J. J. Smith

“ By-and-bye the land, as if by some magic power, seems to rend asunder, and we find ourselves in a narrow channel, with well-wooded eminences on either hand, clothed with handsome fir trees. Right in front of us, and hiding the view of the town, is a small cone-shaped island of great beauty. English is a weak language in which to express clearly its surpassing loveliness. ”

“ Strange as Japanese art appears to us, there is design in all their executions. This presents a marked contrast to Chinese art, which appears to be simply the result of the artist's fancy. A Chinaman seems to have no idea, when he commences a thing, what he is going to produce, he goes on cutting and scraping, taking advantage of, here a vein in a stone, perhaps, or there a knot in the gnarled branches of a tree, and his imagination, distorted by the diabolical forms with which his superstition surrounds him, does the rest. ”

“ Now for a run on shore. Valetta, or la Valette, in honor of one of the most famous of the Grand Masters, the modern capital of Malta, is a fairly large place, though by no means extensive enough to be styled a City, except out of courtesy. How dingy the buildings and how dusty the pavements from the crumbling masonry. The houses are so lofty that the strip of blue sky can scarcely send its light to the bottom, whilst the upper storeys have such an affectionate leaning towards each other, that the wonder is that any mortar is capable of restraining their eagerness to fall on each other's necks. ”

“ How wonderfully strange and new everything seems to us; the sea, the land, its peoples, all so different to England; even the very heavens shed milder lights, have purer depths of colour. At night the stars shine out larger and with greater brilliance than we are wont to see them. Our old friend, the Great Bear, still remains true to us, though he keeps shorter watches in our southward way, others less loyal, forsake us altogether, yet in exchange if we get new forms they are not less beautiful. ”

“ After just a cursory glance at these particulars we see about getting some "panem," especially as a most delectable odour from the lower regions assails our nostrils, betraying that that indispensable gentleman, the ship's cook, has lavished all his art on the production of a sailor's dinner. "Man is mortal," so we yield to the temptation, especially as we are awfully hungry—when is a sailor not so? Few meals present so much food for wonderment to the landsman as does a sailor's first dinner on board a newly-commissioned ship; all is hurry, bustle, and apparently hopeless confusion. ”

“ ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN.​—​CEYLON.​—​SINGAPORE.​—​A CRUISE IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.
September 21st.—Having, as it were, given the go-by to two continents, we commence on an extended acquaintance with a third.
With sails spread to a S.W. monsoon we rapidly speed over that glorious expanse of luminous sea where it is ever summer, and in whose pearly depths living things innumerable revel in the very joy of existence.
Though hot, this part of the voyage is not unpleasant, for a cooling breeze is constantly setting down the hatchways from the sails. ”

“ A jostling, animated, good-natured throng is this multitude of seamen, intent on satisfying nature's first demand; for dinner is the only meal, properly so called, a sailor gets. Nor does it matter much, though the ship's steward has not yet issued a single utensil out of which we can dine; such a slight annoyance is not likely to inconvenience men who, in most things, are as primitive in their mode of living as were our progenitors in the garden of story. ”

“ We pass many shops devoted to the sale of lacquer ware, for which the Japanese are so justly famed, catch glimpses of unequalled egg shell, and Satsuma china, made of a clay, formed only in this neighbourhood, and which, thanks to the European mania for collecting, fetch the most fancy prices; get a view of silk shops, full of rich stuffs and embroideries. Here an artist tinting a fan or a silk lantern; there a woman weaving cloth for the use of her household and everywhere people plying their various callings on the elevated floors of their houses. ”

“ Brilliant as are the skies the sea is equally so, for there seem as many gems beneath as above us; we appear to be cleaving our way through a yielding mass of liquid gold. Every dash the ship makes she seems to set the sea on fire, throwing starry sprays far over our heads on to the deck where the drops still retain their light.
At early morning on August 22nd, a great jabbering outside the ship, as though a colony of monkeys had encountered another babel, announced that we were at Malta. ”

“ The iron hull of our ship, always unpleasantly hot in these latitudes, was rapidly cooled by the deluge of rain which came with the wind. Renewed life and vigour entered into our emaciated frames, and revivified men marked for death; and was it not delicious to rush about naked in the puddles of rain on the upper deck! ”

“ HONG KONG.​—​SOME CHINESE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
I suppose there are few amongst us, sailors though we are, who, as boys at school when reading of China, have never expressed a wish to see that land for themselves, to say nothing of making the acquaintance of its quaint old-world people in their very own homes. In my imagination I had covered its goodly soil with wondrous palaces, all sparkling with splendour and embellished with all that art could furnish or riches command. ”

“ The washerwomen are the undoubted masters of the situation, and carry all before them. The alacrity with which they scramble up the perpendicular side of the ship is simply astonishing. It struck me that we could not do it with greater ease, notwithstanding that we possess the advantage of unfettered extremities. In the twinkling of an eye they are below, and besieging us in our messes, holding out for our inspection greasy looking rolls of paper, purporting to set forth in English, French, Italian and Spanish, and even in Greek and Turkish, the bearers' exploits amidst the soap suds. ”

“ We started with an overcast and rainy sky, and by the next morning had reached Malacca, a small British settlement, essentially Malay, more a village than a town. It lies very low and close to the water's edge, the houses of the natives being all constructed on piles driven into the mud, and embowered in a dense framework of cocoa palms. In the distance rises the high cone-shaped peak of Ophir, now a lovely sight because of the misty covering which envelopes it to near its summit. Bananas are very plentiful; so, too, are monkeys and the canes so highly prized at home. ”

