms we couldn’t tell which was the lieutenant and which the vice admiral. No wonder Lady Meux left him all that money.

  Our next port of call was Canton. The streets here are so narrow that litters and sedan chairs have trouble rounding corners. It is far more “native” than most Chinese coast cities. Not infrequently the people we passed showed their disapproval of “foreign devils” by scowling and making what were evidently insulting remarks. I listened hoping that the Chinese in my subconscious mind might come to life again, but the chatter around us remained a chatter and nothing more. Of course, Cantonese and Mandarin are utterly different languages, and it is not unusual to hear Chinese from different provinces speaking to each other in Pidgin English.

  We went on to Woosung, at the entrance to the Yangtse River. Our first stop was at Nanking, site of the Ming Tombs. We hired donkeys and rode out to the Tombs, a long double row of stone animals ranging in size from elephants down. We carried our lunch in haversacks, and here I was reminded how difficult it was to eat out in the open in China. We were surrounded, at a respectful distance, by a crowd of Chinese who watched every mouthful we took with an anxious expectancy that quickly took away our appetites. When we rose and left the “table” they rushed in and fought over what remained.

  Wherever we went in China, we witnessed examples of the appalling poverty. When our ship was anchored in a Chinese port, we would be surrounded by sampans with beggars in them who would pick up any remnants of food that were thrown overboard. Sometimes they would come alongside and put a bag under the bottom of our slop chute to catch anything that was discarded. In order to drive them away from the side of the ship it was sometimes necessary to turn the fire hose on them. That seemed cruel but the danger of their infecting our crew with some terrible contagion was too real to be trifled with. I have seen diseases in the Orient that simply don’t exist in the Western world or, if they do, they certainly don’t walk around the streets.

  This misery carried inevitable lawlessness in its wake. We were warned by the old-timers to avoid using sampans or other “shore boats” in the evening if we were alone, and if we did use them always to sit facing the man who was skulling the boat. These boats had little enclosed cabins i
n the stern with low doors opening outward. We were advised to sit with our feet braced against these doors so they couldn’t be opened from the inside; sometimes there was another man hidden in there. The last bit of advice was to make our bargain with the waterman before getting in his boat. This didn’t always work for sometimes, half-way to the ship, he would rest on his oars and demand double fare. The only thing to do then was to fight fire with fire, agree to his demands and when you were alongside your ship with the anchor watch at your back give him the amount originally agreed on and tell him to go to hell.

  We went on to Kiukiang. Here I got into an argument with a ricksha coolie, and a passing missionary, seeing that I was a fellow American, came over and said, “Let me show you how to handle these fellows.” He pretended great solicitude for the man and asked how much I had given him. The coolie, who was screaming for more money, held out the hand in which he had the coins. The missionary carefully inspected the hand and remarking, “You paid him too much,” grabbed the coins and then spit in the man’s face. The coolie subsided at once. What struck me especially about the business was that the missionary kept the coins!

  Our last stop on the Yangtse was at Hankow, six hundred miles from the mouth of the river. Here I had a curious experience. We were presented to the viceroy who had a most resplendent staff. They didn’t look like Chinese; they looked more like Tartars or, perhaps, Mongols. They were all big men, well over six feet, and wore gorgeous trappings.