Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

SEVEN LEGS
ACROSS THE SEAS

_A PRINTER'S IMPRESSIONS
OF MANY LANDS_

BY
SAMUEL MURRAY
Author of "From Clime to Clime"

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

_Published, February, 1918_

INTRODUCTORY

I was early aboard the fastest ship that ever foamed the seas. Later, a long, strong whistle blast blew--the signal for starting--and soon she headed southward, the great vessel traveling through New York harbor to Sandy Hook as noiselessly as a bobsleigh drawn through two feet of unpacked snow.

I had secured a second class ticket to Buenos Aires, Argentina, by way of England, this marking the first of several legs of the world over which I had planned to travel. Thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, representing years of economical living, was the sum deemed as necessary to accomplish what I had purposed doing. By trade I am a printer and linotype operator.

In earlier years money for traveling expenses was of little concern, for the fascination that accompanies prowling about freight trains seeking an empty box car, or the open end door of a loaded one in which to steal a ride, or of turning one's back to the tender of a locomotive to protect the eyes from hot cinders coming from a snorting passenger engine while standing on the draughty platform of a "blind" baggage car--one without end doors--the train at the same time traveling at a speed of from 45 to 50 miles an hour--the "cinder days" during the catch-as-catch-can periods of traveling through coastwise tracts of country, across unbroken prairie stretches and over mountain fastnesses, are pleasant ones to recall, not forgetting the hungry, cold and wet spells that all men meet with who are enticed by the gritty allurements to beat their way about the country on railroad trains.

Since Benjamin Franklin's day it has been a custom with printers to travel from place to place, and, as some of the devotees of the "art preservative of all arts" had covered large territories of the world from time to time, I wished to be numbered among those at the top of the list. A union printer has little trouble in getting work in the United States, by reason of the large Sunday newspaper editions requiring extra men during the latter part of the week, and by vacancies taking place through the "moving spirit" of the workers, which has always characterized the printing trade.

This fascination, however, like other diversions of a rough nature, lost its charm in time, as it proved more comfortable traveling by passenger trains--inside the coach and sitting on a cushioned seat--than riding on the platform of a car that was being constantly pelted with red-hot cinders. I had graduated from the "free-ride" school.

On a trip through North America I had visited Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove, Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon of Arizona, Mexico, Mammoth Cave, Niagara Falls, and the Thousand Islands after I had enrolled in the "Cushion College."

Later on, having saved $400, a trip to Europe was made, visiting in that part of the world most of the chief points of interest. I had gone as far East as Vienna, Austria, when my funds became so low that two meals a day was all they would allow of, and I resorted to traveling at night on railroad trains with one compulsory aim in view--to save lodging money. After I had bought my steamship ticket in Rome, Italy, for New York, two weeks before the ship was to sail from Naples, the best I could figure out of the surplus money I would have at the time of sailing--on a two meals a day basis--was four francs--eighty cents. My savings for years, in short, had passed over the office counters of railroad and steamship companies.

As the major portion of my travel was by water, the nautical word Leg has been chosen as a designating term for the different sections of the world visited, embracing South American cities, South Africa, Zululand, and Victoria Falls, in Rhodesia; Australia, New Zealand and principal South Sea Island groups; then back to Africa and up the East Coast to Zanzibar and Mombasa; next through British East Africa to and across Victoria Nyanza into Uganda. Leaving Africa, we sailed over the Indian Ocean to India, visiting, among other features in that country, the Himalaya Mountains, and afterwards Ceylon. From Colombo we traveled eastward to the Straits Settlements, Philippines, China and Japan, concluding observations at the Hawaiian Islands. The journey was from New York to New York over the territory briefly outlined in the foregoing itinerary.

From Sandy Hook we sail for England.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introductory iii-v

LEG ONE

CHAPTER I

Incidents of Ocean Travel--Sights and Scenes in England--
London Railways and Traffic--Public Institutions Contrasted 3

CHAPTER II

Off for South America--Storm in Bay of Biscay--Impressions
of Lisbon, Portugal--Madeira Island--Novel Public Hack--
"Neptuning" Passengers--Crossing the Equator--Southern
Cross 10

CHAPTER III

Brazilian Ports--Rio de Janeiro--Monroe Palace--Towering
Palms of Rio--Uruguay--The River Plate--Characteristics of
the People--Buenos Aires--Off for South Africa 19

LEG TWO

CHAPTER I

A Tramp Ship at Sea--Wonderful Birds--Ashore in South Africa 37

CHAPTER II

Durban--Its Mixed Population--Sanitary and Clean--The Christ
Thorn--Novel Ways of Trapping Monkeys--The Indian Coolie, a
Taxed Ulcer--"Spiking" a Hindu's Tongue--Horned Ricksha
Pullers--Labor in Politics--Harpooning and Cutting up Whales 43

CHAPTER III

Trip to Zululand--Home Life of the Natives--Wives for Cows--
Calling on an Old Printer 74

CHAPTER IV

South African Railway Travel--Scenes of Massacres--
Johannesburg--Transvaal Gold Mines 90

CHAPTER V

Pretoria and the Boers--The Kruger Monument--Puzzling Names 109

CHAPTER VI

On to Mafeking--Interesting Natives and Souvenirs--Sighting
Rhodes' Grave--Rhodesia--Bulawayo--Victoria Falls, a Mile of
Amber-Colored Lace--Falls Compared--Deadly African Fever 115

