Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa
Date: 2025-12-20T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Africa -- Description and travel; New Zealand -- Description and travel; Australia -- Description and travel

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Title: Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa

Author: E. W. Howe

Release date: December 20, 2025 [eBook #77511]

Language: English

Original publication: Topeka, Kansas: Crane & Company, 1913

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77511

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVEL LETTERS FROM NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA AND AFRICA ***

E. W. HOWE

Travel Letters
from
New Zealand
Australia
AND
Africa

By E. W. HOWE

CRANE & COMPANY, TOPEKA, KANSAS

Copyright 1913
By Crane & Company
Topeka

Travel Letters
from
NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA,
AND AFRICA

TRAVEL LETTERS
FROM NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA, AND AFRICA.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1913.—This is written in the Pacific ocean, on the ship “Sonoma,” two days out of Sydney, Australia, where we expect to land next Monday. We have been on the ship seventeen days, and the passengers and servants seem as familiar as people with whom we have associated many years. In the main, we have had a pleasant voyage, although the weather was somewhat boisterous the first few days out of San Francisco. We stopped eight hours at Honolulu, and five hours at Pago Pago, in the Samoa Islands. There was an elaborate celebration on board on Christmas day, which included a big dinner, speeches, and a dance, and we also had a similar New Year celebration, although we actually had no New Year’s day. At a late hour on the 31st of December we crossed the 180th meridian, and, when we awoke the following morning, the date was January 2, 1913. Ships sailing westward drop a day on crossing the 180th meridian, and ships going eastward add a day. In traveling toward the sun, the day increases in length, and, in a trip around the world, this increase amounts to exactly twenty-four hours. Every day we set our watches back from twenty to thirty minutes, and when we reach Canton, Ohio, on our return, this daily increase in the day’s length will have amounted to the day we dropped. In traveling eastward, you set your watch forward every day, and, on completion of your journey around the world, you will have gained a day.... Few young people travel; only the old or middle-aged seem able to afford it, while only the young are able to enjoy it. Adelaide, my niece, is the only youngster on the ship, and, although she never saw the sea until this trip, she is thoroughly enjoying it. She was ill in a quiet, ladylike way two or three days, but now she has forgotten all about the motion, and dreads to leave the “Sonoma” at Sydney. The stewardess calls her “dear,” but invariably refers to me as “Mr. Works.” I am trying to get even by inventing a new name for the stewardess every time I speak to her. Her name is Mrs. Coombs, but I began by calling her Mrs. Ashton, and followed it with Mrs. Bullard, Mrs. Comstock, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Everett, and on down the alphabet until I now call her Mrs. Wheeler. James, the room steward, and George, our dining-room steward, know my name, but to the stewardess I am always Mr. Works. She is an American, but most of the crew are English, or Australians, outside the captain and his chief officers. It is ship gossip that the first officer is a very able man, but so ill-natured that he has never been given a ship, although an older man than the captain. It is important to understand your trade, but if you hope to get into fast company, you must also be polite.

Among the passengers is a life insurance man named Adams, en route to Australia to protest because of unfriendly legislation. His wife has been seasick almost continuously, and the women say he keeps her sick because of too much kindness: that the moment she gets a little better, he stuffs her with unsuitable food, and thus brings on another spell. He has heard somewhere that champagne is good for seasickness, and keeps her full half the time. But however mistaken he may be in his treatment, he is certainly an attentive husband, and the men are proud of him. It is a beautiful sight to see this good husband modestly taking the air on deck, after devoting hours to his sick wife. His duty is to his wife, and he does not seem to care for other people. The women take turns in going down to sit with his wife. It was Adelaide’s turn this afternoon, and the good husband walked awhile with me on deck. He says that a good many years ago there was a demand from total abstainers that they be given a better life-insurance rate than smokers and patrons of barrooms. The rate was granted, but, after long experience, the experts of the Equitable and Mutual life companies found that the death-rate among total abstainers was slightly greater than the average death-rate among all classes.

Another interesting passenger as far as Honolulu was the manager of a sugar plantation who receives $18,000 a year salary. He spent several years in Porto Rico and in the Hawaiian Islands, but is now opening a plantation in Mexico. He frequently has two thousand employees, and, as they are constantly scheming to get the best of him, he delights in scheming to get the best of them. He told me he had been marked for assassination several times, but had always heard of it. He finds that when any body of men engage in a disreputable transaction, several of them are always anxious to turn informers, and secure a reward. An informer nearly always asks a thousand dollars, but he will usually compromise, and take two hundred. If you engage in any kind of dirty work, remember that some one will know about it, and sell you out.... The sugar man says that reliable Mexicans tell him that during the thirty-two years Diaz was president of Mexico, he ordered forty thousand men shot, and that he didn’t make a mistake in a single case.

The “Sonoma” is a ten-thousand-ton ship, and has been in the Australian trade only a few months since it was rebuilt last winter. It ran between San Francisco and Sydney several years ago, but the owners claimed the business did not pay, so the three ships in the line lay in San Francisco bay a long time. Then the owners decided to try it again, and the ships were rebuilt, and fitted with oil-burners. This is the fifth voyage of the “Sonoma” since the owners changed their minds. A good deal of the trade has been lost, and the employees are very polite, with a view of recovering the lost business. We have enough fuel oil on board to run the ship to Sydney and back to Honolulu. We all like the ship, except that it is a great roller. The other night, while the passengers were at dinner, a big roll sent the dishes and food into heaps on the floor, and those on deck were shot against the rail with great force.

Captain Trask is a very pleasant man, and most of the passengers know him. Some captains, particularly those on the Atlantic, see very little of the passengers, but on the Pacific, captains have little to do, and are more genial. On the Atlantic, there is always something for captains to do. Ships are seen frequently, and if it isn’t ships, it is fog. But the Pacific is very lonely; a ship is rarely seen here, although we have seen one on this voyage: the “Ventura,” the sister ship of the “Sonoma.” We met the “Ventura” on Christmas day, two days out of Honolulu, but it went by like a race-horse, and we saw little of it.... Adelaide sits on Captain Trask’s left, a lady with a maid having secured the coveted place on his right. He likes to talk, and we are already in possession of many of his reminiscences. He learned his trade as most Americans do—from the ground up, and went to sea as a common sailor when fifteen years old. By degrees he learned the technical side of his trade, and has been around the world many times in sailing-ships. He is a big fellow, and I imagine he has quelled many a mutiny with his fists. Occasionally, early in the morning, I catch him punching the bag on deck, and no other man on board is equally expert at it. Not long ago, the crew of the “Sonoma” mutinied at Sydney, in trying to enforce some rule of the union, and he landed sixty-two of them in jail. He took the ship back to San Francisco with a new and inexperienced crew, and reached port on time. He is very good-natured now, but I imagine that, on occasion, he would be real rough, and I shall behave myself while on board.... Poets love to use the expression, “As true as the needle to the pole,” but Captain Trask says the needle is not true to the pole, and does not point toward it. It isn’t the pole that attracts the needle of the compass, but the Magnetic North. A good many degrees west of the pole there is a great magnetic mountain, and this, and not the pole, attracts the needle by which mariners guide their ships. The pole has no attraction whatever for the needle of the compass.

Stories told by the captain at dinner: In Australia there once lived a very rich and very eccentric old bachelor. A certain old maid was very anxious to capture him, and pursued him so steadily that there was considerable talk among the neighbors. On one occasion the old bachelor gave a reception at his home, and the old maid was one of the guests. During the evening, the old bachelor invited the old maid to walk on the terrace. She thought he was about to propose.

“You have a beautiful place here,” she said to him, as they walked about in the moonlight.

“Yes,” he said, “yet it lacks one thing. But for that, I would be a very fortunate and happy man.”

The old maid thought she had him; that he could mean but one thing: the refining influence of a wife.

“And what is that?” she asked, coyly.

“Water,” the old bachelor replied.

Australia is a very dry country, and the average Australian longs for water as you long for money.... The captain says dogs never do well at sea; that they soon get fits, and die. In order to have good health, a dog must have grass to eat. But cats do well at sea. When the captain was master of a sailing vessel, he owned a cat which made three voyages around the world with him. He tells of the smart tricks of this cat as you tell of the smart tricks of your dog. While his ship was once tied up at the London docks, the cat was prowling around other vessels, and one of them carried it three miles away, to another loading-dock. The crew mourned the cat as dead, but one day he turned up: he had found his way back to the ship through three miles of London’s streets.... The captain says there is nothing in the story that rats will desert a sinking ship; he never knew a ship to go down that was not full of rats. In the Indian ocean he once came across an abandoned ship, and went aboard of it. He found the deck covered with rats that had starved to death. He tried to burn the ship, as it was a menace to navigation, but failed. Six months later, two thousand miles away, he ran across the same dangerous, drifting hulk. This time he succeeded in burning it.... Captain Trask says that in the old days of wooden sailing-ships the rats frequently gnawed holes in the bottom, in seeking water. They could hear the rush of water outside, and, not knowing it was salt water, worked toward it. When a ship was known to be full of rats, they were watered regularly, to prevent their sinking it.

Captain Trask says that on one of his voyages in a sailing-ship, he was in company every day with another vessel forty-seven days. The ships were of about equal size, and bound in the same direction. On another occasion, he left New York with a cargo of wheat, bound for Liverpool. Another sailing-ship went out of the harbor at the same time, bound also for Liverpool. They did not sight each other during the entire voyage, but arrived at Liverpool at almost the same hour.... The captain says that after a sailor has been ashore a few weeks, he finds the first part of a voyage very irksome, but after that he doesn’t care; he has spent six weeks beating around Cape Horn without minding it much. Frequently a bad wind will undo all that has been accomplished in weeks of hard work. But that is part of the game, and sailors usually take it philosophically.... But a story is told of one captain who fought two months to round Cape Horn, where the current and the wind flow in a south-easterly direction three hundred days of the year. He was finally compelled to put back to Buenos Aires for provisions. Again he struggled for two months without rounding the cape, and again he put back to Buenos Aires for provisions; but while lying in the harbor, he killed himself. Thereupon the first officer took command, and rounded the Cape without the loss of an unnecessary day, the wind and current being favorable for the first time in months.

At two o’clock one afternoon, Old Neptune came aboard the “Sonoma,” the ship having crossed the equator early in the morning. Neptune was dressed in a fantastic way, and followed by a numerous train, including his wife, several policemen, a physician, a barber, etc. A recorder read a long proclamation, and the passengers took pictures. It had been rumored that all those who had not crossed the line before, and could not produce a certificate showing they had been across, would be shaved with a wooden razor, and ducked in the swimming-tank. There was a good deal of nervousness among the passengers, but it turned out that the ceremony only referred to new members of the crew. About a dozen of these were operated on, greatly to the amusement of the passengers gathered on the upper deck. A platform had been erected beside the swimming-tank, and the victims were seated on this, one by one. First they were examined by the doctor, and given a huge pill. Then they were lathered with a paste made of flour and water, and shaved with a huge wooden razor. This being completed, the victim was thrown into the tank, and ducked. Sometimes the victim fought, and this caused great amusement. One of the passengers, a young athlete, went through the ceremony, to amuse his friends, and he pulled the barber into the tank. This angered the barber, and he began a rough tussle with the passenger. The passenger was getting the best of it, when another member of the crew went to the barber’s assistance. A friend of the passenger, who had been perched in the rigging, watching the exercises, climbed down hurriedly, and was preparing to go to his friend’s assistance, when a word from the captain stopped the row; but for a time it looked as though there might be a fight between passengers and crew. A young member of the crew who was being shaved, became gay, and also pushed the barber into the tank. There was a shout of merriment, and when the young fellow was chased and brought back to the platform, he continued his joke, and pushed the doctor in. This caused the barber to strike the young fellow, which brought forth a round of hissing from the passengers looking on. Altogether, the affair was pretty rough, but everything soon calmed down, and Neptune and his lady, and the doctor, and the barber and his assistant, and the policemen, marched around the deck and took up a collection. A collection was also taken up by a passenger for the twelve new members of the crew who had been ducked. Neptune was represented by a tall young fellow we had seen scrubbing the decks every morning. He wore a grotesque costume, and represented his part very cleverly, as did the others. Soon after Neptune and his court had counted the money taken in the collection, the big whistle blew for a fire drill, and we had quite a busy afternoon.

We had rather a pleasant Christmas, in spite of hot weather. Christmas eve we went to bed in sweltering rooms, with electric fans going, and slept without covering. At dinner next day we found the dining-room prettily decorated. We had turkey with cranberry sauce, plum pudding, pumpkin pie, etc. A good deal of champagne was ordered, as it costs but $2.75 per quart on a ship sailing to a foreign port, as against $4.50 at the average restaurant. The captain’s health having been proposed, he made a speech in which he complimented England, America, Santa Claus, and the passengers. He also said the “Sonoma” had been talked about unjustly by officers of a rival line. How readily rivals in any calling talk about each other! ... While cracking nuts, we began throwing little rolls of paper at each other. This soon filled the room with colored strips of paper, and the waiters got about with difficulty. The captain began the paper-throwing, which was accepted as license by the others. While still seated in the dining-room, the second-cabin passengers passed through the aisles in a procession, the captain having given them permission to dance on the main deck. They brought a good violinist and piano-player with them, and the dancing and music continued until midnight. There is a larger company in the second-cabin than in the first, and they are much livelier. One woman, a professional whistler, gave a performance, and attracted great applause. She is on her way to Australia to fill an engagement. The pianist is a young newspaper man from Chicago.... Maud Powell, possibly the best woman violinist living, was a first-cabin passenger to Honolulu, but she did no playing, although she was agreeable and much liked by the passengers. My room is on the upper deck, near where the deck piano is located, and early one morning Miss Powell’s accompanist played awhile; to exercise his fingers a little, I imagine. It was really a remarkable performance, and I enjoyed it almost alone. Miss Powell was entered on the passenger list as Mrs. Turner, her married name, and her husband accompanied her, as business manager.

Nearly all the passengers on the “Sonoma” are old travelers. On the Atlantic you meet many people who have never been over before, but Australia is out of the way, and is usually visited only by old travelers. Several people I have talked with have been nearly everywhere, and one man is making his seventh trip around the world.... We often have three or four rainstorms and rainbows in a day. A squall of rain came up this afternoon very suddenly, but in five minutes we were admiring the rainbow that accompanied it.

We have a wonderful country in the United States, but we pay very little attention to ships. I heard the captain say at dinner today that the United States sends only twelve passenger ships to foreign countries, the “Sonoma” being one of them, whereas England sends eleven thousand. Germany comes next with five thousand, and little Japan has five hundred. Our decline in shipping began with the Civil War; we have given our attention to building up the country, and neglected ship-building. The captain says that many of our rich men are interested in foreign ship lines, and that they impudently maintain a lobby in Washington to fight every measure intended to benefit domestic shipping. Our financiers will in time gain control of many of the big foreign ship companies; this, in the captain’s judgment, will be the final solution of the problem.

The Atlantic ocean is small compared with the great bulk of the Pacific. Immense fields of water never parted by the cut-water of a ship or steamer lie between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Perhaps half of the Pacific is as yet unexplored and uncharted. In the lonely South Seas lie the Samoa islands, two of which belong to the United States. The “Sonoma” stopped at one of these on the 29th, and we found the harbor at Pago Pago exceedingly pretty. The captain said we should reach Pago Pago at 4 P.M., and at 3:50 P.M. we went ashore. The “Sonoma” makes its time as accurately as a railroad train. Two hours before, the island had been in sight, and long before turning into the harbor we skirted the island so closely that we could see children waving at us from the shore. The island is mountainous, but along the shore were many villages of grass-covered houses, and many groves of cocoanut trees. The harbor of Pago Pago is completely land-locked, and has deep water, but the mountains surrounding it are very high, and we found the weather very warm. As we approached the dock we passed the little gunboat “Princeton,” the captain of which acts as governor of American Samoa. His crew comprises the defensive force, except that fifty natives are employed by our government to act as police. These men receive a dollar a day, and the sons of the most aristocratic native chiefs are anxious to enlist. The entire native population of Tutuila and Manua, the two islands we control, is seven thousand, whereas the total white population is only a hundred. This is made up largely of the crew of the “Princeton.” Mail is received from home only once a month, and as the “Sonoma” was their Christmas boat, you can imagine that nearly all of the white population greeted our landing. Packages of newspapers were thrown out before the lines were made fast, and soon there was cheering: we brought the news that the naval school at Annapolis won the football game from Hartford. Mingling with the white men and women of the naval establishment were hundreds of natives, who looked a good deal like our Indians, except that they were better dressed. One swell we saw was barefoot, and carried a cane. The officers told us he was the head chief of a village. Sometimes the villages are not half a mile apart, but every one has a chief. Three native villages were in sight from the deck of the ship when we landed. The best building in Pago Pago is the house of the governor, which occupies a sightly position on top of a hill overlooking the sea and harbor. There are perhaps a dozen houses for the officers and men, and these, with a cold storage and electric-light plant, coal bunkers, and a small custom-house, make up the naval station. In addition to the “Princeton,” we found two or three smaller boats in the harbor. These had come from the other islands after freight and mail from the “Sonoma.” The “Dawn” I shall long remember as the dirtiest boat I have ever seen. It runs to Apia, fifty miles away. Apia is controlled by the Germans, and is much larger than Pago Pago. You may recall that a good many years ago several gunboats were loafing in Apia harbor when a great storm came up. Two gunboats belonging to the United States and two belonging to Germany went ashore, and a good many sailors were drowned. The incident was one of the big sensations at the time. Robert Louis Stevenson is buried near Apia, and he wrote that the Samoa islands furnish the finest climate in the world.... We spent five hours at Pago Pago, walking about and visiting with the naval officers and their families. Most of them came to the islands on the “Sonoma,” and a dozen or more of them dined with us. The government has built a reservoir in the hills back of the town, and water is piped to all of the houses occupied by the officers. The naval people were so glad to see us that they permitted us to fill the ship’s water tanks without charge. There are two or three American girls visiting married sisters in Pago Pago, and they told us they had not tired of the place after an experience of several months. All of them came over on the “Sonoma,” and they hurried on board to see their friend, the captain. He dined at the executive mansion. Governor Crose’s lady had peanut soup, and the captain said it was not only new, but very good. She also had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, apple salad, and several other things the captain could not remember when questioned next morning at breakfast, although he spoke particularly of home-made butter. The governor owns the cow we saw tied on the hillside near the executive mansion.... Hundreds of the natives were permitted to come on board the “Sonoma.” Usually they give a dance on the parade ground, and assess the passengers twenty-five cents each, but the day being Sunday, the missionaries objected to the usual dance being given. However, Adelaide and I saw the dance. When we came in from one of our three excursions on shore, we found sixty or seventy native women and girls in the ladies’ saloon of the ship, and they were coaxing each other to dance; it reminded me of a country party when the different guests are coaxed to sing. Two sailors from the “Princeton” wandered in, and one of them was coaxed to play the piano for the dancing. He played awhile, but as no one danced, he finally quit in disgust. Then a native girl, after much giggling and coaxing, was persuaded to play, and three or four of the girls danced. Two of them were particularly good; so Adelaide and I saw the much-discussed Samoan dance, in spite of the missionaries. But we were the only passengers present; the others were ashore looking at postal cards. The dance will be given at the approaching San Francisco exposition, a speculator having arranged already for a Samoan village. I am certain I saw three hundred natives on board during our stay at Pago Pago. When I went down to the barber shop to get shaved before dinner, I found the room packed with native women looking at the barber’s wares. A ship barber operates a little store, and his wares include toilet articles, clothing, medicines, confectionery, plug tobacco, etc. I don’t know that the Samoan women chew plug tobacco, but I saw a good many of them smoking. By-the-way, the barber on the “Sonoma” was barber on the “Siberia” when I went to Japan several years ago.

The afternoon we left Honolulu a new passenger came aboard, and I saw him first in the smoking-room. He was very plain, and I thought it my duty to be nice to him. He was agreeable enough, but not much disposed to talk. Later I learned that he is a member of the British Parliament, and that he has twenty-eight pieces of luggage. He is traveling with a doctor, and woman nurse, as he is not well. Ship gossip is to the effect that he is a son of Sir John Lister, a noted Englishman who has done much in a scientific way. Listerine was named for Sir John Lister. I do not see many talk to the British celebrity, except his doctor. His nurse has been seasick ever since coming on board, and she cannot be of much use to her employer. The man sits almost opposite me at the table, and I am satisfied that if anyone should look at him steadily, he would leave the dining-room. He is very plain, and knows it, in which respect he is different from Andrew Carnegie. He is known as “Mr. Lister,” and is going to South Africa to hunt lions. At first, the passengers picked at him a good deal, but during the long voyage to Sydney he became one of the most popular men on board, largely because he is quiet and well-behaved.

One of the passengers is an Australian who lived for a time in South Africa, and made money in mining. Disposing of his holdings to advantage, he went to Oregon, and engaged in apple-growing. It is very interesting to hear him tell of his experiences. He knew nothing about apple-growing when he went to Oregon, but “picked up” a practical knowledge of the business through experience. One of his “experiences” was losing $40,000 in buying a bad orchard. This taught him caution, and later he made money. His apple-pickers are compelled to wear gloves, and to twist rather than pull fruit from the trees. His specialty is buying orchards of shiftless owners, and reviving them. I heard him say last night that there were two sure ways of making money in the United States: the best is apple-growing, and the second is sheep-raising. It interested me greatly to hear that a man might learn a new business and make a success of it in three or four years, as this man did in the apple business.... Captain Trask has great contempt for the modern sailor; he says any old woman of fifty could do the work of a sailor these days, but in the old days of sailing-ships, seamen were compelled to work very hard, and their trade was a difficult one. The sailors on the “Sonoma,” almost without exception, wear blue overalls, and not the wide pantaloons you associate with sailor-men.

There is a wireless apparatus on board, and every day news of no importance is posted in the companionway. The night before Christmas, when we were twenty-four hundred miles out, a good many passengers sent messages to friends.... When you sit on your porches at home, on summer evenings, you hear locusts in the trees. Old-fashioned colored people call them jar-bugs. The wireless, when in operation, sounds exactly like a locust buzzing: a good many of the passengers have remarked the similarity. There are two operators, one of whom is always on duty. One of them is a tall young fellow who does great stunts in the swimming-pool, and the other looks and talks exactly as Lieutenant Rowan did when he carried that famous message to Garcia.

We had an enjoyable time at our New Year celebration. First there was an elaborate dinner, followed by a concert and dance, participated in by the second-cabin passengers. At the conclusion of the concert, we all joined hands and sang, “Should Old Acquaintance be Forgot?” When the dancing began, quadrilles soon became the fashion, and the affair reminded me of “a good time” among neighbors who had known each other many years. Most of the talent for the concert was furnished by the second-cabin, although the best two numbers came from first-class passengers. Refreshments were passed around, and the gayety continued until after midnight. Late in the evening, some one tied down the ship’s big whistle, and the trouble was not located for five minutes. Members of the crew also got up a grotesque parade, headed by the young man who blows a cornet three times a day to announce when meals are ready. Between quadrilles, the passengers stood at the rail, and looked at the Southern Cross, and found it rather disappointing; near it is a false cross which looks rather better than the genuine. The Southern Cross is seen only in the far South, and down here everything in the heavens is new to Northern eyes. Stars are more numerous than at home, and the night of the dance the heavens were particularly clear, and the sea very smooth. Further on, in South Africa, the nights are said to be so brilliant that it is possible to read comfortably by moonlight. During the dance and concert, the first-class passengers became so well acquainted with those in the second-cabin that they now go down to visit them, which they are at liberty to do, although the second-cabin passengers cannot come up on our deck without a special invitation from the captain or purser. Once a week the captain dines in the second-cabin. The food is about the same in the two dining-rooms, but our location is amidships, while the second is far aft, and the motion is more pronounced. The difference in fare is considerable, amounting to one-quarter or a third.

One of the most interesting men on board is J. L. Dwyer, secretary of native affairs in American Samoa, and chief district judge. He is on his way to Sydney, on a vacation. Judge Dwyer has been in Pago Pago five years. When he arrived, he found a king ruling over the island of Manua, but he managed to amicably dispose of His Majesty by making him a district judge. The king lived in a five-room house, and Judge Dwyer says he was a man of intelligence, and ruled justly, but he abdicated quietly, and, as district judge, did all he could for his people for a salary of $25 a month. The king died a year or two ago, but left a daughter, now twenty years old, who will be married shortly to a white clerk in a store at Pago Pago. The clerk gave Judge Dwyer $50 with which to buy a wedding ring in Sydney, and the judge says I may help select it. I have never before been on equally intimate terms with royalty.... The Samoan men believe it beneath their dignity to be annoyed by anything a woman does, so there are almost no quarrels among them on account of jealousy. But if a Samoan woman becomes jealous of another woman, trouble may be expected promptly.... The natives have no income except from the sale of copra, which is the dried meat of the cocoanut. Traders formerly robbed them unmercifully, so the United States Government now attends to the selling of copra, without expense to the natives. The income from this source amounts to $20 per inhabitant per year.... In going into Pago Pago, we saw a great many churches; every village seemed to have at least two. Judge Dwyer says there are too many churches in the islands. Many of the preachers are natives, and much of the money obtained from copra is sent away to missionary societies, for evangelistic work in other communities.

Five of our second-cabin passengers were Mormon missionaries for Pago Pago. The missionaries are thrifty: I was told that every big institution in the Hawaiian islands is owned by a descendant of the old missionaries. But there is little in the Samoan islands to develop; almost no agricultural land, and the little there is (in the vicinity of Apia) is in the hands of Chinese. At Pago Pago, all vegetables come from San Francisco, 4,400 miles away. A monthly paper is printed in Pago Pago, by the government, and distributed gratuitously among the natives. One column out of eight is devoted to English local news.... In the two American islands in Samoa there are but four vehicles, and these are two-wheel carts. There are no agricultural implements, and no farms. Wealth is calculated by the number of cocoanut trees a man owns. The trees are worth $5 each, and the nuts from each tree average about $1 per year in value. The waters surrounding the islands produce many food fish, but the natives do not much care for them. There are a good many pigs of an inferior breed, and some of these run wild, and are hunted with dogs. The only other game in the island are wild pigeons, though there is talk that wild cattle may be found on Tutuila island, a story Judge Dwyer does not believe. Every little while the natives hunt the wild cattle, but never find them. Sugar-cane is grown in Samoa, but is used for no other purpose than to thatch the queer circular houses of the natives.... A village chief is simply the village mayor, and is elected annually. Occasionally the elections are very exciting, and fraud freely resorted to, but in the main the Samoans are a peaceful people, and fairly honest.... It is impossible to get away from taxes, and the Samoan head of a family pays 270 pounds of copra as his annual contribution to the state. This is all used to pay local chiefs, and none of it goes to the United States.... Communism is practiced by the people, and when a man earns $20 a month working as a servant in an American household, he is compelled to divide with members of his family, but the industrious Samoans are tiring of this plan, and resort to all sorts of subterfuges to avoid dividing their wages.... Pago Pago is a beautiful place for naval lieutenants to take their brides, and it was delightful to spend five hours in the American colony there, but we have no more use for it than we have for Guam, or the Philippines. The supplies come from San Francisco, and cost a great deal; coal costs $13 a ton for the cruises of the “Princeton,” but our government does not receive ten cents a day income from American Samoa. In our career of conquest in Samoa, we have not robbed the Samoans; they have robbed us.

At breakfast-time on the morning of December 31, we passed Turtle island, of the Fiji group. We could see smoke ashore, and that was about all. The 180th meridian crosses one of these islands, and the captain says a native has a house on the line. In one end of his house the day of the week is Thursday, while in the other end it is Friday.

Most of the passengers are English. Among the Americans is a Chicago doctor named Beeson, who greatly interests me. Dr. Beeson has a son who is thirty years old, and when the father is away the son attends to his business, as the son is also a doctor. When the father returns, the son will take a trip. Harry Clay Blaney and wife, who toured the country for years in a play called “Across the Pacific,” are also interesting passengers. Mr. Blaney and his brother Charles operate theatres in New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and in other cities, in addition to owning several road shows. Mrs. Blaney is an actress, but is very domestic, and spends most of her time sitting on deck doing fancy work.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 5.—We celebrated our approach to Sydney, Australia, by running into a storm. I have never seen worse weather at sea. Heavy seas continually broke over the prow, and at breakfast only one woman appeared in the dining-room. It will surprise you to learn that this lone woman was Adelaide, the farmer’s daughter. The gentlemen gave her quite a reception, but I wasn’t there to witness it: I was sick in bed. Women are very much more subject to seasickness than men, as a rule.... The night before the storm, we had another impromptu dance, and Adelaide, who never danced in her life, danced the lancers with Judge Dwyer, chief judge of American Samoa. There were two sets, and a good-natured doctor from London called the figures in an amusing way. I hear it frequently remarked that we have a very agreeable passenger list; not a disagreeable person on the list. At the captain’s dinner the captain made another speech, in which he threw us gorgeous bouquets.

MONDAY, JANUARY 6.—The captain said we should see land on the morning of the 6th, at 8 o’clock. At almost exactly that hour, land appeared off the starboard beam (I take this to mean off to the right). When land first appears at sea, it is very faint, and is only distinguished from clouds with difficulty. At 10 A.M. we were in plain sight of Sydney’s famous harbor, and saw other ships entering ahead of us. A half an hour later, we took on a pilot, and at 11 o’clock we stopped at quarantine to wait for a doctor. When this official came, we found him a huge man who would create a sensation in a museum. After the usual inspection, the “Sonoma” steamed toward her dock, eight miles away, and we had an opportunity to see the harbor.... In reading, you are almost constantly in sight of the statement that Sydney has the finest harbor in the world, and, after you have seen it, you are disposed to admit the truth of the statement. After passing in from the sea, a ship travels eight or ten miles to the city docks, and the course winds around through hills almost large enough to be called mountains. On either side are bays, and everywhere on top of the hills you see houses with red tile roofs. Sydney is a city of more than seven hundred thousand, and has doubled its population in the past twenty-five years. It is only a question of a few years until Sydney has a million population, and is destined to become one of the great cities of the world. Its houses are nearly all built of a native stone of yellow cast. Through this wonderful harbor we steamed slowly, and finally landed at noon, as the captain said we would.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 7.—This morning we employed a messenger boy to show us around Sydney. The boy is fourteen years old, and was educated in English schools. He talks no other language than English, but we could not understand half he said: there is this marked difference in American and English pronunciation. Sydney is an English city, and its signs are in English, but we do not understand many of them. Australia is not only an English colony, but the people of its larger towns have a dialect of their own. Sydney is a fine city, but looks more like Manchester or Liverpool than it looks like London. There are no sky-scrapers here, in the American sense; one of the Sydney newspapers wanted to build a sky-scraper, and occupy it as an office, but Parliament would not permit it. Everywhere you see American goods, and signs calling attention to them, and Bud Atkinson’s American Wild West is giving exhibitions daily in one of the parks. It seemed queer to me that an exhibition of this character should be granted permission to exhibit in one of the parks; imagine an Australian Wild West in Central Park in New York. And I do not recall Bud Atkinson as a noted American in the Wild West line. This show came over a month ago, in the ship ahead of ours. I should say a jump of three weeks is a tolerably big one. This is the summer season here, and the show will return to the United States in April.... In the fruit stores in Sydney you see strawberries, cantaloupes, peaches, green corn, tomatoes, etc. At home you hear a good deal about low prices in Australia. I only know I paid fifty cents each for cantaloupes, which are known as Rock Melons here, but they are particularly large and fine. Strawberries were fifty cents a quart, but they were extra good. I am told that the people here do not care much for Rock Melons. The melons we bought we carried to a restaurant, and the woman who served them had never tasted melons, and thought we had queer taste.... A thing that attracted our attention in Sydney was an unusually large number of young women. At one of the bathing-beaches I saw a party of twelve, and nine of them were young women. We entered Sydney harbor early Monday morning, and the bathing-beaches were already crowded; there seems to be more merrymaking here than in American cities. On Monday and Tuesday the parks were crowded, as were the bathing-beaches. And the parks here are wonderfully fine, and the zoölogical garden I visited was the best I have ever seen. The impudent English sparrows may be seen here in great numbers, and in the parks they enter the cages of rare birds and rob them of their feed.... Adelaide is very polite, but she says the people here look funny to her; that it is a constant source of amusement to her to walk the streets and see the people. She says the women wear afternoon dresses in the morning, on the street. Along the docks this morning, we came upon a big crowd witnessing the departure of a ship. Half the women wore fancy white dresses, and big picture hats.... The residences here do not seem to be numbered, but each has a name; a flat with four occupants will have four names, and a double house will have two. Out in the suburbs, little houses of two and three rooms will have tremendously big names. And we passed through miles of suburbs where every house seemed to be new: there is no doubt that Sydney is growing rapidly.... An attraction here at one of the theatres is “Faust,” of which America tired years ago. “Marguerite” is exploited after the fashion of “Little Eva” in an “Uncle Tom” show, and somehow it looks ridiculous. “Faust” is a ridiculous play, so far as that goes, and the story of “Marguerite” foolish. One of the bills now being shown in Sydney represents “Marguerite” being transported alive into heaven, by angels, in spite of the devil, who is flying along with the angels, and snorting fire.... We hear in the United States that there are no labor troubles in Australia; that everything is settled by arbitration. But I see much more about labor troubles in the Sydney papers than I ever see in the papers of America. One of the unions now making trouble is that of the Rabbit Trappers. You may think I made that up, but I didn’t: there is really such a union here, and it is just now prominent because of some sort of controversy. Many years ago rabbits were imported to Australia, to afford sport for the people. Conditions are so favorable for rabbits here that they soon became a great pest. Farmers are now compelled to fence against rabbits, and millions of the animals are caught, frozen, and sent to the London market.... At least one of the leading newspapers here, The Morning Telegraph, denounces unionism, saying it was originally in the interest of workingmen, but lately it has become political despotism, and union labor leaders political adventurers. “Capital,” said The Telegraph, in an editorial this morning, “will leave Australia, and go where labor is not a political despot.” I do not know of a leading paper in the United States that would care to print a similar editorial. Plenty of such editorials are printed in the United States, but in trade papers, and not in leading daily newspapers.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8.—We sailed at noon today for Auckland, New Zealand, on the ship “Maheno.” It is about the size of the “Sonoma;” six thousand tons.... We are accomplishing so much by law now that I suggest the adoption of a law providing that no ship of less than twelve thousand tons be permitted to carry passengers; a six-thousand-ton ship is too small. Adelaide drew seat No. 13 at the table, but I did worse than that: I drew two men in my room. I resent two men in my room as I do going to jail, but resentment did me no good; the ship is crowded, and I was compelled to stand it. But what do you think happened to Adelaide, who occupies seat No. 13 at the table? She has a room to herself.... One of the men in my room is a New-Yorker named Bond, an importer who has a branch house in Sydney. The man with him is one of his traveling salesmen. Mr. Bond is an old traveler, and has made this trip many times. He hates the “Maheno,” and predicts a disagreeable experience. He says the “Maheno” can kick up a rough sea when the weather is fine, and that there is nothing commendable about the boat except that it usually gets across in a little less than four days.... You can never know what it means to be crowded until you have been one of three in a steamship stateroom. It was a disagreeable experience, getting to bed, which we attempted at 8:30, as the weather was rough. After I was in bed with my two roommates, I began thinking: “Suppose one of them should snore!” I am a bad sleeper at best, and the thought of a snoring man in my room all night set my nerves on edge.... The opportunity was too good to be neglected. Mr. Bond and his friend talked business awhile, another thing I am not accustomed to in my sleeping-room, and then Mr. Bond began snoring. For years, people around me have paid attention to my nerves, because I am a bad sleeper, and I resented this snoring as a spoilt child does when whipped by a neighbor. I stood it until midnight, and then I crawled out of bed, found a bath-robe and slippers, and spent the night on a sofa in the music-room.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9.—A ship is no place for an early riser. A ship bed becomes unbearable to me by 5 A. M., and half an hour later I am on deck. I can’t sit in the music-room or smoking-room, because the stewards are cleaning up, and when I walk the decks I am in the way of sailors who are washing them with hose. In addition, the early riser never has his shoes shined, and gets no early breakfast in bed. On a ship, the servants will not respect you if you do anything for yourself.... The second passenger to appear on deck was a woman; possibly she had a snorer in her room, too. Much to my surprise, the woman calmly proceeded, after seating herself in a deck chair, to put on her stockings. They say women always sit on the floor when they put on their stockings, but this woman didn’t.... Bare legs are quite common here. The fourteen-year-old messenger boy who showed us about in Sydney wore stockings only a few inches long, and above them his legs were bare to his knees. This is the rule with boys and girls, and their legs are sunburned and cracked, and often covered with pimples.... So far as I know, all the passengers on the “Maheno” are Australians or New Zealanders, except ourselves and Mr. Bond, and we expect him to quit speaking to us because I do not enjoy his snoring. At home I have always had members of my family bluffed because of my nervousness, but here everyone seems to think it perfectly absurd that snoring should disturb me.... I hear the passengers talking about “the bush.” In our country we call it the “short-grass country;” both mean the frontier. I have always been interested in Australia because Abel Magwitch made his money there. Charles Dickens created this man out of his fancy, but no character was ever more real to me. There is something about the old fellow that appeals to me as Falstaff or Macbeth never did, and to my mind “Great Expectations” is the greatest book ever written. Abel Magwitch made his money in Australia in sheep, and at the Sydney hotels you see sheep farmers from “the bush” who are timidly spending their money. Australia is an ideal sheep country, and fortunes are easily made, until there is a drouth. Then there is neither water nor grass for the animals, and they die off in great numbers. The last drouth occurred seven years ago, and thousands of sheep sold at a shilling a head. Many of those who bought sheep at that price, lost them all, and became bankrupt. But sheep are prolific, and in two or three years after the drouth they seemed to be as numerous as ever. It is said the Australians make money easily, and are much like Americans. The New Zealanders are much like the Australians, although the distance from Sydney to Auckland is thirteen hundred miles.... Abel Magwitch was sent to Australia as a convict from England, as Australia was formerly a penal colony, but that was many years ago; Australia is now one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and it has been of great use to mankind because it has tried so many experiments in trying to make the common lot easier. Many of the advanced political notions in the United States came from Australia and New Zealand. The per-capita wealth is higher in those countries than in any other; there is more wealth in other countries, but it is not so evenly distributed among the people as in Australia and New Zealand. The government owns most of the public utilities, and no one can help remarking the fine system of street-railway in Sydney. For short distances the fare is two cents, and the fare increases after passing certain limits. I am told that in some lines of business there is a holiday at Christmas here, lasting two weeks. There is no severely cold weather, and the people are not compelled to spend a great deal for fuel. Wages are not as high as with us, but living is cheaper. I had heard so much of the low cost of beef in Australia that I inquired the price at several markets. The best cuts sold at twenty cents per pound: altogether, meat is cheaper than in the United States, but the difference is not so great as I expected it to be.... Everything indicates that the Australians are good people, and hospitable, enterprising, and intelligent; I have only admiration for them, until they begin to talk. Then their pronunciation is a reproach to me. I have always called it Austraylia; they call it Austrylia. “Well, old chap,” I heard a man say to a friend in Sydney, on parting, “tyke care of yourself!” ... There is a woman on this ship with three little children. To look at her, she seems like any other worthy woman: devoted, unselfish, kind, polite, and always busy. But when you hear her talk, it is different from anything you ever heard. There are two little girls on board, and they are very kind to the mother with three children. It is very nice to see them caring for the baby, and running errands for the tired mother, but as soon as they begin to talk they do not seem so much like little girls you have known. “I was a bit groggy meself yesterday,” I heard one of them say to the mother. She meant that she was seasick.... The English themselves do not agree on pronunciations; Cambridge University authorizes one pronunciation of many words, and Oxford another. I can understand how dialects originate with people speaking the same language, and who do not associate much with each other except locally, but the English and American see enough of each other to get together in pronunciation.

Captain Feeding his Pet    /     Transferring Passengers in a Basket at Sea
The Landing Stage, Beira
The Dock at Pago Pago    /    Christmas at Sea

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10.—Last night I laid my case before the chief steward, and he said he would fix me up; that he would take me out of 27, where Mr. Bond devotes the nights to snoring, and put me in No. 7, with Mr. Martin. I went to bed in No. 7, complimenting the chief steward for his disposition to please the passengers, but in ten minutes Mr. Martin began snoring, and I spent the night trying to decide if his snore was not rather more rasping than that of Mr. Bond. At a late hour I dressed and retreated again to a sofa in the music-room. But I have not lost my temper; I am rather disposed, on the contrary, to laugh at myself for spending a large amount of money in an attempt to have a “good time.” ... The sea has been smooth today and we are all much more comfortable, although I do not believe anyone is getting his money’s worth. About the only excitement on board is the fact that a flock of albatross are following us. I have always understood that albatross are rather scarce at sea, but certainly twenty are in sight as I write this. They often fly within twenty feet of the ship, and we have opportunity to examine them carefully. They follow the ship for hours without moving a wing; they seem to fly by taking advantage of the wind.... We saw several whales today, and the captain, at whose table we sit, says he once ran into one, and was compelled to back out of it.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 11.—A story one always hears on approaching New Zealand: In a strait near the coast is a fish known as “Pilot Jack,” which escorts every ship through, except one. Some years ago a passenger on a certain ship fired at the fish, and wounded it. The fish disappeared for several months, but finally it appeared again, and resumed its old habits of piloting ships through the strait; but it never shows itself when the ship appears from the deck of which it was fired upon. The shooting incident caused the New Zealand Parliament to pass an act protecting “Pilot Jack.” The fish is about twenty feet long, and photographs showing it swimming ahead of ships are common. These photographs, it seems to me, are faked, and made specially to sell to tourists. Seamen do not know why “Pilot Jack” appears whenever a ship invades his territory, but certain it is that he does appear, and swims ahead of the ship several miles. The captain of the “Maheno” says it is possible “Pilot Jack” likes to rub his back on the bottom of ships, and thus get rid of certain annoying parasites. Another theory is that the fish simply plays about the ships, which is not improbable; I have myself seen dolphins play in the waves thrown up by the prow of a ship, and keep it up several minutes at a time.... Last night I sent a wireless message to the Grand Hotel at Auckland, engaging accommodations on my arrival there. I was compelled to pay $2 for the service, and sign an agreement that I would not ask recovery in case the message was not delivered.... No one seems to know much about the albatross which are following us. A sailor told me that if an albatross should light on the water, it couldn’t get up again. Ten minutes later, I saw twenty of them alight on the water, apparently fight over something thrown from the ship, and then get up again. The sailors once caught an albatross, and concluded to take it to the zoölogical garden at Sydney, but it became seasick, and was such a nuisance that they knocked it in the head and threw it overboard. A passenger once jumped from the “Sonoma,” with a view of committing suicide. A number of albatross were following the ship and they picked the man’s eyes out before a boat could reach him. Although very beautiful and graceful, the bird is said to be a disgusting vulture. Where or how it lives no one seems to know; but it is certain that it will follow a ship night and day from Wellington to Cape Horn, a trip of three weeks. It is not seen when land is in sight; it seems to sail about the lonely ocean as easily as a zephyr, and the stronger the head-wind, the easier it sails against it.... There is a peculiar character on board at whom everyone laughs. For awhile I feared he might be a fool American, but he turned out to be a New Zealand school teacher. He wears a tall hat and clerical clothes, and everyone supposed for a time that he was a missionary. One day he went after his music, and began singing in the ladies’ parlor. He cannot sing, and cannot play the piano, although he attempts both. A crowd soon gathered, and vigorously applauded when he concluded “The Lost Chord.” The howling of a dog, accompanied by a child banging on a piano, would not have been worse, and it was so ridiculous that the man was asked to sing again. He readily consented, and attempted a tenor aria from “The Messiah.” The passengers now call the man “the professor,” and two or three times a day he is asked to sing. He always complies promptly. There are half a dozen excellent musicians on board, and when they sing or play, “the professor” is plainly bored. He seems more like a character from a play or book than a real man, and is mild and inoffensive. I talked awhile with him today, and found him an educated man, and apparently quite intelligent, but he is not able to understand that he cannot sing, or play the piano; he cannot realize that all the passengers are making fun of him. I suppose all of us are made fun of when we do not know it, but the case of “the professor” is more than usually glaring. A concert is being arranged for tonight, as this is the last day of the voyage, and “the professor” has been put on the programme, to avoid hurting his feelings. Last night he was the only man on board who dressed for dinner; he put on a swallow-tailed coat much too long for him, and looked odd in other particulars. And after all the trouble he went to, in dressing for dinner, he was compelled to dine at the second sitting. He is a small man, with smooth, white face, and wears his dark hair quite long. The passengers are learning to like him, for he is evidently a gentleman, but none of us can understand why the man so readily consents to make a fool of himself. Perhaps the other passengers make fools of themselves, too, and are as unconscious of it as “the professor.” When not playing or singing, he carries an algebra about, and works problems. He has two pairs of spectacles, and is constantly changing them, and forgetting in which pocket he placed the pair he wishes to use next.

... I am very proud of the men on this ship, they are so modest and well-behaved. I hear no swearing, or rude talk, and there is almost no drinking at table or in the smoking-room. The three men I have roomed with are quiet, and genteel, and I should admire them very much did they not snore. I am certain Mr. Martin was annoyed because I was put in with him, but he is so considerate of me that I can almost forgive his bad habit. I think he knows he snores, and when I hear him threshing about in his bed, I almost conclude he is keeping awake in order that he may not annoy me. He is an elderly man, and frequently gets up in the night, but he does it so quietly that I rarely hear him.... A man I supposed to be an Episcopal rector turns out to be a Presbyterian preacher named Thompson. He is an Englishman, but was educated at Yale, and now has a charge in a small town in New Zealand. I walk the decks with him a good deal. He says he has been taking a vacation, and that, during his idleness, he has been thinking a great deal.

“Many times,” he said, “I asked myself the question: ‘In view of modernism, what is the best thing to do for my people?’ and I always came to the conclusion that there is nothing better for any of us than fairness, politeness, temperance, and industry; I could come to no other conclusion than that the oldest and simplest doctrine is the best.”

Another passenger is a little man who rides running horses in races. The Australians are very fond of racing, and the favorite riders are noted and prosperous men. All of them are small; this man has a wife almost twice his size. Some of them become as noted as Nat Goodwin, the actor, and marry as often. A little intelligence and coolness at a critical moment will often win a race, and the noted jockeys are usually men of intelligence. The man showed me a number of scars, the result of accidents. In racing in Australia, the horses jump hurdles, and often fall.... At 3 o’clock this afternoon we passed the “Three Kings,” barren islands without a light, which have caused many shipwrecks. An hour later we sighted the coast of New Zealand, and followed it throughout the night.... This evening we had a concert in the music-room, lasting two hours. This is a great country for amateur singing; every traveler seems to carry music, and on the slightest provocation will go to his room and get it. In addition to singing and piano-playing, we had four recitations; the recitation habit seems respectable here.... A New York traveling-man says the fashions in New Zealand and Australia are always a year or two behind New York, and that goods going out of style in the United States are just coming in here. Goods that are unsalable in New York, because they are out of fashion, may be picked up at low prices, and sold here at a good profit, according to the New York traveling-man, who has been visiting Australia and New Zealand for fifteen years.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12.—At daylight this morning we passed into a land-locked gulf, and continued in it all the way to Auckland. At 8 o’clock, while at breakfast, the suburbs of Auckland began to appear, but we did not get through the custom-house and go ashore until two hours later. We hurried to the Grand Hotel, where we had ordered rooms by wireless, paying two dollars for the service. The manager said he had not received the message, therefore had not reserved the rooms. While he was talking, he excused himself to attend to a telephone call. On his return, he said our wireless message had just been telephoned him from the ship. That is the service you get from the much-advertised wireless. Later I met an officer of the ship on the street, and he said I was entitled to a return of my money, but I will never get it; on paying for the service two days ago, I was compelled to sign an agreement not to ask for my money back in case no service was rendered.... The manager of the Grand recommended the Royal, which is under the same management. At the Royal we found a woman clerk so polite that we liked the place at once. When she called a boy to show us our rooms, she called him “Buttons.” This young man took us up in a primitive elevator, which stuck, and the servants were compelled to pull us out. When we finally reached our rooms, we liked them, and probably we are as well off here as we would have been at the Grand.... All the hotels in Auckland, with five unimportant exceptions, are owned by a Jew named Ernest Davis. He owns hotels in other places, and they are all compelled to sell Hancock beer, as Davis also owns the Hancock brewery. One hears a good deal here about the five free hotels of Auckland. Freedom in this case means freedom to sell any beer the manager chooses to buy. In the United States, breweries own saloons, but I have never before heard of breweries owning hotels.... The Royal is very modest in its charges; we pay ten shillings and sixpence per day each for accommodations. This means $2.62 a day for room, three regular meals, early morning tea, and supper at 10 P.M. And the hotel is really good; I do not care for anything better, although the rooms are old-fashioned, and the elevator does not work half the time. When you want anything, you step into the hall and push a button marked Maid’s Bell. When the maid appears, you order hot water for shaving, or whatever it may be you need. There are four bathrooms near my room, which include needle and douche baths. The New Zealanders are fond of bathing, and there is never a lack of bathrooms in their hotels.... I have before referred to the fact that women out here wear afternoon and evening dresses in the morning; I believe I would have noticed the custom had not Adelaide called my attention to it. When the ship landed this morning, a pretty woman we admired, dressed in white satin and white kid slippers for the occasion.... On our way up-town, we passed a store labeled the Clobbery. The stock seemed to consist of gents’ furnishing goods. Perhaps an English friend can tell you where the word Clobbery comes from; I never heard of it before.... After dinner, we walked about the streets of Auckland. Adelaide wore what is known at home as a “Peter Thompson suit,” and it attracted so much attention that I asked her to return to the hotel and change it. There were great crowds on the streets, and they seemed to think Adelaide was a member of a lady brass band of which I was director. She took off the “Peter Thompson,” and put on a gray suit made by a man tailor in Kansas City, but she still looked funny to the people, for they continued to stare at her. She wore a Panama hat for which I paid $12 (marked down from $20), and I thought she looked pretty well, but she was a sight to many of the people of Auckland.... We heard a brass band, and walked that way. It turned out to be a Salvation Army band of thirty men. The players wore red coats, and played like professionals. The men and women in the procession were much more decent-looking than members of the Salvation Army at home. There were no guitars, and no tambourines; the music was furnished by an excellent band of thirty men. It was a very respectable outfit in every way, and finally disappeared into a theatre. In Auckland, Sunday theatricals are prohibited, and religious services are held in every theatre twice on Sunday. In the early evening, while on the streets, we encountered the big Salvation Army band again; also, the Mission band. I was told that the Mission was much like the Salvation Army, except that it was more modest. The Mission had a good band of twenty-four men, and a little organ, which two men carried. After a selection by the band, there was singing, with organ accompaniment. The song was entitled, “Just the Same Jesus,” and was so simple, and repeated so often, that I was soon able to sing it with the others. The leader asked for people to give their experiences, and a good many stepped into the middle of the ring, and talked briefly and modestly. One old fellow was a particularly good talker, and said he had been a soldier in the Civil War in the United States, and traveled all over the world, but had always found Jesus his friend in time of trouble. As each speaker ceased, the same song was sung, “Just the Same Jesus,” and I joined with the others in the singing. Presently the leader came to me, and said:

“You are evidently a religious man, and a stranger. Won’t you make a few remarks?”

