The Race for the Situation—Ceylon—Across India—Stalled in Bombay—Russia via the Suez Canal

After four days of Shanghai, the German Mail Steamer Princess Alice, with passengers, mail and cargo, from Yokohama to Bremen, called at Woo Sung and put an end to our sufferings. In a driving snow and sleet storm we boarded the big German liner as she lay at anchor at the mouth of the Yangtse River, and had our baggage ticketed to the Suez Canal. It was during the next weeks, while we are plowing through the China Seas, that I began to learn more of the checkered history of my Chief of Staff. A more or less entertaining volume might be readily written on his wanderings and experiences. For hours on end, while I lay in my bunk kicking my heels and waiting for the time to pass, Monroe D. would sit on a camp stool and regale me with the story of his life. Scientists tell us that there is no such thing as perpetual motion, but when they made this statement, they had never seen my “Black Prince,” and observed the phenomena of unintermittent speech which flowed steadily and at the rate of 150 words a minute for as many minutes on end as he was able to get a hearer. He was born in Mississippi, and had moved early to Kansas, where in 1898, as he informed me, he was holding an important position in a local express company. When the call to arms for the Spanish War went forth, Morris was the first man to enlist in the 20th Kansas. For active service in Cuba he was mustered out a year later as Third Sergeant, and immediately re-enlisted in a colored volunteer regiment for a campaign in the Philippines, and quickly rose to the rank of First Sergeant in his company. After serving out his time, he returned to the States, again renewed his associations with the express business, and gave that up to accept the position of porter on a Pullman car. This business, however, did not apparently prove sufficient for the development of his intellectual assets, and he soon gave that up to go as steward for one of the American army transports. Thirteen times he had crossed the Pacific, and finally had left the transport at Tientsin and attached himself to one of the officers in the United States Marine Barracks at Peking.

My arrival and departure had opened a new career to him, and from the day we left Peking until his return to Kansas City, both night and day were devoted to disproving the scientific phenomena referred to above.

“Morris,” I would say, when I felt particularly bored, “please talk to me.”

“Yes, sir,” he would say, and he would begin on the moment and continue for hours until I would say:

“All right, Morris. Can do. Go to bed,” when he would cut it off in the middle of a sentence with a “Yes, sir. Good Night, sir!” and be off.

The trip from Japan to the Canal is interesting enough the first time, but thereafter it becomes a bit monotonous. Hongkong, Singapore, Penang and the ports were all old stories to me. The Princess Alice sighted the palm-skirted coast of Ceylon twenty-two days later. I was desperately bored with the German boat. I was bound for Russia. Everybody went by the Canal. I had been that way myself less than a year before. I had a new idea.

“Morris,” I said, as we slipped behind the breakwater at Colombo one glorious November afternoon, “I have a scheme. Pack up chop-chop. We are going to abandon this boat to-day. From Colombo we will cross over to India, take the train to Bombay, go up the Persian Gulf to Bunder Abbas, or one of those places, get some horses, camels, or whatever they use there, and cross Persia to Teheran. From there we can hit the Caucasus from the Caspian Sea.”

Morris was delighted and turned on the conversation and began packing on the spot. He was filled with delight at the idea of an 800-mile ride across the mountains of Persia.

“It may be bad there,” I told him. “They say the mountains are filled with bandits.” I paused to watch the effect, and then asked Morris, “Are you a good shot?” He stopped packing, and his eyes snapped as he drew himself up with pride and said:

“You just give me a ‘Martini’ or a ‘Kraig,’ and I can wing a man at 200 yards just as fast as they can get up,” and he grinned from ear to ear.

An hour later we landed in Ceylon.

