Alfred C. B. Fletcher

“ The narrow streets were six inches in dust; the sun was so hot that we fairly simmered in perspiration and the odours from the native shops were enough to make a man faint. A naked ascetic, rolling over and over on the dusty road, would get in our way. In each block a dozen beggars would plead for funds and the rays of the sun would nearly burn us up. We got out of the native quarter into the British section. My throat was parched and Richardson said his tongue felt like a sharp stick in his mouth. ”

“ Our train from Damascus to Beirut travelled at the rate of six miles an hour. A man can nearly beat this walking. But out of justice to this train I should say that in a distance of eighty miles we had to rise three thousand feet to the ridge of the Lebanon Mountains. From the summit of these mountains a beautiful picture was suddenly spread before us. Directly beneath us was Beirut—its houses crowded in among the jungle of trees—and stretching out beyond to the horizon was the expanse of the blue and white-capped Mediterranean. ”

“ In a remote corner of the Chinese City the stately Temple of Heaven with its rich blue roof rests in the haze of the oriental atmosphere. Beneath one is a bee-hive of human beings. Tens of thousands pass through the Chien-Mien Gate each day. Nearly every means of conveyance that one can imagine, except roller skates and submarines, can be seen creeping through the arched openings of the huge gate. ”

“ In our homes we only entertain our friends or persons with worthless pedigrees. But the supreme test of hospitality is when one is willing and glad to take in the total stranger, a foreigner perhaps, and house and feed him as a member of the family. Imagine an American family taking into their household a pair of strange Japanese who were travelling through their city. It is futile to consider it. But this is exactly what the Japanese did to Richardson and myself in many instances. ”

“ I had heard of men beating their way amid a continual round of hardships. I thought it possible to travel in such a manner and do so with a fair degree of comfort. It was our plan to look for good jobs and to get around in the middle course between the wealthy tourist on one hand and the ignorant, homeless tramp on the other.
With our fares paid to Honolulu, by money we had saved, we had no cares, and mingled with the miscellaneous types of passengers on the ship. ”

“ Japan is a nation of bathers. There are said to be thirty thousand public bath-houses in the city of Tokyo alone and at five o'clock each evening thousands of people can be seen with towels over their arms wending their way for their daily wash. It is at this time that all the guests—men, women and children in the hotel—gather in the bath-room and splash about like a lot of youngsters, laughing and enjoying themselves.
If we wanted to be clean we had to cast aside our provincial American ways and bathe in Japanese fashion. Richardson rather objected to this. ”

“ After one has visited many Oriental countries and has had time to get their point of view and to understand their ways he begins to doubt the reasonableness and feasibility of many of our American customs. He certainly gets over that feeble notion that our way of doing things is the only way.
The Japanese have their faults, but no one can accuse them of being prudes, of having false modesty. They are a more modest race of people than Americans. They have no foolish notions about concealing the human body, but their average of morals is every whit as high as that in America. ”

“ The mess rooms with crude tables covered with oilcloth, with tin ware and lack of service, could exhibit at meal time the most unappetising display of food ever placed before any man. Stewed tripe—weeks old—lamb stew, clam-chowder, bread apparently made of cement, butter with a stench so strong that it outclassed the odours of the other provisions, fermented tomato catsup and hot cakes with the consistency of horse pads, greeted the unwashed eaters three times a day. The eaters themselves were a curious exhibition of mankind. ”

“ Eliminating its temperature, it is Paradise on earth. With it, it is Hell. Colombo is built about several small lakes whose shores are a very jungle of graceful palms and other dense tropical plants. There is a beautiful driveway along the beach which is the promenade for the wealthy of the place and, during the afternoon, one can almost imagine that he is on some fashionable European thoroughfare from the numerous grand carriages and well-groomed horses which pass. Richardson and I swept back and forth on this lengthy boulevard in our rickshaws. ”

“ There were one hundred and fifty automobiles lined up on the water front to meet the S.S. Cleveland when she docked at Honolulu with seven hundred passengers on her around-the-world trip. There are hundreds of miles of excellent roads for motoring throughout the islands and the number of automobiles, per capita of Americans, greatly exceeds the ratio of any city on the mainland. Honolulu is a park from one end to the other. It combines all the attractive features of the tropics with the climate of the temperate zone and possesses a charm all its own. ”

“ For an Italian to eat a meal without wine or a German without beer would be considered in these countries as extraordinary as if a man should bathe his feet with his shoes on. It is a common enough thing to see a pretty German girl of eighteen calmly drinking a schooner of beer instead of the afternoon cup of tea of her American sister. Absolute prohibition has no more chance in Europe than the snowball of the classic simile, and one might as well talk to a turtle on the subject as to these liquor-drinking but temperate peoples. ”