Maunganui River    /    Pool of Bathers, Whakarewarewa
A Galaxy of Maori Beauty
A Maori Girl    /    Native House, New Zealand

I excused myself, and he then asked the band to play.... When we walked up the street, in front of every theatre we found men announcing special religious services. In front of the theatres, also, were choirs singing religious songs as the people went in, precisely as at a street fair in America, a party of the performers will come out to the front to assist the ticket-seller in attracting a crowd. The New Zealanders are evidently a very religious people; I have been hearing church bells all day. Everything is closed tight except drug stores and restaurants.... Both bands I have mentioned had only brass instruments; no clarinets. In each one I noticed that there were cornet players who could play an octave higher than the score, and thus get what we used to call “the clarinet tone” when I played in brass bands in country towns. I have never seen as respectable a Salvation Army outfit as I saw in Auckland, and the Mission outfit was still better looking.... As in Australia, January is like July or August in New Zealand; snow is unknown about Auckland. All the vegetables and fruits are at their best here now, and the bathing-beaches are crowded.... On the “Sonoma” I heard the steward say that when anything came from New Zealand, it was always the very best. We have found the butter particularly excellent, and the mutton is better than the turkey.... An American I met today says that in New Zealand it is no uncommon thing to see girls of fourteen with complete sets of false teeth; that something in the water here is very hard on teeth.

MONDAY, JANUARY 13.—The meals and rooms at the Hotel Royal are so good that we are almost ashamed to accept them at $2.62 per day each. The taxi system here is also very agreeable. In most cities, taxis are disreputable-looking vehicles you are almost ashamed to ride in. Here they are new automobiles of different makes, and they cannot be distinguished from private vehicles. Today we rode about in a Cadillac of 1913 model that had been in service only three weeks. The charge was $3.12 per hour. At home the Cadillac costs about $2,000; here it costs a third more. The driver told us he paid forty cents a gallon for gasoline (known as petrol here); we pay about eighteen cents a gallon. An exposition will be opened here in nine or ten months, and the buildings are being erected in a park adjoining the city. We went out in the Cadillac to see them, and it was very pleasant to hear the sound of the open muffler again, for Auckland is a very hilly city. One park we visited consists of four hundred acres, and it was given to the city by Sir John Logan Campbell. Before he died, citizens of Auckland erected a statue in his honor, and he was present at the unveiling, which seemed to me rather unusual. From the top of a mountain in this park, we could see across New Zealand. The country is nearly a thousand miles long, and has an average width of one hundred and fifty miles, but at Auckland the width is only seven miles. The city will soon extend across the isthmus, and there is already talk of digging a canal.... Auckland is accustomed to giving. One of the handsomest and largest structures here is a Y. M. C. A. building, and near it is a Y. W. C. A. building. The campaign in which the money was raised for these two buildings must have been a strenuous one.... Workingmen’s clubs are common here. I have often wondered that we do not see them in the United States.... A few days ago, the New Zealand Press Association, which answers to our Associated Press, sent out a telegram which offended labor-union men. Thereupon the firemen in an Auckland ferry service went on strike, and greatly inconvenienced the public. The firemen had no quarrel with their employers, but quit work because their dignity had been offended by the newspapers. The newspapers of Australia and New Zealand criticise the labor unions much more freely than do the newspapers of the United States. Here business houses are compelled by law to close on certain days, and the workingmen have become so powerful that they have divided into two parties, and are fighting each other. Many New Zealanders have told me that the big fight is yet to come, and that this fight will be between the people and the labor unions.... I went into a meat market today, and inquired prices. A rib roast of beef costs twelve cents a pound; a sirloin roast, fourteen cents. Round steak costs thirteen cents a pound; the butcher told me he rarely sold a sirloin steak, but when he does, he gets twenty cents a pound for it. Leg of mutton sells for twelve cents a pound, and mutton chops, thirteen. Pork chops are sixteen cents a pound, and ham and bacon twenty-four cents. The butcher makes a difference in price when a customer has meat delivered and charged. Butchers at home do not make this distinction; the man who pays cash, and carries his purchase home, is charged as much as the patron who runs an account, and has everything delivered. The beef here is inferior to ours; there is no such thing in New Zealand as corn-fed cattle.... We also visited a dry-goods store, and, so far as Adelaide was able to judge, prices were not much lower than at home. Besides, everything seemed out of style.... In Atchison, market gardeners sell tomato and cabbage plants growing in boxes. Today we saw plants grown in exactly the same way in front of Auckland grocery stores, as this is the season for making garden here.... I have never seen better-looking horses anywhere than I see in Auckland. They are usually of the Clydesdale strain. All sorts of live-stock seem well fed and well bred.... This is a poor trip, compared with the trip through Japan, China, India, etc. There the people dress and look different; here the people are so much like those at home that we do not seem to have been away, if we can forget the pronunciations.... In the poorer quarters of Auckland, we saw a meal advertised for twelve cents. It consisted of tea, bread and butter, and fish.... Anything that sells for a nickel at home, is six cents here. I had my shoes shined at a street stand today, and the price was six cents. There is no five-cent piece in English currency, but there is a six-cent silver piece. There is nothing here answering to our ten-cent piece except the sixpence, which is worth twelve cents. There are five and ten-cent stores here, but their prices are six and twelve cents.... When we want a guide, we get a boy from the hotel, who is known as “Buttons.” At meal-times, his business is to go through the dining-room, and take orders for liquor. He also sings in the vested choir in the largest Episcopal church in town. We passed his church yesterday, and he offered to take us in and introduce us to the pastor, but we were compelled to decline the honor, owing to lack of time. Wherever I go, I employ boy guides. They know the interesting places, and point them out, but have no problems to discuss as men have.... A sign we see here frequently is “Private Bar.” What is a private bar? Does it mean a bar operated by a man who has a saloon for his own private use, and a bartender who waits on no one else? ... In the bar connected with the Hotel Royal are two girl bartenders, and they are good-looking, stylish girls.... A big store near our hotel is operated by “John Court, Limited.” That word Limited is frequently seen abroad, and seems to mean the same thing as “Incorporated” with us.... At home, we have a saying that oysters are good only in the months which have an “r” in them. Here, oysters are at their best in April, May, June, July and August, and out of season in the months which have an “r” in them.... In an early walk this morning,

I saw a man riding a horse, and driving a big bunch of sheep and cattle through the streets. He was assisted by three of the cleverest shepherd dogs I have ever seen, and it was a sight well worth seeing. During the same walk I ran across a man who was selling rabbits from a cart. He told me the rabbits had been trapped the day before, and shipped to Auckland by rail. He sold two young rabbits for a shilling, or twelve cents each, and called out as he drove along: “Wild rabbits; wild rabbits.” In Australia, rabbits have become so numerous that they are a menace and a danger, but this Auckland rabbit-seller told me that in New Zealand the supply of rabbits is not equal to the demand.... New Zealand is not an old country; its history really dates from about 1840. Although Captain Cook, in 1769, discovered and explored the two islands composing New Zealand, its real history did not begin until almost a century later, when the native Maoris, after a war lasting eleven years, concluded a treaty with the English. Australia and New Zealand, although nominally English colonies, are as free and independent as any countries in the world.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 14.—We have devoted this day to a railroad journey from Auckland to Rotorua, the center of the Lake district. Here are located the geysers which are said to rival those in Yellowstone Park. Here are located, also, famous baths, and Rotorua is probably the most noted watering-place in Australasia.... The railway station in Auckland is located next to the postoffice, and very properly, since the government owns the railway as well as the postoffice. No trains are run at night, as a rule, and none on Sunday, except an important mail train between Auckland and Wellington. The railway is a narrow-gauge, and we traveled on it very comfortably from 10 A.M. until 6 P.M. At noon, luncheon was served in a dining-car, and at 3:30 P.M. the dining-car servants announced afternoon tea. When we gave our tickets to the conductor, he said “Thank you;” over here, when a hotel waiter shows you the bill of fare, and you say you will take soup, he always says “Thank you.” ... For miles and miles we saw nothing but pasture land, and cattle and sheep; a hundred sheep, probably, to ten cattle. In a railroad journey of eight hours, we saw only half a dozen cultivated fields. These were devoted to oats and turnips. Oats were in the shock, and we saw several orchards containing ripe fruit. But mainly we saw pastures. The country is beautiful, and it is prosperous, but its prosperity comes mainly from sheep. At several places we saw this sign: “Poison laid for dogs.” ... All the stations are named for the original Maori settlers, as many of our towns have Indian names. At many stations we saw the Maoris in considerable numbers.... I do not believe there is a shingle roof in New Zealand; the roofs of the cheaper houses are of corrugated iron while the roofs of the better class houses are of red tile. Nearly all the houses in the country have fireplaces, and most of them are built of sheet-iron. The winters here are very mild, and a little fire in a grate is all that is needed. New Zealand is a wonderful stock-raising country, because of its mild winters.... In the smoking-car of the train, the spittoons were holes in the floor, with a brass top of the regulation spittoon pattern.... In Australia and New Zealand you see the sign “No smoking” very much oftener than anywhere else in the world.... There is no prairie land in New Zealand. There is a bush to be cleared off all the farm land; I don’t know what it is, but it looks like scrub cedar. All along the route we saw this burning; that seems to be one method of clearing land here. And after the land is cleared, it must be heavily manured; at one country town I saw a store sign which announced dry goods, artificial manures, iron mongery, etc. There is as much evidence of prosperity here as in the best sections of the Middle West, and you wonder where it comes from, since you see almost nothing but sheep. I didn’t see a poverty-stricken looking house all day, nor at any of the dozens of stopping-places did I see anyone who seemed to be poor.... About 2 P.M. we approached the mountains, and traveled in them until we reached the summit, and ran rapidly down the other side. Near the top we encountered several sawmills, but they were rather small affairs. At 5 P.M. we began seeing, in the distance, steam ascending from geysers. At 6 P.M. we steamed into Rotorua. The railroad stops here, and all the passengers left the crowded train. There are dozens of boarding-houses and hotels; excellent accommodations may be had for $10.50 a week, and the Grand, the best hotel, charges only $3.12 a day for board and room. The baths rival the best in the most famous watering-places of the Old World, and many spouting geysers may be seen in an hour’s walk. In addition, Rotorua has a beautiful lake, and anyone can catch fish in it; so, little wonder that the town is growing rapidly.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15.—At 10 o’clock this morning we left for a trip on the lake. There were about a dozen other passengers in the motor boat, and in half an hour most of them were seasick, as the wind was blowing a gale. Our destination was a famous spring eight miles away. This spring heads a river so large that we sailed in it in a boat. The water gushes up from a great hole, and with such force that a coin will not sink in it. The flow is twelve million gallons in twenty-four hours, and the water as cold as ice. From the wonderful spring, we went through a wonderful river to a wonderful fall. Three other boats accompanied us; tourists are as common here as they are in Egypt. At the wonderful fall, we ate lunch. The Grand Hotel sent a hamper along, and we ate while sitting on a cliff overlooking the mighty rush of water. At the fall we left the boat, and took a stage back to Rotorua, stopping on the way at a thermal center of great interest: Tikitere. An Irishman married a Maori woman who owns the place, and he insists upon charging fifty cents admission. This is the only sight in the district for which a charge is made; the Irishman is smarter than the New Zealand government, and every visitor is compelled to pay two shillings, or miss one of the best sights in the district. Tikitere covers several acres, and is mainly devoted to boiling mud springs. There are thousands of these springs, some of them not much larger than your hand, and some of them big enough to float a ship. Imagine a loblolly of mud boiling violently, and you have the main idea. At one place there are cold and hot springs within five feet of each other. Near them is a fall of hot water from two boiling lakes. Then we drove to Blue Lake, an extinct crater filled with water of a perfect blue, and returned to the hotel at 6 P.M., badly sunburned as a result of our trip on the lake and in the stage-coach.... When I tell people I had no sleep on the “Maheno” because of snoring gentlemen, they say, “Let me tell you what they did to me.” And then they relate inconveniences suffered on different ships. But in spite of these uncomfortable incidents of travel, nothing can keep the people at home.... The stage in which we traveled today was pulled by five horses: two wheelers, and three hitched side by side ahead of them. The roads were so dusty that the driver was frequently compelled to stop, and wait until he could see his way.... Speaking of differences in the English language at home and abroad: opposite my room at the Grand Hotel is a livery and bait stable. Rotorua is a great place for livery and bait stables, owing to the tourist trade. From my window early in the morning, I see men and women coming from the different bath-houses, with towels over their arms. Frequently stages drive up in front of the hotel, and passengers depart for sights quite distant from the town. There are a good many automobiles, also, and we shall travel in these quite extensively when we leave Rotorua to see the other sights in the district. On an average, there are fifteen hundred visitors in Rotorua, and a resident population of 2,500. The great watering-places in Europe are insignificant compared with this place, because of the variety of natural baths procurable here. The government has spent $200,000 on a bathhouse, and surrounded it with a very beautiful garden in which sweet peas are now in bloom. This is also the home of the gladioli; I see these flowers everywhere in splendid profusion. In the park surrounding the government bathhouse are several spouting geysers, steam whistlers, sulphur springs, etc. Outside the park grounds may be seen many sanitariums, with invalids on the porches. There is nothing as effective in restoring health as natural hot springs, and the variety is so great here that I wonder the visiting population is not much larger than fifteen hundred.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16.—The Maoris, or native inhabitants of New Zealand, look very much like our Indians, and have most of their characteristics. They are lazy and shiftless, but good fighters, which will be generally recognized as a trait of the North-American Indians. At the photograph galleries we see pictures of beautiful Maori girls, but none are to be seen in the native villages, two of which are located near Rotorua. In both of these are hot springs, and the natives use them for cooking, heating their houses, and for bathing. In the hot springs are placed pots containing meat and vegetables, and the springs are then covered over with old gunny-sacks until the cooking is complete.

The women also do their washing in the same way; the clothes are boiled in a hot spring, and then soaped and rubbed in a stream of cooler water. While the women are washing, their children are bathing in warm pools near by. The houses are built over hot springs, and in cool weather the warmth is found very agreeable. A few feet away from the hot springs may be found a geyser in constant eruption, or which erupts every ten minutes, every hour, every day, or every month. Yesterday all the geysers were going, but most of them were quiet today. The district where I saw the native village covers many acres, in a depression between mountains, and is marked by white patches which look like old lime-kilns. These white patches were made by the geysers; the water is strongly impregnated with lime, and the steam and spray give everything touched a coating of white. We saw great holes in the earth filled with blue water, and the bottom as white as snow. Not far away would be found another geyser; a great loblolly of mud, boiling lazily. Beside a rushing stream of cold water we saw a hot spring, and heard the old story that a man might stand in one spot, catch a trout, and boil it. A Maori woman was our guide, and we greatly admired her beautiful voice. She was elderly, and ugly, but her voice was soft and musical. She took us to a native Maori fort, and pointed out a sort of bird-box situated on top of a pole. This was a Spirit House; a spirit lived in it, and, when danger threatened, the spirit would speak in a loud voice, and tell the people what the danger was, and when it would appear.

“Most ladies and gentlemen do not believe it,” the Maori woman said.

I asked her if she believed it, and she replied in her broken English: “I used to did.” She said that when she was a child, her people always put food in the spirit house for the spirit, but that lately the custom is going out of fashion. In the village are Catholic and Episcopal churches; the Catholic priest is a native Maori, and the church is heated in cool weather from a hot spring beneath it.... The Maoris were originally cannibals, but the guide said they ate each other, and did not bother the whites much. In one place we visited here, we saw forks made of human bones.... We called at the guide’s home, and saw one of the tin fireplaces which are seen in seven-tenths of the poorer houses. They cost about $8 put up, and are used for cooking purposes, as well as for heating. They burn out, after a time, but a tinner will rivet in a patch for a small charge. They are certainly very much cheaper than the stone and brick fireplaces we have. A native Maori village looks much like a negro suburb in an American town, but the Maoris are not black; they look like Indians and have straight hair. Some of the women have their lips tattooed, to indicate submission to their husbands, but there is a Suffragette movement on here, as elsewhere, and the Maori woman who showed us about laughed scornfully at the notion that woman is inferior to man.... Just then we came to a place called the Frog Pond: a mud lake, and there is just enough steam below to cause particles of mud to jump like frogs. Near by, in a hole in the earth, the escaping steam made a sound like the croaking of frogs.

The Maori woman described these things, and then walked on in silence, with a mean look in her eyes; she was evidently still thinking of the foolish women of her race who tattoo their lips to indicate submission to their husbands. I didn’t have a very good time after the woman suffrage question came up, and was glad that we soon after reached the last sight on the list. When women look at me in that funny way indicating that I impose on them, I am thoroughly uncomfortable. So we walked back to the entrance to the geyser field, and took a carriage to Rotorua. On the way, we met dozens of other carriages containing visitors; here people are always departing for a trip, or returning from one, and when the sights are exhausted they go on to Wairakei, where there is another collection of geysers, hot springs, etc. Between trips, they take baths, and there is a great variety to choose from; no other place in the world has as many different baths as Rotorua, but the town is not easily reached, and it doesn’t attract as many people as Hot Springs, Arkansas, which has only simple hot springs; no chain of lakes, no wonderful fishing, no oil baths, no geysers, and no mud baths, as has Rotorua.... There are only two geyser fields in the world; the other is in Yellowstone Park, in the United States. So far as I am able to judge, the geysers in Yellowstone Park are much finer. There are no terraces here, as in the Yellowstone, and in every way the Yellowstone district seems superior. But in a way, they are much alike. The geysers here are undoubtedly losing their force; citizens tell me they can see a difference from year to year. I have not seen a geyser so far more than ten or twelve feet high, but I saw many big ones in the Yellowstone. All the geysers were going yesterday, and it is said some of them shot steam and hot water into the air to a height of forty feet, but I was on the lake trip yesterday, and did not see the big geyser display which everyone is talking about today. But in the Yellowstone you can see a big geyser display any day; indeed, Old Faithful goes off every hour, and shoots steam and hot water 150 to 200 feet into the air. Here soap is frequently put into the geysers, to make them show off for visitors, but this is not necessary in the Yellowstone. This district had terraces until a few years ago, when they blew up, and now there are no others like those in Yellowstone Park. Besides, the Yellowstone district is much wilder and grander than the Hot Lake district of New Zealand. This is a wonderful place, but the Yellowstone is much more wonderful, it seems to me.... We are the only Americans at the hotel, and, except that a St. Paul man was here two months ago, we are the only Americans who have been here in a long time, the manager says.... In the fine park surrounding the government bathhouse, this afternoon, we saw dozens of games going. There was bowling, tennis, archery, cricket, and croquet, but principally bowling. In this game a good many elderly men participated; it is an old man’s game, but lately young men are playing it. The lawn was as smooth as a floor, and the game seemed to be to roll wooden balls to a goal. The men over here carry the wooden balls, when traveling, and engage in the game at different places. I had never seen the game before, and watched it for an hour. The players were very polite and genteel, but all had the pronunciation which seems so queer to us. I have seen no golf here, but I am rarely out of sight of a tennis court; that seems to be the universal game.... The New Zealand government has been so successful in business that it is now branching out; it is operating a tourist agency in opposition to Thos. Cook & Son, who have offices all over the world. People living off the main lines of travel cannot realize how valuable travelers are. In Europe, many cities devote millions of dollars to securing tourist travel, and find that it pays. Paris spends millions annually in this way, and rival cities are lately doing a good deal in the same direction; it is generally said that Berlin is now a rival of Paris in attractions for travelers. At this little town of Rotorua, a train-load of tourists arrives every day, and without them the town would not amount to much.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17.—In Rotorua, a great deal is made of the native women who act as guides. One hears of Maggie, the guide, before reaching the town, but we did not see her; she became so famous that an Englishman married her, and she is now living unhappily in London. But there are many others here, for the profession is easily learned; after one trip through the geyser field, I am certain I would be competent to act as a guide. The native woman who accompanied us pointed out several holes where people had fallen in and lost their lives. She says that when a man falls in a hot pool, he disappears, and nothing is ever seen of him again, except his liver; in a few hours after the man disappears, his liver is seen floating on the surface, and is recovered. This is the sort of information possessed by the guides. A native woman fell into one hot crater, and the guides say her screaming can still be heard. I listened attentively, and the hissing steam made a noise at times which sounded something like a woman’s scream.... In the warm pools, boys and girls swim together, stark naked. The entrance to the geyser field is over a bridge spanning a roaring stream, and girls fourteen and fifteen years old jump from this bridge into the water, if pennies are thrown as an inducement. The jump is a high one, and I saw no boys making it. In one warm pool where naked boys and girls were in bathing we saw a little white girl, but the guide did not know her, and could not explain how she came there.... Every visitor to New Zealand soon remarks that the women do not care much about their feet or figures. Still, their waists and feet do not seem larger than they should be; perhaps women in other parts of the world unnaturally pinch themselves.... Tourists do all sorts of queer things. One woman who sits at our table carries her own tea and teapot, and another carries her own bread.... A rumor came to the hotel today that the big geysers were spouting, and there was hurrying among the guests, but the rumor proved only partly true; the spouting lasted only a few minutes, and the guests of the Grand did not see it. Last Wednesday, when we were on the lake trip, the big geysers spouted nine hours, breaking all records. A bulletin board is displayed in the hotel office, and this is used to keep the guests informed as to the doings of the geysers.... There seems to be no doubt that we look funny. In walking about, we hear people say to each other, as we pass, “They are Americans.” They say it softly, and do not think we hear it, for the people here are very polite; but we do hear it, and we remark that people stare at us when they think we are not looking. We undoubtedly look odd to them. I wonder if our talk sounds as funny to them as theirs sounds to us? ... Wages are not as high here as in the United States, but we often hear the statement made that this is more than compensated for by the lower cost of living. We went into a grocery store today, and inquired prices. Potatoes sell at three cents a pound; cabbage, eight cents a head; green peas, thirty-two cents a peck; sugar, six cents a pound; flour, $3 per hundred pounds; bread, eight cents a loaf; crackers, twelve cents a pound; tomatoes and peaches, twenty-four cents per two-pound can; eggs, forty-two cents per dozen; butter, twenty-eight cents a pound. An inferior watermelon costs seventy-five cents; round steak, eighteen cents a pound; leg of mutton, twelve cents; loin of mutton, ten. But prices are higher here than in the average New Zealand town, as not much is produced in this vicinity. The grocer said freight rates were extortionate, although the railroad is owned by the government. The apples displayed were from California, but I did not know the variety, although the grocer asked me the question.... You frequently see here tin cans labeled “Pratt’s benzine;” but if you examine the label closely, you note that it is supplied by the Standard Oil Co., of

New York.... Although lake trout are caught in great quantities here, it is against the law to sell them. We saw a man come in today with as many rainbow trout as he and two boys could carry. Lake trout are not particularly good fish. Brook trout are possibly the best fish in the world, but the lake trout are larger, and coarser; we have seen them here weighing twenty-two pounds, but the average is nearer three pounds. In one pool at Rotorua, thousands of trout may be seen swimming around, and children feed them with bread crumbs.... Some of the grazing land in New Zealand, after it has been cleared, manured, and seeded to grass, becomes very valuable. It is worth as high as $400 an acre. Choice land is worth an equal amount in Australia, but in both Australia and New Zealand there is plenty of land that may be had for almost nothing; but it is worth no more than is charged for it.... It is generally believed that the original New Zealanders, the original Hawaiians, and the people living in the islands between, came from the same general stock. The language was evidently the same at one time, and has been corrupted into dialects. The native New Zealanders are exactly like our American Indians, in appearance; perhaps they are all of the same original stock. The people of Samoa look like the Hawaiians, the Mexicans and the Indians; and the people of the South Sea islands were such adventurous navigators that the Samoan group is also known as the Navigator Islands, and probably many centuries ago the islands extended much nearer to the mainland of North America than at present. The surface of the earth is constantly changing; where lofty mountain ranges once existed, are now vast level plains; our present tropics were once in the frigid zone, and many islands that once existed have disappeared. No doubt the original inhabitants of North America found their way there from the westward, by means which we cannot now clearly understand.... New Zealand was originally a very poor country; it had almost no animals, and its vegetation was scanty. All the sheep, cattle, horses, hogs, fowls, deer, etc., were brought here; when Captain Cook was killed in the Hawaiian islands, by natives, he had been distributing live-stock in the islands of the South Seas, to benefit the inhabitants. Trout are now plentiful in the clear and rapid streams of New Zealand, but they were brought here. Before the American Revolution there were plenty of hogs in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Sea islands. The natives traded hogs to the sailors for knives, nails, hatchets, etc., and these hogs had been introduced by white men, at great expense and trouble. The white man has always been trying to help his more backward dark-skinned brother.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 18.—Rotorua, with all its charms, becomes very tiresome after a few days. A second visit to the geyser fields is like seeing a play a second time, and we are impatient to move on. The first time you see fifteen-year-old girls, scantily dressed, diving for pennies, it is a startling sight, but in a little while you do not care for it. When two Maori women meet, they rub their foreheads together. That ceremony interested me for a time, but it does not now, and we leave here tomorrow.... When we first arrived, the manager said: “I will seat you in the dining-room with an American.” The man was exactly like an American, but he actually came from Vancouver, B.C. Canadians are more like Americans than any other people.... I have not seen such a thing as door or window screens in New Zealand. This is the middle of summer, and flies are numerous, but no attempt is made to keep them out. I dislike to pass a meat market, because I always encounter great swarms of flies. They have ice here, but do not use it much.... We visited a moving-picture theatre this afternoon, and it was exactly like the moving-picture shows at home; ridiculous plays of the melodrama order, made in America, and an orchestra consisting of a piano-player who plays with tremendous force. As we came away from the moving-picture show we passed the smallest hotel in town, and of course it was known as “The Palace.” ... I have never seen such magnificent sweet pea blooms as I have seen here, and they are now at their best. Roses also seem to do particularly well here, and we visited a rose garden today which would have done credit to California. There was an acre or more of roses, and all the varieties seemed to be different. The garden is owned by the government, which does all sorts of things over here, and is cared for by convicts.... We have had no mail from home in five weeks. The people at the American naval station at Pago Pago, Samoa, receive mail only once a month, and say they do not mind it; that mail every day is a daily worry, whereas if you receive mail but once a month your worries are greatly reduced. You are always expecting important mail which never arrives, and a daily mail, they say, is really a nuisance.... One of the baths here is known as a Spout bath. You go down into a cave, and water falls on you from six feet above. The water comes from one of the boiling springs, cooled to an endurable temperature by the addition of a stream from a cold lake. Water is conducted from the lakes in trenches to the baths. The water in the Spout bath has a good deal of oil in it, and is said to be particularly good for rheumatism. But the worst case of rheumatism I ever saw was in front of the Spout bathhouse. A native man was so crippled with it that he moved as slowly as a snail, and was a pitiful object.... There arrived at this hotel today a man and wife I had known on the “Sonoma.” He is a fine old gentleman who lives in a country town in Ohio, but he has at least one habit to which his wife seriously objects. They sat opposite us in the dining-room, and I noticed that the old gentleman parted his hair behind, in the old-fashioned way. And it seemed, also, that he used hair oil, for regularly three times a day I heard his wife mumbling a protest because of this hair-oil habit. And tonight at dinner the wife appeared alone, and was seated at our table, as the manager knew we were acquaintances. Presently the old gentleman appeared; he had been indulging in his favorite dissipation, hair oil, and his wife at once noticed it, and mumbled a protest. The old gentleman pays no attention to her; indeed, he does not pay much attention to anyone, as he is a very quiet man. On the “Sonoma” he was an early riser, as I was, and usually he barely spoke to me when I appeared. But I saw him quite animated one morning. He was seated on deck, looking out at the sea, and, soon after I sat down near him, he burst out into a tirade against the farmers with whom he did business as a country merchant thirty or forty years ago. He said that in the old day he bought wrapping-twine of farmers, and that almost invariably he found a stone in the middle of each ball. One conspicuous offender was an old Baptist deacon. On one occasion, when this man came into the store after sugar, the merchant placed in the scoop, with the sugar, a number of stones taken from balls of twine purchased of the deacon. The deacon watched the performance, but never said a word; he knew he was guilty, and calmly took his medicine.... I have witnessed many amateur performances, but the most amusing one I saw in Rotorua this evening. It was an entertainment given by native Maoris, and the women guides had been selling tickets several days. The accompaniments were played on an accordion, and twenty-five persons took part in some of the numbers. Twelve young girls sang, and among them I noticed a number of the fifteen-year-old divers who had jumped for my pennies yesterday at the bridge marking the entrance to the geyser field. Fourteen men gave a war dance, and about that number of women gave a “hooche-kooche.” The entire performance was of this character, and so poor that it was amusing. After appearing on the stage, the performers came down to seats in the audience, as amateurs do everywhere, and laughed and giggled. Every act was applauded, and every performer had an encore number. One of the men who appeared in the war dance must have been seventy years old; rather venerable, I thought, for an amateur. We stood it for an hour, because there was absolutely nothing else to do. The English pickle and jam manufacturers, and tradesmen of every kind, claim notable patrons, therefore I was not surprised to find this on the programme: “Patronized by Lord Kitchener, Madame Melba, and many other distinguished visitors.” The performance closed with the song, “God Save the King,” and a dance. The audience was small, and composed entirely of whites, but out in front of the hall were hundreds of Maoris lounging about.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 19.—I write this by the light of a tallow candle in a little hotel twenty-four miles from Rotorua. We came here today by a circuitous route, and saw many wonders on the way. The hotel at which I am a guest tonight exists to accommodate visitors to the Waiotapu valley geysers, and these I shall see tomorrow morning, and proceed to Wairakei, twenty-seven miles, by motor in the afternoon. The names here are something dreadful; one place we visited yesterday is called Whakarewarewa, but people refer to it familiarly as Whak.... We left Rotorua at 8:15 this morning, by stage. We had seats with the driver, which, in staging, is an honor equal to a seat at the captain’s table on a ship. We had a pleasant drive of three hours through mountains, passing Green and Blue lakes on the way. One lake is really green and the other is really blue, and both may be seen at the same time from a high place on the stage road. At Green lake we encountered a photographer, who, after taking our picture, accompanied us down to a buried town. While we were looking at these ruins, which occupied us possibly half an hour, the photographer developed and printed the picture, and took orders from certainly ten of the fourteen passengers.... In 1886 this section was visited by an earthquake. A tract of country nineteen miles long was affected, and 135 people, mostly natives, were killed. After taking a look at the town buried in 1886, we drove a mile, and embarked on a launch for a ride of eight miles. Then we walked over a mountain, and embarked on another launch for a ride of six miles across White lake. This lake is really a crater, and in spots the water is boiling hot. For some reason, the water is nearly as white as milk, and in the crumbling walls surrounding the lake are hundreds of smoking geysers. The place looks like a lake in purgatory, and the country surrounding it is as desolate and barren as can be imagined. On this ride we passed the site of the terraces, or mammoth hot springs, which were destroyed by the eruption twenty-six years ago. When we landed, we met another party, going the route we had come, and, as soon as we disembarked, they went on board, and left us. We found an old guide waiting for us, and started on a walk of three miles through a lava-bed. We were always in sight of smoking springs and geysers. At one place we were compelled to ford a considerable stream, and the guide carried the women across.... The guide was much the smartest man of his profession we have seen. Just how accurate his information is, I do not know. He says that most of the great processes in geology are carried on by internal fires in the earth, and that what we see on the surface here is constantly going on, on a very much larger scale, deeper down. The water from every cool, limpid spring is sent to the surface by the same forces that cause the mud lakes to bubble and growl; the water of every cold spring was originally steam, and the water was cleaned of impurities on its long journey to the surface.... The geyser field of New Zealand is more than a hundred miles long, and during our journey of twenty-four miles today we were rarely out of sight of smoking springs. But the most curious thing we have seen is the White lake, which occupies a crater caused by the earthquake of 1886. The lake has no outlet, and, until a few years ago, was a mud geyser. Then it began to fill with hot water from below. In spots the water is only warm at the surface, but in many places it is boiling.... The end of our three-mile walk was a government rest-house. Here we found a carriage awaiting us, and we drove seven miles to the hotel where we are spending the night. A storm was threatening when we arrived at the rest-house, and we were anxious to hurry on, but the English people with us insisted on having their afternoon tea, and we were forced to wait for them.... Part of the country over which we traveled today looked like the lake district of Scotland; the first lake on which we traveled reminded me of Loch Katrine, and the stage road to it was something like the Trossachs. But after we reached the lake where the water is white, and occupying a crater smoking all around the edges, we saw something we had never seen the like of before.... Wild blackberries are a pest in this section. We saw hundreds of acres of wild blackberry bushes during our drive today, the berries just ripening. The best way to get rid of the bushes, the driver said, was to put goats among them.... This lava district was formerly considered worthless. Some years ago a man leased fifteen thousand acres of it from the government, at a rental of £29 per year, or $145. He burned off the bush, sowed a lot of clover seed, and is now getting rich from sheep.... When I arrived at this hotel I was very dirty and dusty, from riding on two stages on dusty roads. So I asked the proprietor for a bath. He gave me a towel, and called a boy, who led me to a creek two hundred yards down the hill. The water was warm, and, after warning me not to go above or below into very hot water, the boy left me to enjoy my swim.... On a ship, an American is always interested in seeing the English passengers going to their morning baths. They are seen in all the halls and on all the decks, barefooted, and wearing pajamas. But early this morning, at the Grand Hotel in Rotorua, I saw a still more unusual sight. An Englishman came out of the hotel at 7:30 wearing slippers on bare feet, and dressed only in pajamas. I supposed he was going to one of the hotel bathrooms, but instead of that, he walked out on the streets of Rotorua, and calmly proceeded to one of the big bath-houses three or four blocks away. He was dressed exactly as I represent him; bareheaded, and smoking a pipe.... While taking an early walk this morning, I encountered the courthouse in Rotorua. Here are some of the signs on the office doors: “Stipendiary Magistrate;” “Registrar of Old Age Pensions;” “Vaccination Inspector;” “Registrar of Deaths, Births and Marriages.” The office hours of the different officials were: Saturdays, 10 A.M. to noon; week days, 10 A.M. to 1 P.M., 2 P.M. to 4 P.M. Counting holidays, that is an average of about four hours a day for New Zealand officials.... At the moving-picture shows here the best seats are 36 cents, and a seat on a bench in the extreme rear of the hall costs 12 cents.... In a Rotorua paper I picked up last night, I saw a statement that a man had been fined $125 “for sly grog-selling.” That is what we call “bootlegging.”

MONDAY, JANUARY 20.—I awoke this morning at 5 o’clock, and found the sun coming up. You have perhaps noted that the sun is not up at 5 A.M. on the 20th of January in our part of the world. While the days are very warm here, the nights are quite cool; at 5 A.M. I was quite cold in bed, and awoke to look for more covering.... I read myself to sleep last night, very comfortably, by the light of a tallow candle. Electric lights do not seem to be absolutely necessary to the comfort of mankind.... In riding over the mountains here, I find great tracts of flourishing pine trees which have been planted by the government. Convicts did the work. By this means, the barren mountains are being changed into a living green....

Late last night, a man somewhere about the hotel engaged in singing; alcoholic singing, I judged. The vulgar rich are generously abused, but I have noticed that the higher priced the hotel, the more polite the guests are.... But while this little hotel in the mountains of New Zealand is somewhat primitive, I prefer it to the best steamship that ever existed. For breakfast this morning we had soft-boiled eggs, toast and coffee, with mutton chops and bacon offered. That is enough for anyone. But on a ship you are offered a hundred things you do not want, by professional waiters who are wondering how much of a gratuity they can coax out of you. The breakfast this morning was served by a girl who, barring her pronunciation, seemed real nice. She expects no tip; she expects her pay from the proprietor, whom I have heard her refer to as Mr. Hickey. And while my room is small, I at least haven’t two snoring gentlemen in with me.... A young gentleman who ate breakfast with me has charge of the local postoffice, and says there are several big sheep ranches in the vicinity, from which he gets a good deal of mail. The sheep here are well bred, and not at all like the range sheep of the United States.... While writing in my room last night I felt a shock, and thought some object had fallen about the hotel. This morning I learned it was an earthquake; we had three shocks during the night. Near this place is a place called Earthquake Flat. In passing it the stage-drivers rest their teams a few minutes, and give the passengers a chance to experience an earthquake shock. Ten minutes never goes by at that point without one. At Rotorua, one night we were there, sixty earthquake shocks were noted from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M.... This morning, in walking through the Waiotapu geyser field, we had a satisfactory guide; a native Maori. He didn’t say much, and, if we wanted to know about anything, asked him about it. Yesterday we had a guide who talked incessantly, and he was a bore. He was an Englishman, and we were glad to get rid of him. Adelaide refused to go out to the geyser field this morning; she is tired seeing them, as they are all much alike.... At 1 P.M. today we left Waiotapu for Wairakei, in a seven-passenger Napier automobile. The distance is twenty-seven miles, over a mountain road, and we ran it in two hours, with the usual rests for tea. The roads were good, and the ride enjoyable. The Napier is an English six-cylinder car, and the driver was very capable and agreeable.... Arriving at the hotel at Wairakei, we found the most gallant man in the world. He runs a hotel consisting of a number of detached buildings. In the main one he has two toilet-rooms for women, with modern plumbing, but the men are compelled to content themselves with a toilet-room of the country-hotel pattern, located out in the yard, near the stables, and it is very filthy, and filled with big blue flies. Another law I suggest is, that no man be allowed to conduct a hotel until he is able to provide proper toilet facilities. The hotel at Wairakei is located near a geyser field. Another difference between Yellowstone Park and the New Zealand geyser country is that in the Yellowstone you find modern hotels; that at the Norris geyser basin is a palace. Here, after leaving Rotorua, we found the hotels primitive, and not very comfortable....

There are many deer in New Zealand; also wild cattle, wild pigs, California quail, pheasants, etc. Several times I have seen California quail along the country roads.... A remarkable thing we saw yesterday was a mud volcano; a small mountain, in the center of which was a boiling mud spring. The spring is constantly throwing out mud, and thus the mountain grows steadily in height.... To be a Maori, is to be a pensioner. The natives employ smart lawyers to bring all sorts of claims against the government, and these win often enough to be profitable. The lands the natives own are uncultivated, and the natives are a drawback to the country. All of which is very much American Indian.... Over here the government does everything, including selling tickets to tourists. The government owns the town of Rotorua, and brings it water and light from waterfalls in the neighboring mountains.... If you are a bad sleeper, do not travel. I was awake at 4 o’clock this morning, and there was not the slightest noise about the hotel from that hour until 7:15, when I heard an alarm clock go off. You don’t know what it is to be really lonesome unless you have spent a sleepless night in a strange hotel in a strange country.... A man came in this evening from Lake Taupo, with a big catch of trout. Some of the fish were very thin in flesh; so thin that they were worthless. It is said fish are so plentiful in the lake that there is not enough for them to eat. Most of the fish weighed from six to seven pounds.... We hear of geysers that shoot steam and hot water fifteen hundred feet in the air, but we have seen no geyser here more than thirty feet high.

The big sights are always just over when I come along.... At this hotel, when you wish to take a bath, you go out to the manager’s office, and find a key hanging beside the door. This key opens a door down in the canyon, back of the hotel. The bath consists of a great pool of hot water. There is no roof over the pool, but it is fenced in. Within the enclosure, also, is a pool of cold water, into which you may plunge after a hot bath. Certain hours are devoted to gentlemen, and certain hours to ladies.... Rooms in this hotel are also lighted with candles, and I dislike to blow out my candle and go to bed, as I can smell the extinguished wick half the night.... The food in New Zealand is universally good; we have come to the conclusion that the New Zealanders are famous cooks.... We find a good many private cars touring in this section, as the government devotes much attention to roads, which are generally excellent, barring the terrible dust. Yesterday we met a little Ford machine, and it seemed to be kicking up about as much dust as any of them.... The rainfall here is greater than in the best agricultural sections of the United States, but the bulk of the rain falls in winter, whereas our moisture is better distributed over the growing season.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21.—We have made three trips today, looking at the wonders in the Wairakei field; we have devoted at least nine hours to sightseeing, which is not a bad day’s work. One of the wonders is the Blow Hole; a great hole on top of a mountain out of which steam pours constantly, and with a great noise. This is called the safety-valve of New Zealand. Surrounding it we found a number of empty four-gallon oil tins; cans in which old Rockefeller had shipped gasoline to this country. The driver of our carriage threw these cans into the blow-hole, and the steam shot them out again. The noise reminded me of steam being blown out of a locomotive boiler, in preparation for washing it. There are no hot springs or geysers within four or five miles of the Blow Hole; it is a solitary attraction, and the steam ascending from it may be seen many miles.... Although the big terraces were covered up by the earthquake of 1886, we have seen two or three small and imperfect ones. As you walk through the Wairakei valley you notice that the earth is red, and green, and yellow, and white, and blue in places. The guide gave me a card on which he had made many colors with mud; it reminded me of a painter’s color-card. All this is like the Yellowstone, and everything here is much like the geyser fields in our greatest national park, but it seems to me that the Yellowstone is much superior, in every way. Facilities for getting about are much the same, and prices about the same, but the hotel accommodations in the Yellowstone are undoubtedly better.... At one place in Wairakei valley, steam pours out of a number of small holes in the earth. Bottles are placed beside the steam holes in such a way that an incessant whistling is kept up, in half a dozen different keys. At another place, what sounds like cannonading may be heard deep in the earth; in another, at the bottom of a lake, you may hear what sounds like a blacksmith hammering on an anvil. As you walk along, the earth sounds hollow to the tread, and every little while there is a cave-in, and a new hot spring or geyser appears.... I have spoken several times, in a good-natured way, of the difference in American and English pronunciation. A change may not be expected; indeed, I think the difference is becoming greater all the time, since the English children have a worse pronunciation than their parents. We have been traveling several days with a father and mother and two young daughters. The father and mother pronounce their words almost as we do, but both the daughters have a brogue that is the most pronounced I have heard. I hope I have written good-naturedly of the differences in pronunciation, for I like the people I meet. Most of the travelers are New Zealanders or Australians, but I can’t tell them from the English, except that the New Zealanders and Australians frequently criticise the English to me. They say, for one thing, that young Englishmen who have nothing to do, come over here, and set a bad example; that here, young people are expected to work, and are not much respected unless they do. Many New Zealanders have told me that they have too many holidays; too many amusements.... I hear exactly the same talk here of high taxes and public extravagance that I hear at home, and I am told that politicians are about as mischievous, active and troublesome in New Zealand as elsewhere. At home, we hear a great deal about the value of the single-tax system. New Zealand has that system, and today I heard a Wellington lawyer criticising it very severely. It is a single tax in theory only, since New Zealand has about as many different forms of taxation as any other country. New Zealand has tried more experiments than we have, but gets no better results from its laws than we get. It is attacking the trusts, just as we are doing, and the trusts continue to flourish; there are some things you can’t do by law, and New Zealand can’t accomplish the impossible any more than we can. I hear that compulsory arbitration worked for a time, as I hear that a week, or month, or year, before I came, the geysers shot three hundred feet in the air; but it is positively known that the country now has as many and as ridiculous strikes as any other, and the best geysers have done only twenty or thirty feet in my presence. The New Zealand railroads are primitive compared with ours, and their rates higher; yet they have government ownership, which many Americans say would solve the railroad problem. New Zealanders do not say their methods are better than ours; on the contrary, they regard the United States with a great deal of respect, and know that we are far in the lead. New Zealanders have the same respect for the United States that you find in Kansas City for Chicago; we are the Big Boy in the family of nations, and nobody seriously disputes it. Some foreigners make fun of us, because they are envious, but the New Zealanders do not.... Men are about the same everywhere: the native who today drove me to see a wonderful rapids in a river, said he knew the best fishing-hole in the entire stream, and wanted me to remain over tomorrow, and go fishing with him. But I do not intend to do it; I have no confidence in tips—particularly fishing tips. The same native, in showing us the rapids, pointed out several deep caves along the rough path we were compelled to climb, in getting the best view of the rapids.

“Maybe dead man in there,” he said, pointing to the deepest of the caves. “Stay tomorrow, and we’ll look.”

But I could not be persuaded by this tempting offer, and leave tomorrow for a trip that will keep me busy from 6 A.M. until 12 P.M. If anyone is finding fault because I am idle, I hope that day’s work will satisfy them.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22.—Continuing our pleasure trip, we started at 6 o’clock this morning, and traveled almost continuously until midnight—by stage, boat, and railroad train. Our destination was Taumarunui, and when we arrived there at midnight, we left an order with the hotel clerk to be called at 5:30, to catch a boat on the celebrated Waunganui river for Pipiriki.... The first stage of our journey today was by coach to Lake Taupo, seven miles. On the way, we passed several waterfalls and geysers, but as we had been called at 5 o’clock, we were sleepy, and did not much enjoy them. At seven o’clock we were at Taupo, where we took a boat for a ride of twenty-six miles across the lake. There were only five passengers, and the pilot read most of the three hours, looking up from his book occasionally to see that the boat was going right. When we were out an hour, he asked all of us if we were going on by stage. We said we were, whereupon he produced a little cage containing a pigeon. Writing the figure “5” on a thin piece of paper, he fastened this to the bird’s leg by means of a light wire, and the bird was released. This is the means used every day to notify the stage people, eighteen miles away, how many passengers are coming. The bird has been in use two years, and never fails. If the boat has a big load of passengers, two or more stages are made ready, but the day we crossed, one was sufficient. In some islands, a regular carrier-pigeon post is maintained, the pilot told me.... We landed at a little Maori village at 10 A. M., and found a five-horse stage waiting for us, the carrier-pigeon having delivered the message entrusted to it. We picked up several passengers here, and when we started over the mountain, the top of which showed patches of snow, the coach carried fourteen, including the driver. We called at a house in the village and picked up a very fat Maori woman, two children, and two men. The woman said good-by to all the women and girl children in the house by rubbing her forehead against theirs, and considerable time was required for this ceremony. When we finally started, a light rain was falling, which continued until 7 P.M., when we reached the railroad. Three passengers had paid extra for seats with the driver, and all of them were soaked, while those of us on the inside were protected. During the stage ride from 10 A.M. to 7 P.M., we passed through a wild, mountainous country, and saw almost no houses. We stopped twice to change horses, and both times the passengers drank tea in a little hut warmed by a fire in one of the tin fireplaces so common here. The tea was boiled in the fireplaces by the hostlers of the stage company, and we gave them what we pleased. I drank tea four times today: at breakfast, at noon, in the afternoon, and at dinner at 7 o’clock.... Wherever there was a house, the people came out to see the stage go by. At two or three places we saw pigs of the Arkansas razor-back variety; there is no corn here, and pigs do not amount to much. The passengers were all New Zealanders, and they told us they knew we were from the United States as soon as they saw us. They said they could always tell English and Americans. And then we told them we knew they were New Zealanders, and not English, because we had heard them abusing the English. When you see a man who is exactly like an Englishman, but who abuses the English, you may know he is from New Zealand or Australia. A woman and her daughter who were passengers told us New Zealanders always admired Americans; particularly American women. All the passengers, except the Maoris, were making about the same trip we were making, and we had met several of them at different places, and become acquainted. In traveling, it is almost allowable to speak to anyone.... At 7 o’clock in the evening we reached the railroad at Waiora, and waited an hour and twenty minutes for a train to Taumarunui. This is the only night train operated in New Zealand, and connects its two most important cities: Wellington and Auckland.... It is a universal custom at hotels here, when a servant serves you, to say “Thank you.” A waiter will hand you a bill of fare, and you indicate that you will take soup, whereupon the waiter says “Thank you.” When the waiter brings the soup, you say “Thank you.”