“ After fighting their way through immense odds—crossing rivers in open boats amidst flights of stones and arrows—lying down to rest, to find themselves, on awaking, surrounded by a revengeful and infuriated people—they at length reached the shore to find no junk or vessel of sufficient size to convey them across the narrow sea to their own country. ”

“ What takes place now is a pretty sight. Clouds of snowy balloon-like canvas spring, as if by magic, to masts and yards, straining and bellying out with tremendous effort. The steel corvettes were able to carry all plain sail with impunity. Not so with the "Encounter," however, for she is obliged to take a reef in her topsails and to furl her royals, a proceeding which does not lessen her chance of coming in first in the slightest, for she is known to be such a good sailer, that a few yards of canvas, more or less, does not affect her much. ”

“ Their tints are of the most delicate and charming shades the artist's fancy or the dyer's art can furnish, and often wrought in rich and elegant patterns. They are passionately fond of flowers, the dark and abundant tresses of their hair being always decorated with them, either real or artificial. Their only other adornments are a tortoise-shell comb of delicate workmanship, and a long steel pin with a ball of red coral in the end, passing through their rich raven hair. ”

“ On the Egyptian side, a series of gem-studded lagoons stretch away to the haze of an indistinct horizon, the mirage reproducing the green and gold of the thousand isles in the highly heated atmosphere.
By 6 p.m. we had reached the first station, or "Gare," when we brought up alongside a jetty for the night. When darkness had set in, the wild melancholy howl of the jackal was borne across the desert by the evening breeze, a sound sufficiently startling and inexplicable if you don't happen to know its origin. ”

“ The city of Victoria is very prettily situated on the slopes of an eminence which culminates in a peak at an altitude of 1300 feet, and from which a most charming and cheerful view of the sea on the one side, and the harbour and the yellow sand-stone hills of China on the other.
It is allowed to be the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Representatives of races far in excess of the Pentecostal catalogue, may be encountered in its streets in any hour's walk; men of all shades of colour and of every religious creed live here side by side in apparent [76] perfect harmony. ”

“ I feel assured that no thoughtful man can visit Shiba's temple without being impressed with the high perfection to which the Japanese have attained in the arts; a perfection which the foreign mind can rarely grasp. After a donation to the polite bonze—which he receives on a gold salver and lays on the altar—we encase our feet in leather once more, and leave the sacred precincts. We may possibly never have the opportunity of paying Shiba a second visit; but the privilege of having done so once is—to a man of research—a liberal education in itself. ”

“ On the one side, far as the eye can reach, and for hundreds of miles beyond, a desert of glistening sand is spread before us, for the most part level and unbroken, but occasionally interrupted by billow-like undulations, resembling the ground swell at sea. ”

“ The dress of the men is as picturesque and gaudy as that of the ladies is not; in the particular, indeed, the sexes seem to have usurped the other's rights. Young Spanish swells, in colored velvet breeches and tastefully embroidered leggings, scarlet silk sash around the loins, and irreproachable linen, with, here and there, one with the far-famed guitar, improvising amorous nothings for the ear of some susceptible damsel, abandon themselves to the luxury of the hour in true Spanish style. ”

“ Almost every hill has its pagoda at the top, every bank that peculiar fishing apparatus—a lever net, and the river is swarming with great lumbering junks, not a few of which, if rumour speak correctly, engaged in piracy.
On the way up we obtained a fine view of the Bogue forts. The old ruins still remain, mute witnesses of the completeness of our cannonade during the Chinese war. At a short distance from the old, a much stronger and more formidable structure is reared, which in the hands of Europeans would form an almost impassable barrier. ”

“ Each village possesses its water mill or mills, so that the natives are not entirely ignorant of mechanics.
Hundreds of canoes, of the rudest construction, crammed with men, women, and children, put off to us when we came to anchor. Though it is said they are of mixed Chinese and Aïno origin; the people are of cast countenance, and style of dress peculiar to the Japanese; they have, however, a way of doing their hair, all their own. The men gather all theirs into a tuft at the poll, where it is secured with a silk marling, the extreme ends forming a sort of fringe, like a plume of feathers. ”

“ The mandarin at Gen San came on board, attended with great ceremony—flags, banners, pennons, soldiers, and trumpeters, in boat loads; the latter gentlemen being furnished with brass instruments, such as angels are usually depicted with, but which can be made to shut up like a telescope to vary the music. The men are certainly a fine race—tall and upright as an arrow, and rather intelligent looking than otherwise. ”

“ In place of the homogenous ball, hundreds of small figures of mandarins and ladies, some seated at tables, some riding on mules, others playing at shuttlecock or flying kites, and all clothed in the most beautiful garments, and around which innumerable squibs were hissing and cracking, revealed themselves to our astonished gaze. Another change! The human element disappears. Birds and flowers, with swarms of brilliant butterflies flitting amongst them, and alighting on their gorgeous petals, the light all the time ever-changing and varying in color. ”

“ The band circling the waist, and known as the "obe," is very broad, and composed of magnificent folds of rich silk, and tied up in a large quaint bow behind. A Japanese lady lavishes all her taste on the selection of the material and in the choice of colour, of which these bands are composed, and which are to them what jewellery is to the more refined Europeans. No ornament of the precious metal is ever seen about their persons. Their taste in the matter of hues is faultless; no people, I will venture to say, have such a perception of the harmonies of colour. ”

“ The houses, examined in detail, are not by any means the captivating objects we took them to be from the ship; and they certainly don't improve on a closer acquaintance. The air in the vicinity is thick and heavy, with a rancid odour of cocoanut oil, emanating from the hair and bodies of the local humanity. Their dwellings are constructed of humble enough materials, in all conscience; for of the four sides, three are of mud, the fourth being left open for the purposes usually supplied by doors, windows, and chimneys amongst ourselves. ”