“ The thrifty native can do the work as well as, and oftentimes better than, the transient American. The conventional character of European travel strips this pastime of two-thirds of its charm. Experiences, which one is daily encountering in the more or less primitive countries of the Orient, are not to be found in Europe. Civilisation, with its comforts and conveniences, eliminates the possibilities of adventure and the traveller, whether rich or poor, usually deteriorates into a bored and bleary-eyed sight-seeing machine.
After a couple of days' rest we set out to find jobs. ”

“ It winds its way through hillside orange groves and soft plains sprinkled with grazing sheep. The country about Jaffa is the only beautiful portion of Palestine that we saw. We crossed the Plain of Sharon, where the Crusaders fought; we passed Timnath, where Samson set fire to the Philistines' corn and we saw the valley of Ajalon where Joshua commanded the moon to stand still. We arrived in the Holy City at one o'clock in the afternoon of Christmas Day.
"Drive us to the American Colony," said Richardson to a cabman. ”

“ The barber and the piano-tuner bade us farewell and the window-trimmer and I started out to see Vienna by moonlight. I shortly discovered that the party was to be at my expense for, as poor as I was, I was a rich man compared to my Austrian companion who from his vocation received a salary of twenty dollars a month. However, I was willing to carry him for a while as he was not only good company but served as an excellent guide.
The places we left unseen in the night life of Vienna do not exist. ”

“ LIVING AS JAPANESE IN JAPAN
The Asia proved to be a good ship and lazily ploughed her way across the Pacific in a manner to indicate that this trip was simply one in the cycle of many more to come. But this was her last, for on her return from Manila, she encountered a heavy fog off the coast of China and went head on into a large rock and anchored herself securely with her nose in the air and her stern submerged in the sea. Her passengers and crew were all saved and, after being pillaged by Chinese pirates, she was whipped off by the waves and sank into the water, a total wreck. ”

“ Its unique situation, if not its rich past, would be sufficient incentive to have it included in the itinerary of the most humble traveller.
Venice is a city without a wheeled vehicle, without trees, without sidewalks and without many of the ordinary appliances found in a modern community. Situated as it is on a cluster of seventy-two small islands, each inch of space is utilised and there is no subdividing of large tracts of land into fifty-foot lots. Its streets are a regular maze and the only way to get about, in the event one does not hire a guide, is to follow the crowd and trust to luck. ”

“ The American Colony sent one of their number with us to act as our guide in the city. We entered Saint Stephen's Gate and walked along the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is a large impressive building, but all the sacred association is at once killed in a person's mind by the ridiculous and petty things under its roof. When an intelligent man is shown the tomb in which Adam is buried and where his skull was discovered he can do nothing but smile. Where is evolution? ”

“ Our last visit was at the home of a travelling butcher, who saunters about the town pushing a one-wheeled vehicle, resembling a wheelbarrow, laden with carcasses of cows and sheep, from which he hacks off a chunk whenever he finds a customer. The walls of this modest mud house were literally plastered with calendars, newspaper pictures and display advertisements. It was inhabited by a most interesting set of human beings. ”

“ The noon and evening meals furnished a much larger variety and there was a more favourable chance for an American to hook nourishing food out of the assortment. Such delicacies as fish eyes, shark fins, bird's nest soup, lime-cured eggs, finely chopped and highly-seasoned chicken, vegetables and rice—in numerous forms—comprised the bulk of the menu. Novel and interesting as all this was to me, I was quite ready, after a month's stay in Tangshan, for a porterhouse steak, some bread and butter and a piece of pie. ”

“ Richardson and I became so fond of rice before we had lived long on that staple that we thought we could never again eat a meal without it. The Japanese understand how to prepare it and cook it in such a way that each grain is dry and separate from the others. The average dish of rice in America tastes and looks like a mass of Library paste.
Life in a Japanese hotel is a continual round of novelties and interesting experiences to the uninitiated Western traveller. ”

“ Tiberias, the most vermin-ridden settlement in the world, stands on its shores. The River Jordan, which looks like a Southern California "wash" in winter, has its source in the sea. Richardson and I walked down to the banks of this mad-rushing little stream and filled a bottle with a sample of its water. This fluid looks and tastes like that of any water company in America. I have done nothing but give portions of my sample away ever since.
Beyond the Jordan the railroad crosses a vast plain which produces nothing but rocks. I don't think I ever saw so many boulders before. ”