The people here are much politer to servants than Americans.... Ten minutes before midnight we landed at Taumarunui, which is a switch-engine town; I heard a switch-engine puffing in the yards nearly all night. A town that has a railroad switch-engine is a grade above the ordinary electric-light town.... Soon after we entered the train at Waiora, the conductor entered our car, and asked: “Anyone from Waiora?” Then those of us who had entered the train at that station, handed him our tickets. In America, railway conductors have a way of tagging passengers. I should think it would be easy here to steal a ride. Stations are not called, and there is no train porter, so when we arrived at Taumarunui we were compelled to hunt up the conductor and ask him if that was our station.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23.—The Waunganui river is known as “the Rhine of New Zealand.” We journeyed down this river eleven hours today, and it was the big event of our stay in New Zealand. The Waunganui river is a series of rapids, and during the eleven hours of the journey we were always in a crooked mountain gorge. We saw no farm land, no settlements; nothing but wild mountain scenery, and a rapid, roaring river sometimes not more than forty feet wide. The boat in which we traveled was a very narrow one; not so wide as a street-car, but probably sixty feet long, and supplied with powerful engines. In going down some of the rapids the engines were stopped, and occasionally reversed. The government has spent a great deal of money in improving the river, and the only houses we saw were occupied by river workers. I have made a trip down the St. Lawrence, and I think we passed through one rapids, which was thought to be remarkable; but today we passed through hundreds. And the boats didn’t poke along; they ran like racehorses, and every minute missed great rocks by only a few feet. Probably no other river trip in the world is equal to this one. About 11 A.M. we changed to a boat of a little heavier draught, and about noon we stopped at a houseboat for lunch. This houseboat is a complete hotel, and many people stop there a day or two in the journey up or down—usually down, for very few people make the slow journey upstream. We had forty-six passengers, and this number packed the boat, it was so small. I am certain that every five minutes during the eleven-hour journey, we passed a waterfall. Some of the mountain scenery is really fine, and we were twisting and turning all the time. We knew seven or eight of the passengers, having met them at various places during the present trip. At 6 P.M. we reached Pipiriki, which consists of a fine hotel perched on top of a mountain. It has electric lights and modern conveniences, and is a joy after some of the hotels in the geyser district.... Although the Waunganui is called the Rhine of New Zealand, it is not at all like the Rhine of Germany. It is not so large, and the country through which it passes is very much more rugged. The Rhine is lined with old castles and towns, whereas in traveling down the Waunganui all day you do not see a single town, and only a few cheap houses occupied by river laborers.... The boat on which we were passengers had one very handy employee. He handled baggage, and also served tea in the afternoon. When we stopped for lunch at the houseboat he assisted in waiting on the tables, and when we reached the hotel at Pipiriki he helped wait on the tables. He also assisted with the ropes when the boat landed, which it did a few times, to throw mail out on the bank where there was no town, no houses, and no people in sight. It also delivered a little freight in the same way, and one passenger landed at a lonely place and disappeared in the bush.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24.—We were aroused at 4:30 this morning, and departed at 5:30 to complete the journey down the river to the railroad and the sea. The lower portion of the Waunganui is as interesting as the upper; although we rode in a larger boat, there were as many rapids today as yesterday—the road was covered, but the pilot was compelled to follow it as closely as a chauffeur follows an automobile road. One rapids was so narrow and crooked that the only way to get through was to trust to luck, and bump through. The captain was the pilot in all the critical places, but at least three other men seemed to know the river, and took turns at the wheel. One of them was a Maori dude, with fancy clothes, and every native along the way waved at him. The pilot was also the engineer; the men down below had nothing to do but keep up steam. Beside the pilot was a throttle whereby he shut off steam, reversed, went half speed, or full speed; he did not ring bells for the guidance of an engineer below, but had complete control of the power himself. I never before saw a steamboat so rigged.... Two or three hours after leaving Pipiriki, we began to see evidences of civilization; including a cemetery. For several days we had been in the wilds where a cemetery was not seen. The river still ran through mountains, but we stopped frequently, and took on mail and passengers. At some places the boat ran its nose into the bank for a moment, a deck hand jumped to the shore and grabbed a mail sack hanging on a stick, and then we backed into the stream. At other places we stopped at villages, and took on wool, fruit, passengers, and sheep-dogs. A good sheep-dog is worth $50 in New Zealand. At some of these places passengers on the boat would call out to men ashore and ask them: “Got your wool out yet?” At one lonely place several native women came aboard, and they said good-by to dozens of women at the landing in the peculiar Maori way. When we pulled out we saw those on shore riding up the hills, on horseback, followed by a lot of dogs. There were many native passengers, and they occupied one section of the boat; whether this was a sort of “Jim Crow” arrangement, or whether the natives preferred being together, I do not know. At breakfast I did not see any of the natives at the tables.... We passed a boat coming up, and our captain called out to the pilot: “Water twenty-one, Jake; look out for Wintoni shoal.” We passed the boat on the left, instead of on the right, which is the custom with all traffic here. It was cold on the river early in the morning, and we hugged the smokestack, but by ten o’clock the weather was quite warm.... There were several very small men on board; race-riders. They seemed to have been making the tour of the geyser district, and I judged they were on their way to Wellington, where there will be racing next week. People living in the United States cannot realize how popular horse-racing is out here. Nor can they realize how popular the tea-drinking habit is. Every railroad train stops at frequent intervals, to afford the passengers opportunity to drink tea. At the hotels, when the maids bring us tea early in the morning, and we do not take it, you cannot imagine how astonished they look.... Another impressive thing in this country is the fact that all the people are very polite. I haven’t seen a rude person since arriving in New Zealand, and, in addition, they are all well-dressed and prosperous-looking. I have met one drunken man, but he was polite in spite of the load he carried.... On a boat a few days ago we met a bride and groom, and have been traveling with them since. They had with them every day a little newspaper, printed in a town of which I had never heard, and, as I saw them consulting it frequently, I knew it contained their wedding notice. I managed to get hold of the paper this morning, while they were at breakfast, and read the notice. It was the usual thing. A Miss Ruth Simpson played the wedding march; there were flower girls, a wedding breakfast, etc.; the bride was one of our most amiable young ladies, and the groom one of our most promising young business men; the bride threw her bouquet, and it was caught by one of her bridesmaids: I greatly enjoyed reading the wedding notice of our friends, whom we had come to know very well, and who were very nice. It’s the same old thing all the world over.... At 11 A. M. we passed out of the rapids, and the river became broader. At noon we came to Waunganui, a town of fourteen thousand. Here we took a train for Wellington. The train was packed, and I hate a crowd. The farming country between Waunganui and Wellington is probably as good as there is in New Zealand, which isn’t saying much. Every three or four miles we saw a field of oats or turnips. In between, we saw sheep in hilly pastures. There are more sheep here than I ever dreamed of; and I doubt if there is a black sheep in New Zealand: anyway, I haven’t seen one.... On the train was a father who could take care of a baby, but the mother was perfectly helpless with it.... The dining-car on the train is run by the government, and no doubt the waiters take civil-service examinations. When we reached the dining-car there was almost nothing left, owing to the crowd, but the waiter said he could get us a chop. Here, mutton chops are as common as bacon or ham in the United States.... At 7:20 P.M. we arrived in Wellington, after passing through a number of tunnels, and stopping at many seaside resorts. We went to the Grand Hotel, the best we have encountered since leaving San Francisco. Early tomorrow we shall call on Thos. Cook & Son, tourist agents, and see what they desire us to do next.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25.—The first thing we do when we reach a strange town is to walk around and look at it, after being comfortably settled in a hotel. Later, we hire a messenger boy, as guide, and go riding. We like Wellington better than we liked Auckland, and we were in love with that town. The Grand Hotel is really excellent, yet the price is only $3.12 a day, which includes three regular meals, supper at 9 P. M., early morning tea, afternoon tea, and room. The house has a good elevator service, electric lights, and plenty of baths. My room looks out on the main street of Wellington, and has a little stone balcony in front. Across the street is the barroom of the Empire Hotel, with two lady bartenders. I amuse myself watching them. They are stylishly dressed, and it is funny to see them step up to the bar and ask a man what he will have.... We swing along the streets in comfortable fashion, and hope that drinking tea four times a day causes us to look Colonial, if not English, but when we step into a store and ask a price, the clerk replies, “Ten and six; that is, two dollars and sixty-two cents.” Which causes us to realize that our gait, our manner, our clothes and our talk are still plainly marked: “American.” We went into a dry-goods store this morning, and Adelaide bought a pair of gloves. The price was three and six (about half the price we would have paid at home), and I gave the clerk what I thought was the exact change. As I walked out, I was thinking the English system of money is easy to learn. When we were in the street, a girl came running after us with a shilling change.... Railroad trains run through one of the busiest streets of Wellington, and this morning we saw a train start for the races. It consisted of half a dozen passenger coaches, and twelve flat cars provided with board seats. One of the passenger cars was a sleeper. This is the capital of the country. Think of the government owning the railways in the United States, and, in Washington, D. C., compelling the people to ride on flat cars. I imagine that “Tax Payer,” and “Citizen,” to say nothing of “Old Soldier,” and “Vox Populi,” would write stinging letters to the newspapers.... There is a paper printed here called “Truth,” and I venture the opinion that it is the biggest liar in the Dominion. The last issue has a leader entitled “Christ—Cæsar—Napoleon.” Under such a title a writer might lie abominably.... In Australia, a Mr. Beeby was recently elected to the legislative assembly against the wishes of the labor unions. Mr. Beeby challenged the right of the labor unions to order his every political act, and become the keeper of his conscience. So he appealed to the people, and told the labor men to go to the devil. They made a tremendous fight against Mr. Beeby, and said he was trying to take bread out of the mouths of starving people, etc., although he was really a very fair and sensible friend of the working class. The result was a surprise; Mr. Beeby won, although by a small majority. The Wellington Times of this morning, speaking of Mr. Beeby’s success, says:

“There is a good deal of hostility to the labor element, because of its disregard of the best traditions of constitutional government.”

It was a fair and square fight between conservative people and the labor unions, and the people won.

There is a great deal of the same sentiment everywhere in New Zealand and Australia; the people believe the labor unions have become more exacting than circumstances warrant, and that some day, somewhere, the limit will be reached.... This has been a very enjoyable day, because there are no sights to see. Fortunately Thos. Cook & Son didn’t want us to go to the South Islands to see the glaciers; they say we haven’t time. We have walked about in a leisurely way today, and, living far from the sea, the docks attract us everywhere. This afternoon we engaged in conversation with an officer of a ship sailing to London by way of South America, and he took us all over it. He said sea-travel is safer now than ever before, because of the “Titanic” disaster; that every seaman is more careful.... Last night, two bands went by the hotel. The players were neatly uniformed, and there were at least sixty men in the two organizations. They were Mission bands; the Mission is a rival of the Salvation Army, but a little quieter in its methods. The Salvation Army also has a large band here, and both play in the streets every evening. The papers give advance notice of the location of the concerts, and large crowds gather to hear the music. The bands are very creditable; nothing amateurish about them.... The men who work in the slaughter-houses here are on strike, and the papers of this morning say that the Farmers’ Union has adopted resolutions condemning the slaughter-house employees for failure to accept arbitration.... In this country, when a newspaper prints a telegram, it prints the day and hour the telegram was received, as a guarantee that it was received by wire. If an editor prints a faked telegram, he is liable to fine and imprisonment. The idea isn’t a bad one. The government has lately ordered an investigation of the wireless telegraph business. The people desire to know just what is actually being accomplished by wireless. I shall watch the investigation with interest; I should like to know, too.... Tomatoes are generally sold here at fruit stores. Which revives the old conundrum: “Is the tomato a fruit or vegetable?” ... A place in Wellington is known as “The American Lounge.” It is a soda-water place, and this sign appears in the window: “Coca-Cola; something entirely new in New Zealand.” The soda fountain is a small one-spout affair that a suburban grocer in America would not tolerate.... In one of the suburbs, this afternoon, children followed us, as though we were Chinese. “They are American people,” the children said, apparently not knowing that we could understand what they said. An old gentleman reprimanded the children, and apologized for their conduct.... The race track is twenty miles from Wellington, as there is not enough level land in the vicinity to accommodate a mile track, and most of the people are out there this afternoon. We were walking in the wholesale district at 3 P.M., and, looking in every direction, were able to see only five people; and they were hurrying to the railroad station. Wellington is very hilly, and mountains are only a stone’s-throw from its main streets.... Yesterday a man named James Cole brought an action against his wife, Fanny, because she failed to properly support him. Cole said he was unable to work because of an accident, whereas his wife had a profitable fish-supper business. Counsel asked Cole:

“How high are you able to lift your arm since the accident which you say disabled you?”

Applicant lifted his arm nearly up to his shoulder.

“How far could you lift it before the accident?” counsel for Mrs. Cole asked.

“Oh, up to here,” Mr. Cole replied, holding the arm high over his head. Whereupon the magistrate dismissed the case. All of which appears in the Wellington Times of this morning; in the local news, and not in the joke department.... We have a mandolin orchestra at this hotel, and the leader is an old gentleman who looks like a member of the Supreme Court of the United States whose picture I have often seen, but whose name I have forgotten. He plays to the lady guests as the first violinist does in a Paris café, and is altogether a very interesting character.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26.—Australia has nothing to show tourists except a few caves; New Zealand has the geyser district, and a glacier or two, but there is nothing of predominant interest in either country, as you will find in Egypt, or India, and in many other countries. The natives here are not interesting; they remind you a good deal of country-town negroes in the United States, although in a way they are superior to the negroes, and superior to our Indians. After the Maoris have seen the stage, the boat or the railroad train go by, they have apparently completed their work for the day. In the old countries, the tourists are interesting; but there are few tourists here: we have seen only New Zealanders and Australians out for a holiday. Of brides and grooms we have seen hundreds; if a woman never gets another one, she usually gets a trip when she is married. We have seen a few Englishmen, but they are usually here looking for opportunity to make money, not to spend it.... Wherever I have seen natives I have detected a peculiar odor. An Auckland woman with whom we traveled in the mountains, says the odor comes from dried shark-meat, which the natives are always eating.... Last night, while looking out of my window at the lady bartenders in the Empire Hotel, directly across the street, a negro man went by. He is the only negro I have seen since leaving home. He was well-dressed, and seemed to be prosperous.... The streets are somewhat narrow in Wellington, and the Empire Hotel, across the way, greatly interests me; I am more familiar with its guests than with the guests of the Grand. And as soon as darkness sets in, I can see the lady bartenders; the electric lights in the barroom render their every act visible. To me it is indescribably funny to see a woman working on the inside of a bar. Last night a patron gave one of the two a bouquet of flowers, and she handled it as gracefully as a society queen.... In the United States, a hotel or restaurant waiter looks almost as tough as a hackdriver, but here they are fine-appearing men. Many of them are elderly; they seem to have spent their lives as waiters. The man who waits on us in the dining-room of the Grand might be a congressman, so far as looks go, and

I have never before known an equally capable man of his calling. How the Grand affords it all at three dollars a day, I cannot understand. The price is 12 and 6, which appears to be $3.12 in our money, but it is really $3, since a shilling is worth only twenty-four cents. The Grand is the best hotel in Wellington, and probably in the Dominion. Wellington is full of hotels, and probably the competition is so strong that the Grand is compelled to keep its prices down.... New Zealand pays a good deal of attention to tourists, and the government extensively advertises the hot lakes and the glaciers; it also has a bureau for selling travelers tickets, and owns resorts, boat lines, etc. But it pays little attention to immigration, as Australia does. Australia does much more for immigrants than the United States, giving them cheap fares to the country, reduced freight rates, etc., and when they arrive, special attention is paid them by a government department created for that purpose. The United States gets more immigrants than any other country, without inducements of any kind on the part of the government: news of the country paying the best wages, and offering the best inducements, will find its way everywhere.... Wirth’s Greatest Show on Earth is billed here. One of its stars is Hillary Long, “the talk of America,” although I do not remember to have heard of him there. Another of Wirth’s stars is Young Buffalo Bill, who competes with Australian cowboys in mastering wild horses and cattle.... The offices of the New Zealand government are housed in what is said to be the largest wooden building in the world. Wellington has many fine structures of stone, but the government buildings were constructed years ago, and are mainly of wood.... This is as sleepy a town on Sunday as I have ever visited. This morning we went down to breakfast at 8:30, and dined alone. At noon, the maid had not yet cleaned up our rooms. But it is just as bad across the street, at the Empire Hotel, into the rooms of which I can look. The beds were not made there at noon, either; indeed, in one room a man was still in bed. The lady bartenders at the Empire are not on duty today; the blinds are down in the bar, and the lady bartenders are probably patronizing some of the numerous excursions we saw advertised in the morning papers. The day is not only Sunday, but rain began falling in the afternoon, and we had no other amusement than watching the bored guests at the Empire.... The maid came in at 2 P.M. to clean up my room, and a fine lot of gossip she brought. She says that one of the girls employed in the office of the Grand died last night, and that the hotel force is demoralized. The girl’s body was taken to the morgue this morning, and the maid thinks the papers will be full of it in the morning. When a man dies, it seems to be regular, but when a woman dies there is a chance for suspicion, particularly if she has been to Sydney three months before on a vacation. The maid also says that the lady bartenders at the Empire, across the street, kiss their customers. Lady bartenders, as a class, according to the maid, do not stand very high socially, a statement I can easily accept.... The maid says an American stopped at the Grand several months ago, and every time he met her, he said: “Go to h—l.” I did not recognize this as an American trait: to tell ladies, without provocation, to go to h—l.... In New Zealand or Australia (or in England, for that matter) the first thing an American notices is the queer pronunciation of words by the residents. I have mentioned this before, but mention it again because I have just come across this statement by Rudyard Kipling:

“The American I have heard up to the present is a tongue as distinct from English as Patagonian.”

From which I imagine that our pronunciations also jar on English ears. I believe I can take their own dictionary, and convince the English that they do not obey its rules of pronunciation. There is not the slightest authority in any English dictionary for many of their pronunciations. The pronunciation of the English people is arbitrary; there is no authority for much of it, as there is no authority for the cockney dialect. At one place on this trip we met two old-maid high-school teachers, and they almost spoke good English. And this is a rule that may be depended upon: the educated English have a better pronunciation than the uneducated. The pronunciation of Americans is nearly always the same, but the English do not themselves use the same pronunciations. Perhaps it is an intonation or quality of the voice, or an inflection, but it is a fact that frequently an American understands them with difficulty. For several days we traveled with an English barrister, a very polite gentleman, and we frequently sat with him at hotel, steamboat and dining-car tables. Half the time we could not understand him. And he found equal difficulty in understanding us, unless we spoke slowly and distinctly. Kipling says the American language has nothing in common with English except the auxiliary verbs, the name of the Creator, and damn.

MONDAY, JANUARY 27.—Although New Zealand is supposed to be an English colony, there are no English soldiers here. A few soldiers are seen in Wellington, but they belong to New Zealand regiments. The young man who showed us about today is seventeen years old, and what we would call an A. D. T. messenger boy. But the telegraph business is a government monopoly here, and this young man is a government employee. There is a mild system of compulsory military service. The young man says he belongs to a military company of postoffice and telegraph employees, and that they drill one hour every week. All young men are compelled to belong to a similar company, from fourteen to twenty-five years of age. They compose a military reserve, and never go into actual camp. New Zealand also has a navy, which is about as much of a joke as its army. Australia, being larger, has a larger establishment, but the system is the same: New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania are exactly alike so far as politics, sheep, and labor unions are concerned. Tasmania is a little place, but it has mighty questions to settle. The Tasmania legislative assembly has been in a deadlock several years, and none of the big questions could be settled. An election was held recently, to break the deadlock; and again the assembly is a tie. Politically, the colonies remind one a little of Cuba, where the political pot boils rather more steadily than anywhere else in the world.... The real event of today has been the arrival of Dr. Beeson, of Chicago, with whom we traveled three weeks on the “Sonoma.” I seem to have known him always; he is my dearest friend, and the meeting apparently pleased him as much as it did me.... In the celebration following my meeting with Dr. Beeson, we went down into the Grand barroom, where we found two bars, exactly alike, on opposite sides of a big room. An old maid known as Polly served us; a younger woman called ‘Arriet presided at the bar across the room. Polly was very amiable, and talked to us about our trip; I suppose she has been a bartender ever since she was eighteen, and attractive, and that was a long time ago. It will surprise you to know that she reminded me of a school teacher; she was as well-behaved as a school teacher, and had a bossy way that is always associated in my mind with the school-room. The Doctor and I talked of going over to see the lady bartenders at the Empire, but Polly coaxed us out of the notion. Liquor is sold here almost entirely by women; the custom of barmaids is more general in New Zealand, I am told, than in England.... Every morning and evening I buy a newspaper. The news is mainly from London, or local; I have not seen a telegram from the United States. Which is not so surprising: you might read the American papers a long time without seeing a telegram from New Zealand.... Wellington has a fine street-car system; considerably better than St. Joseph, Mo., a city of about the same size. One line runs through a tunnel under a mountain to a bathing-beach; another climbs one of the great hills, where are located many fine residences. There are several short cable lines running up the steep mountains. In addition to this means of communication, there are many boats running around and across the harbor, to bathing-beaches and suburbs. Wellington is as fine a town as St. Joseph, and the suburbs of Wellington look better. The streets and roads here are superior to those in the Missouri city, and I saw a grocery store here today that St. Joseph cannot equal.... There is a probability of a strike among the cab-drivers here. The drivers are demanding that passengers handle their own baggage. The city has taken a hand, and decided that it is the duty of cab-drivers to place the baggage of passengers on their cabs; whereupon the Cab Drivers’ Union inquired, in a resolution, “Why should not passengers handle their own luggage?” A district delegate has arrived from Auckland, and last night delivered a fiery speech about the starving poor, the insolent rich, the disposition of capital to wring the last drop of blood from the people, etc., and it will be known in a day or two whether I shall be compelled to carry my own trunks when I go to the ship.... This town is known as Windy Wellington, because the wind blows so steadily. One story is that you may always tell a Wellington man, wherever he may be: when he turns a street corner, he grabs his hat, to keep it from blowing away. Wellington people also have a story on Sydney; they say that when they visit that city they pin a tag on their coats, which reads: “I am much pleased with your harbor.” Sydney people are very proud of their harbor, and

Auckland and Wellington are very jealous, as both the last named cities have beautiful harbors, though neither is as large as that at Sydney.... A gentleman who sits at our table at the hotel lived for six months at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and thinks it a very fine town. He lives in New Zealand now, but Lancaster pleased him very much. Chicago scared him; he was there one night, and the next morning the papers reported six murders. As soon as Dr. Beeson arrived, Chicago had a more capable defender, and I withdrew, to enjoy the scrimmage.... Chinese are admitted to New Zealand on payment of $1,500 per head, and a good many of them run fruit and vegetable stores here.... As the maid predicted, the Monday morning papers mentioned the death at the Grand Hotel Saturday night, but they handled the item very cautiously, saying that the circumstances were suspicious, and that an inquest was necessary.... No doubt the people at the Empire are much exercised; unless I am much mistaken, the people of the Empire are saying: “That rotten outfit across the street is getting what it deserves.” You can’t expect anyone to be fair with his rival in business.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 28.—We took a long street-car ride this morning, and paid sixteen cents for one journey which would have cost only five cents in an American city. But you can ride a short distance for two cents. The fare increases two cents per section. Whether our plan of five cents for a street-railway ride, long or short, is better or worse than this, I do not know.

There are no transfers here; if you travel on three different lines, you pay three fares.... Every morning our waiter at the hotel brings us hot cakes, although we do not order them. We discovered the reason today: on the bill of fare they are called “hot cakes, American style.” It is the waiter’s way of announcing that he knows we are Americans.... When you order soft-boiled eggs here, they are brought to you in the shell, and you eat them out of egg cups. This morning I asked the waiter to break mine in a glass, which he did, but he also put in pepper and salt, and stirred them up.... This has been a very chilly day, and the Wellington people are going about wearing overcoats and straw hats. A woman on the street-car informed us that today has been as cold as the weather ever gets here, at any season. At one of the beaches we saw the surf rolling in a very boisterous and menacing way, as the wind was blowing almost a gale. But flowers are in bloom, and vegetables growing in gardens. The vegetable gardens here are in the hands of Chinese, and are wonderfully neat; almost as wonderful as the gardens about Paris, where the gardeners remove the original dirt, and make a new soil.... We hear complaints everywhere of the labor unions. On a street-car today we engaged in conversation with an elderly woman who said she was born in Wellington, and who complained bitterly of the unions, which cause constant disturbances in all branches of business. This was surprising to me, in New Zealand, where we have heard everything is so amiable. I hear the same thing every time I talk with New Zealand people. “It is too much of a good thing,” they say. Possibly it is like our tariff: originally a good thing, it has been overdone, and all of us are now compelled to pay tribute in the shape of a heavy tax.... When we began talking with the woman, she said: “I take it that you are Americans.” We always hear that.... We have discovered that among its other attractions, the Grand Hotel has a roof garden. Even the Chicago doctor is surprised at the excellence of the hotel; and the price is only $3 a day each, including meals and rooms. We have concluded that the necessities of life, on an average, are about one-quarter cheaper here than in the United States. While there are no great tracts of farming land in the vicinity of Wellington or Auckland, near Christchurch, on the other island, there are said to be plains one hundred miles long. People here say that mutton is the one meat they never tire of; and mutton is very plentiful and very cheap.... The New Zealander who sits at our table is a very bold man, to hear him talk. I told him of my experience with snoring men, on the “Maheno,” and he says that under such circumstances he would have raised a row with the disturbers. But I think that possibly he is like many others I have known: a great talker, rather than a great hero. He tells an amusing story of a friend he once invited to his home for a visit of a fortnight. The friend turned out to have the loudest and most disagreeable snore ever heard in New Zealand, and no one in the house slept during the two weeks the visitor was there.... The tipping evil is not as great in New Zealand as it is in many places; the servants here have heard of the custom, but they do not mob travelers who fail to fee them satisfactorily.... The greatest need at present, in all parts of the world, is a library of books of simple information, simply written. Today I bought a book on Africa, by Sir H. H. Johnston. The introduction is interesting, but the remaining hundreds of pages contain a lot of technical information that no one wants. My impression is that Sir H. H. Johnston wrote the introduction, and the remaining pages were taken from old books on the subject. Cyclopedias are made in the same way. Some time ago I read the confession of a cyclopedia editor. He says such books are full of errors, because of the habit of copying, and that there is too little independent investigation. He relates that as an editor he once invented a man, a “noted clergyman,” and sent a “story” about him to the printers. The “story” passed the scrutiny of all the other editors, and was about to be made up into the pages of the cyclopedia, when the joker took it out. That is the way historical books are printed; they are too long, very dull, full of errors, written in a ponderous style that repels readers, and lacking in the simplicity and terseness necessary for the understanding of the average reader. There are several “libraries” of “universal knowledge,” and not one of them is half as good, as useful or as entertaining as it could have been made. The lack in all these books is simplicity; the professors write in fear of the criticism of other professors, and not for busy people. In this book on Africa, about all I found of interest was a statement that the Australoid type of man is almost certainly the parent of the white man in Europe and Asia. The Australoid, represented at present by the indigenous population of Australia (a chocolate-colored people, rather than black) comes nearest of all living men to the basal stock of our race, and behind him lies a long vista of semi-humanity till apehood is reached. This was a new statement to me.... The human genus was evolved somewhere in Asia, most probably in India, according to the best authority. This was a long time ago; human remains at least five hundred thousand years old have been found in the Rhine basin near Heidelberg, and it is believed the race is much older in Asia. But the original man was a black man, or a yellow man; the white man originated much later, and, according to Sir H. H. Johnston, he originated in Australia. So I am visiting the home of my remote ancestors. While man is very old, he ceased only twenty-five or thirty thousand years ago—this is only a guess of scientists, but the best information we have—to live in an absolutely savage condition as a mere hunter of other animals. The present civilized man gradually developed from a start made probably thirty thousand years ago. It was the white man who made this start toward civilization, and he originated in Australia, if Sir H. H. Johnston knows what he is talking about. The white man has always been an adventurer, and, in the course of ages, spread over the earth.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29.—The New Zealander who sits at our table, and who lived awhile at Lancaster, Pa., said at breakfast this morning:

“The people of the United States are the smartest in the world. No doubt about it. In everything worthy and desirable, they are ahead of any other people.”

This man was born in England, and lived in London many years, but is lately living in New Zealand. He believes the “Pennsylvania Dutch” he knew at Lancaster to be the best type of people he ever knew, and regrets that all the people of the United States are not more like them.... This gentleman also showed us how the English and Scotch eat oatmeal porridge. They salt it, but never use sugar. In the left hand they hold a cup of milk, and into this they dip a spoonful of porridge before eating it.... It seems there was a blizzard yesterday; the thermometer got down to fifty-six above. But we went about in our usual summer clothing, and did not know it was a blizzard until this morning’s papers appeared.... In the botanical garden, this morning, I believe I saw the finest display of flowers I have ever seen. You hear much of the famous gardens of Japan, but I have never seen a Japanese garden as beautiful as that I saw this morning. The Japanese gardens are grotesque rather than beautiful. On the way back to town we visited a big department store, and remained an hour, watching the crowds. Doctor Beeson and I followed Adelaide around among the crowds of women, and enjoyed the experience. There was a special sale on, and postal cards had been reduced to a cent each. The store was a big one, but not nearly so large as the big ones in Kansas City. All the clerks were girls, and it was about the usual thing in special sales, except that prices were in pounds, shillings and pence.... In the public places here, we see this sign very frequently: “Citizens, protect your own property.” That is, everything belongs to the people, therefore why destroy anything? Some people are natural vandals, but people of a little culture and refinement never are.... In New Zealand, a woman has no interest in her husband’s real-estate. If a man desires to transfer a piece of real property here, his wife’s signature to the deed is not necessary, as is the case in the United States. Still women have full suffrage in New Zealand.... Not only the talk is unintelligible here at times, but I see advertisements in the English newspapers I can’t understand. Here is an exact copy of an advertisement in the Wellington Post of this date:

WANTED—A General. Apply Mrs. Focke, 210 The Terrace.

If you know what Mrs. Focke wants, you know more than I do. Here is another advertisement from the same newspaper:

FOR SALE—Butchery business; going concern; average weekly killing, 6 bodies and 30 small. Victor E. Smith, Box 59, Fielding.

I haven’t the remotest notion what the advertisement means.... The newspapers here, of course, have taken after the street-railway company. They demand a universal fare of two cents, instead of two cents a section. It seems impossible to run a newspaper anywhere without abusing the street-railway. One correspondent of The Post says the street-car company is entitled to take in only enough to pay actual running expenses, as the increasing value of the property is profit enough.... At luncheon today, our waiter at the Grand Hotel brought me an extra dish. “American pork and beans,” he announced triumphantly.

They never let me forget for a moment that I am an American, or that they have caught me at it.... The dry-goods men here are as big talkers as they are anywhere. In The Post of this afternoon, James Smith, Limited, offers a special sale in summer goods. Here is one price he quotes:

“Ladies’ one-piece washing frocks, in various colors, good value at 18s. 6d.; carry your choice away tomorrow at 5s. 11d.”

It seems that any sane woman would know that an article now offered at 5s. 11d. (or $1.42) was never good value at 18s. 6d. (or $4.62). If James Smith ever sold an article at $4.62 and has now cut it to $1.42, he is a robber, and no woman should patronize him. Yet his store will be crowded with women tomorrow, and many of them will buy dry goods they do not need, at prices that afford James Smith, Limited, a fair profit. The manner in which smart merchants fool the women with special sales should receive attention at the next meeting of Congress.... Bob Fitzsimmons, the prizefighter, came from New Zealand, and I think he is rather more popular at home than Melba is in Australia, where she was born. Indeed, I have heard Melba “picked at” a good deal, while Fitz is generally pointed to with pride.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30.—A hair-cut and shave at the best shop in Wellington costs twenty-four cents. If a man buys a ticket, and pays in advance, for $1.50 he can get a shave every morning for a month, and one hair-cut.... On my way to the barber’s this morning I saw this sign: “Mrs. Jew, private hotel.” Here is another sign I saw: “Jerusalem & Son, jewelers and New Zealand green-stone merchants.” While waiting in the barber shop I saw this advertisement in a newspaper: “Wanted—A Rabbiter; also a saw doctor. Apply to F. P. Welch, Masterton.” ... My friend who lived for a time in Lancaster, Pa., and who so greatly admires the “Pennsylvania Dutch,” told of a funny experience this morning. When he first landed in the United States he went into a barber shop, to be shaved. The barber asked him if he wanted a shampoo. The New Zealander, thinking that this was merely a politeness, said he did. Then the barber asked him if he would have a face massage, and the New Zealander accepted that offer, as well as several others, all the while thinking of the politeness of the American barbers. Finally, when the barber presented his bill for $2.90, there was a row, and the New Zealander denounced us all as robbers.... This New Zealander, whom I shall call Mr. A., was very indignant when I told him about the snoring man on the ship, and has been telling ever since what should be done to a man who travels about to disturb his fellow-men. “A man who snores,” said Mr. A., “should remain at home.” Mr. A. is a nervous man himself, and believes that a snoring man should in some way be prohibited. I noticed that Dr. Beeson, my friend from Chicago, did not fully accept Mr. A.’s opinion, and, when we are alone, the Doctor is disposed to rake Mr. A. over the coals. This has convinced me that the Doctor is a snoring man, so at nearly every meal I induce Mr. A. to abuse the man who is so impolite as to go to bed in a room with two others and snore all night. The Doctor and Mr. A. were at first quite friendly, but lately they quarrel most of the time. “That man,” the Doctor said to me today, and referring to Mr. A., “is getting on my nerves.” The Doctor frequently comes up to my room to smoke a cigar, and sometimes I send out for a second cigar, that I may enjoy the aroma of the tobacco, but this is the only weak thing I do, so far as my resolution to quit tobacco is concerned. I no longer temporize; I do not chew toothpicks, or gum, or plug tobacco; I have quit off short, and find it easier. If you are trying to quit tobacco, quit entirely, and do not aggravate yourself with cardamon seed, cloves, no-tobac, or anything else.... I am going away tomorrow, but Mr. A. and the Doctor will remain another week, and after I am gone, and no longer able to keep them apart, I expect them to have a fight, about snoring.... The Doctor is going home by way of South America direct, and will round Cape Horn. He said last evening, while smoking in my room: “Well, I now have absolutely nothing to do for forty-eight days, except to send one cablegram at Buenos Aires.” His statement was a very good illustration of the idleness of travelers. He does not like traveling by sea, but says it does him good, although he does not observe the good effect until he has been at home some time. He will be nineteen days at sea, without sight of land; an experience I will have between Australia and South Africa.... An Englishman I met here today was laughing at Americans because they call one horse a “team.” He was also amused because Americans eat pie in the middle of a meal. That is the way many of the stories about Americans originate: they are made up. I have lived in America considerably more than half a century, and never knew anyone to refer to one horse as a “team,” or eat pie in the middle of a meal.... There is a young man staying at this hotel who doesn’t seem to know much. “I don’t believe,” said Mr. A. today, “that he is a full shilling.” Meaning, “I don’t believe he has good sense.” This young fellow is a “remittance man;” he has a rich father in England, and receives a remittance every month—he is kept in New Zealand in the hope that he will get killed, or drink himself to death.... The officers of small ships, since the big “Titanic” went down, frequently ask travelers: “Well, are you satisfied now that a big ship can sink?” Sailors, like other men, are jealous.... A traveling Englishman is never satisfied unless he shows his pajamas all over a ship or hotel. This morning, at 7:20, I left my room to go down on the street for a walk before breakfast. In the hall I found an Englishman, dressed in pajamas only, quietly drinking tea from a tray held by a maid.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31.—At 4:20 this afternoon we left the Grand Hotel, and went on board the “Maunganui,” advertised to sail for Sydney at 5. The Chicago doctor went with us, and said he should be very lonesome after our departure. He says he intends to amuse himself by trimming up Mr. A., the gentleman who lived awhile at Lancaster, Pa. This gentleman has very positive notions about everything, particularly about Americans, and the Doctor says he intends to talk the Chicago language to him after we go. “I didn’t like to say anything rough while Miss Adelaide was at the table,” the Doctor said, “but I’ll be mad anyway, because of your going, and he’ll hear from me.” In addition to his liberal notions about punishing men who snore, Mr. A. “makes up” stories about Americans. He says, for example, that when he was in Chicago, the hotel bell-boy who guided him to his room took hold of his coat, looked at it critically, and said: “What funny clothes you Englishmen wear.” The Doctor is certain no such thing ever happened, at Chicago or elsewhere, and proposes to say so to the hero of the incident.... The “Maunganui” is a large ship, nearly new, but instead of two men in my room I found three. The ship has two parlors, very large and fine, the floors covered with Turkish rugs, but its staterooms are very small, and most of them are provided with four beds; and extra beds are made in the dining-room. There are twice as many passengers on the ship as there should be; there are almost as many at the second sitting in the dining-saloon as at the first.... Very much to our surprise, Mr. A. came down to see us off, and, on hearing that I was to occupy a room with three others, said he wouldn’t stand it; that there was a way of avoiding such disagreeable things, and that he always found it. The Doctor nudged me, and, when the row starts, this big talk will probably come up, also. Mr. A. says he has already spoken to the head waiter at the Grand, and given him notice that our places at his table must be taken by pleasant people.... Owing to an extra amount of freight, the ship did not get away until 7 o’clock; the Doctor and Mr. A. left at 6, and, the last we saw of them, they seemed to be getting along amicably.... We finished dinner in time to go on deck and see the ship leave the harbor. A heavy wind had been blowing several days, and we expected bad weather outside, but in this we were disappointed; the sea was as calm as I have ever seen it, and we walked the decks until ten o’clock. Adelaide is not so lucky this trip, and has three women in her room.... The piano-playing began within an hour after dinner, and most of the players were young men. There are more amateur musicians in this section, probably, than in any other part of the world.... Two of the passengers, young Englishmen, are wearing smoking-jackets with their initials embroidered on the left arm. It is an entirely new idea, and it does not seem improbable that other Englishmen will adopt it.... Travel between New Zealand and Australia is enormous. The boats of the Union Steamship Co. are always crowded. And, in saying your prayers at night, ask for a special curse on the Union Steamship Co., as well as on the Standard Oil Co., and the Eastman Kodak Co. It is a monopoly, and does just as it pleases; and it pleases to put four men in a room nine by ten feet, which I regard as a greater outrage than that Decoration day, or Arbor day, or Flag day, are not more generally observed.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1.—I have spent this day in bed, seasick. Early this morning we ran into a rough sea, and not one passenger in twenty appeared at breakfast. Fortunately, the three others in my room are very polite gentlemen, but this did not prevent them from being ill, and four sick men in a room nine by ten feet, with one small window, and that closed, is not pleasant. In our room there is not so much as a chair to sit on, and not as many hooks as one man requires for his clothing, on retiring; I have no hooks at all in my berth, and, when I went to bed, was compelled to pile my clothes on the bed, or under it. There is one washbowl for four men, and, after two have used it, the water in this runs out. And this on the largest and finest ship sailing out of New Zealand. And I paid $5 in addition to the usual tariff, in order that I might have better than the average first-class passenger. I have never before seen four persons placed in a room on a steamship; it occasionally happens that the sofa is used for a third passenger, when a ship is badly crowded, but on the Atlantic this is rare; passengers won’t stand it. But here, six are often placed in first-class cabins, and there does not seem to be much protest. The newspapers are always abusing the railroads, which actually supply very good accommodations; I wonder they do not have something to say about the steamships. The two parlors on the “Maunganui” must be 100 feet long, and as broad as the ship itself; yet they are rarely occupied by more than a dozen, while four people are forced to occupy a room nine by ten. The smoking-room is a fine apartment, and the halls are wide and airy, but the cabins are disgracefully small. If an American is unwise enough to travel, he should not visit this part of the world, where the ships are all small, and where there does not seem to be the slightest protest against four or six in a cabin. The new and fast ships on the Atlantic travel from New York to Queenstown in almost the time required to travel from Australia to New Zealand, for the ships here are slow as well as small. The distances here are great; in Europe, a trip of seven hours, which includes crossing the English channel, takes you from London to Paris. A night takes you from Paris to Switzerland, and another night to Rome. All the big sights there are comparatively close together; but the time from San Francisco to Australia is three weeks, and, if you go by boat from Sydney, the time to South Africa is four weeks. If you have a notion to visit this part of the world, give it up. The people here are always polite, but it is a country an American will find himself familiar with. The Maori wars in New Zealand were like our Indian wars, and the bush-rangers in Australia were like our Western cattle thieves, gamblers, and gun-men. There is nothing picturesque here, as there is in Japan, which may be reached from San Francisco in four days’ less time than is required to reach Australia. Besides, very large ships sail from San Francisco to Japan and China, whereas only small ships sail from San Francisco to Australia or New Zealand.... It is my experience that there is always something unpleasant about a ship. Every ship has some peculiarity of motion at sea, and one trip does not accustom you to another. I waited a week in New Zealand in order to cross in the big “Maunganui,”

but the worst spell of seasickness I ever had was in one of the “Maunganui’s” rooms. And three other gentlemen, all experienced travelers, joined me in it, and we grunted, and growled, and swore all day. I refer to this ship as a big one; its tonnage is 7,800; a boat twice as large is considered rather small on the Atlantic. And the idea that the Pacific is smooth and the Atlantic violent, is a fiction. Both are violent at times, and one is not much worse than the other. This is the most favorable season, and we have had much bad weather.... My part of stateroom 15, for which I paid a stiff price, is about as big as a coffin. Next thing, they will put a cot in the space between the four beds, and sell it to a silly man who thinks there is joy in traveling, and discovers his mistake after actually trying it. I am as finicky and fussy as an old maid when it comes to sleeping, but my indignation over four in a room does me no good; no one else seems to object to it. I suppose I will next draw a room for six; but I don’t care—I should as soon have the whole ship’s company in with me as three.... One is treated better everywhere than at sea. In order to travel comfortably, a man should be married, and have his wife with him. Then he could have her in a room with him, and impose on her, as usual.... A woman traveling incognito, and occupying my bed on this ship, would not be shocked by the three other men in the room. They are polite, clean, decent, and considerate. They are Australian commercial travelers, and this morning one of them told an “American story,” for my benefit. A man was standing on a street corner in Chicago, vigorously puffing a big cigar. A good man approached him, and said:

“Do you realize the waste of smoking? How many cigars do you smoke a day?”

The smoker estimated the number at fifteen, and said he had been smoking at least twenty years.

“Had you saved that money,” the good man said, “you might have owned that sky-scraper,” pointing to a big building across the street.

“Do you smoke?” the smoker asked the good man.

“Certainly not,” was the indignant answer.

“Do you own that sky-scraper?”

“No.”

“Well,” replied the smoker, puffing complacently on his cigar, “I do.”

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2.—This has been as fine a day as I have ever experienced on a ship. As a rule, the weather is better far out at sea than near land. Yesterday the passengers were confined to their rooms, and everywhere one might hear them trying to get rid of that last meal, but today they are all on deck. It is a polite and agreeable company, and the ship is fine, but I still dislike the sea. I don’t care much for close contact with a lot of people, however polite and agreeable they may be. It is pleasant enough to be in a crowd for an hour or two, and note human characteristics, but four or five days of it is too much.... From the time you start on a trip until you return, you have the same things to eat. Bills of fare on ships are exactly alike, and hotels copy the ships. I am offered a great variety of food on the “Maunganui,” but do not care for it: at dinner today I ordered a plate of soup, and lamb with mint sauce, although the bill of fare showed a very great variety. Meals are announced in the usual way: by a man playing a cornet. The man on the “Maunganui” is unusual in that he plays a part of a selection at every meal, and poses while playing.... In this country, the uglier the man, the more sheep he owns. The ugliest man I have ever seen is on board, and he is said to be the sheep king of New Zealand. It is no unusual thing for a man in New Zealand or Australia to own thirty or forty thousand sheep.... This evening, after dinner, I was amused in watching a smart young fellow in the second-cabin. The second-cabin deck is separated from ours by a rail containing this notice: “Second-cabin passengers not allowed forward of this.” The smart young fellow was amusing a number of companions by walking around the first-cabin deck. His companions thought he was extremely devilish, and laughed boisterously when he returned safely. I sat near them, and could hear their conversation. The bold young man said that if anyone would give him a shilling, he would go up the stairs to the next deck, and spend it in the first cabin smoking-room. The shilling was produced, and I saw the young man disappear up the stairway. Then he offered to speak to the captain for another shilling, and disappeared for that purpose, but whether he did it or not, I do not know. The young men were having a tremendous lot of fun without harming anyone.... Last night there was almost continuous piano-playing in the big parlor of the ship. A man or woman was waiting all the time, with music, for a chance at the piano; it reminded me of passengers waiting around the bathrooms during the rush hour. Two young girls, sisters, sat in the room the entire evening. They pretended to be reading, but they were really watching and talking about people, and their short, quick remarks to each other probably contained a good deal of ginger.... When you can’t do anything else to a boy, you can make him wash his face. There is a man on board with a son seven or eight years old, and certainly every hour I hear the father say to the son: “Go to your room, sir, and wash your face. And use a little extra soap on your hands.” ... Seasickness is no disgrace. Governor Crose, of American Samoa, and who is also captain of the warship “Princeton,” told me that he is often seasick; and he has been a sailor twenty-five years.... I heard a man making a long explanation today, and I knew he was not telling the truth; an explanation is never the truth, on sea or land.... A lonesome old woman on board attracts the attention of all the passengers. I talked to her awhile this afternoon, and she made one remark I’ll never forget.

“My children,” she said, “are already reconciled to my death.”

She is traveling alone, is ill, and occupies a room with three young women who don’t want her in with them, and she is very wretched. Will your children be reconciled to your death by the time you are sixty-five or seventy? Probably; maybe earlier.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3.—A man on board was born in Warsaw, New York, but has been in business in Sydney for the past thirty years. He says the Australian and New Zealand newspapers are habitually unfair with events in the United States. He often writes to the editors, and corrects their blunders, but they refuse to print his letters. The papers frequently print references to American crooks arriving in Australasia which are palpably unfair and untrue; on one occasion the American obtained a letter from the police authorities saying that certain thieves referred to as Americans, were not Americans, but not a newspaper in Australia would print the American’s indignant denial. All American news in the Australian and New Zealand papers comes from London, although it might be easily obtained direct from American papers. American news coming by way of London is of course unreliable. He says that the middle-class people here admire Americans, but that the Imperialists do not, and always misrepresent them. I asked him what he meant by the term “Imperialist.”

“Well,” he replied, “an Australian or New Zealander will go to London, and be entertained at dinner by a cheap duke or knight. After that, he is an Imperialist, and talks of England as ‘back home.’ Admiration for the rich is often ridiculous, but it is nothing compared with admiration for a title.”

I asked him how the general prosperity here compared with the average prosperity in America. He replied that the farmers here are more prosperous generally than the farmers of New York state.

“But,” I said to him, “the farmers of New York state are not typical American farmers. Our typical farmers are found in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Oklahoma, and states of that class.”

“I have heard of the great prosperity of Kansas farmers,” he said; “our farmers are not as prosperous as the Kansas farmers are said to be. And our farmers do not live as well as yours. Not on one farm in fifty here will you find a vegetable garden or fruit tree; I should say your farmers are much superior to ours in culture, too. Certainly the educational test is higher in your rural communities than it is with us. Your working-people, in my judgment, earn better wages than ours.”

Here, as elsewhere, the railroads are considered fair game for every swindler. This man says that a few months ago there was a railroad accident in Australia, and three hundred and forty-three claims for damages were filed. Investigation revealed the fact that there were but two hundred and fifty-one passengers on the wrecked train.... One prominent fault here is overcrowding. You notice it on every railroad train, in every ship, and in every hotel. Crowding is barbarism. The railroads, although owned by the government, do not run enough trains. The ship on which this is written is crowded beyond the legal or safe limit.... Possibly you do not know that the casings of American “wieners” come from Australian or South-American sheep. I met a traveling-man the other day who sells nothing but sausage casings; mainly sheep entrails, and his house has branches nearly everywhere. The most interesting thing in the world is business, but it is neglected by magazines and newspapers for scandal or foolish fiction.... There is a good deal of excitement here now over what is called “American blight,” which affects fruit. My American friend who lives in Sydney says he secured undoubted evidence that the blight existed in Tasmania in 1832, and does not come from America, but the newspapers will not print his evidence.... I can easily understand that everything American is unfairly treated by the papers of Australia. We in America are grossly unfair with everything English, not because we desire to be, but because we do not know any better. I grossly exaggerate that which I do not understand, and so does everyone.... The fine weather continues, and all day the sea has been as smooth as a pond. I am in good humor today, but I am still of the opinion that four men in a steamship room nine by ten is an outrage. You cannot realize its discomfort until you have had experience.... Late last night, while sitting in the music-room of the ship “Maunganui,” a steward came in to collect the steamer rugs scattered about. The steward told me that for several months he has averaged $35 a week in tips. The ship is always crowded; this trip there were ninety people at the second sitting in the dining-room. As a result, the stewards have a double number in the dining-room and a double number in the staterooms. I doubt if the captain makes more than the most popular and capable stewards on his ship. A passenger told me that he frequently sees the stewards of the “Maunganui” riding in motor cars in Sydney, and drinking champagne with lady friends in the expensive restaurants. The steward said that when he starts on a trip, he can look over the passengers in his care and tell almost exactly what he will get in tips when the ship lands. He showed me a $5 gold-piece which one man had given him, although the usual tip is $1.25. Why did that passenger give $5? Largely because he was a fool, I should say, for ship servants rarely do anything special for passengers. The steward told me, also, that the tourists are the best pay; that commercial men demand a good deal of service, and tip lightly, whereas all tourists tip liberally, whether they receive any special attention or not. As soon as a tourist goes on a ship, he begins inquiring concerning the tipping customs, and if he asks the barber, or an officer, he is advised to be liberal. There is a law in New Zealand which prohibits ship employees from working more than eight hours a day.... One of the passengers is a man named Willis, Speaker of the New South Wales House of Parliament. He is accompanied by his wife, two young lady daughters, and a son. All of them ate at the second sitting in the dining-room. I was told by several passengers that Willis is very unpopular; he certainly received no attention on board. In Australia there are only two political parties: the Labor and the Liberal. Willis, it is said, was a Liberal for years, and then switched to Labor, although he is not a workingman; on the contrary, he is well off. Many people regard him as a political adventurer, but they all credit him with unusual cleverness. I predict that some of these days he will get even with the Union Steamship Co. for putting him at the second sitting in the dining-room. I heard an American woman say lately that New Zealand women wear funny shoes and corsets. The Speaker’s women-folks do; for several days I thought Willis was a prosperous sheep farmer going to Sydney to spend his money. The women of Australia lack the good taste in dress that distinguishes the women of countries less prosperous.... Young children are better behaved here than in the United States; they “mind” better, and lack the impudence which distinguishes so many children with us.... The population of New Zealand does not increase; that country does not hustle for immigrants, as Australia does. Besides, a good many of the New Zealand sheep farmers are going to Argentina, in South America, one of the wonders of modern times, and more favorable for sheep-raising than this section. Wellington, a fine town, and the capital of New Zealand, does not grow; when I was there, the old wooden capitol was being repaired, and will probably be used another forty years. The population of New Zealand is only a million; but for that matter big Australia has only five times as many, almost one-half of them being in the big cities on the coast. The interior of Australia is hot, and its inhabitants hug the coast.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4.—The greatest pleasure of this day consisted of leaving the ship. At 8 o’clock this morning I had another sight of Sydney’s famous harbor, and at 9 we landed and went to the Australia Hotel, where we saw another fine sight: several Americans. We found Mr. and Mrs. Harry Clay Blaney, the New

York theatrical people, there, and several others we knew on the “Sonoma.” The Blaneys leave next Saturday for the Philippine Islands and China, by a ship of twenty-seven hundred tons; it is so small that it cannot accommodate more than two dozen first-class passengers. Nothing could induce me to take that trip; the ship is too small. I leave on the 12th for Durban, in South Africa, on the “Anchises,” a ship of 12,000 tons, and have been grumbling because it is not larger.... Another American I met there is W. B. Knight, born in New York state, and reared in the Standard Oil Co. family at Cleveland, Ohio. He is now connected with the Texas company, but received all his training with the Standard. There is a great deal of romance connected with Mr. Knight’s business career. He has lived in Persia, India, China, Japan, Australia, the Straits Settlements, and half a dozen other strange places. His wife is the daughter of another wandering oil man, and they were married at Canton, China, at the American Legation, by a preacher from Pennsylvania. His wife is with him here, and they are both anxious to get home: both declare that this is their last trip—that they are tired of hotel, ship and railroad life. Mr. Knight said to me: “I am now an opponent of the Standard Oil Co., but have no hesitancy in saying that the manner in which that company is persecuted by the government is a disgrace. I have been intimate with Standard affairs a quarter of a century, and have never known the company to be guilty of a disreputable or dishonest act. The company with which I have been connected a year, the Texas company, is composed almost entirely of men trained by the Standard, and we are trying to do what the Standard has done. We are the opposition, but our business methods are no better than those of the Standard.”