There are many beautiful places in the world, and there are a great many places that are strange and quaint to the foreigner who sees them for the first time, but the beautiful island that has Colombo for its capital has the rest of the spots in the position of feeble competitors, at least, that was the way it looked to me. Apparently Ceylon has long been ranked as A-1 on its personal charm, for even the person who wrote that old familiar hymn, which treats briefly of various places, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains to India’s Coral Strands,” gave the palm to Ceylon, where even he admitted “Every prospect pleases and only man is vile.” That is Ceylon all right as far as the pleasing prospect is concerned, but the citizens of the place impressed me in a very hospitable and kindly light, despite the disparaging comment of the hymn writer. It is true that they are somewhat active in the pursuit of business, and are chronic beggars, but otherwise it is hard to see how they are any worse than anybody else. However, they may have changed since his day. The harbor of Colombo isn’t a very good harbor, and were it not for the protection of the breakwater, it would be absolutely untenable in the spring and summer, when the hot monsoon blows up from the sun-scorched African coast, and piles up the great breakers in clouds of foam and spray against the stone masonry. This breakwater is thrown across the harbor neck to guard the ships at anchor from the stormy seas that lash without. The harbor itself is so small that the ships scarcely have room to swing at anchor with the changing of the tide, so that they are tied up by their noses and sterns, or, to be more nautical, fore and aft, to great buoys, which keep them absolutely steady. The moment one lands on the jetty, one is besieged by droves of extremely black gentlemen, dressed in a white effect, which seems to be a cross between a pair of pajamas and a nightgown. Everyone of these gentlemen endeavors to get your ear, and to tell you in most deplorable English that he recognizes in you a man of exceptionally genial qualities, to whom he would like to attach himself during your stay. If left unmolested, he will hustle you into a carriage and take you off to see the town, irrespective of your baggage or other impending business. If you evade him on the moment of landing, and fight your way through the streets, you will meet dozens more of the same pattern. Your first impression is one of pleasure to think that you have found so many new friends, for everyone you meet has to be restrained from embracing you on the spot, and wants to do something for you—remuneration to be discussed later. Incidentally everybody expects something. It seems that all the native inhabitants of this place have an idea that the foreigner is perpetually in their debt for something or other. If you look at a man hard on the street, he at once stops, steps forward with a winning smile and outstretched hand, seemingly under the impression that you owe him at least 50 annas for the privilege of seeing him. At the hotels it is even worse. You get nothing free, not even a pleasant look. In fact, one gets into the habit of distinctly discouraging pleasant looks, for, though they are pretty to look at, they come high, averaging about a rupee per look. The men are extremely black, with wonderfully perfect features, and for the most part superbly handsome. There seems to have been some mistake, however, in the women, for they absolutely fail to make good when it comes to personal charms. Most of them one sees are extremely depressing spectacles, and the few that are at all presentable have been corralled by enterprising speculators, and are on exhibition, but, like everything else in Ceylon, they are not free—one has to pay to look at them.

The natural beauties of Ceylon and Colombo are beyond description. It is almost the only place in the world, save perhaps Japan and Venice, that is just as good as advertised. The wonderful groves of cocoanut palms, banana trees, and I know not what other tropical wonders in every direction, are outlined against the soft blue of the eastern sky. All along the sea-front of Colombo the palms stretch in great avenues and groves from the Galle-Face Hotel to Mount Lavinia, a bluff by the sea, some four or five miles down the coast. If it is beautiful at the seashore, it is even more wonderful in the interior, where luxuriant tropic hills rise sharply above jungle-clad valleys, and tea plantations abound. In the interior one finds wild elephants in great droves, and the catching and taming of these for domestic use is not one of the least important occupations on the island. Other places in the tropics are so fiercely hot that one fails to appreciate the glories that are on every hand, but here the breezes from the sea, that spring up at night, cool the air so that one can enjoy the advantages of the tropics, and yet sleep as comfortably as in a more northern climate. One might spend weeks in this glorious country, but as has been the case on my previous visits, I was pressed for time. A little wretched B. I. boat was just starting for the tip of India, and we transferred to her.

