Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE CHINA SEA

  The tide was right at six o'clock in the morning, and the order had beengiven the night before to sail at this hour. Mr. Froler and CaptainRayburn were on deck before this time; and the latter took a boat to hisvessel, after very hearty thanks for the pleasure he had enjoyed.

  "I don't feel at all like leaving your steamer, Captain Ringgold, but Isuppose I must," said the French gentleman, as the commander took him bythe hand in the morning.

  "I am as sorry to have you leave as you are to do so," replied thecaptain. "We have seen the place, and made the acquaintance of quite anumber of the people. In fact, you have turned our visit into a generalfrolic, and I am sure my party have never enjoyed themselves more thanduring the past two days; and we owe it all to you, Mr. Froler."

  "You praise my feeble efforts to enable you to see the place and some ofthe people more than they deserve," replied the Frenchman.

  "When I meet you in New York, I shall do my best to reciprocate yourvery kind and hospitable reception, and I am confident all my passengerswill do the same. I should be most happy to have you continue onboard."

  "I should avail myself of your very kind invitation so far as to go toManila if there were a line of steamers between that port and Saigon.But I should have to go by the way of Singapore. With your permission, Iwill go down the river with you."

  "What is this coming alongside?" asked the captain, as he moved over tothe rail.

  "It is one of the gunboats, Captain," answered Mr. Froler. "There is thegovernor on her deck and two ladies. His Excellency has come off to saygood-by to you."

  "He is very considerate."

  "And there is the landlord of the hotel."

  "I paid his bill yesterday afternoon, and for everything up to thismorning," said the commander as he hastened down the gangway to receivethe governor.

  On his way he called Louis, who was on deck early, and directed him tohave the stewards call all the passengers, and to inform them that HisExcellency was coming on board. The distinguished official was receivedby the captain, and conducted to the deck. It was a cordial greeting onboth sides. The governor declared that he had never enjoyed himself morethan on the day before, and he should go down the river for the purposeof saying his adieux to the party.

  The gunboat would escort the ships to Cape St. Jacques, and he wouldreturn with it. In ten minutes after the call the passengers began tocome on deck, and the governor greeted them as though they had been hisfriends for years. He was a jolly old fellow, and made himself asfamiliar with the tourists as though they had been his intimate friends.When Miss Blanche came up he rushed to her, and took her by both hands.Mr. Froler suggested that the governor had come more to see thebeautiful women on board than for any other purpose.

  The barge was hastily dropped into the water, and sent for thepassengers of the Blanche, the third officer being in charge of themessage. The landlord of the hotel said he had come on board to pay hisrespects to his late guests, and he would go down the river with them.The barge returned after some delay, for none of her party were out oftheir rooms. They warmly welcomed the governor and the captain of thegunboat, who had been one of the guests the day before.

  Both ships got under way at once, for the anchors had been hove short.Mr. Sage and the cook were set to work. The governor divided hisattentions between Mrs. Noury and Miss Blanche; and the pacha was not atall disturbed by his old Mohammedan notions about wives. The rajah tookMrs. Blossom on his arm, and promenaded the upper deck with her underthe awnings.

  "Faix! Oi belayve the ould feller manes to marry her," said Felix.

  "Nonsense, Flix! He is a Mohammedan, and she is a Methodist, and neitherof them would consent to marry the other," replied Louis.

  "He knows she's a fust-rate nuss, and that's what he needs. Oi'll givemy free consint to it," added Felix, as Louis was called away.

  The three hours' run to the sea was a continuation of the frolic of theday before, even including the games. At nine o'clock, with the ship ina sheltered bay, breakfast was served; and it was as lively as all theother meals had been. More speeches and a confusion of tongues followed.The two ladies who had come off in the gunboat were the lady who wassaid to have detained Mr. Froler so long in Saigon, and her mother; andthey were treated with the utmost consideration by all. The band playedduring the breakfast, having been sent for by the pacha.

  Everybody was so happy that Captain Ringgold remained three hours longerthan he had intended. Then the time to separate came; and the partingwas long and difficult, bringing about another confusion of tongues, butit was over at last. The gunboat received her passengers for up theriver; but the craft did not go that way, and accompanied the twosteamers about five miles to sea, with the American flag flying at thefore.

  As the vessels were to separate finally, the gunboat fired a salute ofseven guns, which was returned by both ships; and then they sped ontheir voyage of eight hundred miles to Manila. The captain gave out thecourse east by north half-north, and the French flag was hauled downfrom the topmast. The passengers of the Blanche had been sent on boardof her, while those of the Guardian-Mother continued to promenade thedeck. The commander noticed that some of them were gaping and yawning,and he remembered that they had had only three or four hours' sleep.

  "I advise you all to turn in and finish your night's sleep," said he."Professor Giroud will give his lecture on the Philippine Islands andManila to-morrow at half-past nine. There is nothing to do tilldinner-time. No lunch will be served to-day in the cabin, for you havebut just left the breakfast-table; but any one can ring his bell, andsend for whatever is wanted."