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5.—I am almost persuaded that Sydney is one of the handsomest cities I have ever visited. One of its numerous bays extends so far in the interior that it is called a river. We traveled up it today by boat for an hour and a half, and all the way saw handsome homes, and attractive coves. Returning, we came by electric car most of the way, and saw another interesting part of the city. While waiting for a car, we went into a little place for a drink. We ordered what seemed to be ginger ale, and it was cold; it is warmer in Australia than in New Zealand, and the people have learned the value of ice. “In America, you would call it pop,” the woman said. There is no doubt here as to our identity.... The weather today has been as hot as we ever get it on the Fourth of July. And this the 5th of February.... In the United States there is a great rivalry as to the best five-cent cigar. Here the manufacturers of six-cent cigars make equally extravagant claims.... There is nothing serious the matter with this country except that managers of steamships put four in a room 9×10 feet. The officers of the ships do not sleep in any such higgledy-piggledy fashion; they insist upon large single rooms for themselves, but force four passengers into a room not big enough for one. During the Spanish-American war, you may remember that the American officers, including Theodore Roosevelt, rebelled against certain regulations of their superiors. This rebellion they called a round robin. This country needs a similar rebellion against four in the same steamship room.... There are so many ferries in Sydney harbor carrying people to different suburbs along the bays that occasionally incoming steamships are held up during rush hours, in order that the ferry traffic may not be interfered with. This usually happens between 7:30 and 8 in the morning.... Wherever English print is in use, you will see the name of Theodore Roosevelt. He knows more of the art of securing free advertising than any other living man. In a morning paper I find a Melbourne dispatch saying the Minister for Home Affairs has received a letter from Mr. Roosevelt. A part of the letter is quoted, as follows:

“There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to visit Australia. I cannot imagine any American seriously interested in the affairs of his country and of the world who would not feel himself fortunate to visit your great commonwealth. You have been pioneers along many paths of social and industrial reform. I have personally a very great admiration for the Australian people. One of my prized hunting companions in Africa was an Australian,” etc., etc.

In the same newspaper I find the following from New Zealand:

“The High Commissioner for New Zealand said he was proud that the Dominion had led the way in presenting a battleship to the British Empire. Mr. James Allen, Minister for Defense, said New Zealand would not be satisfied until she gave both men and ships.”

What may be said of New Zealand may be said of Australia. Is it pioneering in social or industrial reform for a peaceful country to build battleships, and present them to a quarrelsome king thousands of miles away? ... This afternoon I went to a theatre, and saw moving pictures of the Panama canal. The pictures have packed the house for weeks; they are doing much to increase respect here for American energy and ability. The comments I heard around me were extremely gratifying. Never in the history of the world has a great work been carried on as energetically, as economically or as intelligently as at Panama. These pictures prove the smartness of the Yankee, and the actual accomplishment at Panama is as great as the big talk about the smart Yankee has ever been.... In this city of Sydney there is a big department store operated by the Anthony Hordern Co. Anthony Hordern was a plodder who built up a great business, and died from overwork at sixty-four. The business is now managed by heads of departments trained by Anthony Hordern, but his two sons own it. A floor-walker told me today that the store employs four thousand people, and has fifteen acres of floor space. I do not know just how much an Australian’s statements should be discounted; the average at home is about one-third. The store has a special sale on now, which is attracting great crowds, as special sales seem to everywhere. Wherever I go here, floor-walkers step up and ask if I have been waited on, whereupon I reply that I am simply a visitor looking about, etc. In most cases the floor-walker will show me around; at Anthony Hordern’s today, he mentioned Marshall Field’s place in Chicago, and at once labeled me as an American. The Anthony Hordern store is very large, but not half as big as the Marshall Field store. And it isn’t half as fine. The Hordern store looks old-fashioned; the ceilings are low, and the place isn’t very neat—I don’t know exactly what the trouble is, but I was compelled to tell the floor-walker, a very polite man, that it wasn’t in the Marshall Field class.... At sea, I become angry, and half the time won’t take my bath, or shave, or dress for dinner, but when I am on land, I am good-natured, and thoroughly enjoy going about. It is a joy for me to poke around a strange town. On our return to Sydney we employed the same boy who showed us about on our first visit; we liked the little man, although we could not understand half he said. At the Anthony Hordern store today, we wanted to go up to the art department, but the elevator man could not understand my pronunciation of the word Art. The boy had heard the floor-walker recommend that we visit the Art department, so he pronounced the word Art, and the elevator man understood him.... The floor-walker wanted to introduce me to young Anthony Hordern, but I asked to be excused. No doubt the son was like a sailor on the “Sonoma:” Captain Trask said he wasn’t worth much except to play the part of “Neptune” when the ship crossed the line.... I am good-natured now, and intend to dress for dinner tonight, and drink coffee in the Winter Garden afterwards, but as soon as I go on board the “Anchises” at Adelaide, I expect to be mad again. The sea knocks me, and I can’t help it. And it will knock you, if you fool with it, and have lived in a prairie country a good deal.... Adelaide has been much interested in the fact that there is a smart city in Australia named Adelaide; it is at this town we take ship for South Africa. She has also been interested in Cape Howe, and Lord Howe Island; but I called her attention to a historical fact today which had previously escaped her. It seems that in the early days, one of the famous bush-rangers was Michael Howe, a convict who had been a sailor. He was sent here to serve seven years for robbery, but he escaped, and joined a band of bush-rangers. He soon became their chief, and ruled like a tyrant. He was also very haughty, calling himself “the governor of the range.” The governor of the colony he called “the governor of the town.” A price was placed on the head of Michael Howe, and one day a sailor named Worral, also a convict, brought it in. Worral received the promised reward, and was sent back to England a free man. No convicts have been sent to Australia from England since 1868.... You may think I grumble about ships a good deal. You mainly hear grumbling on shipboard. Whoever tells the truth will confess that he didn’t have a very good time at sea. When I went on the trip to the West Indies, I did so well that I fancied I was becoming a sad sea-dog. This experience induced me to undertake the present journey; but I know now that my sea-legs are wobbly. I can get along well enough on land anywhere, but I do not understand the ways of ocean-going crews, or of those strange persons who pretend to like ship voyages.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6.—This morning we went with the Blaneys to inspect the “Prince Waldemar,” the little ship on which they will sail next Saturday for the Philippine Islands and China. Except that it is small, we were delighted with it. The servants are Japanese, and the sailors of a brown race with which we are not familiar. The Blaneys have a stateroom with two windows; it is so large that the chief steward of the “Maunganui” would have crowded at least six into it. Never travel on a popular ship, or fall in love with a beautiful woman who has many admirers. The servants of the “Prince Waldemar” were as grateful for a little attention as an old maid. The boat is said to have excellent management, but it is only half as big as the “Sonoma,” and the “Sonoma” is a pony. The “Prince Waldemar” is a 2,700-ton boat; the “Anchises,” on which we sail for South Africa, is 12,000 tons. Any ship under 17,000 tons is a crime. There are no real ships in Australian waters; if a real ship should visit Sydney, people would come from New Zealand, and travel four and six in a room, to look at it. A ship of 12,000 tons is referred to as a “Leviathan of the Deep” in the papers here. The “Baltic,” on which I crossed the Atlantic not very long ago, is a 38,000-ton ship; and, when the weather is rough, it is none too large. The Hamburg-American company is building a ship almost twice as large as the “Baltic.” ... Near the “Prince Waldemar” lay the “Ventura,” sister ship of the “Sonoma,” and which sails for San Francisco next Saturday. We went on board, and it was like a visit home, as it is exactly like the “Sonoma” in every detail. We showed our “Sonoma” pictures, and soon had members of the crew interested. Among other pictures, we had one of the “Ventura,” taken at sea when we passed it on Christmas day. The American flag was displayed at the ship’s peak, and it looked as good to us as it probably looks to an old soldier on Decoration Day.... We meet traveling acquaintances every day. This morning we met Mr. Adams, the life insurance man, whose wife was so ill on the “Sonoma,” and who was so devoted to her that the men were proud of him. “I am staying at the Wentworth,” he said; “it is twice as good as the Australia.” The Australia Hotel is the best in Australasia (which includes New Zealand), and of course many hotels are said to be superior to it. Mr. Adams is meeting his wife’s kin for the first time, but I neglected to ask him if he suited.... We also met the Sandersons. We greatly admired Mrs. Sanderson, in spite of the fact that she is English. She was coming over to meet her husband’s people for the first time, and we predicted she would be satisfactory; but she was fearful—people are so particular in cases of that kind. Mr. Sanderson, however, told me that his folks dearly love his wife. Mr. Sanderson is the man who operates apple orchards in Oregon, and they leave for home on Saturday, on the “Ventura.” ... At 7:40 in the evening we resumed The Traveler’s Trot, and departed by train for Melbourne, 585 miles. The railroad is standard gauge, and the sleeper very good. As usual, we found the train crowded. Melbourne is almost as large as Sydney, yet there is but one railroad between the two cities, and this runs but one train a day: a train in three sections, leaving at 7:40, 8 and 9:30 P.M. Between

Kansas City and Chicago there are at least five direct lines, and each line runs numerous through trains daily: morning, noon, and night. The government lines do not pay as high wages as our privately owned lines. The train on which I traveled between Sydney and Melbourne is the best in Australia; it may be compared with the Pennsylvania Limited between Chicago and New York. The conductor, or guard, received $3 a day. The engineer received $3.75 a day, and the fireman $1.75. Engineers on freight trains here receive as low as $3 a day. The wages of similar employees in the United States are certainly double.... The train made good time, and I slept better than I usually sleep in a sleeping-car. The sleeper was not gaudy and heavy like a Pullman, but it did very well. The only attendant was a white man, who made up the beds as well as took the tickets. The sleeping-car fare from 8 P.M. to 7 A.M. (when we changed to cars of another gauge), was $2.50. The charge for a similar service in the United States is universally $2. The train fare was about two and a half cents a mile; in Kansas, the universal charge for first-class passengers is two cents a mile. The time was rather fast, but as the cars were light, the train was noisy and unsteady. The people in Australia are more accustomed to Americans than are New Zealanders, and we do not attract so much attention, but they immediately spot us as Americans. I have never in my life, anywhere, met as many polite people as I have met here and in New Zealand; I believe I have said this before, but I wish to repeat and emphasize the statement.... I think I detect a slight difference between New Zealand and Australia: the last named is more prosperous, and does everything a little better. Australians have a little of the swagger and strut you detect in Chicago people, whereas New Zealanders are as modest as people living in St. Louis, or any other less prosperous and enterprising city.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7.—In the wash-room of the sleeping-car, early this morning, I met an American, a Boston man, who has been a gentleman farmer in Australia for twelve years. He told me he owned 52,000 acres of land, and that whereas he came here with nothing twelve years ago, he would not take a million and a half dollars for what he owns now. He originally visited the country on business, thought he detected great possibilities, and came here to live. He didn’t know corn from barley when he began, but applied business rules to farming, and has succeeded. I expressed surprise as to his large land-holding, whereupon he told me that in the interior there are sheep farms five hundred miles square, or as big as the state of Kansas. This land is leased from the government at a penny an acre. Artesian wells three thousand feet deep are being bored, and these wells are greatly improving the arid districts. There are plenty of stock farms in Australia 150 to 200 miles square.... The Boston man pays a good deal of attention to dairying, although he is interested in all branches of farming: fruit, vegetables, grain, stock, etc., and employs 280 men. Farm wages are lower here, judging from what he told me, than in the United States. He has no renters on his land; he calls that “the lazy, shiftless way.” He says the people here do not know the meaning of hard work; that they work only five days a week, and have very short hours, whereas he has always worked long hours every day; and it agrees with him, for he is stout, and looks exactly like a prosperous business man. He owns thousands of sheep and cattle; and if I did not make an error in my notes, he told me he made $175,000 from his land last year. I remember the statement particularly because he had just been telling me about an income tax lately imposed, and which hit him hard. One tract of his land, 2,500 acres, cost him $150,000, counting an irrigation plant which he built; but lately he refused $225,000 for it. He predicts that as soon as Americans find out the opportunities for making money here, they will come in flocks. He told me of one piece of land that is worth $400 an acre, and which has been producing corn at the rate of 100 bushels per acre for sixty-five years, without manuring. This is choice land in a choice district, and perhaps the statement is exaggerated, as we exaggerate when we talk of forty bushels of wheat per acre, or seventy of corn. The country through which we were passing looked very dry, but the American said it was good land; the famous chocolate land of Australia, so named because the soil has a reddish cast. “We have been having a drouth for two months,” he said, “and the dry weather is good for the land.” He talked a good deal about “sour” and “sweet” soil. I said the expressions were new to me, and my companion laughingly replied that he was forgetting all he ever knew about America; he made me think of an Englishman who had traveled a good deal in America, and had the rough edges worn off. At several of the stations through which we passed we saw a great deal of wheat piled on the ground, in three-bushel sacks. We also saw numerous twelve-ox teams along the country roads, hauling sacked wheat to market. Wheat is harvested here in a fashion which seems better than our way. A machine slightly larger than our harvester is used. This machine pulls the heads off the wheat, and threshes them; the grain is then put into sacks, and dumped on the ground, as our harvesters dump the twine-bound sheaves. A number of Australian gentlemen farmers had joined the conversation by this time, and they all assured me that such a thing as a thresher is almost unknown here. Asked where the machine came from that harvested and threshed the wheat in one operation, they said they were supplied by the International Harvester Co., of America; also, by an English company. I was compelled to confess I had never seen such a machine, or heard of one. Along the road I saw numerous wheat-fields which had evidently been treated in the manner indicated; the grain heads had been frayed off, and the stalks left standing, for sheep pasturage. The gentlemen farmers told me of one man who had tried a new experiment in wheat-raising. He cleared his land, but did not break, or plow it, as we say; instead, he drilled in his wheat on the unbroken land, and followed the drill with some sort of farm implement which slightly covered the seed; possibly it was a harrow—I did not quite understand the term used. The season was exceptionally favorable, and the wheat made an average of thirteen bushels per acre. The land on which the experiment was tried was worth about $25 an acre. The rainfall here varies from six to sixty inches, but the heavy rainfall usually comes in torrents, when it is not needed. In the center of the country, at points farthest from the coast, there is almost no rain at all. We were passing through what is possibly the best section of Australia, and it looked very dry to me; I saw almost no rivers or creeks. It reminded me of India, or Colorado, or California, but my traveling acquaintances said: “Ah, yes; it looks dry now, after two months of drouth, but when the rain comes it will look as green as your country.” I said: “It is evident that you run fewer sheep per acre here than in New Zealand.” They admitted it, but said the volcanic soil of New Zealand was much inferior to the chocolate soil of Australia; New Zealand has more rain than Australia, but not as good a soil, a fact I had myself noticed.... Wheat piled on the ground in sacks, seemed very shiftless to me. I saw no grain elevators, such as we have, and when the wheat is shipped, it is loaded in open box cars; no protection from the weather. But in spite of many evidences of a dry country, you see many evidences of prosperity here, too. Australia is almost as big as the United States, but has only five million people; it doesn’t need to feed a dozen sheep per acre. I also heard much of irrigation projects, and the country seems to be booming.... At 8 A.M. we changed to another train; to a railroad with a gauge of five feet three inches. The standard gauge of the world is four feet eight and a half inches; the usual narrow-gauge is three feet six inches. The train on the broad-gauge—5 feet 3 inches—had a diner, but we could not get in, so we ate breakfast at a railway restaurant. The broad-gauge train also had a parlor car, in which we had reserved seats, and were very comfortable. We stopped every two or three hours, to permit the passengers to drink tea. The train was a fine one, but it could not be compared with our best trains, and was badly crowded, as is the usual custom over here in all public places. At ten minutes after one in the afternoon, we reached Melbourne.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8.—At Sydney, we had heard of 107 in the shade at Melbourne, but found the weather very pleasant. In a very gentlemanly sort of way, Melbourne and Sydney are jealous of each other. They are of about the same size, with Sydney in the lead, and forging ahead rapidly; but Melbourne has the capital, and this is a bone of contention. To get rid of it, there is a plan to build a capital in the interior, as we built Washington to patch up the quarrel between cities anxious for the national capital. But Melbourne will indefinitely delay building a capital city in the sage-brush of the interior; I have heard this guess made many times.... I have been particularly pleased with the hotels in Australia and New Zealand, and am inclined to believe that Menzie’s, in Melbourne, is the best of the lot. I have a telephone in my room, and a big wide bed, and the meals are surprisingly good. The price is $3.60 per day, including everything. I was recently at the Sherman House, in Chicago, and paid $3.50 per day for a room. What we call “the European plan” is almost unknown at hotels here.... Melbourne is a better town than I expected to find it. Its citizens admit that Sydney is larger, and growing more rapidly; indeed, I have heard them say Sydney will continue to grow more rapidly, as it has a better country around it. But Melbourne is a beautiful city, and Sydney has nothing to match its St. Kilda Road. This is a great driveway leading from the city to a sort of Coney Island. This driveway is lined with flowers, green grass and beautiful homes. And I did not see a bathing-beach in Sydney as handsome as St. Kilda beach. Melbourne has wider streets than Sydney, and seems to be more modern. “Don’t you think,” one man asked me, “that Melbourne is more like one of your American cities than Sydney?” The people here are as familiar as the people of New Zealand with the fact that we are Americans, but they see more Americans, and are not so much interested in them. Every man I talk with reminds me that I am an American; always politely. I went yesterday to see about my baggage. “Don’t you find our system almost identical with yours in the United States?” the very agreeable and accommodating baggage agent asked. And the system of handling baggage here is the same as our system.... I think the people of Melbourne are sick and tired hearing of Sydney’s beautiful harbor; particularly as Melbourne’s harbor is not very large. There is a great bay here, but it is not a harbor; it is almost as much of an open roadstead as Manila bay.... Melbourne has cable cars, but the system was not adopted because of hills, for the city is almost flat. I enjoyed riding again in the front end of a grip-car, as I used to do in the old days in Kansas City. On one line, the fare is six cents per passenger for riding the shortest distance. I saw one short electric line; also, one horse-car line.... Years ago, the boomers declared that Melbourne needed a Convention hall, and one was finally built, after every citizen had been bored for a contribution, and soundly abused because he did not give more. Now the boomers are kept busy to find use for the hall. This month it is the scene of a Manufacturers’ exhibition, and I saw a good many interesting things there yesterday afternoon. There is an aquarium in connection; and at this place I saw the most interesting thing I have seen since leaving home—a monkey mother with a baby four or five weeks old. Monkeys always interest me, but this monkey with a baby was so much like a human mother that I watched her half an hour. The monkey baby was not well, and the mother watched over it precisely as a human mother would have done. Occasionally the baby played with its toes, as you have seen human babies do. The mother gave all her attention to the baby; she did not neglect it for a moment. There is a human quality about monkeys that always attracts me. One I saw this morning at the zoölogical garden was an old chap, and he was frowsy and irritable, as old men are, and the younger ones were afraid of him, and scampered out of his way.... We are still meeting “Sonoma” passengers; we encountered one at this hotel last night—a Mr. Smart, a London publisher. Another passenger on the “Sonoma” is a newspaper man here, but we have not yet seen him.

... The eggs used at Menzie’s hotel are labeled. The two I had for breakfast were marked with a rubber stamp in this fashion: “A. J. Paine, The Sisters, Teremo; February 6, 1913.” ... This morning, while at St. Kilda beach, we looked at the many ships in Port Melbourne, and distinguished a big blue funnel. It belonged to the “Anchises,” of the Blue Funnel line, and we will live on it for three weeks, beginning next Wednesday. It started from Sydney a week ago, but we will join it at Adelaide, for which city it sails tonight.... I was talking today with an intelligent Australian, and he says that in three or four years the cost of living here has increased one-fourth, owing to the advancing prices for labor.... In both Sydney and Melbourne, I found crowds around employment agencies. This surprised me; I thought every man who wanted work here, had it.... In coming from Sydney by rail, we saw hundreds of piano-boxes along the way. Each box contained an advertisement for the Steck piano. It was a new use for empty piano-boxes.... Here, when a doctor charges a big fee for an operation, the newspapers make a fuss about it. The Sydney papers were full of a sensation of this kind the day I left there. It is a fashion that might be copied by American papers; great outrages are perpetrated by some doctors in the United States, and nothing is said about it.... I have heard a great deal about rabbits in Australia; they are said to be so numerous as to be a curse. Still, while riding through the country yesterday on a railroad train, I saw two boys out hunting. One of them had three rabbits, and the other had four. Considering the rabbit stories I have heard, I thought the number quite modest. At another place, I saw a boy out hunting, and he had but one rabbit. Australia looks about as I expected it to look, except the rabbits.... At the zoölogical garden in Melbourne, there is an exhibit labeled: “American Cats.” And that’s exactly what they are: plain cats, such as you see around any American home.... At 4:15 we drove to the station, and a quarter of an hour later left for Adelaide, capital of South Australia; distance, 508 miles. The train is a better one than that running between Sydney and Melbourne, and we were told that the sleeper in which we had engaged berths would go through. The railroad is owned by the government, and the gauge is five feet three inches; eight and a half inches wider than our standard gauge. But the cars do not seem wider than ours, and certainly they were not so heavy. The rails were also light, although the train made good time. There was a dining-car attached, and at 6 o’clock we had an excellent dinner, at 96 cents each. There were only four others in the dining-car, and we had compartments to ourselves in the sleeping-car. The compartments are for two, but travel here is always light Saturday night, I am told. With a room to myself, I began almost having a good time, particularly as I have become accustomed to the pronunciations of the people, and they no longer distress me. On the dining-car bill of fare, this was printed: “Waiters are not permitted to accept tips, on pain of dismissal.” But when I offered our waiter a tip, he ran the risk of dismissal, and took it.... The trainmen told me that they are often compelled to work sixteen hours a day, and that they receive a shilling an hour: that is, for a day of sixteen hours, $3.84. Government ownership of railways is certainly a mistake, so far as the men are concerned. The government can bluff employees easier than a private employer.... I shall always remember the town of Ballarat, the largest interior town in Australia, with a population of 40,000. It was at this town that I lost my luck, and a man was assigned to my compartment. But Adelaide’s luck continued, and she had a compartment to herself all the way. In addition to having towns named for her, she is lucky in other ways. I never have towns named for me; you never heard of a town named Ed., did you? ... We passed through one section of country which seemed to be noted for potato-growing. I remember we reached it after climbing a mountain of considerable height, and the potato-fields continued many miles. This must be the best section of Australia, since the railroad did not run more than thirty to sixty miles from the sea, which supplies the few rains Australia has. But the country looked very dry, and the soil thin.... We see no barns on the farms; in the United States, travelers remark that the barns are often huge, and the residences pitifully small. Possibly one explanation is that stock run out all winter here; it is not necessary to house them, or winter-feed. But the fact remains that Australia has no country like the best parts of Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, or a dozen other states that might be mentioned. Australia somehow reminds me of California, where an exceptionally clever people have made a great deal out of a semi-arid country. The farmers I know pay little attention to agricultural reports. The Australian farmers do, and greedily devour everything printed that concerns their business.... The dining-car in which we ate dinner has two sections: first and second-class. We paid four shillings for dinner, and the second-class passengers paid two.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9.—When I awoke this morning, the train was running rapidly through the bleakest country I have seen in Australia or New Zealand. This is the land settlers are encouraged to “take up,” and improve. It did not look to be worth ten dollars a quarter-section, but occasionally I saw a settler’s cabin. A trainman told me that the original settler rarely did well, but that the man who bought him out for almost nothing, often did quite well. Suddenly we came in sight of the Murray river, the only considerable stream in Australia, and navigable for small boats a thousand miles above where I saw it. Soon after, we crossed the river at a little town, and stopped for breakfast. From the railroad bridge I saw several steamboats, and rather extensive facilities for loading and unloading freight.... Remember that in passing through the bleak, dry country referred to above, we were not fifty miles from the sea, and that the rainfall decreases toward the interior of the country.... This morning we began seeing plenty of rabbits; many times, forty or fifty were in view at the same time, and we are now satisfied.... A gentleman on the train who lives in the Fiji Islands, says that not long ago there, more than thirty-six inches of rain fell in one day; the government rain-gauge records thirty-six inches, but this filled, and ran over. It is a pity that the industrious Australians cannot have some of the rain that goes to waste in the Fiji Islands, where the inhabitants are shiftless.... Our first view of Adelaide was from a mountain, where the railroad runs. It is a city of 180,000, the capital of South Australia, and located on an extensive plain, between the sea and the mountain. Adelaide is not located on the sea, as I had imagined; its shipping is done at Port Adelaide, twelve miles away. We reached the city at 10 A. M., and went to the Grand Central Hotel, a large, new place, but we were almost the only guests; at one time, we saw only two others in the dining-room, and never more than fifteen. The dining-room is very large and very fine, and a good orchestra plays for dinner, but there are almost no guests. On our floor we see no one; we have it to ourselves. We like the quiet, but the proprietor of the hotel must be suffering. We asked a waiter for an explanation, and he said Saturday, Sunday and Monday are usually quiet days. The town is much like the hotel; it is not crowded. Here, as elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand, the people are exceptionally polite. We were standing on the street this afternoon, somewhat confused about the proper car to take, when a policeman stepped up and asked if he could do anything for us. I do not know where the people learned their exceptional politeness; they certainly did not learn it from the mother country, England.... In this dry country, people like to hover around the words “river”

and “creek.” In a morning paper, I looked at a list of towns, and the first three were Tennant’s Creek, Brock’s Creek, and Powell’s Creek.... The newspapers here are very prosperous, as they are lately all over the world. Their great prosperity, I am told, has come within the past twenty years, and that is true everywhere. One Adelaide paper prints a department entitled: “Fifty Years Ago,” a brief résumé of events half a century old. One item reads: “A special harvest holiday train will leave Kapunda for Adelaide on Thursday, on account of the Agricultural Society’s exhibition,” etc.; so it seems that Adelaide is not at all youthful.... An advertisement in the morning paper read: “Wanted—Position by bird scorer.” ... Over here, the word Trust, which we despise, is used without the slightest delicacy. The street-railway company is unblushingly called the Tramway Trust in its own announcements. And just now there is some excitement because the Tramway Trust, in a disagreement with its employees, refused to accept arbitration. All the papers are full of labor-trouble news. It seems to me that in the United States we do not hear half as much about labor disturbances as we hear here. Every workingman who is not on strike, is discussing one, with a view of forcing another increase in wages. But labor rioting is not as frequent or serious here as in the United States; there are practically no “scabs” to assault—it is a rare thing to find a working man or woman who does not belong to a union.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10.—No country in the world makes more of parks, gardens and hospitals than Australia. And probably no other country makes as much of the Salvation Army. About the first thing I saw on my arrival in Adelaide was a street meeting of the Salvation Army, a feature of which was a good brass band of forty men. Two other things travelers from the United States will notice here: drouth and prosperity. I have seen no poor people; no evidence of poverty—yet how dry the weather is! In the section of country where I live, we have had two very dry summers in the past thirty-five years; but during those summers the country did not look as parched as the country looks everywhere in Australia.... About the only vegetables we get at the hotels here are potatoes, cabbage, and canned beans. Tomatoes are served occasionally, but they are smaller than those we get at home, and not so good. On the streets, we see many carts selling fruit, including strawberries.... The city of Adelaide and the young lady in whose honor it was named, are very much alike in one particular; both are very quiet. We see no crowds here: we had plenty of room on the train coming here, we have plenty of room in the hotel, and we have plenty of room on the streets when we ride or walk about. This afternoon we went riding in an automobile, and everywhere we found it quiet and dusty. There are no crowds on the street-cars; and it may be mentioned incidentally that the street-railway system of Adelaide could not be more complete than it is. One may go to any nook or corner of the city in a clean electric car, and one line runs to a seaside resort, a distance of eight or nine miles.

Fare, ten cents. All the cities in Australia have better street-railway accommodations than the country has steam-railway accommodations; it seems to me that the steam railways are not as numerous or efficient as the country demands, whereas I have everywhere remarked the excellence of street-railways.... In the United States, the privately owned railways cross the country from north to south, and from east to west, but the government-owned railways have not done as much for Australia. Comparing Australia with the United States, there is no railway across the continent, whereas we have five or six systems; nor is there a railway here crossing the continent from north to south. The Australian railways fringe the populous coast for a distance of fourteen or fifteen hundred miles; they take few risks, and do not attempt to make fruitful districts out of arid districts, as do the privately owned railways in the United States. Our railways have done more to develop the country than the government has done. Nor do the government-owned railways in Australia move perishable freight more promptly: at many stations along the road from Sydney to Adelaide, I heard complaints because the railway company did not provide cars in which to ship wheat piled on the ground. And when a car is provided, it is a small open flat-car, and does not hold much more than a big wagon. So far as I have been able to make out, railway rates are a little higher here than in the United States, and the service very much poorer.... We think we notice that women are rather better dressed in Australia than in New Zealand, and possibly a little better looking.... In every hotel dining-room here, we are always given ice-water; the waiters have heard that Americans like it.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11.—I celebrated my arrival in Adelaide with a slight illness, and the hotel people took quite an interest in me. The manager sent his regards, and wanted to know how I was, and when I went to the bath-room I usually met the maid, who spoke to me by name, and hoped I was better. Hotel servants here always know the names of guests. Adelaide took very good care of me, assisted by the maid on our floor. I told them that if they looked after me as faithfully as Mr. Adams looked after his wife on the “Sonoma,” I should feel satisfied. Mr. Adams was an honor to his sex; his wife was ill from the time she left Honolulu until her arrival in Sydney, and during all that time Mr. Adams was a marvel of devotion; even the women said he should really take a little rest. But he would never leave his wife’s side except when the women went down to sit with her; and even then, he walked about the decks in an obscure place, and didn’t seem to be longing for pleasure or company. And Mr. Adams was no amateur husband; he told me he had been married before. There was something about Mr. Adams which convinced me that, had opportunity presented, he could have played a stiff game of cards in the smoking-room, and bluffed his competitors to a standstill, but with a sick wife on his hands he was gentleness itself. He didn’t propose to be talked about by the women on board, and I think he was the hero of that particular voyage of the “Sonoma.” ... This has been as hot a day as I have ever experienced anywhere, and the tea-drinking has been enormous. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon we were attracted by a sign reading, “Strawberries and cream,” and the place was crowded with women shoppers drinking tea. No one was buying ice-cream, or the “American soda-water” advertised, but all were drinking tea; every woman was served with a pot, and usually she drank two cups. This is the universal rule here; tea in the afternoon. When we went back to the hotel, the girl clerk was taking her afternoon tea, which had been brought to her from the kitchen. By-the-way, business is picking up at the Grand Central; thirty-one came in to luncheon today. The hotel could easily accommodate three hundred. All the other hotels we have visited have been crowded. Before I leave Adelaide I must ask some one what the trouble is with the Grand Central. Perhaps one trouble is, it has rooms with baths, and other up-to-date improvements.... The best exhibit at the Adelaide zoölogical garden is the roses; I doubt if the famous rose show at Portland, Oregon, can show a greater variety or finer flowers. It seems to me that one-half of the area of Adelaide is taken up with parks, zoölogical gardens, botanical gardens, hospitals, museums, playgrounds, and other public utilities, and in the mountains not far away is a national park of thousands of acres. The people here do not neglect exercise or amusement. You see almost as many people in the parks on Monday as on Sunday.... Another peculiarity here is that in all small orchestras the flute is used instead of the clarinet. I have not heard a clarinet in Australasia, whereas every orchestra in the United States has one. Music is about the same everywhere; we hear the same music here that we might hear at home, in London, Japan, India, or elsewhere. One evening, at dinner, the orchestra played “Every Little Movement Has a Meaning of Its Own,” which is heard everywhere in America, and we coaxed the leader to play it again, for the luxury of being homesick. All the hotel orchestras seem to be paid by the guests; anyway, we always put something in a plate we find in front of the leader.... We find few American publications in Australia. The Ladies’ Home Journal we see in nearly all bookstores, and somewhere we found a real-estate agent displaying the Journal’s pictures of houses properly and improperly painted. The Saturday Evening Post is seen less frequently, and the American Magazine and Cosmopolitan occasionally. A lady in New Zealand told me she read the Ladies’ Home Journal regularly, and greatly admired it, and that it is well known among the women of her country. We see few American books at the bookstores; the bulk of them are published in England.... We are becoming tolerably tired of the kangaroo. Every city has a zoölogical garden, and a big collection of kangaroos. Also, a big collection of an animal called the Wallaby, which is so near like the kangaroo that a tired, hurried and indifferent traveler does not distinguish one from the other. Then there is the kangaroo rat, and the kangaroo idea is carried out in two or three other ways.... We Americans shouldn’t laugh too heartily because Australia was originally a penal colony. In the days prior to 1776, England, instead of keeping evil-doers in prison at home, sent them to work on the farms or plantations in America. After the Revolution, when convicts could no longer be sent to America, they were sent to Australia. In 1787, ten ships were sent to Australia. The ships contained a thousand persons, eight hundred of them convicts, both men and women, and the remainder were soldiers and marines to guard them. The fleet landed at the present site of Sydney, and thus that fine city of more than half a million people was founded.... The boomerang, of which we hear much, is a native Australian weapon made of hard wood. It is made in peculiar shape, and the black fellows (according to the story) throw it in such a wonderful way that it hits the object it is aimed at, and returns to the hand of the thrower. I doubt the story; such a feat as that described is impossible. We have seen no native blacks here, and they are scarce in the interior.... The years 1839 and 1840 were years of terrible drouth in Australia, and cattle and sheep were killed for their hides and tallow. Ten years later came a drouth still more terrible. Then in February came a day which is remembered as Black Thursday. The wind had been blowing a hot gale for days, and somehow a fire started. This swept over the parched earth with relentless fury, and the country was almost burned up; forest trees, farm-houses, wild animals, cattle and sheep, and many men, women and children, were consumed. When rain finally came, it came in such torrents that nearly everything left by the fire was swept away by floods. Australia has always had a battle with drouth and hot winds, but has steadily prospered in spite of these drawbacks. Its people are learning what to do, and what not to do, and great tracts of land formerly worthless are now productive. This is true everywhere; it is true in our own western states and territories. In the United States the rain belt is not extending westward, but the intelligence belt is.... The shop windows of a strange city are an interesting exhibit to a traveler; they are a complete history of the industrial habits of the inhabitants. The most interesting window I have seen in Adelaide contains photographs of amateur Lady Bathers. A clever genius who runs a bathing-house at the beach offered prizes of twenty guineas to the Lady Bathers receiving the greatest number of votes for perfection of figure. A great many young women who had a secret notion that they had Great Shapes, entered the contest, and an enterprising photographer is displaying pictures of the leading contestants. All the contestants must have visited the gallery and posed for pictures in bathing costumes. All of them pose in imitation of some classic figure, and the result is very amusing, for an amateur showing her figure is quite as amusing as an amateur appearing in a concert or in a dramatic performance. Some of the figures are so bad that you wonder their owners ever thought they were good, and all the poses are so awkward that the display is extremely amusing. You have no doubt been familiar with contests where young ladies ran for prizes as the most beautiful woman, or the most popular woman, in town, and wondered that the contestants considered themselves either beautiful or popular, but women running a race for perfection of figure, and submitting their charms to the public, is a still more amazing performance.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12.—An unusual thing in Australian towns is that seed stores sell a great variety of flowering plants; instead of buying sweet pea seeds here, you buy sweet pea plants five of six inches high. At one store in Adelaide, I saw a dozen different varieties of plants put up in small bunches, and offered at reasonable prices.... Australia and New Zealand are very Progressive, when active and powerful labor unions are concerned, but not a great deal is done for the quiet and patient farmers; there are no rural mail routes in either country.... There are more banks, trust companies, loan companies, etc., in Australian cities, it seems to me, than elsewhere. In some sections of the large towns I see almost nothing but financial institutions for blocks.... The people here not only know I am from the United States, but they know what section I am from. “You are not a New-Yorker?” a gentleman said to me this morning. I told him I was from Kansas. “My guess was Denver,” he said. He came within five hundred miles of locating me.... At all the hotels, we have noticed that the maids have false teeth. There is something in the water that is injurious to teeth; you see advertisements in the papers offering a remedy. In Australia, probably you see three times as many women with full sets of false teeth as you see elsewhere. And dentists here are like dentists everywhere, in that their false teeth can always be promptly detected.... The duck-bill, interesting because it is an egg-laying mammal, is found in Australia. It is supposed that at one time all mammals were egg-laying; later, these early mammals were replaced by more highly organized descendants. The duck-bill has a bill like a duck, fur like a mole, webbed feet, and is about as large as a terrier dog. It burrows in the bank, as a muskrat does, and thousands of learned men have journeyed to Australia to see it, as an interesting and rare link in the chain of life. An ant-eater having a bear-like snout, and also an egg-laying mammal, is found in Australia. Egg-laying mammals are found nowhere else in the world.... I have heard it said that the women of Australia are a year or two behind New York or London in the fashions. I do not know as to that, but it is certainly true that the shop girls in Adelaide are just adopting the big bunches of hair with which American shop girls disfigured their heads a good many months ago.... At 4 o’clock this afternoon we walked to the railroad station, and took a train for the Outer Harbor, to go on board the “Anchises.” The distance is fourteen miles, and the train made so many stops that we did not get our first sight of the ship until an hour later. It was lying not a hundred yards from the station where we left the train, and we went aboard at once. The Outer Harbor is a lonely place; nothing there except a railroad station and a loading-dock. Most of the passengers had joined the ship at Sydney or Melbourne, and looked us over critically as we walked up the gang-plank. I found I had a large room to myself, on the upper deck, and Adelaide had one just like it. Our baggage having been sent in the morning, we found it waiting for us in our rooms. There are 120 first-class passengers; no second-class, and no steerage. The ship is two years old, 508 feet long, with an unusual beam (which means width, and width means steadiness at sea), and altogether we are well pleased.... An old gentleman and his wife attracted our particular attention because so many had come to see them off. There were many children and grandchildren, and after the whistle had warned all visitors to go ashore, we stood beside the old gentleman and his wife at the rail, looking at the crowd. A woman in the crowd below was evidently a married daughter of the old couple we admired, and she had a nurse girl with her, and the nurse girl was carrying a baby.

“Mother,” the married daughter called out, softly, “did you say good-by to Daisy?”

Daisy was the nurse girl, and the fine old mother said she had said good-by to Daisy, but, to make it good measure, she said good-by to her again.... My room is considerably larger than the one I shared with three others on the “Maunganui.” I have two chairs, a clothes closet, and a chest of drawers, all of which were lacking on the “Maunganui.” On that ship I hadn’t a single hook on which to hang my clothing; in my room on the “Anchises” there are fifteen hooks. If I live fifty years longer, at the end of the forty-ninth year I shall still be telling with indignation of my room on the “Maunganui.” Four men in a room nine by ten feet is as bad as asking four men to use one bathtub at the same time.... At exactly 6 P.M. we got away as advertised.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13.—When we awoke this morning, rain was falling, and a heavy sea running, but owing to the ship’s unusual width, 60 feet, we did not mind the motion, and went down to breakfast in good humor. One of the stewards informs me that he has worked on many ships, and that the “Anchises” is the steadiest of them all. The weather is bad, but not many are seasick.... A lady at our table has five children and two nurses with her. “And,” added her husband, “at sea, five are quite enough.” These children are all boys, except one, and this girl is known as Tom, she is such a Tom-boy. The girl knows nothing about girls, and has never played with them, and the mother is rather glad of it: usually a Tom-boy humiliates a mother.... The passengers are very nice; a better lot than we met on the “Maheno” or “Maunganui.” Most of them are making the long journey to England.... We are now in the great Australian Bight, which, on the map, makes Australia look upside down. The rough weather of the voyage is usually encountered in the Bight.... In 1806, a certain Captain Bligh was appointed governor of Australia. This is the Bligh associated with the mutiny of the ship “Bounty,” one of the most thrilling stories of the sea. Some time prior to 1806, Bligh, as commander of H. M. S. “Bounty,” was sent to the South Sea Islands after trees and plants to be taken to the West Indies; the English have always been noted for trying to improve their possessions. I have forgotten the name of the island where Bligh went with the “Bounty,” but will call it Island No. 1. He remained there a considerable time; long enough for his sailors to become well acquainted with the natives. Finally, when the “Bounty” sailed for the West Indies, the sailors were mutinous, as they had made friends in Island No. 1, and did not wish to leave. Captain Bligh was a hard man, and, noting the discontent of the sailors, gave them extra duties; if there was nothing else for them to do, he made them polish the anchor. One night, as Captain Bligh sat in his cabin, he was seized from behind by three sailors. He was bluntly told to get into one of the small boats, and row where he pleased; the sailors said they were going back to their native wives and friends at Island No. 1. Seventeen members of the crew, including all the officers, chose to go with the captain, and, with a scant supply of water and provisions, were set adrift in an open boat. Captain Bligh was cruel and ill-tempered, but an able seaman, and, after a voyage of four thousand miles, landed on the coast of Java. Most of his companions died as a result of the hardships through which they passed.... But the history of the mutineers is still more interesting. They returned to Island No. 1 in the “Bounty,” and, collecting their wives and other particular friends among the natives, set sail for a remote island one of them knew about. I have forgotten the name of this island, too, though it is possibly Pitcairn, but I shall call it Island No. 2. Arriving at Island No. 2, the “Bounty” was burned, after being robbed of all its guns, furniture and supplies.... The mutineers quarreled a good deal among themselves; mainly about women. Every sailor had two or three wives, and the natives of Island No. 1 did not get along very well with the natives of Island No. 2. Many murders were committed, and at the end of twenty years only two of the original mutineers remained. These two had scores of half-breed children, many of them grown.... One day a sailing-ship stopped at Island No. 2, the first seen there since the mutineers landed, many years before. The captain knew the story of the “Bounty,” and rightly guessed that the two old sailors must have been members of the mutinous crew. On his return to England, he reported his discovery, and gave the authorities a chart by which the lonely island might be found. Soon after, a ship was dispatched to arrest and bring back the only two of the mutineers remaining.... After a voyage of months, the captain of the ship returned to England and made a strange report. He said he found the two mutineers had become preachers, and were doing wonderfully good work among the natives. The two old men had entire control of the island, and controlled it in the interest of decency and civilization; having become old, the last of the mutineers had quit quarreling over women, and were looking carefully after their stomachs and souls. The captain of the ship concluded it was best to let the two old men alone; and the English government shared his opinion. A few years later, the old men died, greatly to the regret of a large number of half-breed relatives. Captain Trask, of the “Sonoma,” once called at Island No. 2, when in command of a sailing-ship, and met both of the old mutineers; it was Captain Trask who told me the story I have briefly outlined.... Captain Bligh also had trouble as governor of Australia. He quarreled with nearly everybody, and finally was deposed by force. On his promise to return to England direct, he went aboard a waiting vessel; but he broke his word, and sailed to Tasmania instead. There he tried to force the people to receive him back as governor, but they soon grew tired of him, and forced him to leave the island. The result of it all was that Captain Bligh was made governor of Australia again, but for only twenty-four hours; the king probably realized that Bligh was quarrelsome, and no one was punished much for impudence to him. Finally Bligh was made an admiral, and that probably satisfied him.... The early days of Australia, when Bligh was governor, were very rough. The convict settlers had little fear and no respect for anyone, and did about as they pleased. In those days, drunkenness and crime were rampant, and the only way to make money was to sell whisky, pistols and bowie-knives.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14.—Rain fell again this morning, but the sea is smoother, and we have an excellent prospect of getting out of the Bight without serious trouble. After passing out of the Bight we shall enter a section of the ocean where the air is said to be particularly pure and invigorating; it comes from the pole without contamination with land, and many old, nervous men come to take a whiff of it on the advice of physicians.... Every morning we are offered iced watermelon for breakfast. It is said to be an American idea, but I have never heard of it before.... Every passenger is assigned to a place in a lifeboat, in case of emergency. I think this is a new idea since the sinking of the “Titanic.” I found this notice in my room: “IMPORTANT.—Your boat is No. 8 port. At your earliest convenience please make yourself acquainted with the position of your boat station. The boat station numbers are marked on the promenade deck rail, immediately below each boat, and your boat station is there. If the emergency arises, go to your boat station, and submit yourself to the orders of the man in charge.” ... Adelaide has been assigned to boat No. 2 port, so that in case of emergency we shall be separated; she might land on one island, and I on another. I find that the gentleman and wife who have five children and two nurses, are also assigned to my lifeboat, No. 8. But I shall not think of the necessity of spending days or weeks in an open boat with a family of five children; it would be worse than my experience on the “Maunganui.” ... There is an Eurasian on board. He is supposed to be as good as anybody, but there seems to be a prejudice against him. An Eurasian is the son or daughter of an European and Asiatic; the term particularly applies to the offspring of natives and whites in India. Some of the Eurasian women are very handsome, but their social position is so bad that many of the more sensitive ones commit suicide.... The “Anchises” is not fast; its run from noon on Thursday to noon today was only 326 miles. The ship has one custom which is entirely new to me: the time is changed every time a watch goes off duty. At sea, the watch consists of the officer and men in charge at any particular time. As a result, the time changes three or four times a day.

On most ships the clock in the companion way is set back or forward at midnight, and there is not another change for twenty-four hours.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15.—People living in a dry country a long way from the sea do not realize that it covers three-quarters of the surface of the earth. Ninety-six per cent of the water in the ocean is pure fresh water, yet so great is the bulk of sea-water that the total amount of salt dissolved in it, if deposited in a layer over the surface of the land, would make a bed over four hundred feet thick.... No one is able to say what is the source of the salt in the ocean. Probably the sea has always been salt, having become so when first the waters gathered on the surface of the globe; but all rivers that flow over the land carry salt, which they have obtained from the rocks and soil, so the sea is probably becoming saltier all the time, just as some lakes without outlet are being transformed to salt seas.... Off the coast of Australia for fifty or a hundred miles, the sea is two hundred to four hundred feet deep, but the depth grows greater as you leave the land, and between Australia and Africa, in places, the depth is more than five and a half miles, being greater than the elevation of the highest land above the sea-level. It has been calculated that the average depth of the ocean is more than 12,000 feet. The plains of the ocean bottom are the most extensive in the world. Here and there these plains are relieved by single peaks, like Bermuda, or groups of peaks, like the Hawaiian Islands.... On the bottom of the ocean there is a constant rain of sediment, formed by the death of animals which have taken carbonate of lime from the waters, and built it into shells and skeletons, which, when they die, falls to the sea bottom. The sea-bed is made of an ooze chiefly composed of remnants of these shells.... The cause of waves is friction of the wind. Waves rarely rise more than twenty or thirty feet; waves sixty feet high have been noted, counting from the lowest point of the trough to the highest point of the crest, but this is very unusual. A wave of large dimensions affects the sea to a depth of two or three hundred feet, and may last for a long time after its cause has disappeared; travelers in ships often run into a rough sea when the sun is shining brightly, and there is no wind. These big waves also cause destruction on the beaches, and the shore-line is always being worn away.... In most parts of the earth, the tide rises twice each day; every twelve hours and twenty-five minutes there is a high tide, with a low tide between. At Key West the tide rises only two or three feet; in some other places the tide rises sixty feet, and comes in as fast as a man can run. It is believed that in some way the tide is caused by the moon.... The sea is more interesting than the surface of the earth, but its story is scarcely intelligible to those who have not been trained in the alphabet of zoölogical technicalities. I read a book today about the sea, and have a headache from trying to understand it. All our rain comes from the ocean; it is said that the evaporation of the Red Sea amounts to eight feet per year, owing to the great heat of the countries surrounding it. One of the most important facts that has been established by modern investigation of the sea is, that there is no region in its vast extent that is devoid of life. Strange animals are found at the greatest depth the trawls of man have penetrated, and very wonderful are some of the forms of life found. The three great laws of nature are self-protection, food, and reproduction, and here the sea has wonderful tales to tell. Some sea animals reproduce by simply dropping a piece of their body, and other forms of marine life are so low that we can barely understand that it is life. There is a fish which hides from enemies by shaking its fins in such a manner as to scatter a considerable quantity of sand over its body. Another fish poisons its enemies; another gives a strong electric shock. Many fish are colored like the bottom of the sea, to escape their enemies; others resemble sea-weeds. And the sea is a vast slaughter-house; fish feed upon one another, and constant warfare is going on. The whelk attacks and devours animals as large as itself; hidden in the recesses of the whelk’s mouth there is a ribbon beset with numerous sharp little teeth, which, by a complicated mechanism, can be worked backwards and forwards in such a manner that it can bore a hole through very thick and dense shells; and, the soft parts being reached, a tube is protruded which dissolves and sucks them up into the animal’s stomach. Certain of the cuttle-fishes, as they pass slowly through the water from one point to another, are able to change the color of the skin so as to resemble the color of the rocks or weeds which are below them. Another very interesting feature presented by these animals is their ability to discharge suddenly a cloud of inky substance into the water, and are thus able to escape pursuit.... The corals are so numerous that they build great islands, very much as bees construct honeycomb. Some of these coral reefs are highly colored; when seen from a boat through two or three feet of water, they look more like a flower-bed than a mass of animals. The corals are so abundant that rocky islands hundreds of miles in extent are composed of their shells and skeletons.... You have heard of the phosphorescent light often seen on the surface of the sea. This light is caused by millions of little animals which emit a light, and they are so numerous that it is frequently possible to read at midnight on the deck of a ship. The same little animals may be seen in the water of your bath, if taken on shipboard at night.... On certain parts of the coast of the Samoan Islands, where we were a few weeks ago, the Palolo worm appears in great abundance in the early morning hours of one or two days at the beginning of the third quarter of the moon, in the months of October and November. As the worm is regarded as a very great delicacy by the natives, the days of its appearance are looked upon as the red-letter days of the year. It appears just at the beginning of dawn, in countless millions, on a date which may be accurately foretold by those familiar with the moon’s phases. As soon as the sun appears, the millions of worms disappear, and are not heard of again until another year.... There are fish that fly, as every traveler by sea can attest, and it is to avoid the bonito that the flying-fish leave the water. The bonito is able to leap fifteen feet into the air, which ability it acquired in pursuing its favorite food....