CHAPTER VII

Kimberley, the Diamond City--Bloemfontein, the Convention
City--Crossing the Dry, Barren Karoo Country--The
Ostrich--Capetown--Climate the Best in South Africa--Table
Mountain 129

LEG THREE

CHAPTER I

Leaving the Baltic Sea for Australia--A White Country--The
Gold Fields--Crossing the Great Australian Bight--
Melbourne--Pensions for Aged--Immigration Encouraged 145

CHAPTER II

Trip to Adelaide--Finest Homes in the World--Kangaroo Called
the Native--Visit to Ballarat 157

CHAPTER III

The Heads--Sydney, Its Noted Harbor--Rural Education on
Wheels 162

CHAPTER IV

Crossing Bass Straits--Tasmania--Hobart--Port Arthur and Its
Prison Walls and Memories 170

LEG FOUR

CHAPTER I

Crossing the Tasman Sea--Last White Settlement--Dunedin, a
Scotch City--Christchurch--Wellington and Its Splendid
Harbor--Pelorus Jack, the Pilot Fish 179

CHAPTER II

To Maoriland--Rotorua--Geyserland--The Maori--Nose-Rubbing--
Auckland--Courteous, Prosperous People 190

CHAPTER III

South Sea Islands--The Fijians--Free Railroad Travel--A
Vegetable Marvel 199

CHAPTER IV

An Ocean Park--Natives of the Samoan Group--No Locked
Doors--The Samoan a Fatalist 208

CHAPTER V

Friendly Islands--Pretty Harbor of Vavau--Customs--A
Striking, Strapping King--Sacred Animals 215

LEG FIVE

CHAPTER I

A "Red Ticket" for South Africa--Eight Weeks' Travel for
Ninety Dollars--Portuguese East Africa--Inhambane, Where
Death Revels--Beira, the "Trolley Town" 225

CHAPTER II

German East Africa--Women in Iron Yokes--Zanzibar--Old Slave
Mart--Cloves Thrive--Tanga 232

CHAPTER III

Mombasa--A Three Years' Residence Limit--In the Big Game
Country--Nature's "Greatest Show on Earth"--Nairobi--Dead
Left to Wild Beasts 240

CHAPTER IV

Naked Natives--Victoria Nyanza--Bubonic Flea--Uganda--
African "Freight Train"--Sleeping Sickness--Deadly Tsetse
Fly--Beautiful Entebbe--The Rubber Country--Ant Eaters--
Kampala--Jinja and Ripon Falls--River Nile 250

LEG SIX

CHAPTER I

Off for India--Ship Doctor Hunting for Jiggers--
Seychelles--Bombay--The Parsi--Towers of Silence--
Handsomest Railway Station 265

CHAPTER II

In Baroda--Sacred Monkeys--Ahmedabad--Birds, Animals and
Insects Worshiped--Agra--The Taj Mahal--Plural Wives--Delhi,
Rebuilding--Elephant "Rocks" the Cradle 278

CHAPTER III

Aligarh--Novel Water Carrier--Cawnpore--The Massacre
Well--Lucknow--Benares--Hindu Gods--Monkey Temple--Bathing
Ghats--Sarnath and Its Temple Ruins 292

CHAPTER IV

Himalayas--Magnificent Views--Kinchinjanga, the
Giant--Darjeeling--Mountain Tribes 306

CHAPTER V

Calcutta--Memories of "The Black Hole"--Blood Offerings--A
Mecca for Hindu Widows Who Bathe--Madras--First
Christian Church in India 316

CHAPTER VI

Colombo--Ceylon--Cinnamon Tree Industry--Trotting Bullocks
Afford Rapid Transit--Kandy--Buddha's Tooth--Elephants in
Trucking--Nutmeg Trees 327

LEG SEVEN

CHAPTER I

Nine Weeks to the Orient--Singapore--Malay States Rubber
Mad--Straits Settlements--Hogs in Baskets--Chinamen in Motor
Cars--A "Dutch" Wife--Off to Hongkong--A Horseless
Town--Mountain Travel 335

CHAPTER II

Canton--Chinese Pirates--Lost Within the City Walls--City of
the Dead--"Feeding" the Dead--Quaint Home Customs--Chinese
Industrious--No Waste Land 347

CHAPTER III

Manila--Poor Water, Whisky Plentiful--Consumption--Squirrel
Nest Homes--Chinese Opium Smugglers--Evicting the Dead--No
Vault Rent, No Resting Place--The Manila Wall 354

CHAPTER IV

Shanghai--Professional Weepers--Family Feeding by
Contract--Wheelbarrow Transit--The Bund--Leaving Wusung for
Japan--Japanese Girls Coaling Ship 362

CHAPTER V

The Inland Sea--Kobe--The Jap's Home--Street Cars and
Rickshas in Competition--Men, Women and Children in
Harness--Income Tax on Labor--Kyoto Paper Houses--Kyoto
Temples--Yokohama--Kamakura--The Daibutsu Bronze Giant 371

CHAPTER VI

Tokyo--Mikado's Palace--Asakusa Temple--Geisha Women--
Hari-Kiri--Black Teeth--Nikko, Its Temples--Funeral
Festivals 383