  The passengers seemed to think favorably of this advice, for they allwent below. There was nothing to see; for there was not a single islandin the course, and the ship was soon out of sight of land, not to see itagain till she made Luban Island, off the entrance to Manila Bay. Thewind was almost dead ahead, though it blew very gently; but thiscircumstance soon attracted the attention of Scott, who had been so busywith the frolics that he had not had time to consult his books andchart.

  It was not his watch; and he went to his stateroom, returning very soonwith the blue book that goes with the chart of the Indian Ocean. Hefound that there was an east monsoon which prevailed in the China Seanorth of the equator.

  "What's the matter, Mr. Scott?" asked the captain when he found himabsorbed over his book. "Do you think we are going wrong, or that thereis a typhoon within hail?"

  "Neither, sir; I was looking to see why the wind was east to-day,"replied the third officer.

  "You have discovered by this time that there is an east monsoon comingin between those from the north-east and south-west."

  "But we did not find it coming up from Sarawak to Bangkok," added theyoung officer.

  "Your course carried you within between one hundred and one hundred andfifty miles of the Malay Peninsula. This and the great island of Sumatradoubtless have some influence on the winds. Both of these bodies of landare very hot; and, as the air from them tends to the cooler atmosphereof the sea, they favor the south-west monsoons. All these bodies of landmodify to some extent the prevailing winds."

  Scott was satisfied with the explanation, for it conformed with what hefound in his book. When he carried his authority back to his room, heturned in and took his nap, in order to be ready for his watch at eightbells in the afternoon watch. In fact, all but the watch on deck wereasleep.

  The passengers seemed to be rather logy in their movements and heavy ofintellect, perhaps because they had slept so well. It was cool at sea incomparison with the shore, and they had by this time become accustomedto extremely hot weather. But they waked up before the meal wasfinished, and all the talk was about the frolics of the last two days.

  "What do you call the place where we go next, Captain Ringgold?" askedUncle Moses. "I see it spelled in the books with a single _l_ and with adouble _l_. Which is correct?"

  "Both," replied
the commander. "If you are writing Spanish, you use one_l_; if you are writing English, you may use two _l's_, though I don'tbelieve in doing so."

  "Do the Spaniards ever double the _l_?"

  "I will leave the professor to answer that question," replied thecaptain.

  "They never spell Manila with two _l's_ when they spell it correctly;for that would make another word of it,--a common noun instead of aproper, and meaning quite another thing," the professor explained.

  "Perhaps I am stupid, Professor, and I know next to nothing of theSpanish language," added Uncle Moses, "but I don't quite understand you.If a Spaniard spelled the capital of the Philippine Islands with adouble _l_ it wouldn't be the capital at all?"

  "It would not."

  "What would it be?"

  "It would be something of which Miss Blanche has a couple in herpossession; and I may say the same of every lady at the table," said theprofessor with a cheerful smile on his face.

  "But which no gentleman has?" suggested the worthy trustee.

  "I don't say that; for the word means in Spanish a small hand."

  There was a general laugh around the table, and all the party held outtheir paws like dancing bears.

  "Then Spaniards must be good spellers," said Dr. Hawkes. "There is verygreat difference between the capital of the Philippine Islands and MissBlanche's pretty little hands."

  "_Ll_, which we call double _l_, is treated as one letter in Spanish,and it has its own peculiar sound, nearly equivalent to _ly_ in English;and therefore Miss Blanche's small hand would be called mah-nil-ya,which is not the capital spoken off. The name of all the islands isspelled in English with double _p_,--Philippine; but that is notSpanish, though the geographers have generally adopted that orthography.The Spanish name is _Las Islas Filipinas_."

  "Thank you, Professor; and I think I understand it now," added UncleMoses.

  "_Quiera V. ensenarme sus manillas, Signorina Blanche?_" said Louis witha laugh. Of course she did not understand him; and he added, "Will youshow me your small hands, Miss Blanche?" But she did not do so.

  "I should very much like to have all geographical names reduced to acommon standard, for I do not believe in translating proper names," saidthe commander. "I have been sometimes greatly bothered by the differencein names. When I came to Aachen in Belgium, I did not know where I wastill I looked in my guide-book, and found it was Aix-la-Chapelle.Vienna has about three or four different names, and people there wouldnot know what you meant if you called it as we do, or Vienne as theFrench write and spell it."

  "I think you are quite right, Mr. Commander," added the professor.

  "But I have a few words to say about our voyage; for I find it necessaryto repress the ambition of some of my passengers," continued thecaptain. "Some of them wish to visit all the Philippine Islands, andthere are about two thousand of them."

  "Oh! oh! oh!" groaned some of the party.

  "But the number I gave includes every rock, reef, and shoal that liftsits head above the water. Some call it twelve hundred. We will not stayto count them; but there are many of them big enough to have quite anumber of towns on them. I wish to announce that it will not be possiblefor us to go to any of them except Manila, spelled with one _l_, andmake an excursion up the Pasig River, and to the lake. But the ambitionof the party is more expansive in regard to China and Japan. As I havetold you, we can take only a specimen city in each country we visit.Hong-Kong and Canton in China, with some more northern port or city notyet selected, will be enough to give us an idea of the Central FloweryNation."

  The party left the cabin, and went on deck to study the map of theislands they were to visit.