The largest existing animal, the blue whale, is found in the sea, and it attains the enormous length of eighty-six feet. Although living in the sea, the blue whales are air-breathers. They are able, however, to hold their breath for a considerable time under water. When they come to the surface to renew the air supply in their lungs, they first make a violent expiratory effort from the nostril, and drive a column of spray many feet into the air above them. This phenomenon is called “spouting,” and whalers are thus able to locate the animals. The skin of whales is often beset with barnacles, some species of which are found nowhere else but on these mammals. Parasitism is very common in the sea, and sometimes as many as four animals are found dependent on each other.... Some sea-water animals can only be induced to live in the aquarium when the water is kept as pure as it is in the open sea; on the other hand, several of the crustacea seem to flourish best in stinking and putrescent pools.... It is a fact generally accepted by learned men, that all animals are originally derived from ancestors that lived in the sea. In the birds and reptiles, as well as in the mammals, many things clearly indicate that their ancestors in remote periods, lived in water, and not on dry land. And when we consult the botanists, and find that they agree that all plants must have had a marine origin also, the case for the sea being the original home of all living organisms may be said to be complete.... We cannot tell in what form life first appeared upon the earth. Whether the unstable living substance called protoplasm was in the earliest conditions of the earth formed spontaneously by the chance combination of its elements, or whether some germ or other made a hazardous journey through space from another planet enwrapped in the casing of a meteorite, are questions upon which no light has yet been thrown by scientific observation or speculation. The majority of scholars believe that life originated at the bottom of shallow waters, or on the surface of the seas. Several naturalists believe that some free-swimming form of jelly-fish was the ancestor, and that from this simple start came, by millions of years of evolution, every living thing.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16.—The tallest man I have ever seen in private life turns out to be a clergyman of the Church of England, and early this morning he conducted holy communion in the music-room, which was attended by about a dozen women. At 11 A.M. he held another service, which attracted twenty-five or thirty. Both services were announced by tolling the dinner-gong like a church-bell. We call the tall man our pastor, and he will seem quite like it after we have been associated with him all the way to Durban. I have spent Sunday on three other ships, but no religious services were held.... Every Englishman, before he has known an American long, refers to the amusing manner in which Americans eat green corn off the cob. I suppose that seeing a room full of Americans eating corn off the cob is a funny sight that only foreigners can appreciate. An Englishman who sits at our table, and who lives at Johannesburg, says roasting-ears are widely grown in South Africa, and that

Englishmen there eat them in American fashion. In Australia, I noted that green corn is sold in fruit stores, as a rarity; I never saw it at the vegetable markets, or in the grocery stores. Australian and New Zealand gardeners do not raise the variety of vegetables we have in the United States.... There are fifteen children and a phonograph on board, so we do not lack for noise. The children are better behaved than American children, and under more control; the phonograph is of American make, a Victor, with wooden horn. There are five nurses with the children; one of them is employed by the tall clergyman. American clergymen are not so prosperous, as a rule, that they travel with nurses.... It is so dull on board that last evening the passengers went down to dinner at seven o’clock, and remained at the tables until 8:10. The “Anchises” is introducing an innovation which pleases me: it gives the passengers better rooms, and less to eat. We have plenty, but on some ships there is so much to eat that the passengers are tempted beyond resistance, and eat too much.... We have been passing the western point of Australia today, and the sea has been rough. But the “Anchises” has such a gentlemanly roll that we do not mind it. The ship has ten thousand tons of cargo in its hold, and cannot skip about as do ships lightly loaded. From Adelaide to Albany, the western point of Australia, there is no railroad. The distance is twelve or fourteen hundred miles. Had the government kept out of the railroad business, private capital would have built that gap long ago, and passengers from Australia to South Africa might avoid four days of sea-travel. We followed the ship by rail from Sydney, and would have followed it to Albany, had there been a railroad to that place from Adelaide.... The weather has been chilly, but the latter part of this week we will run into warm weather, which will continue until we reach home. As a result of the raw, chilly weather, and no heat anywhere on the ship, I had a siege with neuralgia, an entirely new experience for me. The only thing to do was to go to bed and cover up well, with a hot-water bag to my jaw. Fortunately I have the best steward I have ever drawn on a ship, and he paid me a good deal of attention.... A young Englishman who sits at our table tells a terrible story of Business. He says that in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he lives, he is often compelled to take thirty drinks a day, or lose trade. I would like to tell him what I think of the statement, but do not care to start a row on board. Any man who says he is forced to drink intoxicants or lose trade, tells a silly falsehood. A drinking man usually admires a man who doesn’t drink. The men who have been most successful in business have not been noted as boozers. But while I didn’t tell the young man what I thought of his statement, an elderly Englishman did. “The Americans,” the elderly Englishman said, “are the smartest business men in the world, and they do not drink as much as we do. And the drinking habit in America is becoming more unpopular every day, and will finally become disreputable.” I have noticed that while most Englishmen “pick” at Americans, they really have a high opinion of them.... I have spent part of the day reading a book entitled, “Around Cape Horn.” It is a common sailor’s experience in sailing from San Francisco to Liverpool. For weeks the ship had terrible weather; it seemed that wreck was inevitable almost every hour of the voyage. I am of the opinion that the writer made the voyage much worse than it really was, in order that he might have a tale that would appeal to publishers. I have spent many weeks at sea, on many ships, but have never experienced any of the rough weather this writer tells about. I have experienced much disagreeable weather at sea, but I have never seen a ship in any danger of swamping. The stories of storms at sea remind me of stories of battles. There will be a perfect rain of shot and shell; pandemonium will reign, and, from the book account, it would seem that not a single man could live to tell the tale. But when the casualties are listed, it is found that only two men were slightly wounded. What a terrific affair the Battle of Manila Bay was! Yet not a single man in Admiral Dewey’s fleet was struck by shot or shell, although the engagement lasted for hours.... The man who has a wife and five children, and two nurses, on board, was talking to me today.

“I suppose you have heard,” he said, “that a young man may marry, and his expenses will be less than before; in short, that two may live on less than one?”

I replied that I had heard the story.

“Well,” he said, “there is nothing in it.”

From noon yesterday until noon today, the ship’s run was only 312 miles. There was once a famous American sailing-ship, the “Red Jacket,” which did a better average than that for ten consecutive days. But it must have had a great run of luck. Sailingships often make less than a hundred miles a day, and, when the wind is very unfavorable, lose in twenty-four hours all they have made in three or four days.... We are followed every day by the albatross: great birds which sail for hours against the wind without moving a wing. The sailors say that the young, after reaching a certain age, and being made very fat, are deserted by their parents, and have nothing to eat for six months. At the end of that time they are able to fly, and seek food for themselves.... In the smoking-room today I heard a man say that every vicious person may be detected by looking at his ears. If the tops of his ears are as low as his eyes, look out for him; he is dangerous.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17.—The manner in which the male passengers on ships drink coffee in the smoking-room, after dinner, has been getting on my nerves; but just as I was working up a fine case of indignation, I found the custom did not prevail on the “Anchises.” On this ship those men who wish coffee after dinner, drink it in the dining-room, and none is served in the smoking-room. You cannot realize how unusual this new rule is unless you have seen the smoking-rooms of many ships filled with men drinking coffee after dinner. I wonder the captain of the “Anchises” dared order the change, but I have not heard any complaints.... Among our acquaintances are a Mr. and Mrs. Steele, of Sydney. Mr. Steele has been married twice, and talks a good deal about his daughter in London, and his son in Philadelphia. Some widowers who have married again, speak of “our” children, while others say “my” children; just as some men who have been married twice are always talking about it, while others keep quiet, and let you find out about their second marriage if you can. I don’t think Mrs. Steele likes the manner in which he talks about his son in Philadelphia, and his daughter in London, preferring that he say “our” son in Philadelphia and “our” daughter in London. Stepchildren also amuse me; they try so hard to show respect for pa’s new wife, or ma’s new husband, and fail so lamentably. There is always something unusual in a second marriage.... This is our sixth full day on the “Anchises.” Had we been on a fast boat on the Atlantic, we should be landing tomorrow. But this is a long trip, and we are only fairly getting started: we shall not land at Durban until a week from next Monday. Those who came on at Sydney have already been on board fifteen days, and, if they are going to Liverpool, they still have thirty-two days of it. A gentleman and his wife who are at our table came on board at Melbourne, and they will be on board forty-seven days.... Every woman in Australia and New Zealand wears a bracelet watch; the custom seems to be universal. In the United States women wear watches attached to chains of one shape or another, but here it is a universal custom for women to wear watches set in a bracelet on the left wrist.... I believe this is the dullest trip I have ever undertaken, and almost scream with horror when I realize that I shall not see land for another thirteen days. Fortunately we have not been seasick; the

“Anchises” is a wonderfully steady boat. But it is as dull on board as on a back street in a country town. Part of the passengers sit on one side of the main deck and part on the other, while some of them sit on the upper or boat deck. All of us walk about a good deal for exercise, and I think we tire of seeing each other go ’round and ’round. One restless woman is going most of the time, and I often hear the others growl: “If that woman would only sit down!” I fear we shall engage in fist fights before we reach Durban.... Two highly respectable spinsters from Australia have attracted my attention. On deck and in the dining-room they are so well behaved that I marvel at them; but this afternoon they became desperate, and left their side of the deck and came over to our side. And at dinner tonight I saw the bolder one looking about the dining-room, hoping to see something to talk about. If these highly respectable women are becoming reckless at the end of six days, what will they be doing in thirteen days more? ... A Sports Committee was organized today, to Keep Something Going On. But ship games are about as uninteresting as a Salvation Army street service. A subscription was taken up, to raise money with which to buy prizes for the winners of the games, and I heard it hinted that the promoters expect others to do the giving. There was no great demand for Sports, except in the minds of three or four men. It’s a good deal that way on land when a celebration is held, or a new church built, or money raised for a Y. M. C. A. building. I predict that the Sports Committee will not greatly relieve the dullness. One of the games is a special form of cricket arranged for the sea. A regular game of cricket is so dull that some of our most noted humorists have laughed at it, but sea cricket is much worse.... I was talking today with an Englishman who has lived in Australia a long time, and who married an Australian woman. He says it pleases Australians to be told they are like Americans, and it makes them very angry to be told that they are like the English. He confirms what I have noticed everywhere; that Australians and New Zealanders “pick” at the English constantly.... I am beginning to believe I can see a difference between the colonists and the English, although I couldn’t at first. A woman today told me of her troubles with servants in Australia, and her troubles are exactly like those I hear women complain of at home. There are English nurse girls and Australian nurse girls on board, but they do not mix. The English girls wear nurses’ costumes, but the Australian girls say that is beneath their dignity. One of these Australian nurse girls is not more than twenty years old, and has a full set of false teeth. There are many “American dentists” in Australia (one was shot by his office girl in Melbourne while I was there), and I judge they have a great deal to do.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18.—I read a good deal, as the ship has an excellent library; frequently I take out two books a day. One I read this morning is entitled, “The Cruise of the ‘Falcon.’” In 1880, an Englishman named E. F. Knight conceived the notion of taking a long voyage in a small yacht called the “Falcon.”

The vessel was only forty-two feet long and thirteen feet wide, yet he cruised in it for twenty months, going from England to South America, and thence to the West Indies, where he sold his boat, and took a steamer home. The crew consisted of Knight and three friends, and a boy. One of these friends, Jerdein, had been an officer on a P. & O. liner, and was a skilled navigator and seaman, while Knight was an amateur yachtsman of considerable experience; but the other two, Andrews and Arnand, were landlubbers. The boy was fifteen years old, and had been to sea several times. On the way to South America they stopped at several islands, and had a prosperous and agreeable voyage. Their undertaking was thought to be a foolhardy one, and the newspapers at the time devoted much space to the voyage, but the little “Falcon” turned out to be quite fast, and rode the seas well; two thousand miles were made in ten consecutive days off the coast of South America. Five months were devoted to a trip up the Parana and Paraguay rivers. At Buenos Aires, Jerdein, Andrews and Arnand concluded that they had had enough of it, and quit the little boat. Knight was not discouraged, and hired three Italian sailors, in addition to the boy. With these he put to sea, and had a very rough voyage.... There are two islands called Trinidad; one of them in the West Indies, and the other off the coast of lower South America. Knight determined to visit the latter island, and had a very remarkable experience. The landing was bad, and he found the island an unwholesome and inhospitable place. At one spot on the island he found a great lot of wreckage; it looked as though many foundered ships had drifted in there and gone to pieces. He believed treasure might be found in the wreckage, but the weather was stormy, and he did not know what moment the “Falcon” might be compelled to sail away for safety, so he gave up the treasure, and left the island, where he spent three or four very uncomfortable days. From Trinidad he went to Bahia, and to the Amazon, meeting with all sorts of adventures, finally landing at Barbadoes, where he sold the “Falcon,” and sailed for home on a steamship.... I suppose Knight elaborated his dangers and adventures; talkers do this, and I see no reason why writers should not. Many of his most remarkable stories he had second-hand; the wonderful incidents recorded happened a day, or a week, or a month, after he arrived at certain places. This is true of most very remarkable circumstances; the narrators do not say they witnessed them, but gentlemen they had every reason to believe truthful told them the stories, etc. Dozens of men have told me of the famous pilot-fish of New Zealand, which pilots all ships through a certain channel. None of these gentlemen have actually seen the pilot-fish at work, but they met a gentleman only last week, or the week before, who had seen it. By-the-way, a recent Sydney paper says the famous pilot-fish has not been seen in six months; it is feared that he has been killed by the crew of some whaling-ship.... Another favorite story is of the fogs in London, yet I have never seen anyone who has witnessed one of these fogs. And the Scientific American stated not long ago that the old-fashioned London fog has disappeared; that one has not been seen in a good many years.... Speaking of whalers, it is generally agreed that in the old days when that industry was flourishing and profitable, the Yankees were the smartest men at the business. Indeed, when an English firm built and equipped a whaling-ship, Yankees were employed to teach the English crew the business. I have been grumbling a little because of this voyage of nineteen days. The old whalers used to be gone three years on their voyages; sometimes they did not see land for ten months at a time. Capturing a whale was as dangerous as a naval battle. The sailors went after it in small boats, and a whale was rarely captured under six or seven hours.... The sea is supposed to be very dangerous. As a matter of fact, a sea voyage is not as dangerous as a railroad journey. Take a hundred thousand people who travel a given number of hours by rail, and compare them with a hundred thousand who travel a like number of hours by sea, and those traveling by sea will have very much the best of it, so far as safety is concerned. Indeed, going to sea is safer than staying at home. Ever remark the great number of people who are killed around home? The newspapers are full of dreadful accidents occurring in quiet, rural communities where life is supposed to be particularly safe. Every time a farmer hitches up a team, he runs a risk. A buggy-ride is dangerous; the hold-back straps are liable to break, in going down hill; and a buggy running onto the heels of a horse is almost sure to cause an accident. And public streets and roads are more dangerous than ever since automobiles became so numerous.... In seacoast towns everywhere may be seen thousands of old men who have spent their lives at sea almost without accident. An insurance company regards a seaman as a safe risk; as safe as a farmer. It isn’t the danger that should keep you off the sea; it is seasickness, and four in a room 9×10 feet. Nor is it the expense that should keep you off the sea. For this voyage of practically twenty days I pay $150; or $7.50 a day. It would cost that at a New York hotel for room and board. And there are sea voyages much cheaper than this one: there is a White Star boat running between Sydney and London, by way of South Africa, which charges about $5 a day for the journey. It combines first, second and third-class into one class, but is said to be very fair.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19.—We are the only Americans on board the “Anchises,” although a passenger from London once met an American who lived in Connecticut. The Londoner asked me today if I knew his Connecticut friend. I was compelled to confess I did not know him, although the London man said his friend was one of the prominent men of that part of the world.... It seems we are not a musical crowd; although a concert has been announced for the night before we reach Durban, there is no one to play the piano. I suggested to a member of the Sports Committee that some of us might learn, as we would have ample time, but he did not believe my scheme practical. A man on board has a graphophone, with sixty records, and this is going a good deal. Last night he loaned the machine to his nurse girl, and she gave a concert on the lower deck for the benefit of the crew. One of the firemen plays the violin, and the laundry girls, stewardesses and nurse girls danced with members of the crew. It was a bright moonlight night, and this social event attracted more attention than anything else we have had on board. There was a euchre tournament in the smoking-room, but it did not attract as much attention as the dance. Euchre is called a “nigger’s game” here; it is said to be so simple that niggers can learn it.... Women are in the smoking-room of the “Anchises” constantly, but some captains do not allow this: they say the smoking-room is for men, and that if women are allowed in the room, some of the men will keep out.... The Eurasian on board speaks no English, and, in addition, has had toothache for more than a week. Toothache is one of the dangers of the sea. Captain Trask told me that he once suffered seven weeks with toothache, when on a sailing-ship, and was not free from pain a moment during all that time. On a sailing-ship there is no doctor; the captain doctors the sailors when they become ill, and usually he doesn’t know much about medicine.... We have had an unusually smooth sea today, but the weather has been cloudy; we have not had a clear day since leaving Adelaide, although the sun occasionally shows itself for a short time.... The English people are as crazy about cricket as Americans are about baseball. A man who attends all cricket games, and knows all the fine points, is called a “barracker.” But he does not abuse the players, as do our baseball fans; a “barracker” seems to be more of a gentleman than a “fan.” ... I don’t believe I look at the sea more than once a day; usually, when I get up in the morning, I look out the window, and remark that the sea is smoother or rougher than yesterday, but that is about all. I have never seen anything beautiful or unusual at sea, except one evening when on the “Sonoma.” I was leaning over the rail forward, as the sun was setting. The rays of the setting sun were reflected in the waves rolled up by the prow of the ship; I could see all the colors of the rainbow, and the effect was very unusual and beautiful. But as a rule, the sea is never majestic, though it is frequently what the English call “nasty.” ... This is our seventh day out, and we have not seen a sail or ship. One day we saw a black spot which might have been smoke from a steamer, but that is all. Even the albatross have deserted us, and we are as lonely as lonely can be. The members of the Sports Committee are working hard to Keep Something Going On, but they are not meeting with any great success. It is amusing to see them hunt up players for the different games. The head of the Sports Committee is a fine old gentleman named Irons, a friend of ours, and we find a good deal of amusement in watching him worry around like the man who proposed a picnic which isn’t going very well. We try to take the Sports Committee seriously, since the other passengers would probably think us “funny” if we did not (if they do not already entertain that suspicion), but as a matter of fact the Sports Committee is a joke to us. “Well,” one member of the committee said to me this evening, “it has been a strenuous day.” I thought it the dullest day I ever experienced anywhere. We hear this evening that our friend Mr. Irons, head of the Sports Committee, is in bed as a result of the excitement of the day, and we are laughing at him, in which his wife joins us.... It is at least clean at sea; no dust and no dirt. If it were not for the idea of it, you might wear a collar a week at sea.... Somewhere out in this wilderness there is said to be a large island where the women greatly outnumber the men; of six hundred adults, five hundred are women. I have forgotten the name of the place, but I have heard the men talk about it a good deal. On this island, the men do nothing, and the women wait upon them with great cheerfulness. A man is at liberty to have as many wives as he pleases; the men tell very amusing stories about life on the island, and usually they tell them in the presence of the women, to adorn a moral. This paradise for men is known in a general way as “The Island,” and I am of the opinion that it is an invention of some man who has dreamed of such a place, after being imposed upon a good deal by women and girls.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20.—In Australia, what we call a tramp is known as a “Sundowner,” because of his habit of appearing at sundown, and asking for a night’s entertainment.... The best thing we have to eat on the ship is oatmeal, which is served every morning for breakfast. I have been neglecting this nutritious and palatable food for years, having drifted off to new breakfast foods extensively advertised, but I shall drift back to the Old Reliable, as I find it surprisingly good.... Opposite me on deck today sat a woman reading an English magazine. On the front cover was an advertisement of “Black and White” whisky. The magazine was about the size of our Ladies’ Home Journal; imagine that fine publication with a whisky advertisement occupying two-thirds of the front cover page.... A passenger named Grice was telling this morning of an uncomfortable experience. He was riding after cattle on the plains of Australia, when his horse fell over an ant-hill. The horse broke its neck, and fell on the man in such a way as to pin him to the ground. After six or seven hours, help arrived. There was no surgeon in the district, and the man was carried to Melbourne, 180 miles. Here he was operated on seven times, and is just out of the hospital, where he spent eight months. He is on his way to Mombasa, in Africa, to hunt. When surgeons and hospitals are mentioned, I find that the Mayos, of Rochester, Minnesota, are known everywhere.... I have heard that some men, when they return from a long trip abroad, are very conceited about it, and talk too much of their experiences. In case I am so fortunate as to return from this trip, I shall be very modest, and greatly admire those who had sense enough to remain at home. How I admire Uncle Bruce, of Potato Hill farm, who has nothing to do this winter except haul manure from town for his next year’s crop! What good things he has to eat down at the farm-house! And what an appetite he has! I wish I could change places with him. For dinner today we had venison and pheasant, but they tasted like leather. Game kept a long time isn’t fit to eat.... Last night there was a dance on deck, and members of the Sports Committee were indignant because of the small attendance. “We have worked hard to provide amusement,” they said, “and almost no one is dancing.” It has probably never occurred to the members of the Sports Committee that they are a nuisance rather than a blessing. It would be very much pleasanter on board if a Gay Time had never been thought of. I do not care to dance; nor do I care to have members of the Sports Committee urge me to dance. If I care to play quoits, or any other of the deck games, I do not need a Sports Committee to urge me. The members of the Sports Committee think it an outrage that Adelaide does not dance, and look at me reproachfully. I tell them I had nothing to do with it; that her parents are church members, and do not believe in dancing. This also greatly astonishes them. It wouldn’t surprise me if the members of the Sports Committee did not finally get into trouble with some of the other passengers who want to be let alone. I hear a good deal of grumbling in the smoking-room from men who are being constantly urged to dance, take part in the concert, play skittles, or quoits, or deck billiards, or sea croquet. The members of the Sports Committee remind me of five or six men who decide that a town needs another lodge, and bore all the other citizens to join. Wherever you go, on land or sea, you find impudent men who urge others to do things there is no necessity for doing. Our pastor, the tall clergyman heretofore mentioned, is far more considerate of us than members of the Sports Committee. Sunday morning he sends a steward about the deck tolling a gong, to give notice that religious services will shortly be held in the music-room; but those who do not care to attend are not reprimanded by the holy man for absence. I thoroughly dislike a man who is forever protesting because others do not accept his notions, or admire whatever he happens to admire. Always remember that what you regard as the greatest thing in the world may be regarded as the most useless by many worthy and intelligent people.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21.—On this ship are eighteen thousand frozen sheep carcasses, en route from Australia to London. In order to keep this meat properly, great refrigerators are necessary. This frozen-meat trade is the source of Australia’s prosperity; before it was inaugurated, Australian sheep were not worth much except for their wool and tallow; old-timers in Australia remember when a sheep carcass might be bought for a shilling. This frozen-meat trade is also carried on between South America and England, and the result is that the English have cheap meat. The people of the United States might have cheap meat, also, were it not for the tariff. Our admiration for the farmer is so great that we pay a third or half more for meat than is necessary, in order that the farmer may receive high prices for his live-stock. When an American goes to a meat market, would he cheerfully pay thirty cents instead of twenty for a piece of meat were it not for his Statesmen? I have always doubted that the people see the advantage of a high tariff; it is the Statesmen who are able to figure it out.... The men who thought of the frozen-meat scheme did a lot for humanity, but probably no one knows who they are; hundreds of men had a little to do with it.... The captain says a ship loaded with frozen meat arrives in England from Australia or South America every day of the year.... The “Anchises,” on its last voyage out to Australia, was in a great storm in the Bay of Biscay, and the ship’s doctor was seasick four days. “Tell me,” I said to the doctor today, “how a big storm at sea looks.” “Blessed if I know,” he replied; “I was sick in bed; I didn’t see anything of it.” ... My dining-room steward says the captain is always sick for a day or two after leaving port, but the other ship employees deny this. They say that on leaving port the captain has his meals served in his room, which is near the bridge, and thus the story of seasickness started.... We have had a bad sea all day, with drizzling rain. Not many are sick, owing to the ship’s unusual steadiness. It rolls and pitches, but gently, and I wonder the “Anchises” is not famous the world over for its unusual sea-going qualities. Some ships cut up at sea, however carefully they were built, while occasionally one will prove unusually steady. The “Maunganui” was a big ship, and very handsome, but it had a certain little movement of its own that was atrocious. While lying in my bed, the ship came up under me in such a way as to make me feel as though I were hanging on a clothesline, with the back of my head dangling against my heels.... The English have many customs and pronunciations I do not understand. How much do you suppose a hundredweight is in England? Not a hundred pounds, but a hundred and twelve pounds.

A ton, consequently, is not 2,000 pounds, but 2,240 pounds; and this system bothers every country with which England does business. The English also use the term guinea in reckoning money, although there is no such coin, nor is English paper money issued in guineas. A guinea is as much more than $5 as a pound is less. If the people of the United States should invent a slang term meaning $1.03, and occasionally use it in reckoning money, instead of the dollar, it would be about the same thing as the English custom of occasionally dragging out the word guinea, and using it, to confuse strangers.... Some Americans say, “Don’t you know?” in conversation, and it is a very bad habit, since the term is meaningless, and soon gets on the nerves of the listener. The English make fun of the expression, and represent all Americans as saying “Don’t you know?” It is a fact that too many of them do. But Australians add, “You see” to their statements a great deal. I believe a majority of the Australians say “Yis,” instead of “Yes,” and they have many other oddities of speech which grate on the nerves of Americans, who believe in pure as well as free speech.... On a rough night, the squeaks in a ship sleeping-room are worth mentioning. Last night as I lay in bed, I made note of the squeaks, and could distinctly count four different ones: two for each pitch, and two for each roll. When the weather is fine, there is no strain on the ship, and the squeaks disappear.... This morning at 10 o’clock the captain made a calculation, and said the time in Atchison was 10 P.M. Thursday night. He showed me how he figured it. Atchison is in 96 degrees longitude; therefore it is six hours and twenty-four minutes behind Greenwich time. The ship today is in 80 degrees longitude, and therefore five hours and twenty minutes ahead of Greenwich. To be exact, the difference in time between Atchison and the position of the ship today is eleven hours and forty-four minutes.... The lady who has five children and two nurses on board says that babies should be made to mind when six months old. I told her that in America we did not begin spanking that young; that our rule was to spank girl babies at eight months, and boy babies at one year.... Which recalls the fact that I have lately been reading R. A. Wallace’s “Malay Archipelago.” Wallace spent several years in that section in hunting the orang-utan, the monkey-like animal which is most like man. One day he killed an adult female, and found that it had a baby six or seven weeks old. This he tried to raise, hoping to present it to the British Museum. He found the baby orang-utan very much like a human baby. It cried for food, or when uncomfortable, and became so badly spoilt that he was compelled to spank it when it became four or five months old. Unfortunately the little orang-utan contracted an illness about this time, and all Professor Wallace could do was not sufficient to save its life.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22.—A howling gale has been raging all day. On the upper deck this afternoon, many of the passengers were soaked by a wave which came aboard. The wind is following us, and pushing the ship along; the sailors say that a head-wind would have resulted in as bad a day as is usually seen at sea. The decks are slippery, and those who go out are in constant danger of being soaked with spray. For a wonder, I am not seasick, and spent my time talking with passengers who have visited strange places. One man lived for a time in one of the remote islands of the Malay archipelago, where the natives wear very little clothing, and he says the men have the handsomest figures he has ever seen; that the marble figures in art galleries do not equal living examples in Borneo. The figures of the men are much superior to the figures of the women. Occasionally a very young girl will have a good figure, but never equal to a boy of the same age; men of thirty have splendid figures, whereas women of that age have no figures at all.... A bird known as the hornbill is found in Borneo. When the female has laid a sufficient number of eggs, the male seals her up in the nest, which is in a hollow tree, and compels her to sit until germination takes place. While the female is a prisoner, the male feeds her faithfully. Another bird deposits its eggs in a pile, covers them over with sand, and leaves hatching to the sun. A half-dozen hens will place their eggs in the same pile. When the eggs are hatched, the young are immediately able to look after themselves.... In some of the islands of the archipelago there are no judges, courts, or policemen, yet the natives are well behaved, and crime is almost unknown. This, my informant says, is probably the natural state of man; wherever crime is rampant among savages, it has usually been introduced by members of civilized races. In a state of nature, a man soon learns that if he expects his rights, he must respect the rights of others; therefore if he desires peaceable possession of his house, or his cattle, or his wives, he must respect the property rights of others. Crime seems to be the product of civilization, and not of savagery.... Captain Warrall says there is nothing in the story that he becomes seasick every time he leaves port. But he says it is a fact that when he goes to sea after a long stay on land, he suffers with a headache for several hours. This headache is due to the motion of the ship, and he believes most sea-going men are affected in the same way. The second engineer told me he had the same experience as the captain, and my room steward says that on leaving London or Sydney he always gets a headache, which does not entirely disappear until the second day out.... In the old days when I was a reporter on the Atchison Globe, I thought it a good item when I found a farmer’s boy with forty rabbits. I found a better rabbit story than that today. On this ship are one hundred and eighty thousand frozen rabbits, en route for London, every one of them trapped. Rabbits in our country are ruined by being shot; we have never learned the art of trapping them. I have been familiar with rabbits all my life, but never knew a man who could trap them. In Australia, rabbit-catching is a trade, and the rabbit-catchers have a union, which was raising quite a disturbance while I was there, by threatening a strike. The rabbits caught in Australia and shipped to England bring in a tremendous sum of money annually; I have forgotten the figures, but the total is enormous. Rabbits were imported into Australia by members of an energetic Sports Committee. In the early days certain of the citizens of Australia said: “Our people have no amusement; let us import rabbits from England, that there may be something to hunt.” So a Sports Committee was formed, and members of it held public meetings, and passed subscription papers, and abused those who did not give. As a result of it all, rabbits were imported from England, and they are now a far greater pest than English sparrows are in the United States.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23.—Our tall pastor conducted Holy Communion services at 7 o’clock this morning, in the music-room. There were four present: the pastor, his wife, his nurse maid, and myself. I am a very early riser, and this service was the only thing going on; besides, I nearly always sympathize with a small attendance. Our pastor carries two uniforms with him; a white one fringed with black, and another entirely of black, which he wore this morning. I am inclined to believe that he is Low Church. The most animated and vicious church row I was ever familiar with started because a certain pastor insisted on using wafers in his communion service, whereas a bossy woman in the congregation preferred bread. Bread is Low Church; wafers represent the High, I am told.... Although only three persons attended the communion service, out of a total of possibly three hundred on the ship, our pastor does not go around making sneering remarks about his efforts not being appreciated, as do members of the Sports Committee. I am inclined to believe that the tall pastor is right. The communion service was advertised by posting notice of it on the bulletin board. The passengers know about hell, and about its rewards offered by the church; the pastor is quite right in letting them alone. As old-fashioned children used to say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.... We feel tonight that we are almost within sight of Durban; we are still more than two thousand miles away, but we should be there in six more days, and we shall not mind the last two or three, in making preparations to land. The sun came out this afternoon, and the sea is smoother, so that we are all feeling better.... Back of the smoking-room there is a balcony where the passengers often sit. The young engineers also come up from the deck below, and sit in the balcony at times, when off duty. I have become acquainted with a number of them, and ask them questions about the sea. They explained to me where the Pacific ocean ends, and the Indian ocean begins. The line is somewhere in the vicinity of Melbourne, so that Australia is partly in the Indian ocean and partly in the Pacific. Flowing eastward from Africa, there is a great current. After reaching the vicinity of Melbourne and Tasmania the current turns, and flows westward five or six thousand miles. The two currents are a thousand miles apart. The “Anchises” came out in the current flowing eastward, and did not stop at Durban, but, on its homeward voyage, it is in the current flowing westward. The engineers say this current probably caused the Indian ocean to be distinguished from the Pacific....

At dinner tonight, the decline of American shipping came up. “When I went to sea as a boy,” Captain Warrall said, “the American clipper ships were the pride and envy of all seamen. They could sail all around the English, and the Maine Yankees could do it today, as they have repeatedly proven in the international yacht races. I often think it is incorrect to speak of the decline of American shipping. Some of the finest ships afloat should carry the stars-and-stripes, since they are owned and controlled by American capitalists. Were it not for the American policy of protection, the seas would glisten with the stars and stripes. As a famous American says, ‘There’s a Reason’ for American cargoes being carried in foreign ships. The reason is that English seamen receive about half as much pay as your seamen receive. The fact that you Yankees do not own ships is really another of your cute tricks; you get your carrying done cheaper in another way.” ... A citizen of Melbourne was at the table, and he said he saw the fleet of American warships come into that harbor a few years ago. He spoke very highly of the crews; he was on the streets of Melbourne constantly, and saw thousands of American sailors, but did not see one who was drunk or rude. It is the commonest sort of thing here to hear both English and Colonists speak in the highest possible terms of America and the American people.... I frequently hear this, too: “You Americans give tips too liberally.” So far as I am concerned, I only conform to a custom established by the English. I give because it is the custom, and give no more than seems to be necessary to prevent a riot. The English also have an exaggerated notion of tipping in America. One of them told me today that he understood that when a bell-boy took a guest to a room in an American hotel, he was impudent unless he received a dollar. Nothing in the story, of course; and many of the other stories told of Americans over here are equally untrue and absurd.... On the “Maunganui,” in which I sailed from New Zealand to Australia, there was no concert. But an active, meddlesome man could have arranged one, and organized a Sports Committee to unnecessarily bother at least three-fourths of the passengers. Behave yourself, and let others alone, is a good rule.... At 3 o’clock this afternoon a woman slipped into the music-room, and began singing, playing her own accompaniments. There is nothing quite so absurd as an amateur singer who cannot sing much, and who is quavery and uncertain. This woman was very bad, and I understand she is to appear at the Grand Concert arranged by the Sports Committee.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24.—There is a sick woman on board, and the other women pay her a great deal of attention. Two of them attend her constantly, in her room and on deck, and a dozen others would gladly do as much, if opportunity presented. Another woman passenger looks after the sick woman’s two children.... There is also a sick man on board. He is very ill, and I doubt if he will live to reach Liverpool. Occasionally, on fine days, a steward brings him on deck, where he looks pale and unhappy, and pants for breath, but as a rule he is confined to his stuffy room, where no one sees him except the doctor. I have never seen a sick man more completely neglected, whereas the woman passenger who is ill receives every possible attention. The women say the sick man prefers to be let alone, but I don’t believe it. The sick man is a tragedy in loneliness. He came out on the “Anchises” from London, hoping the voyage would benefit him, but it has harmed him instead.... The sky is very brilliant at night, and we see many shooting stars; and every time we see a shooting star we wish that Mr. Riley will fall overboard. Mr. Riley is indulging in a great big drunk, and I hear he has borrowed money from half the men on board, promising to pay on arrival at Durban. Mr. Riley is a very active member of the Sports Committee, and prominent in everything except the Holy Communion services held every Sunday morning. I do not believe he has heard of these, as he gambles in the smoking-room until a late hour every night, and does not get up very early. If Mr. Riley should hear of the early communion service in the music-room, he would certainly advise the tall pastor as to its ceremonies, for he offers advice in everything else. My room is near the bar, and I never go to it that I do not hear Mr. Riley calling on the barkeeper to hurry along the grog. Mr. Riley also has a very irritating laugh, and I have come to dislike him as much as a menagerie monkey dislikes a boy. Last night there was a dance held near my room, and this, in addition to Mr. Riley and the bar, kept me awake until long after midnight.... “Of course you know why the men wear colored socks,” a man said to me on deck last night. “It is because colored socks do not show dirt, and can be worn until they are filthy. I wear white socks, and probably change them oftener than any other passenger on the ship, but I think I am a marked man because of my white socks. I often catch the other passengers looking at my feet in wonder.” I asked him if he also wore a night-gown, instead of pajamas, and he said he did, whereupon we organized a club, as I also wear white socks and a night-gown. Pajamas do not seem enough of a change from pants and shirts, and I cannot sleep in them; and colored socks irritate my ankles.... On the ship, children are almost universally called kids, or kiddies, another form of bad English which Americans deplore. There are eighteen children on board, and the ship resembles a nursery. Even the stewards privately complain of the incessant racket. This morning most of the passengers shifted to the port side of the deck, but we remained on the starboard side, because all of the children went with the crowd. “You must be enjoying a quiet and pleasant day,” the deck steward said to us. A good many of the passengers had their chairs shifted back to the starboard side, and I heard them grumbling about the noise; from which I am led to believe that if the passengers spoke their minds freely, a protest would go up to the captain about Mr. Riley, the Sports Committee, and the “kiddies.” ... A passenger was telling today of a man he once knew in Melbourne who took thirty drinks of whisky a day. Finally, during an illness, the doctor advised him that he must be more temperate; that twenty drinks a day were enough. The man tried twenty drinks a day, but the almost total abstinence from alcohol killed him.... A prominent citizen of Sydney, with whom I talk a great deal, says many of his fellow-citizens believe that if the government had kept out of railroad building, and left it to private enterprise, the country would have many more miles of railroad, and double its present population. Considering the resources of the country, the railroad facilities of Australia are insignificant. There are half a dozen different railroads running finer trains in little Kansas than may be seen in Australia. And both freight and passenger rates are lower in Kansas than in Australia; service is better, and the employees receive higher wages. There is something wrong with the Australian railways, and I believe it is government ownership.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25.—Today we had a cricket match between members of the crew and the passengers. Score, 29 to 27, in favor of the crew. The features of the game were: 1. The batting of Mr. Connell, who sits at our table; 2. The bowling (which means pitching) of Mr. Connell; 3. The bad playing of Mr. Riley, whom we hate; 4. The appearance of a Mr. May, a passenger, as a barracker for the crew. A barracker in cricket means the same thing as a fan in baseball, and Mr. May’s line of talk in making fun of the passenger players was very good. I coached him a little in baseball talk, and the mean way in which he said, “Take him out!” when a pitcher was hit freely, was quite a pleasant reminder of home.... One of the players in the ship’s team was the young man who appears when you press a button in the smoking-room; in short, he is one of two bartenders employed on the “Anchises.” This young man was a particularly good pitcher. The best batter on the ship’s team was the second officer. There is a democracy in sport which levels all rank. The game lasted nearly two hours, and I picked up a smattering of the rules. There are eleven players on a side, and each player must take his turn at batting; but the best pitchers of the team may do all the pitching. Before a batter is out, the pitcher must knock down the wicket with the ball; sometimes a batter knocks the ball about a long time before he is out. Mr. Connell, who sits at our table, made nineteen scores before they got him out, and batted three-quarters of an hour.... A good many of the passengers are mining men from South Africa. Among these is a man who was born in America, but who has lived among Englishmen so long that he cannot be distinguished from them. He married an English woman, and has three children who have a very rich brogue. The man told me today that he very naturally fell into the ways of the English within a year after going to South Africa, and that now our pronunciations amuse him as much as they amuse the English. He plays cricket, likes it better than baseball, and pitches with the peculiar twist which distinguishes the English game.... This evening I saw a man sitting on deck apparently curling his moustache. Later it developed that he was getting a string around an aching tooth; this accomplished, he pulled the tooth with a single jerk. He said to me: “In a year or two I shall have them all out, and put in a full set of good teeth.” All the people here seem to look forward to the time when they will have all their teeth out, and put in a full set of the kind supplied by dentists. One of the first things you notice here is the great number of people with full sets of false teeth. I believe I could name a dozen comparatively young women on this ship who have no teeth of their own.... We have been in the South-east trade-winds several days; the smoke from our funnels is always ahead of us. On this track the wind blows in the same direction for months at a time; there is also a current flowing with the wind. A thousand miles south of us, the current flows eastward, and the winds blow eastward as steadily as they blow westward here.... There is gossip on board to the effect that the two women passengers who have been nursing the sick woman, have quarreled. The invalid is carried on deck every fine day, and reclines on a cot, and it has been remarked that one of her volunteer nurses has disappeared; she is sulking in her room over some affront offered her by the other volunteer nurse. The passengers are much interested in the row. The nurse who is still on duty will leave the ship next Sunday, at Durban, and her rival will have a clear field during the run of nearly three weeks to Liverpool. The invalid was injured in a hunting accident; her horse fell while going over a hedge. She is a particularly nice woman, and one of the amusements on deck is to visit with her as much as the nurses will allow. And she has a baby boy called “Captain,” who is loved by everybody.... On deck this afternoon, a woman ordered her two boys to go to their room, and wash their faces. Much to my surprise, they did it. In America, when a woman tells her child to do anything, he attempts to argue her out of the notion, and usually succeeds. The children on the ship are somewhat annoying; not because they do not mind well, but because they are left to themselves. Their mothers are generally members of the Sports Committee, and their nurses are flirting with members of the crew. There is one very noisy youngster who is rapidly driving me to distraction. She has a nurse, but I have not seen the nurse all day.... The mother of a ten-year-old boy on board says he does not know anything about money; that he can’t tell a shilling from a penny. At home, a boy of that age would be packing a newspaper route, and know all about money. I particularly admired Captain Trask, of the “Sonoma,” because he told me two of his sons were carrying newspaper routes. That’s the way to bring up a boy in town; buy him a newspaper route by the time he is nine or ten years old, and let him learn who is good, and who is not.... Mr. Riley, who has not yet fallen overboard, although all of us have wished it on every shooting star since leaving Adelaide, believes he is the life of the ship, and a general favorite, although I believe I have never known anyone to be more generally disliked. He is always half-drunk, and thinks that is the proper thing on shipboard. There is a disagreeable smell about a steady drinker, and Mr. Riley has it in a very marked degree. I once heard him say to a modest, gentlemanly man with whom he was arguing: “You must confess that you admire a good fellow who spends his money more than you admire the saving, industrious man who doesn’t.” ... Mr. Riley is that sort of a fool; and that sort is the very worst kind. The man Mr. Riley was arguing with made a stinging reply, but Mr. Riley is usually so drunk that he doesn’t know it when repartee goes against him.... Next to our table in the dining-room sit a father and mother and their grown son. Every morning the wife and mother gives her orders to her men-folks for the day, and points out what they did the day before that was displeasing. They talk in low tones, but we can generally hear what they say. The son seems to be the principal culprit, as he is paying attention to a certain Miss Helen the mother does not like; but the husband is well trained, for I have noticed that he takes his orders humbly.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26.—This evening members of the crew gave a concert on deck, for the amusement of the passengers. The concert did not begin until 9 o’clock, as most of the performers are waiters in the dining-room, and they were compelled to “do up” their work before starting.... As is common at amateur concerts, the stage was the best part of it. There were elaborate lighting effects, including footlights, and much nice furniture, and palms, had been loaned for the occasion. As usual, the disturbance was not ten feet from my door; as a matter of fact, I loaned my cabin for a dressing-room. Toward the sea, the space above the rail was covered with flags, and the result was a very elaborate little theatre.

Steamerchairs were arranged in rows for the convenience of the passengers, and these chairs are much more comfortable than theatre chairs. As is customary at such events here, there was a chairman: John Adams, the chief engineer, who announced the numbers, although elaborate programmes had been printed, and sold at a shilling each. Mr. Adams sat near the stage, with a table in front of him, and on the table was a pitcher of water and a tumbler. “The first item on the programme,” Mr. Adams announced, “will be a song by W. Mansbridge, entitled ‘Captain Ginjah, O. T.’” An American would have said, “The first number on the programme,” but here they always say “The first item on the programme.” ... W. Mansbridge turned out to be the steward who has charge of Adelaide’s room, and we were quite proud of his performance, as he was called back twice. The affair throughout was considerably better than the average amateur concert in a town the size of Atchison. The young man who waits on us in the dining-room appeared as a female impersonator, but was very awkward; in fact, about the worst of the lot. He thought he must “act natural,” and walk about, and all the performers had the same notion. Another of the singers was the assistant barkeeper who had distinguished himself the day before in a cricket match. But he was painfully frightened, when singing before an audience, and could not show off a voice which was really quite good. A dining-room steward named R. Morris was positively clever; if he had a little training, he could make a living as an actor-singer, as he has an excellent voice, and is young and good-looking.

J. S. Tait, the purser’s clerk, appeared in a series of crayon sketches which were very good. Another clever performer was W. A. Dalton, who, I believe, is storekeeper.... At the conclusion of the entertainment, Mr. Adams, the chairman, proposed a vote of thanks to Miss Woodburn, a passenger, who had volunteered as accompanist. Thereupon the chairman of the Sports Committee made a speech, and endorsed the motion to adopt a vote of thanks to Miss Woodburn; indeed, he moved a vote of thanks not only to Miss Woodburn, but to the captain, crew, etc. At mention of his name, Captain Warrall, who had come down quietly from the upper deck, slipped out; I don’t think he cares much about mingling with the passengers. Anyhow, he acts bored when with them, and we do not see much of him. But the proposition of the chairman of the Sports Committee was adopted, and, this being accomplished, we sang “God Save the King,” and went to bed, or to the smoking-room, or to walk the decks. “God Save the King” is sung at the conclusion of every entertainment here, including dances; it is the same air as our “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” But the words are different; the English words begin: “God save our gracious king, long live our noble king. Send him victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us. God save the king.” While we stole the tune from the English, they stole it from the Germans; so it is to the Germans that both Americans and English should apologize.... Mr. Riley, of course, attended the concert, and, being drunk, and knowing most of the songs on the programme, sang as loudly as the performers, very much to the disgust of the passengers.

A good many have threatened to “speak” to Mr. Riley, and tell him plainly that he is a nuisance, but so far no one has done so, and he is still of the opinion that all of us will greatly miss him when he leaves the ship at Durban.... I have had neuralgia in the face several days, and the ship doctor said to me: “When a man has used tobacco many years, and quits, the effect upon his system is very great. Try smoking two strong cigars.” I had his prescription filled at the bar, and enjoyed an exquisite pleasure; cigars never tasted so good before. I hoped that I had lost my taste for them, but found I hadn’t. The men were very much amused over the doctor’s prescription. Did the cigars do the neuralgia any good? The pain stopped within five minutes after I began smoking, and has not returned since. I smoked only two, and I shall not smoke again except on the advice of a physician.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27.—I find that Mr. May, the fine old gentleman who was attended by so many friends when he embarked at Adelaide, is manufacturer of May’s Complete Harvester, the Australian machine which strips off the heads of wheat. This machine also threshes the wheat, or separates it from the husks, and, within an hour after cutting, the grain is ready to be sent to market. At home we cut wheat with a binder, which drops it in sheaves. These sheaves are then set up in the field to dry, and, in a few days, stacked. After the stack has gone through a sweat, a thresher is sent for, and the grain made ready for market. Some farmers thresh out of the field, within a few weeks after cutting, but old-fashioned farmers prefer stacking. The Australian way seems very much better than our way, and Mr. May says that with his machine, wheat may be harvested at an expense of only 25 cents an acre for labor. The May machine sells for from four to six hundred dollars, cuts from five to eight feet, and is drawn by from four to six horses. The machine has cut as high as thirty acres in a day, with everything running favorably, and has been in practical use in Australia for twelve years. There is waste in any method, but Mr. May says his complete harvester saves as large a per cent of the wheat as the best machine manufactured in America. He told me of a farmer with 400 acres of wheat who harvested it with the assistance of a man and a boy. It is probable that the May machine would not work satisfactorily in our section, although it might prove successful in the dry districts further west. Mr. May admits that his complete harvester is a success only when the wheat is very dry and very ripe. A little dampness would necessitate the use of the older-fashioned binder.... Mr. May says wheat-growing in Australia has been revolutionized by the discovery that the land needed phosphate. This was supplied at a cost of about $2 an acre, and the wheat yield doubled. Virgin land is now fertilized with phosphate, which is drilled in with the wheat. The discovery that the land needed additional phosphate was made by a young scientist in an agricultural college; farmers everywhere should pay more attention to the doings of agricultural colleges, horticultural societies, etc.