The reader in search of accuracy and facts may as well know at the start that the writer passed but five days in the Indian Empire, and, therefore, what follows is not to be regarded as an authoritative discussion of conditions there. My impressions began on first boarding the steamer at Colombo for the nearest Indian port, which rejoices in the name of Teutocorin. Behind a table on the deck of the steamer sat a large and forbidding party in a brilliant uniform, before whom I was dragged by the first deck-hand who discovered me wandering about the boat with the Black Prince at my heels, trying to find an unoccupied cabin in which to deposit my impedimenta. The man in uniform, it appeared, was an officer of the Indian customs, and he at once pointed out his importance in the social scheme, and, standing me up before him like a prisoner at the bar, started on an intimate investigation of my personal history. Large pads of paper in forms of printed matter were piled about, and while he was busy asking questions, you are equally busy signing papers to the effect that you are not a pirate, and not afflicted with the plague, and so forth and so on. At last the supreme moment arrives. Backed by all the majesty of the law and the dignity of his brilliant uniform, he asks you in an impressive whisper if you have any fire-arms. Here was where he landed heavily on my expedition. I did have fire-arms of all kinds and varieties. For a moment it looked as though I was in for a life sentence. Even Morris turned pale in the confusion which followed. The theory seems to be that every foreigner who happens to have a revolver or shotgun in his baggage is the fore-runner of a revolutionary junta, and is about to inaugurate a second Indian Mutiny, or something of that sort. After the first outburst of excitement, and things had calmed down a little, and the gentleman in uniform talked slow enough, so that I could understand, I discovered that all might yet be well, providing I paid the price. I never understood exactly what it was for, but my impression was that it was something in the nature of a customs duty. By tending strictly to business and writing fast, the necessary forms were finally filled out, and, weak and exhausted, I was allowed to withdraw to recuperate in my cabin.

The next disappointment occurred in the morning, when I found that the boat which starts for Teutocorin does not really get there at all, but anchors miles away on the horizon, while the despairing passengers are taken into the alleged port on a small smelly tender, where they sit in determined rows, trying to keep the spray off with their umbrellas. At the pier which is finally reached, a swarm of piratical coolies and customs officials rush down like an avalanche upon the baggage and carry it off to the station a quarter of a mile away, where the train for the north is waiting. The Indian trains really are not as bad as one would expect, considering the condition of the country and the people. There are no sleeping cars, as the term is used in America. They have something, however, under that name, which is a compartment on wheels, with two sofas, that remind one of slabs in a morgue running lengthwise. At night another slab unexpectedly lets down from the roof. This is technically known as the upper berth. The whole is called a sleeping car because if one remains in it long enough, one finally falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. The wise traveler brings a pillow and some bedding. The unwise sleeps in his overcoat. The railroad provides nothing whatever except jolts and some dismal looking railroad men, who appear to be chronic recipients of bad news from home.

The country from Teutocorin to Madras is not particularly noteworthy, and looks like any other semi-tropic country, with much cactus growth scattered about. New Mexico and Oklahoma are the nearest things in America which resemble it. The only new thing that really impresses the stranger is the native, and for a short time he is interesting to look at. His dress is distinctly simple. As far as one can observe, there is nothing more than a long strip of red cotton cloth, perhaps four feet wide by twenty feet long. He begins his dressing process at his head and winds himself up in this sheet effect, until when the job is finished, he appears extremely well dressed and quite gracefully draped. The women have a similar arrangement, only there is more of it. The country in the south is fairly well cultivated, and here and there in the fields one sees the natives stripped for action, patiently following the bullock and a wooden plow through the field. The thing that impresses one most of all is the limitless number of brown-faced red clad men and women that swarm around the stations and villages with apparently nothing on their minds or any business in hand. There are no dining cars on the train that I traveled on, and one has to put up with eating houses, one of which occurs every five hours. The fare is not bad, and the time allowed is certainly adequate to eat all there is in sight. The style of drink in this country is whiskey and soda with ice, served in glasses eight inches deep. There must be something curious about Indian conditions which enable the residents to soak up such enormous quantities of alcohol. There are thousands of them in India who can drink a quart of whiskey a day and get up and walk off with it without turning a hair.

Madras is the first truly large city on our line, and is called the third largest in India. I have met people since I was there who assert strongly that Madras has attractions. Personally I was unable to find them in my sojourn of a single day. Nobody seems to know anything or to be interested in anything, and it seems to offend a man frightfully if you want to do business with him. Everybody I met was unutterably bored. Statistics say that there is much business done in Madras, and the figures seem to prove it, but when or how it is done is a mystery to the writer, who was unable to detect a single individual doing anything useful or interesting. The hotels apparently are run in the interest of the servants. There are literally millions of them, everyone doing something different. They are strong advocates of the minute division of labor. The halls and corridors of the hotels swarm with them, and the compound and dining rooms are crowded with them, standing about, getting under foot, and annoying one. At every turn there is a black man handing you something you don’t want, calling for a carriage when you prefer walking, getting you coffee and cigars when you told him distinctly three times that you don’t want anything. When you come to go away, they appear en masse in front of your room. It is a literal fact that just before my departure from one of these hotels I went to my room to look for a book. The corridor in front of it was crowded with men, so that I thought there must be either a fire or a raid by the police. Not at all! It was only the local staff waiting for tips. When you get in your carriage to go away there is a course of wails,—

“I am the man who blacked your boots!”