... Another great machine invented in Australia is the jump plow. Much of the land in Australia is full of either stumps or stones. The jump plow jumps the stumps or stones by means of a clever device, the main feature of which is a hinge attachment. Most of the Australian plows are in gangs of six to twelve, all of them supplied with the jump attachment.... So far as I was able to judge from what Mr. May said, our wheat yield is one-third or one-fourth greater per acre, without fertilizer, than the wheat yield of Australia; but our land costs a third more.... In Australia, when a young woman is called upon regularly by a young man, he is known as a “follower.” In the section of country where I live, he would be called the young woman’s “steady,” or steady company.... Nine-tenths of the passengers on this ship are Australians or New Zealanders, en route to England, and most of them will return home by way of the United States, a route considerably shorter than by way of Cape Town or the Suez Canal. Most of them have interviewed me about routes, and I am now getting even with those American railroads against which I have grudges.... Today we are off the southern coast of Madagascar, but a drizzly rain is falling, and we cannot see a half-mile from the ship. At noon the distance to Durban is about the distance from New York to Chicago, which is made by railroad train in eighteen hours, but we shall not make it under three days and nights, as we steam only 330 miles a day. This is our fifteenth day at sea, without sight of land, and neither of our double engines has stopped once since they were started at Adelaide.... I believe

I admire our tall pastor as much as anyone on board. He lets us all alone, and does not ask us if we read the Bible, and say our prayers. To let people alone is the most agreeable thing you can do for them.... When you send a wireless telegram at sea, you are compelled to sign the following agreement: “No company concerned in the forwarding of this telegram shall be liable for any loss, injury, or damage from non-transmission or non-delivery or neglect, in relation to this telegram, or delay, or error, or omission in the transmission thereof, through whatever cause such non-transmission, non-delivery, neglect, delay, error or omission shall have occurred. Having read the above conditions, I request that this telegram may be forwarded according to said conditions, by which I agree to be bound.” ... Under that agreement, the wireless operator might tear up every telegram, and senders would have no redress. A wireless contract is as one-sided as the contract you sign when you buy a steamship ticket. When I bought two tickets for Durban from Adelaide, I was compelled to sign a contract which relinquished every right I have in law. If the captain sees fit, he may change his destination from Durban to Capetown or Montevideo, and not go to Durban at all. In case he should conclude to go to London direct, and not stop at any South-African port, I agreed to pay him the price of two tickets between Durban and London. If for any reason he finds it necessary or convenient to put into any other port, to make repairs, I agreed to pay my board while such repairs were being made. If the captain should take a dislike to me, and put me off on the coast of Madagascar,

I agreed not to ask damages for the inconvenience when I purchased my tickets. Fortunately, these cutthroat contracts are almost never enforced, but they could be enforced should necessity arise.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28.—This has been the most miserable day I have ever spent at sea. A steady rain began falling at daylight, and continued without intermission until evening. The passengers were driven from the upper deck, and congregated on one side of the main deck, where the children made more noise than ever. The dampness was of the penetrating kind that reached our clothing and our rooms, and we could not be comfortable anywhere.... About five o’clock the rain ceased, and a boy went about beating a gong. This was notice of a meeting of the general Sports Committee in the music-room, to decide whether the fancy dress ball arranged for tonight should be given up on account of the rain. The vote was in favor of going ahead with it. The sailors at once began arranging the dry side of the deck into a ball-room, and the passengers were forced to go to their cabins, or sit in the smoking-room.... The fancy dress ball proved to be more creditable than was anticipated. Those who took part wore their costumes to dinner at 7 o’clock, and the children, nurses and stewards gathered in the main hallway to see them go in. There were about twenty-five costumes in all, nearly all of them made on board. One young woman appeared as “Topsy,” and her feet were bare. Women usually dislike to show their feet, and there was a good deal of surprise expressed because this woman appeared with nothing much on except a dress made of coarse sacking. She not only appeared barefooted in the dining-room, but danced in her bare feet. Afterwards the passengers voted on the best costume, and “Topsy” won the second prize, the first going to an English actor who appeared as Cardinal Wolsey.... Mr. Riley borrowed a greasy suit of working-clothes from a sailor, and, appearing at the dance as a Sundowner, or tramp, it became necessary to take him away.... The gents who appeared in fancy dresses talked about the ball until 1:30 A.M., as amateur actors talk about the performance, and of course this talk centered around the bar. As my room adjoins the bar, I heard the talk and the accompanying rattle of glasses. So my disagreeable day began at 5:30 A. M., and ended at 1:30 the following morning. I shall long remember February 28, 1913.

SATURDAY, MARCH 1.—On the lower deck this morning there was a Pillow Fight, arranged by the Sports Committee. A spar, or smooth pole, was fixed about six feet from the deck. Beneath the spar was arranged a net made of heavy sail-cloth. Two men climbed out on the pole, and fought with pillows, the aim of each man being to knock his opponent off. The participants were not permitted to hold to the pole with their hands, and they fell off very easily. This was the only really amusing thing arranged by the Sports Committee at many meetings announced by the disagreeable beating of a gong. The passengers witnessed the pillow fights from the deck above, and screamed with laughter. The sea was rough, and every player got one or more tumbles into the net.... Soon after the pillow fight, I got even with members of the Sports Committee. They were standing on the weather side of the lower deck, displaying their usual gravity in superintending a foolish game, when a big wave came over the side and soaked them all. This was even funnier than the pillow fight, and the passengers enjoyed it quite as much.... The storm which began with rain yesterday morning, increased in violence as the day wore on, and it was soon necessary to suspend the sports. By noon, the sea was much rougher than it has been at any time since we left Adelaide on the 12th of last month. The passengers dreaded to go to their rooms, as all portholes were closed; so the stewards found it necessary to distribute the little tin affairs which add to the discomfort of a sea voyage.... Throughout the day I did not feel the slightest discomfort because of the terrific motion, and for the first time witnessed a storm at sea from the deck of a ship. On a quiet day the sea is very uninteresting, but on a rough day it is wonderful; the waves seem to fight each other and the ship. Ten or twelve of the passengers had gone to the upper deck to finish some foolish deck game, when a wave swept over them. The ship reeled from the blow, and we saw the water pouring in torrents from the roof of the deck where we sat. Then down the stairway came not only a flood of water, but the soaked passengers who had been playing the foolish game. They were as wet as though they had been in swimming without removing their clothing. The same wave poured water into the skylight over the dining-room, and flooded everything. After that, passengers were not permitted on the storm side of either deck.... Late in the afternoon I went to my room to take a nap. In order to get about the ship, it was necessary to catch a quiet moment, and then take a run. I soon went to sleep after reaching my room, but was awakened by a tremendous rattle and bang in the bar, next door. A big roll had sent most of the glassware crashing to the floor, and Mr. Riley will be compelled to drink out of bottles. It was a great comfort to me to get even with the barroom.... The stewards say the approach to the coast of South Africa is always rough. The passengers are saying that the storm will be very much worse during the night; that a sailor told them so, but the chief engineer told me that a wireless message announces that the weather at Durban is calm, and that we shall certainly run out of the storm during the night.... At dinner, not half the passengers were in their places, but Adelaide and I occupied our usual seats at table, although we had a difficult time getting down the two stairways to the dining-room. The dishes were fenced up, so that they could not roll off the tables, and the portholes were under water at every roll of the ship. The sick man who has been seen on deck nearly every day of the voyage, surprised us all by appearing at dinner for the first time, although he was almost literally carried down the stairways, and across the dining-room floor. The diners at the two centre tables were forced to go to other tables, owing to a crash in the skylight above, and a downpour of water.

But in spite of all this confusion, Mr. Connell, a very calm and well-informed man who sits at my table, interested me by telling of something he had read during the day. At the battle of Waterloo, in 1812, less than 170,000 men were engaged. The battle lasted twelve hours, yet the casualties amounted to 61,000. The battle of Lule-Burgas, fought between the Bulgarians and Turks in 1912, lasted five days, and, although 300,000 men took part with modern implements of war, the casualties amounted to only 35,000. We moderns have more effective weapons than the ancients, but seem afraid to use them. The modern man has more sense than bravery. The old savage man had a fool notion that it was bravery to fight for a ruler, but modern man has discovered that bravery is to fight for himself, and meet his ordinary difficulties with patience and fairness. The prizefighter is brave in that he is able to stand a great deal of punishment, but in private life he is not very nice, and often keeps a saloon and whips his wife.... At dinner, Mr. Connell also told me that in Australia, where the women have full suffrage, the wives of the workingmen often vote against their husbands. In a certain election of 1911, the Labor party demanded the adoption of a measure that would result in many strikes and much disturbance. It was believed that the measure would carry by a large majority, but the wives of the labor men generally voted for peace, and the measure demanded by their husbands was defeated by two to one.

A Caravan at rest    /    A Native Sledge
Cultivating Land, Egypt
Mohammedan Procession    /    Natives and Hut

SUNDAY, MARCH 2.—I passed out of sight of land at Adelaide, South Australia, at 7:20 on the evening of February 12, and picked it up again at 7 o’clock this morning, when I awoke and looked out of the window to see how the weather was. The land was South Africa. The voyage we have just completed takes the passenger out of sight of land longer than any other now being made in steamships. There are longer voyages, but on none of them is the passenger out of sight of land for eighteen days. And during the eighteen days we did not see a ship; no signs of life whatever, except a few birds and a few flying-fish. It was a monotonous, dreary experience I do not care to repeat.... South Africa, as seen in the vicinity of Durban, is mountainous, and the mountains are covered with verdure.... By 8:30, Durban could be plainly seen, and it did not look unlike a portion of Sydney, with its residences scattered over the hills, and almost every house covered with red tile roofing imported from France.... The officers said we should tie up at the dock by ten o’clock, and that is exactly what we did, although we did not reach the hotel until nearly noon. The delay was caused, it was said, by the slowness of the doctor and the customs officer, but I did not see the doctor at all, and the customs officer, when I finally got to him, did not open one of my packages. However, he charged me $3.75 duty on a portable typewriter which I cannot learn to use, having so long been accustomed to a different key-board. Once out of the customs house, we called two negro ricksha men, and were soon on our way to the Marine Hotel; we avoided the Royal because we had heard Mr. Riley say he intended to stop there. Most of the passengers will spend the night ashore, as a relief from the long experience with ship beds and ship fare. The negro ricksha men who pulled us to the hotel wore cow-horns on their heads, and pieces of leopard skin on their backs. The rickshas were marked: “For Europeans only,” and the negroes carried us to the hotel on a keen trot, for a shilling each. Our men carried cow-bells, which they rang frequently as warning for pedestrians to get out of the way.... I have not lately been surprised as agreeably as I am in Durban. Instead of being a rough, crude place, it is one of the finest cities I have ever seen. The hotel at which we are staying is as fine in every way as the Australia in Sydney, a city of over half a million, and the price is the same: $3.60 per day, including everything. The town hall in Durban is almost as fine as the capital in some of the Australian states; and this town of sixty thousand people, half of them black, has parks, business blocks, zoölogical gardens, and private residences that would do credit to any city of any size anywhere. We hired a new Overland automobile, driven by an intelligent Englishman, and although gasoline costs forty cents a gallon here, the charge was only $3 an hour. He took us to one of the finest bathing-beaches I have seen anywhere, and many of the hotels around it would be creditable in Atlantic City. Durban is tropical, and the luxuriant growths of flowers and plants reminded us of Honolulu. Another thing I did not know about Durban is that it has thousands of Hindus; citizens of India. All the servants at the hotel where we are staying are Hindus, and wear the picturesque costumes seen in India; during our ride today we saw literally thousands of these people, and almost as many women and children as men. In certain sections of Durban you see only Hindus, and temples are almost as numerous as churches in other sections of the town. All sorts of strange shops are kept by men with strange names; and all the Indians we saw look much more prosperous than their relatives in India. The Hindus were brought here by the English a good many years ago, under indenture and promise to return them to India at the end of a certain number of years, but they liked the country, and most of them did not care to return. There are upwards of a hundred thousand of them in Natal, but their importation is now prohibited. The Hindus are like the Chinese in that they are willing to work and behave, and their entrance to most countries is therefore prohibited.... We passed a sugar mill during our automobile ride today, and were told that all the workmen in the mill, and in the great fields of cane surrounding it, were Hindus, or coolies. Just now the cane is being cut and hauled to the mills.... At lunch today, we saw the waiters serving roasting-ears. On the bill of fare they are called Mealie Cobs. We ordered some, and the waiter offered to cut the corn from the cob. I ate mine in true American fashion, but Adelaide had hers cut off the cob. The variety was Early Adams, and it wasn’t very sweet. The best thing they have at this fine hotel is pineapple. They also have alligator pears. The best alligator pears grow in the Samoa Islands, and we had them on the “Sonoma,” but did not care for them. They are eaten with pepper and salt and vinegar and oil; an alligator pear is more vegetable than fruit. Today we also had mangoes, which resemble the American paw-aw, but they are much better fruit. You peel them, and eat them as you do green corn, the seed representing the cob.... This being Sunday, we saw two Salvation Army meetings on the street. All the “soldiers” were negroes, and there was the usual drum in the centre of the circle, and the usual pleas for money.... Now that I am out of Australia, and off the “Anchises,” which carried Australian water, I am free to drink all the water I want. I saw so many false teeth in Australia, and heard so frequently that the bad teeth of the Australians were due to the water, that I never took a drink that my teeth didn’t ache.... We learned this evening that all the money Mr. Riley spent in gambling and drinking was loaned him by a Mr. Wilson, who came ashore this afternoon, and is trying hard to get his money. At a late hour, Mr. Riley had not been able to satisfy his creditor. You meet strange characters on ships. Think of a man going to sea without money, and being financed by a stranger.... We knew a woman on the ship who was so unhappy because of a big waist that she imagined her husband was mean to her, and she told a good many of the women that were it not for her children, she would seek forgetfulness by enclosing her head in a pillow-slip, and inhaling chloroform.... Durban had a small harbor which did very well in the days of small ships, but when big ships became fashionable the town was compelled to spend millions in improvements. The result is that ships drawing thirty feet can tie up at its docks. Good coal is found not far from Durban, and its coal trade is very important. Much of the coal used on the railways in India comes from Durban, and every ship coming this way coals here.... Before going to bed tonight, we went down in front of the hotel, called a ricksha, and went for a ride to the beach to cool off. The negro who pulled us was a huge fellow wearing a pair of cow-horns as a sort of head-dress; seven-tenths of the hundreds of ricksha men wear the same amusing head-dress. Our man trotted all the way to the beach and back, up hill and down. It is a considerable task for a man to pull a buggy and two passengers for nearly an hour, and always keep up a trot. On our return to the hotel at 10 P.M., the man did not seem very tired. The road to the beach was lined with hundreds of other people riding in rickshas, and there were many ricksha stands on the way. At the beach we saw thousands of people sitting around in chairs, or dining, or listening to music. Some of the restaurants had moving-picture shows to attract customers. And it seems to me I never saw such big rollers as came in from the Indian ocean at Durban beach. Four years ago this beach was a dreary piece of sand. Durban has lately been spending money like a drunken sailor, and has made it pay.

MONDAY, MARCH 3.—Owing to a tremendous rain and wind storm, we have been confined all day to our rooms at the hotel. Yesterday was bright and fine, and we were rather disposed to laugh at the statement that this is the rainy season in South Africa; but the storm today has given us more confidence in the guide-books. The wind was so strong that the “Anchises,” lying at its dock, twice broke its hawsers, and was only saved from drifting by the prompt use of the anchors. The passengers who were ashore found it very difficult to get back to the ship, and from our windows at the hotel we could see that the wind was doing considerable damage.... And this in spite of the finest, largest and brightest rainbow I have ever seen, this morning.... White women are scarce in South Africa. In the big dining-room of the Marine Hotel, at dinner tonight, all the guests were men, except four. Englishmen come to this country as Americans go to the Klondike.... The Marine Hotel introduces one feature that is entirely new to me; dinner is commenced with a hors-d’œuvre—a sort of salad of pickled fish, as an appetizer. Then follows the regular dinner, starting with soup. When a king dines, he begins with a hors-d’œuvre, the head waiter says.... One of the ricksha men who stands in front of the hotel has carried us three times, and regards us as his property. When we appear, he runs up to us, and bows almost to the ground; if other ricksha men appear, he pushes them angrily away. The negroes here are exactly like our negroes, except that they talk Kaffir; we have not seen any who are able to speak English easily. The negro women wear their hair in a peculiar way, and many of them dress as the men do. The ricksha men who stand in front of the hotel are always laughing and talking in a noisy, good-natured way. There are several tribes of negroes here, and all of them have different characteristics in dress.... Before Durban’s present harbor was completed, passengers disembarked from ships in baskets. The big ships, not being able to come into the harbor, were met outside by tenders. Passengers leaving the ship were locked in a huge basket, and this basket was hoisted over the side with a steam winch, and lowered to the deck of the tender rolling alongside. This method of embarking and disembarking is still used at many points along the coast, and we shall test it on our way to Zanzibar.... The amateur humorist is a great task not only in private life, but in books as well. Today I bought a book to obtain information of the East Coast route to England, but found it so full of jokes that I could get no information out of it. Every man, when he writes or talks, thinks he must use a great many jokes; everyone seems to make too much of the fun, fun, fun, and laugh, laugh, laugh idea. I often wish people were more serious.... My next ship journey will be up the East Coast of Africa to Aden, and thence through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and Naples. I have spent considerable of my time in Durban in arranging for a cabin to myself on the German ship. Occupying a room with three others is the red flag that brings out the bull in my nature. I not only object to other men in a room with me, but I don’t like them very well in the hall outside. I am particular about having things of my own, and in the list, a sleeping-room is near the top.... In this fine hotel, it is impossible to get a good cup of coffee, and I drink tea instead, although I abominate tea. I have not had a decent cup of coffee in nearly three months. As I am accustomed at home to the best coffee in the world, the deprivation is a severe one. I have no doubt that all the hotels where I have lately been a guest use the best coffee obtainable, but their way of making it is not my way. You get the best coffee at home because it is made your way.... As in coffee, so it is in politics, religion, the choice of a wife, and a hundred other things: what suits others does not suit you. You want coffee made your way; and you are entitled to it.... I do not say my way of making coffee is the best, but I do say it suits me better than any other way I have ever tried. I venture to say that nine out of ten guests at every hotel abuse the coffee.... Every morning at 6:30 there is a rap on my door. I look out, and find a Hindu servant with tea. I tell him I do not want tea, but would appreciate hot water for shaving. This the Hindu cannot understand, so I now take the tea, and shave with it.... I was on the “Anchises” so long that I almost used up a cake of shaving-soap. I wonder I didn’t get the scurvy; they say that is the scourge of a long sea voyage.

TUESDAY, MARCH 4.—This day opened with genuine inauguration weather; the storm of yesterday continued all night, and seemed as fierce as ever at 8 A.M.... The Natal Mercury of this morning devoted a full page to the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, as president. It also printed an editorial of a column and a quarter entitled, “The Future of America,” which was funny because of absurd statements. “Rural America,” the editorial says, “knows little of decent roads, well-organized police, or mail facilities, and consists largely of wide-spreading areas that do not contain one human being to the square mile.” ... If newspapers print such statements about America, is it any wonder that the English people have absurd notions of the Americans? The editorial views with alarm the race problem in America; it also fears that the American people are today where the Romans were just before the decline began.... The Natal Mercury contains sixteen eight-column pages, and is a more creditable newspaper than will be found in the average American town of 32,000 population. Durban has 66,000, but 34,000 are negroes who do not read or speak English. Nine pages of the Mercury’s issue of this morning are devoted to advertising; the people of all the British colonies seem to be well trained in newspaper advertising. Although the Mercury prints eight columns about the inauguration of America’s new president (most of it absurd, but probably not more absurd than would be my comments on a similar event in Africa), it says nothing about the “Anchises” breaking from its moorings during yesterday’s storm, or of its detention in the harbor. The local news is badly handled in all the papers I see over here; the people do not seem to care for local news, so long as they get telegrams from England.... Durban people are just now excited because His Majesty’s Ship “New Zealand” will arrive in a day or two. This is the battleship of dreadnought type which was built with New Zealand money, and presented to the English government. Canada will give three battleships to the English, and Australia three. All the other

English colonies have been called upon to show their love for the mother country in a similar way; and this really amounts to an order. India, Ceylon, Africa, and all the other countries controlled by Great Britain, must assist the English in keeping ahead of Germany in the race for naval supremacy. It seems an absurd situation to me, but possibly I know as little about it as the editorial writer on the Natal Mercury knows about America. (NOTE.—Since the above was written, Canada has balked, and refused to vote money for English battleships.) ... Some writers say that Africa is the Coming Country; that thousands of years hence, when Europe and America have become as dry as India or the Sahara desert, Africa will be about right, and contain cities like New York and London. By that time, New York and London will have been deserted, as old Memphis, Thebes and Babylon are now deserted. This is said to be the history of the world: Countries wear out like men; the country around the Red Sea was once fertile and populous, but is now a desert, owing to slowly changing climatic conditions; the world is so old that mountain ranges have been worn level with the surrounding plains by the wind, rain, heat and cold of many centuries. This is what will finally happen to our Rocky Mountains. The country where we live was once tropical, and it will become tropical again, in the course of time. The one thing we do not realize is the great age of the world, having long been taught that it is ten or twelve thousand years old. It is more than ten or twelve million years old; some geologists say its age is certainly forty or fifty million years.... My father left

Indiana because he believed fever and ague would always be a pest. Indiana is now one of our finest states. Africa is getting rid of the sleeping sickness, of the mysterious fly which causes death, of fever and ague, and of other menaces to health; it is said that South Africa has shown a greater development in the past twenty years than any other country has ever shown in a similar length of time. Johannesburg is as fine a town as Kansas City, and almost as large. Durban is a wonder, and Capetown claims to be a health resort. This in South Africa only, whereas the real growth in the future, many believe, will come from East Africa.... The mythical “Cape to Cairo” railway extends from the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa, to Cairo, in North Africa, or Egypt. Capetown has built a railroad far into the interior, northward, and Cairo has built far into the interior, southward; some day it will be possible for travelers to go from Capetown to Cairo by rail. I am going from Capetown to Cairo, but, the “Cape to Cairo” line still being a dream, I shall go to Victoria Falls by rail, and thence to Beira, where I will take a German ship for a long journey to Port Said, the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal, and only a few miles from Cairo.... I have been compelled to quit eating roasting-ears American fashion at the Marine Hotel in Durban. The Hindu waiters stood around and watched me in surprise, and other guests were also greatly interested. Finally a strange man appeared at the entrance, and seemed to be studying the lights with a view of getting a moving-picture of the performance; so I now have my corn cut off the cob, which is the universal practice here.... The “Anchises” will not get away for Capetown and London until noon on Thursday. The chief engineer and doctor dined at our hotel tonight, with two of the lady passengers, and they told us that when the ship left Adelaide, it was followed by a pigeon, which was no doubt attracted by the grains of wheat on deck. The first night out, the pigeon probably rested in the rigging; anyway it was flying about the ship the second morning. Then it was too late to go back, and the bird has been adopted by the crew. It flies about the ship while at sea, but soon returns to the deck or rigging. It has become quite tame, and will take food from anyone, and grumble for more, as pet pigeons do. The sailors thought the bird would leave them at Durban, but it didn’t make up with the other pigeons that called to see it, and will probably accompany the “Anchises” to Liverpool.... Mr. Riley slept on board last night, as he is in love with a married woman who detests him. His ticket read to Durban only, but he will probably attempt to go on to Capetown, in order that he may further enjoy drunkenness, love, and the Sports Committee.

Street in Durban, South Africa    /    Labor Day Parade, Johannesburg
Pritchard Street, Johannesburg
Port Said    /    Port Said Port

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5.—Rain has fallen three days in succession. Until Monday last, there had been a drouth so long and severe that the mealie crop is said to be ruined. Mealie is the name given corn here; wheat is called corn. The farmers in South Africa grow two crops of corn per year, and export a great deal to London. I saw the statement in print recently that the Argentine Republic, in South America, exports more corn than the United States. We raise much more corn than Argentine, but use most of it, whereas Argentine uses very little.... This afternoon, in spite of the rain, we visited a steam whaling-ship lying in the harbor. Twenty similar vessels make headquarters in Durban, and the whales caught are converted into oil in six factories located on the seashore, at a point so distant that the smell is not objectionable to the town-people. All whales caught are brought into Durban harbor; then loaded on flat cars, and sent down to the factories.... In 1911, the luckiest boat in the Durban whaling-fleet caught two hundred whales; in 1912, the lucky boat caught only one hundred. The boat with the least luck caught only sixty in 1912, as whales are becoming scarcer. Last month, the boat I visited caught only one whale; the month before eight—three of the eight were caught in one day. In certain whaling-grounds off the coast of South America, fourteen whales have been caught in one day by one ship. A fifty-six foot sperm whale is said to be worth $1,750. The stock of the local whaling-companies is quoted every day by the Durban papers, and the best of them pay big dividends.... The whaler I visited is a seventy-ton affair, a small ship compared with the 10,000 tons of the “Anchises.” The captain of the whaler showed us about, and he looked like a carpenter or other mechanic who calls at your house to do a job of work. But he is compelled to understand navigation as well as the captain of a liner, and pass the same examination. He brought the ship from England, a voyage of fifty-nine days. Its engines can make only about ten miles an hour, and its boilers require only eight tons of coal per twenty-four hours. There is a crew of ten men, including mate, engineer, gunner, and cook. In these ships, whales are not chased in small boats; when a whale is sighted, it is pursued by the ship, under full steam. At a distance of fifty or a hundred yards, a harpoon is fired into the whale from a good-sized cannon. There is a time fuse attached to the harpoon, and this explodes a bomb which should kill the whale. A chain is then attached to its tail, and the carcass is towed to the rendering works in Durban. When a harpoon is fastened in a whale, and the bomb does not explode properly, it sometimes makes a run, and pulls the ship as easily as it might pull a row-boat. In such a case, another harpoon is fired into it as soon as opportunity offers. Frequently the whale breaks the great rope which attaches the harpoon to the ship. The reader will probably understand that a two-inch rope is attached to the harpoon fired from the cannon, and if the harpoon hits fairly, the whale is hooked and handled as a fisherman handles a small fish with a light line. If the whale runs away, the rope is let out slowly, being kept just taut enough to prevent breaking. If the whale rushes toward the ship the rope is hauled in rapidly, with a steam winch, as a fisherman reels in his line. If the bomb explodes inside the whale, as intended, it is usually killed at once, but this does not always happen, and then a fight is necessary. At Durban, the whaling-ships usually go out at 4 o’clock every morning, and return after nightfall. The captain is also the pilot, and he took me up on the bridge. I have never before been on the bridge of a ship; on a liner, it is a violation of law for a passenger to go on the bridge. The captain also took me down to his cabin, which is reached by a ladder. The mate, engineer and gunner occupy the cabin with him, and it is the darkest and worst ventilated place I have ever visited. Two of the beds are simply holes-in-the-wall, and the rooms of the gunner and mate are the funniest holes ever occupied by men. The ladder leading to the officers’ quarters was so steep and slippery that Adelaide was afraid to attempt to go down. The captain invited me to go out with him next Friday, and I accepted; but when the time comes, I suppose I will back out. He says he often has visitors, and that a good many of them have seen whales caught. In the best season for whaling, a whale is caught every day, and always within fifteen or twenty miles of Durban. If the weather is stormy, the whaling-ships do not go out, as nothing can be done in rough weather. The captain, who is a Norwegian, also invited us to stay for dinner, but we declined, although we saw the dinner on the table. It consisted of boiled beef and potatoes, bread and butter, dried-apple sauce, and tea.... On the way to visit the whaling-ship we passed the Durban courthouse. It was surrounded by negroes. The inferior races everywhere have a passion for going to law. To go to law a good deal—to have confidence in the justice dealt out by lawyers and judges—is everywhere a sign of feeble intelligence.... There are only 90,000 whites in all of Natal, and 300,000 natives. The Hindus number about 180,000, and lately the whites are refusing them license to do business. If they are willing to work as laborers, for low wages, well and good, but if they attempt to engage in business for themselves, they are to be told that business is for Europeans only.... The present storm is the worst in two years. This afternoon I went past the harbor, and saw great waves dashing over the sea-wall and lighthouse. I also saw four ships lying outside, waiting to get in, and a number inside waiting to get out. No ship has passed in or out of Durban harbor since the arrival of the Atchison hoodoo, and forty bath-houses at the beach were demolished by the waves Tuesday morning.... A man who has lived here fifty-four years tells me that while this section is very good for agriculture, lung fever carries off so many cattle and horses as to seriously threaten the stock-raising industry.... When a native African woman marries, she mixes clay with her wool, and makes a circular dome out of it which looks like a stove-pipe hat tilted on the back of the head. This head-dress forces the woman to sleep on a wooden pillow, as the Japanese women do, since the hair when once put up is not taken down for months.... The Natal Mercury, a Durban paper I buy every morning, contained the following amusing telegram in its issue for today: “London, March 4.—Reuter’s correspondent in Washington telegraphs that Dr. W. Wilson has arrived there, preparatory to his induction into the presidency. Suffragists have been debarred from participating in the presidential procession. Numbers of the demonstrators paraded yesterday, and women mounted on horseback helped the police to clear the route.” This was all the paper contained about the inauguration, although issued the day after the inauguration took place, and the editor’s motto is: “The Natal Mercury prints all the news all the time.” All American news in the Australian, New Zealand and South-African papers is equally brief and absurd. Little wonder that the English and Americans do not understand each other.... From the window of my room at the hotel, I can look into the office of a big wholesale house across the street. Every afternoon, the bookkeepers and stenographers may be seen drinking tea. A cup of tea at four o’clock in the afternoon is a universal custom here. Sometimes bread and butter or cakes are served with it.... Nearly opposite our hotel is an apartment house where a great many negro servants are employed, and a crowd of them may usually be seen in front of the servant’s entrance. They are so far away that while we can hear them talk, we cannot hear what they say, and they act so much like our negroes that they seem to be talking English, although they are not. Negroes have been taken to almost every portion of the earth, and speak nearly all languages. In some of the islands of the West Indies they speak only French, having never heard anything else. In English colonies they speak English, but do not use the broad R, as do the negroes in our Southern states. Probably millions of them speak Arabic. Many of them are Mohammedans, and many of them speak Hebrew. But wherever you see them, they have the same good-natured, care-free way. In Africa, there are dozens of different tribal languages in use among the blacks, but in foreign countries the young negroes soon forget their mother-tongue. Probably among all the millions of negroes in the United States, not one has the remotest knowledge of the original language of his ancestors. The Hindus, Chinese, Japanese and Hebrews always retain their own language and religion, in whatever part of the world they may live, but the negroes soon adopt the language of the people with whom their lot is cast, and become Methodists, Mohammedans, Catholics or Hebrews in religion with equal facility.

THURSDAY, MARCH 6.—Yesterday it was said the storm was the worst in two years; today it is said to be the worst in ten years. In spite of the pouring rain, we hired covered rickshas this morning and went out to the beach, where we found the angry waves destroying the beautiful place. The storm had attracted an enormous crowd, the people coming by street-railway, and all of them were soaked, while we were dry and warm in our covered rickshas, with oilcloth aprons in front. The restaurants, curio shops, moving-picture shows, etc., were under water, and some of them were being torn to pieces. Every little while a string of bath-houses went into the sea. The great board walk along the beach was smashed into kindling-wood, and holes were dug in the asphalt street in front of it. Great boulders from the breakwater were rolled up on the beach, and deposited on the floors of the restaurants. Coolies were running about in droves, trying to lash down some of the smaller buildings, under the direction of white men, but the coolies were afraid, and the mad excitement everywhere reminded me of the lack of order at a fire. Not far offshore, the big White Star ship “Medic” was anchored, unable to get into the harbor. This ship left Australia a few days after we did, and we know some of the passengers. We could plainly see the ship pitch and roll, and swing ‘round its anchor. Further down were a number of other ships unable to land their passengers, and to the right, inside the harbor, we could see the blue funnels of the “Anchises.” And all this loss, disturbance and inconvenience to thousands simply to keep the Atchison hoodoo indoors four days in succession.... We watched the angry sea for an hour, the water occasionally washing under our rickshas, and were so dry and comfortable in spite of the rain that we determined to visit the Hindu market, down-town. The Hindu population of Durban is greater than the total population of Atchison, and certain sections of the city are devoted to them. There are certainly twice as many Hindu stores in Durban as there are stores of all kinds in Atchison. We saw large wholesale establishments owned and operated by Hindus, and devoted entirely to Hindu trade. There were dozens of jewelers’ shops, where were displayed beautiful things made of gold, silver, ivory, brass, etc., and in all of these shops we saw Indian artisans at work. They squat in front of a pot of charcoal, and manufacture beautiful ornaments with tools of the most primitive kind. Hindu women wear beautiful jewelry; everything an Indian woman owns she wears in her nose, on her wrists, in her ears, and on her ankles, in the form of exquisitely made jewelry of gold and silver. One woman we saw had a silver bracelet on each wrist, and the bracelets were certainly four inches wide. On the front porches of the poorest houses sat workers in gold and silver, and all of them were very skillful. When there was a brief let-up in the rain, we left the rickshas, and entered these interesting workshops and stores.... Then we went to the Hindu market where vegetables, fruits, meat, etc., are sold. The market is an enormous place, occupying the greater part of a block. In addition to food, jewelry and fancy goods are also sold at this market, and we saw one stall devoted to the sale of Hindu books; copies of the Indian paper printed in Durban were also displayed. We were the only whites in the place; all the others in the crowd were natives of India. The vegetables were small, and many of the fruits we did not recognize. The stall-keepers knew we were visitors, and not buyers, and were very polite.... Adjoining the Hindu market, and almost as large, was the native or negro market. Two-thirds of this place was devoted to an enormous negro restaurant. The negroes did not seem to have much for sale, except rice and curry, and this was sold in the restaurant, at so much per bowl. I am certain I saw four or five hundred men eating in this native restaurant; and how they talked and laughed! We frequently stopped and listened to the roar, which reminded us of a women’s reception, magnified twenty or thirty times. The white market-master told me that the blacks had acquired the habit of buying their supplies of the Hindus, and that the Hindus next door occasionally repaid the favor by buying meals in the negro restaurant. But I saw no negroes in the Indian market, and no Indians in the negro restaurant. The Hindus were very quiet, serious and busy, but the negroes were very idle and noisy. The native or negro market made me think of a negro church festival. In the negro market we saw thirty native doctors. These men sold roots and herbs said to be good for various ailments; with every purchase, they gave medical advice free. The thirty doctors sat together, squatted on the floor in front of the roots and herbs they were offering, and seemed more intelligent than those around them.... In the Indian market, the thing that attracted my particular attention was that sheep heads were displayed at all the meat stalls, and every head was bloody and dirty, just as it came from the butcher’s hands. Sheep feet, equally dirty, were also displayed. In India the traveler sees a great many shops devoted to the sale of cheap candy, cut in square, triangular and round pieces. All of it is highly colored; pink, green, blue, brown, etc., and seems to be of the nature of our “fudge.” The same shops are seen in the Hindu section of Durban, as the Hindus are constantly eating sweets; this is their dissipation, instead of drinking intoxicants. Nearly everything I saw of unusual interest in India, I saw repeated in the Hindu quarter of Durban, but the Hindus here seem much more prosperous than the same class in India.... I speak of all the Indians in Durban as Hindus, but as a matter of fact many of them are Mohammedans; my waiter at the Marine Hotel is a Mohammedan, but my chamber-man is a Hindu. There is not much difference between them racially, but the Mohammedans always seem quicker and brighter.... We also visited a Kaffir brewery, where is manufactured the beer of which Kaffirs are so fond. The head-man is an Englishman, and Kaffir beer is manufactured under public control, to prevent the blacks drinking the white man’s fire-water.... While visiting the Hindu stores, we noted that the keepers had borrowed one idea from the whites: they had signs out announcing “Specially low prices for a few days only;” “Great clearing-out sale now in progress,” etc.... Durban has an excellent system of street-railways, and the suburban lines do an express business. At almost every stop the motorman gives a package to a negro servant who seems to be expecting it, and, if no servant appears, the conductor carries the package into a house. The charge is two cents per package. If you buy tickets, you can ride on the Durban street-cars for three cents a section; some long street-car rides we took cost us twelve cents each.... This is our fifth day in Durban. The first day was bright, but a storm of rain and wind began Sunday night, and has continued ever since. As I write this in my room, water is dropping from the ceiling; probably every roof in town is leaking. I have just placed a washbowl on the bed to keep the bed dry for tonight; in case the rain lets up. (P. S.—Since writing the above, two white maids and two Indian men have moved me into another room.) If the rain would only cease, we should probably find South Africa very much more interesting than Australia or New Zealand.... The policemen of Durban are negroes, and they have the most serious and important expressions I have ever seen on the faces of men. And a serious, important expression on the face of a barefoot man always amuses me. Anyone with grave duties to perform should, it seems to me, wear shoes.... There is a ricksha stand near the hotel, and every ricksha man carries a cow-bell, which he rings while on the road to warn pedestrians to get out of the way. These bells tinkle half the night, and remind me of a pasture wherein every cow is a bell-cow, and all of them vigorously fighting flies.... A good many American manufacturers seem to be establishing branches in London. I bought a bottle of Pond’s Extract in Durban, and found that it was manufactured by the Pond’s Extract Co., 65 Great Russell street, London. I bought a set of auto-strop razor blades, and found that they, also, came from London. Still, at the stores I find a great many familiar articles with only good old U. S. A. on them.... The charge here for an ordinary ricksha ride is six cents. If I am compelled to go up-town on an errand, the ricksha man waits, and when I return to the hotel, I pay him a sixpence, or twelve cents. In coming back from town this afternoon, I faced a terrific head-wind, with beating rain, and the ricksha man was almost stalled. But the price was only six cents each way.... I cannot recall having seen a single mulatto in this town; all the negroes seem to be of pure blood. Whatever else may be said of Englishmen, they seem to be particular in their social relations.... At seven o’clock this evening, the storm was worse than it has been at any time since Monday morning. The evening paper says the “Anchises” got away at 4 o’clock this afternoon, and at this writing is probably doing a dance off the coast that the passengers will remember as long as they live. The wind has been blowing a gale four days, and the sea must be a thing to be dreaded by this time.

FRIDAY, MARCH 7.—The destruction being wrought by the waves at the beach has attracted crowds daily, but a good many did not get to see it until this morning, when the storm had considerably abated. Those who went to the beach today were disappointed because no great destruction was taking place, and abused the street-railway, which had charged them three cents for the ride out. I predict that at the next meeting of the town council, several additional measures will be introduced to Make It Hot for the street- railway, which had no great show to offer at the beach this morning. People have already forgotten the magnificent sight the company offered them at the beach on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, for a charge of only three cents, including the ride out. I rode out today and was satisfied; I always get along with street-railways, as it seems to me they offer a good service at a very low price.... The captain and gunner of the whaling-ship on which I agreed to make a trip today, called on me at the hotel, and said it would be impossible to catch a whale even if one should be sighted, owing to rough seas, therefore they would not go out. I took the two sailor-men down to the fine smoking-room of the Marine Hotel, and they seemed ill at ease while smoking the cigars and drinking the beverages I provided.

They are rough men, but two better fellows I have not met during the trip. I don’t suppose I ever had any actual intention of going out with them, but they thought I had, and came up to the hotel to tell me the ship could not go out today.... I regret to notice that in the papers today are references to three attempted assaults on white women by negroes. A Mr. Maurice Evans lectured in Durban last night on a recent visit to the United States, and we intended going, but were prevented by a heavy rain. Mr. Evans traveled through our Southern states, and made a special study of the negro question. He says our failure to solve the race problem is due to attempts in the North to make the negro an equal, whereas the negro is not the equal of the white man, and cannot be made such. Mr. Evans thinks our Southern whites would solve the race problem if the Northern whites would let them alone. The papers quote him as saying that an examination of a thousand, or ten thousand, average negro skulls will show that the negro is deficient in brain-power, and that he must be treated as an inferior; kindly and fairly, but always as an inferior, and subject to strict regulations. The South-African system of treating the negro is paternal; he is regarded as a ward. And in the papers of a few days ago, I saw a statement that a law was being urged which would provide a heavy fine for any white man who leased land to a negro, or gave him possession of land in any other way; by gift, purchase, lease, or renting arrangement. Wherever you find whites and blacks living in the same community, there is a race problem. One of the papers of this date, speaking of Mr. Evans’s lecture, says: “It is impossible not to be struck with the sadness and feeling of something approaching despair which seem to have been the chief impressions left on Mr. Evans by his experiences in the southern portion of the United States.” ... In South Africa a dentist does not call himself a “doctor.” I saw this sign today: “Mr. Alfred Geary, surgeon dentist.” ... I don’t suppose any white family in South Africa is so poor that it cannot afford a negro servant. Negro men are almost universally employed as house servants, and not negro women. Many boys are employed to take care of children. Most of the negroes who come to Durban from the interior have two or more wives. These they leave at home, to work in the fields. The English residents say it is best not to teach the negro servants the English language; that a better plan is for employers to learn Kaffir. An English-speaking negro servant demands more wages than one who speaks only Kaffir, and usually drifts to Johannesburg, the boom town of the Transvaal. A capable, all-around man servant gets $2 a week, and he is able to cook well, and do all sorts of housework. The servants become fond of their employers, and frequently remain with them for years. The negroes are said to be more honest than the Hindus; all the whites I have talked with have referred to the Hindus as thieves. But any visitor may see that the Indians are a more important class than the negroes. The Indians own many big business houses, and at the Hindu market I saw great quantities of fruits and vegetables; but almost nothing in the negro market, next door, except tobacco, which the negroes raise because they are fond of it. Although the English say one Kaffir is worth ten Indians, they admit that Indians are employed almost exclusively on the big sugar and tea plantations, where the workmen must be painstaking and reliable. My impression is that the whites are a little jealous of the Indians, and find the negroes more easily controlled.... Early this morning the skies brightened, and we expected a return of pleasant weather, but while we were at breakfast, the downpour of rain began for the fifth successive day. Since Sunday night the rainfall has amounted to nearly seventeen inches.... Natal, of which Durban is the largest town, is one of the states of the South-African federation. It is not so large as Kansas, being 350 miles one way, and 150 the other. Natal has 1,200 miles of railway, and corn, which is the easiest grown of all the cereals, is the staple crop. Sugar-cane, tea, alfalfa, ostriches, sheep, turkeys, nearly all the tropical fruits, and hogs, cattle and horses, are also produced. The planting season for corn lasts three months, instead of about eighteen days, as with us. The rainfall is 42 inches per year. The bulk of the farms are of 200 to 1,000 acres, and many stock farms are much larger. Land in Natal is worth from four dollars an acre up. Natal farm laborers receive $4 a month, and Indians about the same. It is expected that hail will destroy everything in the way of crops every fourth or fifth year. It is asserted that the European death-rate in Durban in 1910 was less than seven per thousand, as compared with a death-rate of fourteen per thousand in England and Wales in 1908.... The Dutch settled in the vicinity of Capetown in 1652, but the English claimed they ran up the British flag on the site of that town in 1620. There has always been friction between the Dutch (or Boers) and English. This culminated in the war of 1899‒1902, which cost the English 25,000 lives and a billion and a quarter dollars. The Boers had possibly 40,000 soldiers in the field, while the English had near a quarter of a million. The Boers were hardy pioneers, and the fight they put up is still regarded as one of the wonders of the world. Only the Transvaal, and later the Orange Free State, fought the English during the Boer war; Natal and Cape Colony were loyal to the British.... The English have also been compelled to fight the Zulus for possession of South Africa. The present peace with the Boers and natives will probably prove lasting, although I occasionally hear predictions to the contrary.... Six years before Columbus discovered America, a bold adventurer named Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but means of communication were slow in those days, and Diaz’s discovery of a water route to India was not known until several years after the death and disgrace of Columbus.... All South Africa is now in an amicable federation, except Rhodesia, and this will probably come in before many years. Other parts of Africa are controlled by the Germans, the British, the Belgians, the French, the Italians, the Portuguese, etc. Africa is an enormous country; almost as large as all of North America, and, in its remotest sections, civilization is getting a hold. More pioneering is being done in Africa today than in any other country, and, for many years to come, Africa will occupy a prominent place in the world’s news.

... I can remember very distinctly when Stanley “discovered” Dr. Livingstone in the country I shall visit shortly in comfortable railway trains, and the railway has now been built four hundred miles beyond Victoria Falls. Stanley’s first expedition into Africa was a newspaper sensation, financed by the New York Herald, as Dr. Livingstone was not lost, and, when Stanley “found” him, was engaged quietly in making maps of the interior.

SATURDAY, MARCH 8.—We spent this day traveling from Durban to Johannesburg. The distance is four hundred and eighty-three miles, and we were twenty-four hours and a half on the way, as we left Durban at 5:50 last night, and arrived here at 6:20 this evening. The distance from New York to Chicago is about a thousand miles, and the best trains on the Pennsylvania and New York Central make it in twenty hours. Formerly they made it in eighteen hours, but the speed was so great that travelers complained. The train on which we traveled today was the Limited, and as good as there is in South Africa. The track is narrow-gauge, and, as seems the rule on all railroads operated by the government, the train was crowded, though we had no cause to complain; we were given a compartment to ourselves, without extra charge. When we arrived at the station last night, we found a placard on the window of a compartment, announcing that it was reserved for “Mr. and Miss Howe.” The compartment would have easily seated four. It was provided with a washstand, and was practically as good as a compartment on a Pullman. At ten o’clock, a white porter appeared with two bundles of bed-clothing, sealed. Breaking the seals, he made up two beds about as they are made up on a Pullman. Then the porter presented me with two tickets, for which I paid sixty cents each. The tickets read: “South African Railways. No. 98029. Bedding ticket. From Durban to Johannesburg. Date, 3-7-13. Train No. 192. Amount paid 2. 6. This ticket must be handed to passenger on payment of charge.” ... This is the sleeping-car system in South Africa; two had a compartment in a sleeping-car twenty-four hours and a half for $1.20. The Pullman charge for a service not much better would have been $9, instead of $1.20. There was a dining-car on the train, and the charge for dinner was 75 cents, and for lunch and breakfast, sixty cents each. The meals were good, but the car was always packed at meal-times, and the force of waiters not large enough. Tea was served in our compartment at 7 A. M. and 4 P.M.... I have never enjoyed a railroad ride more than I enjoyed the ride from Durban to Johannesburg. The weather was cool, and there was no dust. We left Durban in a pouring rain, but this morning the rain ceased, and by noon the sun was shining. For hours we passed through a prairie country which greatly resembled eastern Kansas as it was forty or fifty years ago. I saw thousands and thousands of acres of what seemed to be old-fashioned prairie grass, and when there was a cultivated field it was nearly always devoted to corn. I saw a good deal of hay-making in progress, and in every case the hay-rake was pulled by a yoke of oxen. In several places, negro laborers were cutting oats, and the harvester was also pulled by oxen. This was the rule in the early days in eastern Kansas; many of the older farmers will remember when oxen were used almost entirely for farm work. If I were dissatisfied with my present location (which I am not), I should have no hesitancy in locating in South Africa after seeing that part of it lying between Durban and Johannesburg. The country looks like the best portions of the United States, and not one-tenth of it seems to be cultivated. We saw a good many sheep, but not one-hundredth part as many as we saw in Australia and New Zealand, although the grass was much better. Altogether, the impression left on my mind was this: A surprisingly good country, and very little advantage taken of it.... I doubt if I saw a corn-field of fifty acres; the patches were all small, and weedy. In most cases the stalks of the field corn were as small as the stalks of our sweet corn. The farming is mostly done by negroes; either as independent farmers, or as farm laborers. If some of the corn farmers of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas had this land, it would produce better crops.... This refers mainly to Natal. The rainfall is less toward Johannesburg: I thought I could notice a difference when we crossed into the Transvaal a little before noon today. Toward Johannesburg, there is more stock-raising; the country looks much like Kansas two hundred miles west of the Missouri river. Still, the Transvaal looks better than the best parts of Australia I saw. But in Australia, the very best is made of everything, while here shiftlessness is the rule. The natives (negroes)

live in round, grass-covered huts, and are a shiftless lot. If other portions of Africa are as promising agriculturally as Natal and the Transvaal (and certain parts are said to be better), I can easily believe it has a great future. But it should be remembered that this is the rainy season; in a few months the country will look brown and parched. There is plenty of rain along the coast, but in the interior, people long for rain as they do in Australia.... At one place along the road, we saw a family of Kaffirs going to town in a light wagon to which was attached three yoke of oxen. Goats and donkeys, the live-stock of shiftless men everywhere, were quite numerous along the way.... Near Durban we saw young corn and young bananas growing together. A half-dozen miles from Durban we saw a huge sugar-mill, and surrounding it a Hindu village in which there were several strange temples to strange gods. The foundation of one of these temples had been undermined by rain lasting six days, and was toppling over in the mud.... At many of the stations we saw American agricultural machinery on freight cars or on station platforms.... At one station there was a creamery which looked much like a similar establishment in the United States; at most stations, negro boys sold milk to the passengers at a penny a glass.... The cattle here are queer-looking; they are shorter than ours, and usually have enormous horns. I saw no highly bred cattle, but the native cattle were always fat, and grazing in grass up to their knees. Some of the oxen come from Madagascar, and have great humps on their backs. Oxen are as generally worked on farms here as horses are at home; frequently cows are worked with them, and when a cow works under the yoke, her calf usually travels beside her. In the middle of nearly every string of work-oxen, you see a pair of yearlings or two-year-olds being worked to “break” them. Donkeys are also extensively worked here; no disease attacks the donkey, whereas cattle often die as do our hogs with cholera, and I frequently saw ten to twelve donkeys working to one wagon.... Soon after passing into the Transvaal, I noticed that much of the prairie land seemed somewhat stony. What we call “nigger-heads” were numerous; reddish-looking stones worn into the shape of circular beehives, by long exposure to the weather. These turned out to be ant-hills, so hardened by long exposure to the weather that they will turn a bullet; during the late war, the Boers used them for protection. There are countless billions and trillions of ants here, and you are never out of sight of their hills in the Transvaal. In some places the ant-hills are so large that the natives chase out the ants, and use the hills for houses.... The fences in the prairie country are always of wire, and the posts of iron, and sod houses, most of them tumbling down, are as common as they were in western Kansas thirty years ago.... The Transvaal is that section to which the Boers made their great trek, owing to friction with the English along the coast. In the Transvaal was later discovered the Johannesburg gold mines, and it was the owners of these mines who brought on the Boer war. Should Kansas and Nebraska go to war with England, it would not be a much more remarkable performance than the Transvaal and Orange Free State fighting England, and forcing it to put a quarter of a million men in the field. Early this morning we passed through Ladysmith, famous because of the long siege, and throughout the day we have seen occasional relics of the war; mainly cemeteries wherein were buried English soldiers, and we also saw lone monuments erected in memory of special heroes. Mr. and Mrs. May, the fine old people we saw embark on the “Anchises” at Adelaide, and whom we knew on the long voyage to Durban, had a son killed in the Boer war, as Australia and New Zealand, as well as Canada, sent troops to help the English suppress the terrible Boers. We had heard Mrs. May say her son was buried at Sanderton, and we passed through that town, and saw the cemetery where the young soldier was buried.... The country between Durban and Johannesburg is what Americans call rolling. Small mountains are occasionally seen in the distance, but the general effect is like our prairie country. At one place we crossed a divide by means of a switch-back, and two engines were usually attached to our train.... Two hours before we left Durban, we saw the warship “New Zealand” come into the harbor. Immediately on landing, sixty of the officers and men left for Johannesburg, and were accommodated in three sleepers and a dining-car on our train. Hundreds of people gathered at the stations to see the sailor-men, and Johannesburg will entertain them lavishly.... A gentleman told me today of a farm in South Africa which is eight miles square. Plenty of good land can be bought here at $6 an acre, and the English government, much as it is abused, is as good as any in the world.... At 5 P.M. we had our first glimpse of Johannesburg: small mountains of white rock taken out of the different mines, and which are known as “the Johannesburg Alps.” We stopped at suburbs and switched around for more than an hour before we finally left the train at the greatest gold-mining camp in the world, at 6:20 P.M.

SUNDAY, MARCH 9.—Johannesburg was a pleasant surprise, as was Durban; it is a new, clean city of 237,000 inhabitants, and up-to-date in all respects. The population is about equally divided between whites and blacks. It has department stores as big as Kansas City, and last night the main streets were so crowded that it was almost impossible to get along. Although this is a boom town, something like but greater than our Cripple Creek, prices are not unreasonable. I am staying at the Langham Hotel, which is excellent in every way. The price is $3.60 per day, including three regular meals, and coffee at 7 A.M. and tea at 4 P.M. An orchestra plays in the dining-room during dinner. The waiters are imposing-looking Germans, wearing green coats, brass buttons, and knee-breeches. Altogether it is as satisfactory a hotel as we have encountered; and we were very fond of the Marine at Durban, and of the Grand at Wellington.... Johannesburg is not situated in the mountains, although it has hills something like the bluffs along the Missouri river. The main town is on a flat, and the surrounding hills add an agreeable variety. There is an excellent system of street railway, and the price is three cents per section; the fare to the zoölogical garden is fifteen cents. This garden shows most of the game animals of Africa, in addition to as handsome a display of flowers as one cares to see. A peculiarity of the flowers here is that they are almost without scent. While coming in from the zoo this morning, the conductor, when taking my fare, asked:

“What part of the country do you come from?”

I told him from the United States.

“I know that,” he replied; “but what section? I am from Georgia.”

This man was James Brady, who served in the Spanish-American war, and came over here to serve in the Boer war in a spirit of adventure. Strange as it may seem, many men like soldiering, and the risk of battle. One can hardly refer to James Brady as a patriot; he was simply a restless young fellow who wanted excitement.... Johannesburg’s principal streets are well paved, and they are brilliantly illuminated at night. I believe the town has a greater number of handsome homes, in proportion to population, than any other city I am familiar with. It startles an American to hear that another country has the “greatest in the world” in anything, but South Africa leads the world in gold production because of Johannesburg. The town is only thirty years old, but there is nothing crude about it. Like all exceedingly prosperous towns, its women are homely; in this respect, it reminds one of Kansas City and Chicago. The handsomest women are always found in dull towns like Quincy, Illinois, and Burlington,

Iowa. By-the-way, “Burlington” is a popular word in the English colonies, for some reason. In Wellington and Sydney there are handsome restaurants called “The Burlington;” somewhere else I saw a big arcade of the same name, and in London a monthly magazine is called “The Burlington.” ... All printed matter in the Transvaal intended for the public, such as railway time-tables, is printed in German as well as in English. Which is not surprising, since the Boers outnumber the English more than three to one.... An American negro would scream his head off in Johannesburg. The negro here is not allowed to ride on the street-railways, nor is he allowed on the sidewalks. A system of Jim Crow cars was tried when the street-railways were first built, but the blacks wanted to ride with the whites, so they were ordered to keep off the cars altogether. A negro servant may ride on a street-car with his master, but he must sit in a modest place pointed out by the conductor. A negro servant may live in quarters in his master’s yard, but if he has a family, and works for himself, he must live in Blacktown.... The Boers were more strict with the blacks than are the English. On Sundays, the streets are black with natives, as there are more than 100,000 in Johannesburg, but not a great many are seen on week days; in the enormous crowds I saw on the streets last night, I remarked the absence of negroes.... The white men here usually speak highly of the honesty of the blacks. If the blacks find a dishonest one, they promptly report him to the “boss.” ... A thing that soon attracts your attention in Johannesburg is the great number of negroes who own bicycles. Being refused admission to the street-cars, they buy bicycles. But the old Boers wouldn’t permit the blacks to ride bicycles.... Although the natives are treated so harshly, I saw the statement in print lately that they possess more than one-third of all the cattle in Cape Colony, one-fourth of the sheep, produce three-fifths of all the corn, and own one-third of all the plows. As they are excellent workers, they are really a valuable asset.... The Hindus are not popular around Johannesburg; everywhere I have been in South Africa, the Hindus are severely criticised.... In the Cape Colony, the negroes can vote, and have many other privileges not accorded them in the Transvaal. There are thousands of mulattoes in Cape Colony, but very few in the Transvaal. In Cape Colony, the negroes have about as many privileges as negroes have in the northern sections of the United States, but in most other portions of South Africa they have fewer privileges than the negroes of Mississippi or Alabama. A white lawyer with whom I lately talked, says the race problem here is really a very serious one. Many university educated negroes are coming to Africa from the United States, and making trouble. The lawyer also said that the African M. E. Church is a source of much trouble, and that there has been serious talk of prohibiting it in the Transvaal.... During my stay in Johannesburg, the papers reported a meeting of the South-African Native National Congress. Fifteen chiefs and 200 other delegates were present. The chairman delivered his address in English, and it was interpreted into several native languages. “Gentlemen,” said the speaker, “this land is ours, inalienable, a God-given birthright. We do not begrudge others a fair share in its treasures, but in so doing we do not propose to suffer our inalienable rights to be encroached upon. More than is adequate and just to our reasonable progress and well-being we do not ask, but that we demand with all the strength of our being.” Continuing, he said that he did not consider the natives were being treated fairly by the government. In some respects they were subjected to “an intolerable state of slavery.” They were denied a voice in the country’s government, even in legislation bearing upon their own life and people. They were fettered by pass laws, while illiterate men who could scarcely writes their names, and whose knowledge of the world’s history was limited “to the bare kopjes of their own backveld,” were entrusted with the power of governing the natives and their land. The government of the land granted to Indians, Chinese, Syrians, and other such races, regardless of character, an unrestricted liberty to travel, to trade, and to purchase land, while they (the natives) were denied all such privileges. (Applause.)

MONDAY, MARCH 10.—Johannesburg is possibly the most prosperous town in the world. There are six or seven thousand English and American miners employed on the Rand, or gold reef, which is fifty miles long and one mile wide. Johannesburg is the centre of this great gold district, and the white miners make big wages; they are all either foremen or mine contractors, and some of them make $500 a month; $350 a month pay to a white miner is not at all unusual. The real work is done by the negro miners, who are brought here from all over Africa under what amounts to indenture. More than a hundred thousand of these are employed in the mines, and they receive an average of sixty cents a day, and board. They live at the mines, in great boarding-houses which accommodate, in many cases, two thousand. No women are allowed in these compounds, and the miners themselves may only leave the compounds with special permits. By law, the negroes cannot be worked more than eight hours a day in the mines, and none are accepted as workmen who do not agree to remain at least six months. The white bosses have “stand around” jobs; they do no actual labor. The best white miners in the world are found here, because of the high pay. The gold-bearing rock is hoisted to the surface from a depth, in some cases, of four thousand feet. It is then run through stamp-mills, and crushed, and the gold extracted by the cyanide process. The mountains of lime-rock seen all along the Rand are composed of the gold-bearing rock after the gold has been extracted; in some cases, these dumps are being worked over, the old process of extracting gold having been wasteful. This broken rock is used for concrete work and for street paving, and the mine-owners will pay to have it hauled off their premises.... On the streets this morning I again met James Brady, the Atlanta, Georgia, man whom I met yesterday while he was working as a street-car conductor. As this is his lay-off day, he spent considerable time with us. He says conductors and motormen average about $100 a month. He complained a good deal of the high cost of living in Johannesburg, but it developed that prices are not much higher here than in Atchison.

“Think of it,” he said, “a good porterhouse steak costs a shilling a pound here.”

Investigation will reveal that the best steaks cost twenty-four cents a pound in Atchison. The best bacon costs thirty cents a pound here; that is the price in Atchison, next door to eight or nine packing-houses. Mr. Brady has not been in Atlanta, Georgia, for fourteen years, and said to me:

“In Atlanta, we could buy good butter for fifteen cents a pound.”

I told him he could not do it now, and he was greatly surprised to hear of the manner in which prices have advanced all over the United States.... We took a street-car ride, and the price was fifteen cents each going out, and fifteen cents each coming back, or ninety cents out and back for three of us. It was the longest street-car ride possible in Johannesburg; five sections, at three cents a section.... Last Fourth of July, Brady put an American flag on his trolley-pole, and it remained there peacefully from 6:30 in the morning until noon. At that hour an inspector ordered it down. Brady refused to take it down, and was suspended for three days. There is another American on the line, a motorman, and he tongue-lashed the inspector, and was also suspended for three days.... Brady’s father was Captain in a Georgia company in the rebellion; five of his sons were killed in the battle of Manassas. Of the one hundred men who originally composed the elder Brady’s company, five returned safe and sound at the end of the war. The others were killed, crippled, or died from illness.... You perhaps imagine that because the English whipped the Boers, the English control the Transvaal. As a matter of fact, the present local government, elected by the people, is Boer. The Boers in politics are called Nationalists; the English are called Unionists, and at the recent election the Nationalists won. There is a Labor party here, also, but it is not as strong as it is in Australia, New Zealand, or England itself. The Boer members of parliament are in a big row among themselves. One leader believes in reconciling the differences between the Boers and English, while the other is a fire-eater. The conservative man is much more popular among the Boers, apparently, than the fire-eater.... The Boers frequently quarrel among themselves. There are two branches of the Dutch Reformed Church, and several years ago the warring factions armed, and almost engaged in civil war, over the interpretation of a passage of scripture.... Johannesburg has recently opened a new and very handsome public market on the site of the old Coolie village. The plague broke out among the Coolies, so their village was burned, and now the blacks live in a section further out. Hindus, negroes, Chinese and Malays live there; no white resident is permitted in the village, nor is a Hindu or other black permitted to live in any other section of Johannesburg. Dr. Gregory, a Hindu who was educated in Edinburgh and who married a Scotch wife, had a large practice among the whites, but when the order came segregating the blacks, he was compelled to move from his handsome house down-town to the dirty Coolie village. There are ten to fifteen thousand blacks in this village, and many of the Hindus are rich; but they are not allowed to ride on the street-cars which pass their doors. In Durban, many of the Hindus are gardeners; here, they buy fruit and vegetables, and peddle them in various parts of town, from small carts.... There is a Jew market in Johannesburg which is very peculiar. It is an open field, on valuable ground owned by the city, and everything in the way of household goods, clothing, etc., is displayed in the open air. Nearly everything offered is second-hand, and is bought by negroes. The market occupies an entire block, and I found it very interesting.... At the markets here, eggs that are guaranteed fresh, sell at three shillings, or 72 cents, per dozen, while “farm eggs” are sold at forty-two cents. Penguin eggs are collected in large numbers from the islands around the coast, and their consumption in Cape Town in certain seasons exceeds that of the domestic fowl. The penguin eggs are palatable, nutritious, and easily digestible; the “white” is of a sea-green color, the egg is twice the size of the usual hen’s egg, and must be boiled twenty minutes. These eggs are sent all over South Africa, and to London. Speaking of eggs, one morning at the Langham Hotel I saw a guest bring two eggs to the dining-room, call a waiter, and give orders as to how the eggs should be cooked. In a few minutes the man came in to breakfast, and the eggs were brought in from the kitchen.... Today I passed a place called an “American restaurant.” This sign was displayed: “A complete meal, including a glass of beer, one shilling.” ... Another peculiarity of the English: When they drive, they turn to the left, on meeting another driver; but on the sidewalk, when they meet another pedestrian, they turn to the right.

TUESDAY, MARCH 11.—At the meat shops in Johannesburg, pickled beef feet are sold as pickled pigs’ feet are sold in America.... The morning newspapers of Johannesburg sell at six cents each. The best newspapers of New York and Chicago sell at one cent. The Transvaal Leader of this morning says the rain at Durban continues, and that the storm is the worst since 1858. When I was there, it was said at first that the storm was the worst in two years; then it was said it was the worst in ten years, and now the statement is telegraphed broadcast that the storm at Durban is the worst in fifty-five years. It is wonderful what the Atchison hoodoo can do in the way of disturbing nature. The weather in Johannesburg is fine. The days are somewhat warm, but the nights are quite cool. Except a light shower this afternoon, which was agreeable, there has been no rain since our arrival.... The Transvaal Leader has one department I have never seen in any other newspaper. Every morning it prints a list of the loaded railway cars received in Johannesburg the day before. Imagine a Chicago paper printing something like the following: “Yesterday there were received in Chicago the following loaded freight cars: Illinois Central, Nos. 100282,

287689, 159867, 829217,” etc., followed by two dozen or more railways represented in the city. Such a list would take up as much space as the baseball scores.... We have cantaloupes every day at the hotel, and they are surprisingly good. The varieties are new to us. We also have roasting-ears, and the proprietor tells me they cost six to eight cents a dozen, in quantities.... Four of the guests at this hotel we knew as passengers on the “Anchises.” ... Warned by the example of Australia, South Africa has prohibited the importation of rabbits, except that they are permitted in one small island near the coast.... The fire department made an exhibition run today to amuse the sailors from the warship “New Zealand,” a favorite trick in all American country towns. The apparatus here is motor-driven, new, and of the best.... All the street and railway laborers, and laborers generally, are negroes, and they receive an average of $22 a month. A negro laborer in the United States receives more than twice that. The Georgia man I met on Sunday says the South-African negroes are no better laborers than the negroes of the South. If the South-African government should decide that the prosperity of the country depended upon the negroes working for a shilling a day, such a law would be passed, without regard to the Rights of Man. Chinese labor was tried in the Johannesburg mines, and at one time there were more than 50,000 Chinese in the country. The Chinese gradually demanded more wages, and as a result they were ordered to leave South Africa, a fate which is now overtaking the Hindus. Many employers of labor favor inviting the Chinese to come back.

I saw a statement in a newspaper today that if American miners’ wages were paid along the Rand, the mines would show a loss instead of a profit.... The Transvaal Advertiser of this morning printed a table showing that the gold output of the Rand for February was 734,122 ounces, worth a little more than fifteen and a half million dollars. The same table shows that the average profits of the Rand gold mines amount to $170,000 per day. In South Africa, 184,000 men are employed in the gold mines, 8,000 in the coal mines, and 35,000 in the diamond mines. Practically all these miners are native negroes, so that the negroes are the source of the country’s prosperity. The negroes are compelled to work for whatever the whites decide is necessary to keep the country’s industries flourishing. In many places here, the blacks outnumber the whites fifty to one, but the blacks must work for whatever wages the whites are willing to pay. If they do not, the whites say the blacks are in rebellion again, and send for British soldiers.... The Transvaal Leader, the paper I buy every morning for six cents, prints a summary of the news in every issue, and I often remark how little real news there is, considering that the Leader devotes twelve nine-column pages to it. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a great deal of real news; the best the newspaper men can do is to make gossip interesting.... The passion for England here is very marked; the bulk of the reading matter in the Leader seems to be telegrams or correspondence from London. An Englishman will locate in the United States, and at once become an American, but in South

Africa, New Zealand or Australia, he is more English than he was in England.... When the new market-house was built in Johannesburg, it was so far out of the way that people wouldn’t patronize it, although it was a magnificent structure 668x230 feet. Thereupon the street-railway company went to the rescue, built a line past the new market-house, and gave free transfers to and from it on all lines. These were the first transfers ever issued in Johannesburg, and the people are already inquiring: “Why can’t transfers be issued in other cases?” I predict that this enterprise on the part of the street- railway company will result in grumbling and agitation that will finally force free transfers generally. The street-railway receipts here now amount to more than an average of $100 per car daily, but with the entering-wedge referred to above, look out for a howl for lower fares. The people here have never experienced the joy of fighting the street-railway, and, when they get at it, they will like it as much as do people in American towns.... All the people in foreign countries have, I think, an exaggerated notion of the prosperity prevailing in the United States. Most of the young men I meet are anxious to emigrate, and they believe conditions in the United States are better than they really are. Ours is a great country, but hard work and poverty are not unknown in the best parts of it.... This morning we called at an office building to see a number of Americans who have been exiled in South Africa many years. An ex-American took us around and introduced us to ex-Americans in the various offices.

We looked so “raw” that our conductor was immensely amused. He said to another ex-American, the manager of a bank:

“And yet they are surprised that people everywhere know they are Americans!”

I suppose we are called “raw Yankees” here, as we at home call new arrivals from the old country “raw Dutch.” Our conductor in the office building told us later that the elevator man said to him, after our departure:

“Excuse me, sir, but were those people Americans?”

“No,” the ex-American replied, “they were Russians. Why do you ask if they were Americans?”

“Because, sir,” the elevator man replied, “I couldn’t understand them when they inquired for you.”

When people talk to us, they talk slowly, and use a good many signs, as we do at home when talking to foreigners.... But so far as looks go, I think I have solved the problem. Today I bought a London hat, and wear it with the rim turned down in the back, instead of turned down in front. I imagine that people now say of us:

“The man looks all right, but who is the frowzy-looking woman with him?”

The leading ladies’ tailor in Kansas City is a German named Mendelsohn. If Mendelsohn could hear the criticism his suits attract in South Africa, he would go crazy.... Speaking of the English habit of turning the hat-brim down behind, instead of down in front, as American men wear their soft hats, some Englishmen in Africa go to an extreme, and wear the brim of their hats turned down all the way ’round....

At home, I have noticed the quiet amusement with which a German-American regards a raw Dutchman who has just landed. I think the Americans we meet here regard us in the same way. They are polite, and glad to see us, but they are undoubtedly amused at our appearance, our ways and our talk.... A peculiarity of Johannesburg is that coal mines are operated within sight of the gold mines; and in no other gold camp is fuel so convenient.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12.—The first Americans we met in Johannesburg are interested in banking, life insurance and real-estate, and occupy a fine building of their own on a down-town corner. One of them is T. W. Schlessinger, formerly of New York. Eight years ago he was a life insurance solicitor. Today he is the controlling power in five different important companies, and we hear it said that within two or three years he may be the leading man of Johannesburg. I. F. Atterbury, manager of the African Realty Trust, is not only an American, but he comes from St. Joseph, Missouri, which we can see from Potato Hill Farm. And what still further endeared him to us is the fact that his wife also comes from St. Joseph. Nineteen years ago Mr. Atterbury was a real-estate agent in St. Joseph, and, as the town was dull at that time, he was greatly interested in the prosperity reports that came in every little while from Johannesburg, South Africa. After his arrival here, he made money, but lost it during the business panic following the Boer war. During a part of the war, he was acting United States consul at Pretoria. When the war closed, he again engaged in the real-estate business in Johannesburg, and has long been a part of the “American influence” that undoubtedly exists here.... Soon after we met Mr. Atterbury, we all started out in an automobile to call on his wife. But we found her out; she had gone to call on an American friend, Mrs. Mark Cary, in one of the suburbs. So we went out there, on the way passing through many of the most wonderful sections of this wonderful town. Mrs. Atterbury and Mrs. Cary had gone down-town, we found, on arriving at the Cary home, so we sat down on the veranda and waited for them. Both Mr. and Mrs. Cary are from California, and their home is one of the show places of Johannesburg; because of its lavish display of flowers, for one reason. The maid served tea on the veranda, and the time passed pleasantly and rapidly in listening to Mr. Atterbury talk of South Africa. He looks like a typical American, in spite of his nineteen years’ continuous residence here.... Presently Mrs. Cary and Mrs. Atterbury arrived from down-town, and Mrs. Atterbury said to us:

“I haven’t lost my American accent, have I?”

And she hadn’t; nor had Mrs. Cary, which is not surprising, since she visited her home in California last year. But poor Mrs. Atterbury has been here nineteen years.

“Isham,” she said to her husband, with genuine American enthusiasm, “I’m going home with them. May I?” When I took a kodak picture of the party, Mrs. Atterbury wondered that she “didn’t break the camera,”

which no one will dispute is the genuine American language. Over here, people use the term “You see,” a good deal, which is equivalent to our “Don’t you know?” An Englishman says, “We can’t have the ocean in London, you see,” while an American says, “He was the smarter man, and had it all his own way, don’t you know?” Mr. Atterbury used the expression “You see” a few times, but otherwise we talked only the Kansas-Missouri-California language. At 1 P.M. we left for town, the driver nearly running over everybody on the way.

“The only trouble with this man,” Mr. Atterbury said, “is that he runs too fast, and I can do nothing with him.”

Was there ever a man who could control his automobile driver? ... South Africa is the paradise of the lover of flowers. At a recent flower show in Pretoria, one hundred and seventy different varieties of roses were exhibited. But all flowers here are almost without scent, which is true of all countries where flowers are particularly abundant and grown without trouble.... Grass-seed is not sown broadcast here, but is drilled in, in rows. If well watered, it spreads and covers the ground. The grass-seed most generally used comes from Florida, or of a variety which originated in Florida.... The “American influence” has been very marked in Johannesburg. Indeed, had it not been for an American, probably the Rand (pronounced “Rond”) would be abandoned today, instead of producing a daily profit of nearly $200,000. In 1885 the mines apparently “played out,” and it was John Hays Hammond, an American engineer, who encouraged mine-owners to dig deep, and strike the vein further down. The Johannesburg ore is of low grade, much of it averaging only $4 per ton, while a little of it is worth $25. The ore from the great Homestake mine at Lead City, South Dakota, is worth only half as much, yet many fortunes have been taken from this mine. The Homestake mine at Lead City is the real source of the Hearst magazines and newspapers.... A good many years ago, three thousand American mining engineers were employed along the Rand, and a few of the best ones received from fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars a year, but now the number employed does not exceed four hundred. I have heard it hinted that as soon as the Americans taught the English how to mine and extract the gold from the Rand ores, there were bickerings over salaries, and the Americans went elsewhere. The American mining engineers are highly regarded for many reasons, but especially because of their quickness and cleverness in meeting difficulties. I have also heard it hinted that the existence of the Kimberley diamond mines is due to an American. Johannesburg is more like an American town than any other we have seen. This is another result of the “American influence;” the business methods here are snappy, after the American fashion.... Mr. Atterbury says that the raw native, taken from the farm and trained, makes a very efficient and faithful servant, but that the missionary negro is no account. Mr. Atterbury says that a bishop of the Methodist Church who had done much work in Africa, once said to him:

“I don’t know that I have ever actually converted a native to a better life. The natives so easily forget my teaching that I am sometimes troubled with the fear that all my work has been in vain.”

Wherever I go, I hear grave doubts expressed as to the missionary experiment.... Most of the Americans I meet here were originally in sympathy with the English, so far as the Boer war was concerned, but ended by being in sympathy with the Boers.... There is a man here named Sir Abe Bailey. It seems to me that a man with a title should not be called “Abe,” but “Sir Cecil,” or “Sir Chauncey,” or something else equally euphonious.... Natives are publicly whipped here, when they do not behave. And when a native is killed in the mines or elsewhere, the papers do not print his name; they refer to him simply as a “native.” ... This evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury and their young gentleman son, Manfred, at the Grand National Hotel, where they live. Manfred Atterbury was born in Maysville, Missouri, but came here as a baby, and has never been back to the country of his birth. He is exactly like an American boy, except that he occasionally uses the expression, “You see,” which is used so much over here that I am contracting the habit myself. He has attended English and Boer schools, and, like the Texas congressman, doesn’t know where he is at. His mother, who took charge of her son’s education, as good mothers do, tells some amusing stories about it. One day the boy was sent to the foot of his class for pronouncing “Chicago” as it is pronounced everywhere in the United States. The teacher said the correct pronunciation was “Chic-a-go.” The young man also got in trouble because he pronounced “Ohio” as he had heard his father and mother pronounce it: the teacher said the correct pronunciation is “O-e-o.” The teacher was an Oxford man, and the English school books in use named only four American seaports—none at all on the Pacific. The history in use devoted only seven lines to the American Revolution, treating it as a trifling affair in which the English gave the Americans their independence.... (When Americans abuse the English, it is customary for them to say, “Of course the English are, in many respects, a great people.” Mr. Atterbury said it at this stage of the conversation.) ... Probably you know that in England and its colonies, the song, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” is sung very frequently, particularly at banquets and other places where grog is passed around. Mrs. Atterbury says that once an equal suffrage meeting was held in the banqueting-room of the Grand National. Only women attended, and they frequently sang, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” An equal suffrage meeting was being held in the banqueting-room of the Grand National the night I was there, but, greatly to our surprise, no windows were smashed. Several stout ladies appeared who, I thought, certainly had rocks under their aprons, but the meeting was quiet, and the noticeable protuberances turned out to be the middle-age spread instead of rocks.... The American party finally broke up at 10:20 P.M., with a statement from Mrs. Atterbury that an English paper here lately referred to an incident as happening in America in “the state of Cincinnati.” ... We handled the English rather roughly, but I venture to say they get even; indeed, taking one roast with another, no doubt they are far ahead of us. I intend to have an American party at my hotel on Friday evening, and Mark Cary will have another on Saturday, when we will again attempt to catch up with the English. When the English roast us, I hope they are as fair as we are, and frequently say:

“Of course, in some respects the Americans are a remarkable people. No one will care to deny that.”

THURSDAY, MARCH 13.—This morning Mr. Atterbury found it necessary to go twenty miles into the country, to look at a farm, and took us with him. R. A. Davis, government horticulturist for South Africa, also accepted an invitation to go. Mr. Davis was born in England, but spent several years in California; he says he learned all he knows about horticulture in California, as that state is undoubtedly headquarters for horticultural information. In his way, he is as noted an expert as our F. D. Coburn, and it was a privilege to spend several hours in the country with him. Here is a South-African apple story I had direct from Mr. Davis. His son has an apple orchard of three acres, containing three hundred trees ten years old. Last year the younger Mr. Davis sold his apples for ten thousand dollars, or more than $3,000 an acre. These figures are gross; the cost of picking and marketing the fruit was fifteen per cent. We had two punctures during the ride, and Mr. Davis told me another big South-African story while the driver made repairs. The most prosperous farming country in the world is the ostrich district in Cape Colony; instead of owning one automobile, as do our successful corn and wheat farmers, the ostrich farmers own two and three automobiles each. The best ostrich country is known as the Oudtshoorn district, and is probably 70×60 miles in extent. Mr. Davis told of one irrigated farm of four hundred acres and 1,800 birds for which an offer of $560,000 was lately refused. The ostrich farmers are nearly all Boers, although many Jews live in the district to trade in the feathers. It is said that more than one hundred of the farmers in the bird district are worth more than $250,000 each. Alfalfa is grown extensively. One acre of alfalfa will graze five ostriches, and the average ostrich will annually produce feathers worth $25. Ostriches are raised in California and elsewhere, but conditions for ostrich farming are nearest perfection in South Africa. A good many ostriches run wild in Africa, but feathers from the wild birds are not good. Ostrich eggs or living birds cannot be taken out of South Africa, and some growers have fancy strains of birds that are worth from $2,000 to $2,500 per pair. One South-African ostrich king has devoted so much time to ostriches, and lived among them so long, that both Mr. Davis and Mr. Atterbury agreed that he had grown to look like an ostrich.... Mr. Davis says South Africa is a better fruit country than California, and that it will produce better oranges with less effort.... The two punctures caused us to be late, and Mr. Atterbury’s automobile driver, whom he called Bristow, fairly flew over the ground. I sat on the back seat with Mr. Atterbury and Mr. Davis, while Adelaide rode in front with the driver. Mr. Atterbury frequently tapped Bristow on the back with his cane, and said: “Too fast!” and Bristow slowed up for a time, but in a few minutes would be running faster than ever. The South-African roads are naturally good, as they are in western Kansas. Our road lay along the railway, and every mile or two there was a stone block-house, erected by the English during the Boer war, for the protection of the railroad. This line of block-houses extends from Capetown to a point four hundred miles beyond Johannesburg, a distance of something like fourteen hundred miles. The Boer war almost ruined South Africa, and resulted in the death of 25,000 English soldiers, and probably 4,000 Boer soldiers. In the concentration camps of the English, it is said 22,000 Boer women and children died, because of conditions which resembled the conditions under Weyler in Cuba. England spent millions and almost billions in the war; yet it was brought on by a handful of alien Jews. War is the most wicked, senseless thing men engage in.... No one disputes that the Boers were terrible fighters. Mr. Davis recalled a limerick composed by an English soldier during the war. It ran in this way: “There was an old Boer who hid in a trench with a bullet-proof lid. And when the English came nigh, he said with a sigh, ‘I can bag the whole lot’—and he did.” ... South Africa does not encourage immigration. The Boers are in control, and they do not want new-comers, since they know that the immigrants must come mainly from England, and that every immigrant means another vote against them.... Mr. Davis told me that New Zealanders are much more popular in England than Australians; the Australians have entirely too much admiration for the United States to suit England.... The flower we call cosmos grows wild here; we saw many acres in full bloom.... Wherever we have been in South Africa, evidences of prosperity are abundant. The country is growing rapidly, and every man who can afford it is buying a piece of land with a view of putting out an orchard. Almost in sight of Johannesburg, good fruit land may be bought for $25 an acre. I make this statement on the authority of Mr. Atterbury, a practical real-estate man.... Possibly you think of the Boer farmers of South Africa as hard-working men. As a matter of fact, they are all gentlemen farmers; they do not go into the fields, and do hard manual labor, as do our farmers—no one works here except the negroes. Mr. Atterbury often goes into the country to look at land, and says he usually finds the Boer farmers sitting around the house, talking with the neighbors. Occasionally they go out into their fields, to see that the negroes are working properly, but they are above manual labor. During the morning, we met a good many Boer farmers with ox teams of from three to a dozen span; but the farmers always rode in the wagons, while their negroes walked and drove. In working ox teams here, a negro boy always walks ahead, and leads the head span, while two negro men walk behind, and use whips.... We returned to Johannesburg at 2 P. M., undecided whether to call the driver “Bristow, the Aviator,” or “Flying Bristow.”

FRIDAY, MARCH 14.—Yesterday evening, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury, we left Johannesburg for Pretoria, capital of the Transvaal and of the South-African United States. The distance is thirty-eight miles, and the road good. Flying Bristow made the trip in an hour and three minutes. Thirty-eight miles an hour in an automobile does not sound very fast, but ride it over country roads in South Africa, and you will agree that it is a terrific pace. I never before traveled at such a speed in an automobile. There are many hills on the way to Pretoria, and Flying Bristow crept up these, as the Atterbury machine is not a good hill-climber. It is a Talbott, made in England, and during the past two years has traveled 40,000 miles in attending to the affairs of the African Realty Trust, of which Mr. Atterbury is general manager. On a level, and down the hills, I have no doubt we traveled fifty miles an hour yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Atterbury rode in front, but had no more influence with Bristow than has her husband. When we stepped out of the machine at Pretoria, I remarked to Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury that we had just had a very speedy ride, whereupon Flying Bristow smilingly said that Mr. Schlessinger, his other employer, would consider our pace a slow one. So Mr. Schlessinger seems to be responsible for Flying Bristow. And if Mr. Schlessinger doesn’t look out, he won’t live to see his five institutions take a high place in South-African finance, for Bristow undoubtedly drives too fast. He has never had an accident, but one is coming to him, and I sincerely hope that when it arrives, neither Mr. Atterbury nor Mr. Schlessinger will be in the machine.... Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury spent a good many months in Pretoria during the Boer war; part of the time Mr. Atterbury was American consul. On one occasion the English shelled the Boer forts nearly all day, and every shell passed over the Atterbury home; one exploding shell broke a window in the American consulate. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury say that a shell, in passing high above you, shrieks and screams like a living thing in distress. They know Pretoria as well as you know the town in which you live, so that we had excellent guides in our visit to the capital.... I had a room on the second floor of the Grand Hotel, facing the old Boer capital just across the street. During the war, President Krueger (Oom Paul) and members of the war board met daily in a room just opposite my room; people used to sit on the hotel veranda and watch the war board in session. We visited the modest home of President Krueger this morning, and the care-taker showed us over the one-story house. In one of the nine rooms is displayed three hundred bouquets of immortelles sent to Oom Paul’s funeral. A few of the bouquets were made of solid silver, and a few of beads; in addition to these, many of which were sent by kings and princes, three hundred bouquets of perishable flowers were sent. Oom Paul (Uncle Paul) died in Switzerland, having been compelled to leave his country during the war, but his body is buried in Pretoria. Mrs. Krueger died in the house we visited. She was a plain old woman, the wife of a farmer, and refused to go to Holland or Switzerland when it seemed impossible to prevent Pretoria falling into the hands of the British. Not only Lord Roberts, but Lord Kitchener, were compelled to come to South Africa and take personal charge of the campaign against the Boers. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury saw Lord Roberts ride into Pretoria at the head of his troops. Across the street from Oom Paul’s residence is the church where he often preached, for he hated the devil almost as much as he hated the English.... The Boers were wonderful soldiers, and, being in their own country, they had a great advantage over the English. When they captured English prisoners, they didn’t know what to do with them, so turned them loose. It is related that General DeWett captured a certain English regiment three times, and this fact caused that particular regiment to be known as “DeWett’s Own.” ... Pretoria has 65,000 people, and is a beautiful city. A new capitol building is approaching completion, at a cost, everything counted, of nearly ten million dollars. It is an enormous and beautiful structure of marble and granite, situated on a hill overlooking the city. The erection of this building is bitterly resented by the English as a useless waste of money, but the Boers are in control of the government, and for sentimental reasons insist upon this enormous structure at Pretoria, Oom Paul’s late capital. An Englishman told me lately that the Pretoria capitol will cost two-thirds as much as Westminster, the seat of the English parliament.... I speak of Pretoria as the capital of the United States of South Africa. As a matter of fact, it is only the administrative capital, as the South-African congress meets at Capetown, while the South-African supreme court sits at Bloemfontein. The capital is thus divided between three cities. Our Washington is the capital of one hundred million people, whereas there are only eight million in all South Africa: one million whites, and seven million colored. The United States has nearly twice as many negroes as South Africa.... I am told that the average negro here does not pay much attention to liberty and the pursuit of happiness; he takes whatever is offered him and says nothing, but the negroes of the Basuto tribe are disposed to criticise English methods. The Basutos are well armed, and it is said could put an army of twenty thousand horsemen in the field on a few days’ notice. It is the Basutos who are expected to finally make the English trouble, and, when they begin, they may have the assistance of many other negroes, and the sympathy of the Boers.... When the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State fought the English, it is well known that they expected the assistance of the Cape Colony Dutch; but the Cape Colony Dutch, who are very numerous and very rich, got cold feet, and failed to show up at the first battle. But for the promise of the Cape Colony Dutch to join, there would have been no Boer war; and had they joined, the war would still be going on.... On our way to Pretoria, we passed a big camp of English soldiers. All English soldiers will shortly be removed from South Africa, the country being so peaceful that they are no longer needed. We also passed over one of the battlefields of the Boer war, which is now a peaceful pasture devoted to cattle.... A son of Wm. E. Gladstone is governor-general of South Africa, and lives in Pretoria.... Pretoria has the finest zoölogical garden in South Africa. It was established by the

Boers, and has since been fostered and improved by the English. It contains a rhinoceros, and the animal is so tame that the children feed it. But how viciously these animals charged Colonel Roosevelt in his articles in Scribner’s Magazine! ... The zoo is not only interesting because of its rare animals, but is located in one of the handsomest flower gardens I have ever seen. Next door is a museum containing many South-African curios.... At 2:30 in the afternoon we left Pretoria in a drizzling rain, which continued all the way to Johannesburg. Owing to slippery roads and no chains, Flying Bristow did not reach Johannesburg until about 4 o’clock.

SATURDAY, MARCH 15.—This evening we were guests at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Cary, both formerly of California. They employ four native servants, all Zulus. Seven years ago, they were in Durban for some time, and a Zulu boy named Abel became attached to Mr. Cary. Soon after their return to Johannesburg, there was a knock at their kitchen door. Mr. Cary opened the door, and there stood Abel.

“Your Durban boy has come to work for you,” Abel said.

And he has been with the Carys ever since, as cook. He receives $22 a month, having become an expert. Abel lives with the other servants in a detached house in the yard, and each receives the following rations: A half-loaf of bread per day; one can condensed milk per week; one quarter-pound of tea per week; two pounds of sugar per week; two pounds of corn-meal per week; fresh meat once a week. This meat consists of a shilling’s worth of “boy’s meat,” probably a pound and a half of beef, which is boiled with vegetables, usually carrots, which the Zulus love. The black servants here are known as “boys,” and the butchers sell a special kind of meat for them, which is called “boy’s meat.” Mrs. Cary serves out the servants’ rations once a week, and her grocer puts up the tea in quarter-pound packages, the sugar in two-pound packages, etc. The food is cooked in Mrs. Cary’s kitchen, but eaten in the detached house where the servants live.... While we were at the dinner table I expressed a desire to see Abel, the cook, and Mrs. Cary sent for him by Sampson, the waiter. Abel came, bowing and smiling, into the room, remained a few moments, and then disappeared in confusion. He is a single man, about thirty years old, and is now saving up his money to get married.... Sampson, the waiter, is a black man of about the same age, and has been married some time. He gave fifteen cows for his wife. She lives somewhere in Zululand, and Sampson sees her only once a year. Among the Zulus, a family of girls is valuable, as the father can always sell them at a good price. Sampson is one of the most capable waiters I have ever seen at a private dinner, or at a dinner of any other kind. He is very quiet in his movements, and, when he offers anything to the guests, he stands at a very respectful distance. While idle, and standing behind his mistress, he looks so respectful, and so concerned about the dinner, that all guests must admire him as much as I did. When I saw him, he wore a suit of white duck, made in American fashion. In addition to waiting on the table, Sampson does the washing and ironing, and assists the garden boy in caring for the flowers, the vegetables and the chickens. At the usual private dinner, you observe the lady of the house keeping a sharp eye on the waiter, although apparently engaging freely in conversation, but Sampson was so capable that Mrs. Cary was not at all nervous. When I am a guest at a private dinner, it makes me feel more natural and at home to see things go wrong occasionally, but Abel and Sampson did such excellent team work that there was not the slightest friction to comfort me.... The Cary servants are kept busy constantly, and they will cheerfully work until eleven o’clock at night, if necessary. They are entitled to a vacation of ten days every year, but Abel, the cook, has been away but once in six years. Every time they leave the house they must have a pass, certifying that they are good boys, regularly employed, etc. Every negro you see on the streets of Johannesburg has a pass; otherwise he is liable to arrest. The blacks pay two shillings a month to the government for this pass privilege, and when a white man employs a new servant from the country, he must have him registered at the office of the police. Mrs. Cary says her negro boys particularly dislike nagging; and I think this is a characteristic of every human male, white, black, red or yellow, that ever drew the breath of life.... Mr. Cary has in his employ a negro man who has six wives. This man works in Mr. Cary’s office down-town, but lives with the other servants at the Cary home. He says he often whips his wives, on general principles. He cheerfully takes orders from Mr. Cary, but it humiliates him to take orders from Mrs. Cary; having six wives of his own, it irritates him to be ordered around by a woman.... Sampson, the waiter, does the sweeping and scrubbing in the Cary home, but the beds are made and looked after by a white maid. Mrs. Cary has a very handsome flower garden, and a special boy is regularly employed to look after it. As it is in bloom summer and winter, he is kept very busy, even with the occasional assistance of Sampson. The Carys have an automobile, but the driver is a white man; blacks are not allowed to run automobiles here.... It is related that the negroes were once greatly excited in Johannesburg over a rumor of a Kaffir uprising. One woman said to her black boy:

“You wouldn’t kill your missus, would you?”

“Oh, no,” the boy replied; “boy next door kill you, and I kill his missus.”

The affair, it seemed, had all been arranged, and very delicately at that. This boy’s name was “Machinery.” The blacks take any name they hear used among the whites, and “Machinery” is a very common name in Johannesburg.... At the Cary home, when I was there, domestic ducks, baked, were a part of the dinner. A considerable quantity was left after all had been served.

“Will you get what is left over?” I asked Mrs. Cary.

“You bet I will,” she laughingly replied, using an American expression to amuse the American guests. With our black servants at home, they always get what is left over from a dinner, but in a South-African home, the servants get only what is served out to them at the beginning of every week.... Everywhere in America, women believe that there is nothing better for a salad than a whole tomato on lettuce leaves, and Durkee’s yellow dressing poured over the tomato. Mrs. Cary had it, except that Abel made the dressing. We also had apple pie, and Abel’s crust, made of beef suet and butter, would have done credit to any cook.... Mrs. Cary says that when she announced her engagement to a man in South Africa, all her friends inquired:

“Is he a missionary?”

People at home have a vague notion that all the whites in South Africa are missionaries, but I have seen none, and heard little of their operations.... We went to the Cary home in a rain-storm, and it was still raining when we returned to the hotel at 10 o’clock at night. Four years ago, rain fell here forty-two days and nights, according to citizens of Johannesburg. This, it seems to me, breaks the record by two days. The rain here is very erratic, and usually falls at the wrong time. The rainfall for the past twenty years has averaged twenty-six inches, but the rainfall is nine inches short this season.... The rain continues at Durban, and when the warship “New Zealand” left for Australia late this afternoon, there was a downpour of rain, and the crowd on the docks was therefore small.... Four years ago, on the 17th of August, ten inches of snow, the first ever seen here, fell in Johannesburg, and all business was suspended while the people engaged in snowballing.

SUNDAY, MARCH 16.—This afternoon I attended a baseball game in Johannesburg; a deciding game between clubs which had won six games each. The players were nearly all miners from California and Colorado. There were probably seven hundred spectators present, and although most of them were Americans, only one of them wore an American hat. I was the one exception, and some were disposed to guy that when I passed in front of the grandstand. The hat generally worn by the men here is a fuzzy affair made in London, and many of them are of a greenish color. The hat can be wrapped up and put in a traveling-bag, and is generally worn with the brim turned down all the way ‘round. A great many caps are also worn.... The game was exactly like a very good amateur game in the United States, except that several of the players were elderly. One player, a doctor, was as old and fat as I am, and I’m in no condition to play baseball. I was told that this doctor is the enthusiast who keeps the game going in Johannesburg. Two of the grayheads were about the best players in the game; one of them was a man named Wilson, and he was a noted base-stealer. One player was called “Denver.” “Come to life, Denver,” a spectator cried, when he went to bat, and “Denver” didn’t do a thing but smash the ball on the nose for a home run. Another player was called “C. C.,” and I found that his nickname was “Cripple Creek,” the name of the American mining camp he came from. One of the pitchers was called “Texas,” and he won the game, 6 to 4. American baseball slang was constantly coming from the spectators, and I could have easily imagined myself in an

American town had the men present worn different hats. I looked over the audience a good many times, and it seemed that every man present had in some way lost a little of his American identity. In the chaffing from the grandstand, English pronunciations could be detected, though every man around me was probably an American.... An unusual feature of the game was that almost no boys were present. When a foul went over the fence, some one would remark: “Another boy in,” but the only baseball enthusiasts here are grown men who have played the game, or seen fine exhibitions of it, in the United States. No admission was charged, but a man took up a collection to pay expenses, just as is done at games in the smaller country towns of the United States.... We ate lunch today with an American family, and they told us that the most famous girls’ school in South Africa is at Wellington, Cape Colony. It is run by two American women, and most of the better class girls in South Africa are educated there. All the teachers are American women, and the result is that all the students acquire many American ways, habits and pronunciations. It is generally said here that this Wellington school is doing more to Americanize South Africa than any other single influence.... American life insurance men stand very high all over the world. A South-African life insurance man told me today that every new feature of foreign companies is borrowed from America.... Possibly you will remember that years ago, Prince Napoleon, a son of the Empress Eugenie, was killed by savages. This occurred in Natal, of which Durban is the seaport. The young prince came out here with an English regiment, in a spirit of adventure. The Zulus cut this regiment to pieces; the catastrophe was almost as complete as was the Custer massacre on the Little Big Horn river, in Montana, in 1876.... The original Dutch who settled in South Africa were the same sort of people who settled in New York, and called the place New Amsterdam. The settlement of the Dutch in Cape Colony and in New York occurred at about the same time.... The word “Boer” means farmer, but it is applied to all descendants of the old Dutch stock.... American residents here greatly regret the exaggerated scandals constantly appearing in American papers. In America, a decent man is often abused unjustly and untruthfully, whereas in England the great scandals with plenty of foundation, are usually hushed up. The newspapers and magazines of England and its colonies are not as independent as the American press, and more generally owned by “the interests.” This statement will, I believe, be generally admitted by the English. The American press is not only free; it often carries freedom too far, and prints unjust and untruthful criticisms. These publications are read by Englishmen, and Americans living abroad never hear the last of them.... The tea habit being general in the English colonies, there are a great many tea-rooms. One was raided in Johannesburg last night, and a large number of arrests made. Think of a tea-room being raided by the police! ... But here is something still more unusual: An Episcopal rector in Capetown attempted to introduce High Mass into his services, and the controversy has reached the newspapers. The vestrymen are against High Mass, but the pastor stands firm, and says he is within his rights.

MONDAY, MARCH 17.—We have spent this day in the old Dutch town of Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State in the days before the Boer war. It has thirty thousand inhabitants, a little more than half of them negroes. Polly’s Hotel Cecil, where we are staying, is very comfortable, and the price is only $3 a day. I came to the Hotel Cecil on the recommendation of a Boer lawyer I met on the train. He lives somewhere in the interior, and is here to attend a sitting of the supreme court. The lawyer is the first Boer I have become acquainted with; he was a Boer soldier during the war, and, being taken prisoner, was sent to India, where he remained eighteen months. The Orange Free State had no grievance against the English, but went to war because it had a defensive alliance with the Transvaal. Although Oom Paul is a famous figure in history, he was quarrelsome and unreasonable; he made many demands of the English that a proud people could not decently grant. But when the war began, the Orange Free State became the centre of hostilities, and all the men between the ages of seventeen and seventy were drafted. The English couldn’t afford to lose, and they burned houses and destroyed fields as ruthlessly as did Sheridan in the Shenandoah valley. It was a terrible affair, but Oom Paul, with his excess of piety and patriotism, undoubtedly dragged an unwilling people to the slaughter. President Steyn was not as well known as President Krueger, but he was a better man, and better balanced. Steyn, who is still living here, but in ill-health, is a highly educated man, whereas Krueger could barely write his own name.... Owing to Easter, the railroads are now selling tickets at half-fare, so that we traveled here for two cents a mile each. This is the regular fare in Kansas, where we are not blessed, or cursed, with government-owned railways.... The Orange Free State, formerly a republic, is now a state in the South-African union. It has seventeen members of parliament, and sixteen of them are Boers. The seventeenth is a Boer, but a supporter of all English measures. Some of the sixteen Boer members are sons of English fathers, so that it will be seen that politics makes strange bedfellows in South Africa, too.... A Boer farmer does not pay his negro farm hand to exceed $2.50 a month. In addition, the farm hand receives enough corn-meal to keep him, and such other food as he can pick up. Corn-meal is the staple food on the farms here, for Boers as well as negroes. The Boers are always expressing indignation because the English are spoiling the negroes by paying them big wages. The Englishman who drove us about this morning in a Ford automobile, at $2.50 an hour, pays a negro man $10 a month, and the negro boards himself. Such liberality as this greatly irritates the Boers. And this town negro has almost nothing to do; he only cares for six horses, two carriages and an automobile. The Englishman who drove the automobile talked all the time, and his talk was mainly abuse of the Boers.... I have frequently remarked that the English are very unreliable in their pronunciations. Some of them refer to a horse as a ’orse, while others pronounce the word as we do. In London, there is a famous place, the Hotel Cecil. It is universally called the Hotel Sessil in London, but in Bloemfontein, the capital of an English colony, there is a hotel of the same name, and it is called Hotel Cecil; the word pronounced as it is spelled.... I don’t know how it is generally, but on Monday, March 17, 1913, Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, South Africa, was the dullest town I have ever visited. The handsome stores were empty, and I wondered that the merchants did not close up. In dull towns, pretty women are always numerous, and we saw more pretty women in Bloemfontein than in any other town in South Africa.... I believe I have frequently remarked in these letters that South Africa is the laziest country in the world for white people. Today I saw a negro driving a public carriage. Beside him sat a white man, who collected the fares, and managed things; but the white man would not consent to do the actual work of driving. When a white mechanic accepts a job here, he asks, “Where are the boys?” meaning, “Where are the negroes to do the work under my direction?” The labor problem has solved itself in South Africa. When a tolerably good man will work for thirty-seven cents a day, and board himself, an employer really has no room for complaint.... In Bloemfontein, negro women are employed as chambermaids at our hotel; elsewhere we have seen only chamber-men, who worked under the direction of white maids. The negro men are more industrious in South Africa than the women, now that they are civilized, but in the old days of savagery, the women did most of the work.... Near Bloemfontein is a fort large enough to accommodate four thousand English soldiers, but the place is almost deserted; England no longer fears war in South Africa.... The window in my room looks into an open-air theatre; I can see everything that goes on on the stage, and hear everything that is said. I went to bed tonight before the show was half over. Educational films of great value may be had, but manufacturers of films say the people prefer the foolish melodramas with which you are all familiar in connection with moving-picture shows. Sometimes I fear that the general run of the people have wretchedly poor taste. The main show tonight was built around a woman tight-rope walker. This woman was a society queen, but her father met with reverses, and she became a tight-rope walker in a circus, refusing to marry a high-born and wealthy lover because of the change in her fortunes. The high-born and wealthy lover was entrusted with an important mission; to carry certain valuable papers, and a girl clerk of an opposition concern was employed to follow him and secure the papers. The girl clerk fell in love with the man, and refused to rob him, but became a fury when he met his former sweetheart, the tight-rope walker, in a circus. The girl clerk caused the high-born man to be kidnapped, and locked in a top room in a fourteen-story building, but the tight-rope walker rescued him by rigging up a rope to the building opposite, and carrying him on her back. It was an idiotic performance an hour and a half long, but the people in the audience greatly enjoyed it.... My friend, the Boer lawyer, says the Orange Free State is much more prosperous now than before the war, although for two years afterwards it seemed hopelessly wrecked. But the British government loaned the people money, and they soon recovered. The Boer lawyer made another statement that surprised me; he said that taxes are lower now than when the Orange Free State was a republic, and that every citizen has as many liberties as he had then, and more opportunities to prosper. This is rather an unusual statement for a captured subject of a republic to make about a government headed by a king.... I never knew until the Boer lawyer told me that a good many Boers—possibly forty—have been given titles by the English king. The chief justice of the South-African supreme court, which meets at Bloemfontein, is a “Lord,” and there are many inferior titles, such as “Sir.” ... The negroes of Bloemfontein are compelled to live in what the English call “locations;” that is, in villages where there are no whites. We visited one of these today, and found the blacks had all kinds of shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. In front of one of the grocery stores was about the biggest pile of watermelons I have ever seen.... The vegetable market of Bloemfontein is in the public square of the town, and the vegetables are hauled in with ox teams. Negro women pick up the droppings of the cattle, and take the stuff home in baskets and pans carried on their heads. Reaching home, they plaster it against the sides of their houses to dry, and afterwards use it for fuel. Every negro woman I saw engaged in this unusual occupation carried a baby on her back. The negroes breed like rabbits, but the infant mortality among them is large.