“I passed the sahib his paper at breakfast.”

“I carried water for his bath,” and so forth, until you are on the verge of nervous prostration listening to the uproar. The old travelers in India aren’t bothered so much, for they slap a few people, kick the porters, and insult the proprietor of the hotel, and by so doing prosper.

From Madras to Bombay is something over a thousand miles, which an express train makes in about thirty-six hours. The trains on this line are more comfortable than in the south of India. The gauge is wider, being five feet, six inches, which makes very smooth riding. The railroad bed itself is admirable, being well ballasted and with heavy steel, and the bridges throughout are the latest steel and masonry construction. Bombay, which was our destination, is the second largest city in India. Calcutta is the biggest and most filthy. Bombay is really a beautiful place, but was hot and sticky, and when we were there, steaming like a Turkish bath. The streets are broad and well kept, the buildings many stories and modern, while the general plan of the town affords many parks, squares and driveways. The people over there seem to be doing more business than in Madras, but even in Bombay it is very difficult to actually discover anyone in the act of doing anything in particular. After he has once gotten used to it, they say the foreigner gets to thinking there is no place like it, and though he may make an occasional break for home, in nine cases out of ten he comes back to the luxurious life and tropical heat of India.

Owing to mis-information, which was pleasantly given me by one of Cook’s officials, we missed the boat up the Persian Gulf by two hours. My personal experience with Cook’s representatives in the far east was that what they don’t know about the country in which they are stationed would fill a series of large volumes. There was not another boat for five days, so, cursing our luck and the genial young man, who had so glibly misdirected us, we took our baggage up to the Taji-Mahal Hotel, which is certainly one of the finest in the world. The Bombay papers were filled with telegrams of the situation in Russia. Inasmuch as I was stalled for a number of days, I sent my office a brief wire to keep them posted of my address in case a change of plan might seem advisable, and then settled down for my week’s wait. I was aroused the next morning about 5 o’clock by a yellow envelope shoved under the mosquito-bar of my bed by a docile Indian servant,—the never-to-be-avoided cable again. “Situation urgent,” it read. “Proceed quickest possible route Russia.” That settled it. I shouted for Morris, and by noon was steaming out of Bombay Harbor on a P. & O. liner headed not for the Persian Gulf, but for the Suez Canal. At Aden the Reuters dispatches that the agent brought on board told of the confusion and disaster in Russia. “Wires cut. Railroads in the hands of strikers and mutiny of sailors at Sebastopol,” ran the headings. I gave the steamship agent, who brought them on, a cable for my office in Chicago. “Port Said in three days. Wire more funds.” I had a few thousand in my money belt, but “Railroads and wires cut” suggested the need of money and lots of it to keep the pot boiling.

At Port Said the Imperial Ottoman Bank paid me a substantial remittance one hour after I landed. In the meantime Morris had gotten into a fight with one of those dirty heathen negroes who infest the Canal zone. It was a detail, however, at least for Morris, and in two hours we were on an express train speeding for Cairo. A night at Shepherd’s and then an express train for Alexandria, where I caught by minutes a dilapidated old barge called the Ismalia for Constantinople. My plan was Constantinople and then by boat to Odessa, and thence where the news was originating.

The Ismalia was the limit. She called everywhere there was a landing place. Her chow was vile, and the company worse, and every place we stopped the cable dispatches told of renewed disorders in Russia and the Balkans. Every hour that we lay killing time in the dirty ports at which we called I begrudged most bitterly.

The PirÆus and Smyrna slipped past. At Mitylene the Powers were playing a puerile game on the Sultan, or, as the papers said, “Conducting naval demonstrations against the Porte.” The wily old monarch having been there many times before, no doubt recognized in it one of those oft repeated and inefficient bluffs which so delight the heart of the European diplomats. Anyway, he stood pat, and after the Powers had had their play and saw that there was nothing doing, they pulled up their anchors and sailed away, while the Turks smiled broadly. At dawn of the fifth day from Egypt we passed the Dardanelles, crossed the Sea of Marmora, and at six in the evening dropped anchor a mile outside the Golden Horn. Constantinople at last, and the threshold of our situation!