TUESDAY, MARCH 18.—This morning at 9 o’clock we left Bloemfontein by train for Kimberley. The hotel porter carried our baggage into a compartment for four, and said:

“You are to have this to yourselves all day. I have arranged it.”

I thought it was simply the talk of a somewhat fresh but obliging hotel porter; but he didn’t do a thing but deliver the goods. And, what is more, the train conductor frequently came into our compartment, and pointed out the sights of interest.... I have known railroad men all my life, and been familiar with their practice of buying butter and eggs on the line, where they are cheaper, and carrying them home. The railroad men of South Africa do the same thing; the conductor told me that he buys eggs along the line at thirty cents a dozen when they are frequently 75 cents at the division point where he lives. He also buys his meat out in the country; a dressed sheep weighing eighty pounds costs him $4.80, so that he gets his meat at six cents a pound. Sometimes potatoes sell in South Africa at $11.50 for a sack of 165 pounds, and poor people pay three cents for every potato they buy in small quantities. On this run the conductor makes a round trip of 210 miles a day, which occupies him eleven hours. He says he earns about

$120 a month, but in order to do this, he is compelled to get in forty days in a month. The engineer makes $5 for a day’s work of eleven hours.... On the way we passed a flock of thirty or forty ostriches grazing in a field, like cattle, but this isn’t considered a very good ostrich country. We also passed through the Paardeburg battle-field, on the Modder river, where General Cronje surrendered 4,000 men to a superior force of British. There are two cemeteries on the field, in which are buried the English and Boer soldiers who were killed in the battle. The Modder river battle-field does not look unlike the Custer battle-field on the Little Big Horn river in Montana. Indeed, the country between Bloemfontein and Kimberley does not look unlike the dry country in Montana.... We saw almost no cultivated fields on the way, but a great many cattle, and a few sheep. There is not a town between Bloemfontein and Kimberley: it is a frontier country, and the railroad has been in operation only four or five years. A man I met on the train says that in his section of the Orange Free State the soil is black and rich, and that fine crops of corn are raised; but I have seen no such country. He lives in a country town of 800 people, off the railroad, and says he pays only fourteen cents a pound for the best beef, while butter sells at 24 cents, and eggs at from 18 to 30 cents. In his country, the Boer women do their own cooking, but hire negroes to wait on them, and do the rough work. An ordinary negro house servant receives $4 a month; a particularly good one, $1.25 per week.... Kimberley, as you approach it by railroad, looks like Johannesburg, though it is much smaller. You see the same mountains around the mines, but at Kimberley the mountains are composed of blue mud that has been taken from the mines, washed for diamonds, and then piled up in waste heaps. The country is not unlike that around Johannesburg: large hills in every direction, and a rolling desolate country between them. Kimberley has warmer weather than Johannesburg, and we struck it on a tremendously hot day.... The first thing you notice at Kimberley is the great number of mulattoes, whereas there are almost none at Johannesburg or Durban.... I was told at Johannesburg that the hotels at Kimberley were abominable; they were so generally abused that I hoped to find them better than their reputation, but the Royal Palace, which I was told was the best, is the worst hotel I have ever patronized. And in an advertisement, I read that the Royal Palace was the “Hotel de luxe” of Kimberley. I am writing this in my room by the light of a tallow candle, as the electric light refuses to work. The hall servants (negro women) are the most slovenly creatures I have ever seen, and there does not seem to be any head to the place; I don’t know who runs it, but whoever he is, he doesn’t give much time to his job.... There are probably a half-dozen really excellent hotels at Bloemfontein; some of them only half patronized. Will some one please tell me why one of the good hotels at Bloemfontein, an insignificant country town, was not built at busy, hustling, prosperous Kimberley? ... Johannesburg is a modern, beautiful city; Kimberley is a mining camp, with narrow, irregular streets. It has many good shops, but many of the people said to me:

“No one lives in Kimberley because he likes the town; we only remain here to make money.”

Johannesburg people are proud of their town, and they have reason to be, but Kimberley people are always apologetic. The population is thirty thousand, a large number of the inhabitants being negroes and Hindus. The rich mine-owners have race-tracks, clubs and resorts, but cannot be very comfortable, owing to the dust and the heat. The few Americans I have seen here are tanned until they are as brown as Indians, and they do not say much in praise of the town except that it is the greatest diamond camp in existence.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19.—The De Beers Company represents one of the greatest corporations in the world. You hear of De Beers in every conversation when in Kimberley. De Beers owns private cars for use on the railways; De Beers gives millions to public enterprises, and to the government; De Beers owns parks, hotels, street- railways, and eight of the greatest diamond mines in the world.... De Beers was a Dutch farmer on whose land diamonds were found. He never made much out of the discovery, and has been dead a good many years, but, like our John Brown, his soul goes marching on. Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit were the real geniuses of Kimberley and its diamond fields, and they are represented in monuments here, but De Beers is heard of much more frequently because his name was given to the trust which took over the mines.... Diamonds were originally discovered in South Africa in 1867, by some Dutch children playing on the Orange river. Three years later, the great Kimberley deposit was found, and now the output is twenty-seven million dollars a year. It is a saying around Kimberley that if the De Beers company should put on the market all the diamonds it has on hand and could produce, diamonds would sell at a shilling a gallon, but the De Beers company only sells as many as it can get a good price for. Diamond-mining, according to experts, will continue at Kimberley for at least a hundred years; it has not been thought necessary to make figures beyond that time. South Africa produces ninety-five per cent of the diamonds of the world, and the De Beers company is the principal factor in the diamond-production of South Africa. The De Beers company does not represent the De Beers family, but many noted English and French capitalists, with a sprinkling of Americans; the diamond trust is one great trust in which Americans have little interest.... Originally, the diamond mines at Kimberley were divided into thousands of claims, 31×31 feet, but Cecil Rhodes saw that diamonds would soon become very cheap unless conditions were changed; so by hook and by crook he formed the great De Beers trust, which now produces only as many diamonds as the world will pay high prices for. Prosperous America takes the greater part of the output, and dull times in America means dull times in Kimberley. Alpheus Williams, an American, is general manager of the De Beers company, and many of the officials under him are Americans. There are other diamond mines in South Africa, including alluvial diggings, and the Premier mine near Pretoria, where was found the great Cullinan diamond, which weighed, before cutting, 3,025 carats, or a pound and a quarter. But Kimberley is the centre, and will remain so, unless other discoveries are made. At the end of 1908, it was estimated that eleven tons of diamonds, valued at $350,000,000, had been found at Kimberley. Diamonds weighing over an ounce are not infrequent; the largest found at Kimberley weighed over four ounces.... Before the passage of the Diamond Trade Act, thefts amounted to five million dollars a year, but the De Beers company regulated stealing as well as output, and the losses are now insignificant.... The finest diamond-cutting is lately being done in New York, and not in Amsterdam, as formerly. The diamonds cut in New York show more fire than diamonds cut in Amsterdam; they have a greater number of facets, and represent finer and better work. Cutting adds forty per cent to the value of diamonds, and an attempt is being made to put a tax of 20 per cent on all uncut diamonds sent out of South Africa. No cutting is done here, and the passage of such a law would add enormously to the country’s labor roll.... The average man, in thinking of a diamond mine at Kimberley, imagines a great open hole in the earth, and thousands of men working at the bottom of it. As a matter of fact, no such mining is now done in Kimberley, although visitors may see great holes in which such mining was formerly carried on. Diamonds are now mined very much as gold is mined. Shafts are sunk to great depths in the earth, and drifts run in every direction from the bottom. Some of these shafts are more than three thousand feet deep, and the diamond dirt is hoisted and treated very much as gold-bearing rock is hoisted and treated.... Diamonds are found in blue dirt, in what the miners call “pipes.” These pipes are the craters of extinct volcanoes, and taper toward the bottom like a funnel. The pipes are round, as may be seen in the old open workings, some of which are a thousand feet deep. The deepest working in any “pipe” is now at a depth of three thousand feet, but a diamond drill has been sent down a thousand feet further without the blue dirt giving out; so no one knows how deep they are.... The old open holes in the ground were found very expensive to work at a depth of eight hundred or a thousand feet, so the blue dirt is now hoisted by means of modern cages operating in timbered shafts, as coal is hoisted; down below, drifts are run, and the blue dirt hauled to the hoisting-shafts as is done in coal-mining. As the blue dirt is exhausted, the shafts are sunk deeper, and drifts run lower down. The “pipe” at the biggest diamond mine at Kimberley is three hundred yards across at the top, and, as I have already said, this tapers toward the bottom like the funnel you use in pouring vinegar into a jug. The Premier mine, near Pretoria, is very much larger than any mine at Kimberley, being eight hundred yards across at the top. This great Premier mine, which you hear little of, mines forty thousand tons of blue dirt per day, and employs twelve thousand men, as against twenty thousand employed in all the Kimberley mines. The Premier dirt, however, is worth only one dollar per ton, whereas that at Kimberley averages something like three times as much.... Briefly, the process of finding the diamonds is as follows: The blue dirt in which the diamonds are found is brought to the surface precisely as coal is hoisted, and mined in about the same way. It is then placed in little iron cars, and hauled to a level field, where it is spread over the surface to a depth of two feet. This is done to permit the weather to disintegrate the dirt, and render its washing easier. Today I saw a field of four thousand acres covered with this blue dirt. It will remain out in the weather a year before it is treated in the washing-mills.... You might pause a moment and think of that four-thousand-acre field, covered to a depth of two feet with the blue dirt in which diamonds are found. The four-thousand-acre field I saw represented the output of only one mine; there are eight in the Kimberley district, only two of which are known to be duffers, as they say here; that is, of little value.... And you may rest assured that this four-thousand-acre field is carefully guarded; it is surrounded with a barbed wire fence fourteen feet high, and on top of the fence are four wires spread out in such a way that no one could possibly climb over. At night, the fence is illuminated with electric lights, and there is a patrol of armed guards day and night. But you might be turned loose in the four-thousand-acre field, and not find a diamond in a year; the process of finding them is very intricate, expensive, and difficult. Many of the natives who work in the diamond mines have never seen a diamond: they see only the blue dirt.... After the blue dirt has lain out in the weather a year, and been plowed up at intervals with steam plows, that all portions of it may have a chance at the sun, it is washed in enormous mills, and reduced in the proportion of one to four million: that is, for every pound of diamonds found, four million pounds of blue dirt are mined, hoisted, exposed in the field a year, and then run through the washing-mills.... In these washing-mills, the blue dirt is first crushed between rollers, and then run through shaking washing-pans three different times. What is left is then taken in cars to another mill, called the pulsator, and here the precious dirt is again washed three times. Finally the diamonds and the heavier pebbles remaining after six washings, go in a stream of water over a shaking-pan, the bottom of which is covered with vaseline. The diamonds stick to the vaseline, for some reason yet unexplained, while the pebbles roll away with the water. The diamonds on the screen are then easily collected and sorted. Some of the sorters, greatly to my surprise, were negroes in charge of white men.... Today I saw the result of one day’s washing from one mine; a pile of rough diamonds, many of them as small as pin-heads. One of them was said to be worth a thousand dollars. Dozens were of fairly good size, but the bulk of them were very small. These small diamonds will be used in cutting the big ones. There were many straw-colored diamonds, and some of them were black; the black ones will be used in diamond drills. It seemed to me that there were half a pint of these diamonds; Adelaide says a pint. But anyway, three or four thousand men, aided by the most enormous machines I have ever seen, work a day, and turn out—what? A half-pint or pint of bright stones of no actual value except in cutting glass and in diamond drills. The diamonds when found are in all sorts of shapes, but some of them look somewhat like diamonds after they have been cut. When taken out of the washing-machines they look like ordinary rock crystals; but they do not flash or sparkle. Cutting gives them that quality. The De Beers company last year made ten million dollars profit, I am told, and I am also told that one gold mine at Johannesburg last year made half that amount.... The mining of the blue dirt is done by natives who live in compounds, or quarters, and who are never permitted to leave the place until they quit, or are discharged; but no native is employed who will not agree to work at least four months. Today I visited one of these compounds, occupied by 2,500 natives. The place looked to be a thousand feet square. In the centre is a place where the men bathe after coming from underground. The houses where the men sleep form the square, and thirty men are provided with sleeping-bunks in one room. The bunks are in tiers, three deep, and reminded me of my quarters on the ship “Maunganui” between Wellington and Sydney.... In front of the houses the men do their cooking, at open fires, with wood furnished by the company. The men earn an average of eighty-two cents a day each, and are compelled to board themselves. They usually live in messes, one man in the mess doing the cooking for a week. The company has stores in the compound where all sorts of provisions may be had at about cost.... The men come from the interior, and, when they arrive, are given a number. This number is retained until the man quits, or is discharged. There is a system of piece work, and some of the men make $1.25 a day. The eight-hour system prevails, but the system of team work is such that all the men work steadily; the company sees to it that there are no shirkers. So the De Beers company has the services of excellent workmen at an average cost of eighty-two cents a day. There is a modern hospital in the compound, and men who are injured are treated free, and, in addition, receive their usual wages while laid up. The compound is much cleaner than an ordinary negro village, and many of the men remain with the company for years.... There is a good deal of water in the Kimberley mines. In one of them, 25,000 gallons an hour is pumped without trouble from a depth of 1,500 feet.... The blue dirt is hauled from the mine to the field, where it is exposed to the weather for a year, in iron cars holding about a ton each. The cars are pulled by an endless cable, and one of the sights of Kimberley is these cars going and coming without attendance on a double-track railway two or three miles long. The cars run in bunches of three, about twenty yards apart, and reminded me of ants coming and going.... When the blue dirt is ready to be treated, it is hauled to the washing-mills in the same cars, and in the same way. At the washing-mills there is a large residue known to contain no diamonds, and this is carried to the top of the dump and thrown away, and thus are formed the gray mounds seen around the town of Kimberley.... The Transvaal government has an interest in the Premier diamond mine near Pretoria, and gets sixty per cent of its profits. The government’s share amounts to two and a half million dollars a year.

Whenever a diamond mine shows a disposition to amount to a good deal, the De Beers company buys it. The stockholders in the De Beers company have gradually acquired a large interest in the Premier mine, so that there is a “gentlemen’s agreement” in the disposition of diamonds.... A great deal of hauling is done from Kimberley to points off the railroad, and donkey teams are used in freighting. Every time I go on the streets I see donkey teams of ten to fourteen span hitched to enormous freight wagons. The donkey teams are usually driven by three Kaffirs.... The favorite vegetable in South Africa seems to be cabbage. At the public markets I see particularly big stacks of it, but little else. In the public market of Kimberley, vegetables are placed on the ground; I saw string beans lying on the ground, in the filth of the market-place, this morning.... Kimberley is very dusty and dirty. The days are about as hot now as they are at home in July and August, but the nights are much cooler. An American woman who has lived in South Africa nineteen years, says she has never slept a night without blankets over her.... I was frequently told in Kimberley I should look up a man named Brink, the only man in the town who could give away diamonds, if so disposed, and not be responsible to anyone. I did not see Brink, but I saw a man who sent me permits which enabled me to see most points of interest. The De Beers officials are very polite to visitors, and anyone who comes recommended may easily see all there is to see.... Kimberley has one long business street which is very creditable, but outside of that the town does not look very well. Rain is very scarce, much scarcer than at Johannesburg, and when the wind blows, all doors must be closed, owing to the dust from the mine dumps. It is much hotter here in summer than in Johannesburg, and general conditions of living worse. I shouldn’t mind living in Johannesburg, but I don’t believe I could be content in Kimberley.

THURSDAY, MARCH 20.—Today we traveled from Kimberley to Bloemfontein, and the same polite conductor was in charge of the train. He not only gave us a compartment to ourselves, but presented me with a Zulu war-club which I am bringing home as a souvenir. When the Zulus go to Kimberley to work in the mines they are not allowed to take their war-clubs into the compounds, and sell them at low prices. The one I have is a fancy affair, and probably the late owner worked on it for two weeks. It looks as though it has been in action, and has probably cracked a good many heads.... We were compelled to wait nearly three hours at Bloemfontein for a train to Johannesburg, and dined at Polly’s Hotel Cecil. Mr. Polly is a model hotel man, and knows his business so well that his place is constantly crowded, while the opposition hotel, just across the street, and a newer and larger place, is almost deserted. It is surprising what a clever man can do to a dull one; if Mr. Polly wants the larger and newer hotel, my prediction is that he will have it in six months.... We walked about Bloemfontein for an hour in the moonlight. I like this town, because it is dull, and the people are consequently polite.

I have always been accustomed to dull towns, and like St. Louis better than Chicago because St. Louis people are not so struck on themselves. Every citizen of Chicago is as badly spoilt as a pretty woman.... It being the night before Good Friday, which is a holiday here, there was a rush of passengers for Johannesburg, and the friendly conductor could not get us a compartment to ourselves. But I was quartered with two very interesting and polite men in a compartment for four, and rather enjoyed the night ride.... Let the passenger conductors on American railroads prepare to scream with horror and indignation over an incident I am about to relate. The train on which we rode from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg was composed of twelve coaches, nearly all of them used as sleepers at night. The conductor not only took up the tickets, and looked after the train, but he acted as porter in all the sleepers, and made up the beds. The crowd was so large that we did not get our beds made up until midnight, although we left Bloemfontein at nine o’clock. We paid sixty cents each for the use of the beds, when we finally got them. The beds were done up in separate bundles, two sheets, two pillows and two blankets in each bundle, and the conductor of the passenger train was compelled to take these out of lockers, and change all the seats into beds. He had no help whatever, and all the time he was at work, passengers were snarling at him in an impudent way. I have never before seen anything like it anywhere. At every station the conductor was compelled to go out to the platform, and, when the train started, he didn’t say “All aboard,” but “All seats.” Translated, “All seats” means: “The train is about to start; all passengers take their seats.” ... After we got to bed at midnight, country boys were constantly racing through the corridor outside, and looking into our compartment for seats. We could not lock the door, and, although the train was crowded when we left Bloemfontein, we took on passengers at every station. In American sleeping-cars, you engage a sleeping-berth in advance, and after bedtime the cars are quiet; no racing through the aisles. Here you take your chance of getting a bed. A similar train on an American railway would have had a train conductor, a Pullman conductor, and a porter in each sleeping-car. The door of our compartment was thrown open a dozen times during the night, but my two companions, important mining men, were accustomed to it, and were not annoyed. The beds were narrow, but clean and comfortable; I had no fault to find except the racing of country boys through the corridors. There were three of us in a compartment that would have seated eight. I suppose the country boys had a right to chase us out, and demand that five of them be given seats in the compartment, but fortunately they did not do it, and we slept a little toward morning.

FRIDAY, MARCH 21.—We returned to Johannesburg at 8 o’clock this morning, and it was a little like getting home. We found two excellent rooms awaiting us at the Langham, as the proprietor expected us, and we soon forget the discomforts of the night ride. We found an invitation to dinner awaiting us at the hotel, and among other agreeable guests we met at this agreeable affair was Edwin N. Gunsaulus, American consul. Mr. Gunsaulus of course keeps in touch with American affairs, and he gave us a good deal of news from home. The consul is a cousin of Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, the noted American preacher and lecturer, and comes from a town in Ohio smaller than Atchison. Another fact that endeared him to me is that he formerly ran a weekly newspaper, and was editor, publisher, business manager, reporter, and one of the type-setters.... I may as well tell here of the reprehensible conduct of an American now a resident of Johannesburg. I refer to Isham F. Atterbury, formerly of St. Joseph, Missouri, but now manager of the African Realty Trust. I expect the American women to be as indignant over his conduct as the American passenger conductors will be over the treatment of the conductor of the train on which we traveled last night. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury were also guests at the dinner, and the story I shall relate of Mr. Atterbury’s conduct I had first-hand from his wife’s lips. Mr. Gunsaulus also heard the story, and I called his attention to it particularly by recommending that, as American consul, he do something about it.... The story is as follows: For years Mrs. Atterbury kept house, and slaved, as American women do, in preparing delicacies for her husband to eat, in order that she might keep him good-natured. But human endeavor has a limit, and Mrs. Atterbury’s slaving for her husband’s comfort finally resulted in a collapse, and a trip to a sanitarium. After her partial recovery, they went to an English boarding-house, which Mrs. Atterbury declares is worse than an American boarding-house, to live. And here is where Mr. Atterbury’s baseness developed: he ate as heartily of the boarding-house fare as he had ever eaten of his wife’s cooking.... Although the incident happened years ago, Mrs. Atterbury is still mad about it. “And,” she added, in telling of her wrongs, “some people say I am a pretty fair cook. After that, I quit the kitchen for good, and have been boarding ever since.” ... Their young gentleman son, Manfred Atterbury, is afraid to take sides in the controversy, but he did say that his father doesn’t pay much attention to what he eats; that when he goes to the table he usually carries American newspapers or magazines with him, and doesn’t eat anything at all unless his attention is called to the fact that the body requires a certain amount of nourishment.... The American women I meet here all say American men are more considerate of their wives than the men of any other nation. I believe that at home we men are rather unpopular as husbands, and that our conduct attracts a good deal of unfavorable criticism from American wives; but abroad we are everywhere toasted because of our devotion to our women-folks.... At the dinner tonight, an American woman said: “Another reason I want to go home: I want to see pretty girls again.” There are not many pretty women over here, whereas America is full of them; particularly in dull towns.... Another guest at the dinner tonight was H. T. Hofmeyer, a prominent Boer lawyer of Johannesburg, and who has just served two terms as mayor. He is much interested in American newspapers, magazines, books, and citizens. The ex-mayor and Mr. Gunsaulus, the American consul, were quite impatient with me because I had arranged to leave Johannesburg at 10 P.M. on Monday evening, whereas they said no train left at that hour. So we all took a walk to the railroad station, to get the facts. It turned out that I was right about it, and the consul and Mr. Hofmeyer walked all the way home with me, in explaining how they happened to be mistaken.... Merchants everywhere work the words “reduction” and “cut prices,” for all they are worth. Wherever we have been, we have encountered “reduction” sales, and merchants side by side abuse each other in the placards displayed. “This is a real reduction sale,” one placard read; “do not be deceived by false pretenses elsewhere.” One shoe store in Johannesburg displays this sign: “Shoes for next to nothing.” Every storekeeper thinks he is a public benefactor, because of his low prices.

SATURDAY, MARCH 22.—When I left home I was told that the name of this town is pronounced Yohonnesburg by its citizens, but I find that they call it “Joburg” almost universally.... In Durban, the best people ride in rickshas; here, these vehicles are used very sparingly. A law has been passed whereby their use will be entirely prohibited in two years. It is claimed that the ricksha men become overheated while running, and contract consumption.... A sign frequently seen in Johannesburg reads: “This house and stand for sale.” It is equivalent to “This house and lot for sale.” ... I was out this afternoon with five Americans, and at 4 P.M. we went into an enormous place to drink a cup of tea. There were certainly fifty girl waiters, and hundreds of customers. The tea-room included a long balcony above the sidewalk, and similar places are very numerous in Joburg. I am told that tea-drinking is one English habit American residents soon acquire.... The ordinary natives work long hours here. This evening I heard a boss say to a gang of street laborers: “Remember that we begin work Monday morning at 5:30, not at 6:30.” ... There are fourteen annual holidays here, observed by the whites as religiously as we observe Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July, but the natives do not seem to participate in them. If there is anything in having an abundant supply of cheap labor, South Africa should flourish.... Over in Missouri, many of the farmers have private graveyards. I find a similar custom among the Boer farmers in South Africa.... A big sign I saw at Bloemfontein contained this imprint: “D. Jones, writer.” Meaning that D. Jones was the sign-writer who made it. Near the Hotel Cecil in Bloemfontein I also saw this sign: “Hotel Cecil Toilet Club.” You might guess a week without guessing what the sign meant: the place was the hotel barber shop.... At hotels, I always hate to see the sign, “Fire Escape;” somehow it disturbs me. But the proprietor of the Langham thought up something more delicate; instead of the words “Fire Escape,” he uses “Emergency Exit.” ... I am always meeting queer people; I met a woman lately who said she would as soon drink a cup of castor oil as a cup of rich cream.

SUNDAY, MARCH 23.—Johannesburg and Kimberley have experienced the usual high life incident to all boom camps. While great fortunes have been made, much money has been lost, and suicide is almost as common here as in Monte Carlo. Barney Barnato, one of the conspicuous figures in both camps, committed suicide at sea, by jumping overboard while en route to England. But his act was not due to lack of money, as he was rich at the time, and was just completing the finest residence in South Africa. The building is now used as a school; it was a gift for school purposes from the Barnato estate.... Barney Barnato came to South Africa as a circus clown; his real name was Barnett Isaacs, and he was a Hebrew. “Barney Barnato” was his circus name, and it stuck to him in the days of his prosperity, when he became a diamond broker, and married a “Cape woman;” that is, a negress. She was of light color, but so dark that she was never received socially. Kimberley and Johannesburg can forgive much in a woman, if she has money, but Mrs. Barnato was never forgiven. It is said here that she lived with Barnato before she was married to him, and he sent her to London to dispose of diamonds acquired illegally. Instead of depositing the money in a London bank in Barnato’s name, she deposited it in her own name, and Barnato was compelled to marry her to get his own money.... Barnato prospered greatly, and when Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit organized the great De Beers Consolidated Company, they were compelled to treat with him, as he owned many of the best claims. He was made a life director in the De Beers Company, and the evidence is that he was popular, and a good fellow. All the big interests here have holdings in Johannesburg as well as at Kimberley, so the towns are closely related.... In the days immediately following the Jameson raid, and just preceding the Boer war, Paul Krueger was an autocrat, and very unfair with the big English interests in Johannesburg, which is in the Transvaal. Krueger was then president of the Transvaal republic, and you hear it stated in whispers to this day that Barney Barnato, or some one for him, hired an adventurer named Von Veldtheim, a Londoner, to assassinate Krueger. In a quarrel Von Veldtheim killed Wolf Joel, Barnato’s uncle. Von Veldtheim was arrested, and while he was in jail, awaiting trial, Barnato committed suicide, fearing, it is said, that Von Veldtheim would tell the whole story when tried for his life. But Von Veldtheim plead self-defense, and was acquitted by the Boer courts. He returned to London, and again attempted to blackmail members of the De Beers Company. The English courts sent him to jail, and he is there now.... Cecil Rhodes was the best man of the lot, and he did much for South Africa, as he had ideals greater than making money. Rhodes was a bachelor, and, like many men of big schemes, a hard drinker. His death was due, I have often heard, to heavy drinking. He is buried at Bulawayo, in Rhodesia, which he placed on the map, and which is named for him. Alfred Beit was a financial man, and not a great deal can be said for him except that he was very capable, and accumulated an enormous fortune.... Of the original crowd of boomers, Dr. Jameson is about the only one still living, and he is everywhere highly spoken of. He was originally Cecil Rhodes’s physician, but had business ability, and, with the patronage of Rhodes, soon became an important figure in South Africa. It was this man who headed the Jameson raid, intended to turn the Transvaal republic into an English colony, but the Boers captured him and his men in less time than it would take to write the story. Jameson and his chief lieutenants were sentenced to death, and Cecil Rhodes, who really inspired the raid, got them off. This was accomplished by the payment of money to the Boer chiefs, and there was so much of it that you hear of Paul Krueger’s buried treasure almost as frequently as you hear of Captain Kidd’s. The row over the Jameson raid finally resulted in the Boer war, and the flight of President Krueger to Switzerland, where he died. There is still a good deal of friction between the English and Boers: an English paper issued this morning complains that at an agricultural fair to be opened in Johannesburg this week, only fifteen per cent of the exhibitors are Boers.... The week beginning with Easter is a holiday week, and the crowd in Johannesburg is so large now that tents have been erected in many places to accommodate the visitors. The streets this afternoon were packed, and certainly nineteen out of twenty were men. This is a man’s country.... The American consul told me today that he does not hear much of missionaries in this section, except of a few Mormons, who are unpopular because of the notion, probably mistaken, that they teach polygamy. We called at the consul’s office today, and were much pleased with the many pictures we saw there of American saints: Washington, Lincoln,

McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, etc.... In going down in the elevator at the Langham hotel today, I saw a cheap book the elevator boy had been reading. Picking it up, I saw that the title was: “Buffalo’s Bill’s Warning.” So it seems American literature, which is said to be unknown abroad, is getting a start.

MONDAY, MARCH 24.—This evening we had six American guests at dinner at our hotel: Mr. Gunsaulus, the American consul at Johannesburg; Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury and their son Manfred, and Mr. and Mrs. Mark Cary. Mr. Cary had been at Capetown and Durban during our stay in Johannesburg, but returned late this afternoon, and drove direct from the train to the hotel. The hotel orchestra, as a compliment to our party, played American rag time. At 9:30 P.M. the entire party walked with us to the railway station, where we were to take a train for Bulawayo, en route to Victoria Falls. Our baggage had been sent to the station in advance, and we carried nothing except an enormous package of American newspapers: copies of the Chicago Tribune and New York World.... The train did not get away until 10:25 P.M., being late, but our friends remained until we departed. I tried to coax them to go home, but they wouldn’t do it; when people are very nice to me it makes me as uncomfortable as when they are not nice enough.... When we arrived at the station we found a chart displayed against a wall showing that “Mr. and Miss Howe” had been assigned to a compartment large enough for four, and from the interest Mr. Gunsaulus and Mr. Atterbury took in the matter, I imagined they had a good deal to do with securing this very agreeable and unusual concession.... I should like to have the pleasure of entertaining Mrs. Atterbury, particularly, when she makes her long-delayed visit home. She has been away nineteen years, and if ever there was a true patriot, she is one; her enjoyment at being among Americans again would be worth witnessing. She is always talking of “going home,” and telling of the many nice people she knows there, and nothing would please me more than to assist in realizing, as far as possible, all her present expectations. Isham, her husband, has been promising a long time to take her home “next year,” but she now declares that if he doesn’t keep his promise by March 1, 1914, she will go alone. We spent half our time in Johannesburg with the Atterburys; in addition to innumerable meals we ate with them, they gave us one dinner at which we had four kinds of wine. So if her friends in St. Joe will let me know the date of her arrival, I will be at the station to welcome her.... Soon after the train conductor looked at our tickets, he proceeded to lug two huge bags of bed-clothing into our compartment, and make up two beds. We paid $1.20 for the use of the bed-clothing two nights; the charge would have been the same for one night. So that we will have a large compartment to ourselves two nights and a day, and pay only $1.20 above the regular fare. The beds were comfortable, though somewhat narrow, but we slept as well, I imagine, as people usually do on a sleeping-car. On our door and on our window were placards announcing that the compartment was reserved, and we were not disturbed during the journey. The South-African sleeping-cars are not at all bad, except that the train conductor has so much to do that he cannot keep them as clean as they should be. The conductor did not polish my shoes at night, but I knew he was very busy, and overlooked his neglect.... On one or two trains we have been on, there was a man who helped the conductor, but on at least two crowded trains on which we traveled, the conductor has had no help whatever in making up the beds; the most curious thing I have ever noted in railroad travel. There is a guard on the train, who is what we call a brakeman, but he does not assist the conductor in the chamber-work. When these conductors are taking the tickets, they are as haughty as are American conductors, but when they begin lugging in sheets, pillows and mattresses, they are as humble as the most timid traveler could wish.

TUESDAY, MARCH 25.—This is written on the Imperial Mail train, on the line of South-African railway extending from Capetown to Victoria Falls and beyond. This will eventually become the “Cape to Cairo” railway, extending from Capetown, on the seacoast in South Africa, to Cairo, in Egypt. You may recall that Colonel Roosevelt, on his famous hunting trip in Africa, went by rail as far as he could, and then tramped through the wild country to the end of the line extending south from Egypt, and then went to Cairo. Alfred

Beit, one of the bonanza kings of Johannesburg and Kimberley, left six million dollars to be used in completing the gap between the African and Egyptian lines. When the “Cape to Cairo” line is finally completed, it will become as famous as the line from Moscow, in Russia, to a port on the Sea of Japan. This line was built by the Russians, and the distance from Moscow to Japan is now made in comfortable trains in ten days. Think of ten days of continuous travel in the same coaches, in the same train, and on the same railway! Great as is America, it has nothing like it; although we are talking of a line from New York to Buenos Aires, in South America. Thousands of miles of the proposed line are in operation, but there are gaps in Central and South America so difficult that it may never be completed, while the “Cape to Cairo” line may be a reality within the next twenty years.... Always remember that in South Africa there is no rich, black soil such as you see in Illinois, Iowa, eastern Kansas, and other of our best states. At least, I have not seen any. The soil in Africa is usually thin and red, and stones abound nearly everywhere. No part of Africa has as reliable a rainfall as the best parts of the United States. But nevertheless there is a fascination about this frontier country to an American; were I a younger man, probably the “spirit of the Veldt” would appeal to me more strongly than it does. All sorts of problems, including irrigation and dry-farming, are being worked out here. I have seen little country in Africa that looks any better than Kansas looks two hundred miles from the river, and the trouble is lack of a dependable rainfall. Along the coast there is so much rain that sugar-cane is grown without irrigation, and there is much good country, but today, eight hundred miles from the coast, we are in a dry, mountainous district which reminds one of Arizona.... Today we are seeing blanket negroes; native blacks who wear nothing but blankets, still a habit with some of our Indians. Between the lonely stations, we see native villages which seem as primitive as anything Africa can produce; at the stations, also, we see some negro men and women dressed as well as our best negroes at home. This morning we saw negro beggars for the first time: black children ran beside the train at a stopping-place, and, patting their stomachs, indicated that they were hungry, as a means of inducing the passengers to throw pennies to them.... At the stations, also, we see strong, capable Englishmen. These are the men who are engaged in working out the South-African problems, and they are undoubtedly making progress.... The white race can only flourish in certain parts of Africa; in sections four thousand feet or more above sea-level. Other portions of country must be left, for a long time at least, to the natives. Just what proportion of Africa is 4,000 feet or more above sea-level, I do not know, but I have seen the proportion stated as one-fourth in a certain section.... Most of the native male children we are seeing today are entirely naked, and their parents wear nothing but blankets when they come out to see the train go by; no doubt they wear less when not under observation.... Tomorrow morning we will leave the train at Bulawayo, for a two-days stay. This town is in Rhodesia, which is as big as half of Europe.

All of this immense territory belongs to and is administered by a British company, and is not a member of the South-African union. In Rhodesia there are 25,000 Europeans and a million natives. The head of every native family is compelled to pay the British company an annual tax of $5, with $2 extra for each additional wife. Many of the native men who work in the mines in Johannesburg and Kimberley came from the poor villages we are seeing today. The villages are all alike: the houses are straw-covered huts, and the inhabitants seem to be as poor as people can be. The native men only work as a means of buying wives.... When Abel and Sampson return home, they probably return to wretched villages such as we are seeing today. Abel and Sampson are the servants at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Cary, in Johannesburg. Abel has a sweetheart, and is saving money to buy her of her father. She is probably a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl living in a village such as we are seeing today.... Since leaving Sydney, Australia, six weeks ago, we haven’t seen an American traveler. They seem to be very scarce in this part of the world. At one of the diamond mines we visited in Kimberley, there was a book in which all visitors registered. We looked through twenty or more pages without finding a visitor registered from the United States.... I have seen only two bunches of ostriches on the trip; the second this morning near Mafeking. This town was conspicuous during the Boer war, because of the operations of General Baden-Powell. It is a pretty and important place, and has railroad shops, as the Johannesburg branch joins the main line there. It has 1,400 people, but near it is a native town with three times as many.... In some places along the line, the soil is so thin that the railroad dump is made of stones; there is not enough dirt for the purpose. The telegraph poles and ties are of iron, which indicates the lack of timber. The track is excellent, and the train runs rapidly. We have become so accustomed to the narrow- gauge that we do not notice the difference.... The dining-car on this train is clean, and the meals very good. When we went in for the first meal, we were told to pay at the end of the journey; so tomorrow morning I will pay for three meals. Which is another unusual incident of railroad travel. We notice here that hotel and train employees always know our names. When we went into the dining-car for lunch to day, the waiter asked if we were Mr. and Miss Howe. Being informed that we were, the man escorted us to a table that had been reserved. We are charged seventy-two cents for lunch and dinner, and sixty cents for breakfast.... In Johannesburg and Kimberley, we frequently saw the native miners going to the station to take trains for their homes. Here at nearly every station we see native miners who have completed their visit home, and are going back to work.... In one little valley we passed through were a good many fields of kaffir corn, and in every case the workers were women and children. Possibly the men were away working in the mines.... The country in which we are traveling this afternoon is eleven hundred miles from Capetown, and the track is not fenced. The occasional bunches of goats and cattle—I see no sheep—seem to love the railroad track, and the engineer is compelled to slow up, and drive them off with his whistle.... This evening we are about as far in the interior of Africa from Capetown as the Mississippi river is from New York, and are beginning to have trouble with dust. I believe I have never been bothered with dust as I am here; but we cannot see it—it seems to be a part of the air.... We passed within thirty miles of Serome, containing thirty thousand people, and one of the largest native towns in South Africa. The chief of this tribe does not allow liquor to be sold in his territory, and is quite progressive. He rules over a territory a hundred miles square. In his town of Serome there are a good many white storekeepers and traders, who buy corn, skins, etc., and ship them to the railroad by ox teams. Serome is in a vast territory known as the “Protectorate;” the British government protects the natives in their right to rule through chiefs. British officials, usually army officers, are scattered throughout the territory, to advise and really rule the chiefs. The natives have their own petty courts, but the superior courts are British. We are well out of the Boer territory now. The Boers once planned to annex the vast territory now known as Rhodesia, which fact caused Cecil Rhodes to hurry into the country with an armed force, and claim it for the British.... The tracks of the South-African railway are uniformly good, and as night approached, the weather became cooler. The dust we experienced earlier in the day came from a desert where discomfort is always experienced.... At one place, we saw a negro hoeing corn in a field, stark naked. Whether the negro was man or woman, I could not tell at the distance, but as women do most of the field work here, I fear it was a woman, and that I saw a very improper sight while innocently endeavoring to broaden my mind by travel.... Railroad grading is done here with pick and shovel, and not with horse or steam scrapers. At one station a long siding was being put in, and the necessary cut was being made by negroes who used only picks and shovels.... The passengers on this train, which is a Limited, are a nice lot, and very polite. Although all men are supposed to be equal, the difference between the passengers on a Limited train and the passengers on an excursion train is very marked. The difference between the patrons of a first and second-class hotel may also be noted without difficulty.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26.—The distance from Mafeking to Bulawayo is 485 miles, and our train made it in twenty-four hours. If there is a town between Mafeking and Bulawayo, we passed through it during the night; we stopped at a good many lonely stations, but saw no towns. And we passed but one train on the way: a passenger train coming from Victoria Falls.... We arrived at Bulawayo this morning at 9:30, on time to the second, although we left Johannesburg and Mafeking late. We were taken to the Grand Hotel in an automobile, of which the hotel porter was the driver, and the manager met us with the question: “Mr. and Miss Howe?” You travel by schedule here, and your coming is known in advance.... Last night the weather was chilly, although the afternoon was almost insufferably hot and dusty. All day yesterday we traveled through a country covered with scrubby trees; trees so bent and twisted that they looked as though they had rheumatism in every limb and joint. This morning we awoke in Rhodesia, and the country improved in character, though the land was still of the Arizona kind rather than of the Iowa or eastern Kansas kind. In Rhodesia we saw larger cornfields than we saw yesterday, but the fields were many miles apart. Corn is the staple crop all over Africa, but the corn I have seen was small.... Africa is an enormous country; when it comes to size, we must take off our hats to it. But nine hundred miles in the interior, you do not find a city like Chicago; the fourth or fifth city in the world, and built up from agriculture. Africa was known before Columbus discovered America; had it been as rich agriculturally as North America, the negroes would have been chased out by farmers as promptly as the Indians were chased out of North America. In Africa today there are negro tribes as wild as were the wildest tribes hundreds of years ago. There is here a tribe known as the Bushmen. Their language is a collection of clicks and grunts, these last, absent in the other African dialects, being said to bear a resemblance to the different cries of the baboon. The Bushman is so much like the baboon that he has no conception of right or wrong; it is as impossible to civilize him as it is impossible to civilize the monkey. He is the missing link between the monkey most like man, and the human animal. He can no more understand the rights of property than can the lion or the jackal; theft is not a crime with him, because he cannot appreciate that theft is wrong. So it has been found necessary to drive him to the wildest and most inaccessible sections of the country, and, when he appears in civilization, is hunted as ruthlessly as are cunning and dangerous wild animals. No Bushman has ever been known to cultivate a field; he lives entirely by hunting animals, wild berries, roots, etc., and no white man has ever been able to understand the Bushman’s language.... Africa is behind us in civilization because its land is poorer. In many of our best states it was possible in early times, before fences were introduced, to plow a furrow hundreds of miles long, and every foot of the land represented a rich, deep, black soil that would produce marvelous crops without irrigation or fertilizing. There is no such land in Africa; the abundance of such land in North America explains why it has a hundred million progressive people, and is everywhere known as the best country the sun shines on. Possibly modesty should cause us to boast less, but the big talk we use in Fourth of July addresses is not far from the truth.... Do Americans boast a good deal? On the contrary, I sometimes fear they habitually deny nearly every good thing that may be said about their country. In Johannesburg I was given a big bundle of American newspapers and magazines, and read them in coming here. I saw no boasting; on the contrary, I read dozens of sensational scandals that were in the main baseless. One worthy and useful old gentleman, I read, is being harassed by an impudent investigating committee, although so ill that he cannot speak above a whisper. I read that a prominent American manufacturer, who certainly deserves well of his country, has been sentenced to jail and fined $50,000, on a charge that seems trifling. I read of a case wherein a negro assaulted a worthy white woman in the South. The papers are determined to make out that the woman was assaulted and cut with a knife by her husband, who caught her flirting with another man. The woman and her husband, and all their friends who were about them at the time, swear in court that the assault was committed by a mulatto, whom none of them knew; there is no sworn evidence whatever to the contrary. It was rumored for months before the trial began that a newspaper reporter was smuggled into the office of the prosecuting attorney when the husband and wife were examined, soon after the assault, and that the reporter heard the husband say incriminating things to his wife, during the temporary absence of the prosecuting attorney; but at the trial, the reporter was a witness, and swore to no such incident. At this distance, it looks as though the gossips have the assistance of the courts and the newspapers in making good their vicious and untruthful tales.... Is this boasting? Is it not, on the contrary, making ourselves mean when we are usually creditable and decent? ... To a hurried visitor, Bulawayo seems even handsomer, and duller, than Bloemfontein, the old Dutch town in the Orange Free State which I admired so much. The Grand Hotel here is excellent, and the town clean and handsome, but I see little business going on. It may be that the farmers come in some other day in the week, but I wonder at and enjoy the quietness in Bulawayo. So far I have seen no great number of pretty women, who always distinguish a dull town, but possibly they have been kept in by a rain which began falling soon after my arrival. Work is in progress here on a government building which would do credit to a state capital in America, but this not the capital of Rhodesia; that honor belongs to Salisbury, three hundred miles away. The new building will be occupied by officials of the British company which owns Rhodesia, and the postoffice.... When the Union Pacific Railway was built, in the days immediately following the Civil War, the government gave the company a strip of land on both sides of the track, as a reward for developing the country. In like manner, the English government gave Rhodesia to certain capitalists, except that in this case the capitalists govern the country; they collect taxes, try criminals, hang them when necessary, collect customs, and otherwise administer public affairs. The police and militia of Rhodesia serve the Rhodesia company; when a man buys public land, he buys it of the Rhodesia company; but back of the Rhodesia company, John Bull is a silent but powerful figure, and nothing can be done without his approval and consent. India was governed many years by the East India company, but finally Victoria was made Empress of India. Rhodesia will eventually become a member of the South-African union, certainly; it may be even closer than that to the British crown.... Flies and mosquitoes terrorize me in Africa. There is a fly here which gives the dreaded Sleeping Sickness with its bite, and there is a mosquito which gives you typhoid. I strike at both insects as promptly as the average man strikes at a moth miller when around home. I never knew a man so dignified that he wouldn’t take a smash at a moth miller.... The Bulawayo newspaper, issued this morning, tells of the depredations of lions in the surrounding country. Several cattle and one native were killed. Let American country editors think of exciting country correspondence of that kind.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27.—Thirty miles from Bulawayo is a district known as the Matopo Hills, one hundred miles long by twenty-five broad. During the Matabele rebellion of 1896‒7, these rough hills of granite proved impregnable when occupied by the natives, as they are full of passes and gigantic caves, and occasional fertile but almost inaccessible valleys. Cecil Rhodes loved this district, because of its wildness, and one of his last requests was that his body be buried on top of the highest of the Matopo Hills. We visited his grave today, during the course of an automobile ride. There is no monument over his grave; a simple flat stone covers it. Two hundred feet away, and on top of the same hill, is a monument “In Memory of Brave Men.” It is a huge affair of granite, in memory of Major Allan Wilson and his party, who fell on the Shangaui river in 1893. It is a common habit of discreet men to erect handsome monuments over the graves of foolhardy adventurers, and call them brave. Thousands of men lost their lives in order that Cecil Rhodes might become noted, and be the subject of statues at Kimberley, Johannesburg, Bulawayo, etc. Other noted men have sacrificed the lives of their followers with equal recklessness.... On the four sides of the notable monument near Rhodes’s grave are bronze panels showing scenes from various campaigns in Rhodesia; the figures are of heroic size, and executed with so much faithfulness by John Tweed that many of the faces may be recognized.... From Rhodes’s grave, the Matopo Hills may be seen in all their remarkable desolation. The place looks like hell with the fires out; like the world upside down. Rhodes had a model farm of 115,000 acres just outside the Hills, and spent $150,000 on an irrigating dam. He expected this dam to irrigate 2,000 acres, but it actually irrigates less than 700. Rhodes spent considerable time on this farm, and frequently went to the high hill where his body was afterwards buried. In moods of despondency, when he knew his illness must soon result in death, he spent several moonlight nights on the spot where his grave is now located. Several attendants accompanied him, but he said little to them; he silently looked around at what is probably the most majestic scene of desolation in the world. Rhodes was less than fifty when he died, and his thoughts about the vanities of life would have been exceedingly interesting in print. He was one of the remarkable characters of recent history, and I shall long remember him; especially because of a statue erected in his memory at the crossing of two principal streets in Bulawayo. This statue is a wonderfully lifelike reproduction of a man, and I have repeatedly looked at it with more interest than I usually look at works of art.... On the journey to the Matopo Hills, we saw frequent bunches of wild baboons; in one lot there must have been twenty or thirty. These animals are a nuisance to farmers, as they kill sheep; it is therefore necessary to hunt them with dogs.... On the way to the Matopo Hills is a hotel. We ate lunch there on our return trip, and a bride and groom started out ahead of us, in an automobile. We finally overtook them, but the bride and groom were utterly unconscious of our presence, and hugged and kissed most of the way to Bulawayo. A mother and daughter, traveling acquaintances, accompanied us, and the daughter was particularly interested in the actions of the bride and groom. Later, when we punctured a tire, and stopped for repairs, the girl confessed that she is to be married in a few weeks. She is the daughter of a big farmer in the Transvaal, and will marry a young banker. A banker is as particular about marrying a rich woman as an army officer. Ever know a banker or an army officer to marry a poor girl? ... The bride and groom in front of us greatly interested our party, and we laughed until our sides ached. They were fooling the driver of their automobile, but utterly unconscious of five spectators in the rear. In fooling one man, you are usually unconscious of several others who are watching you.

Block House used by the English in the Boer War    /    Entrance to Suez Canal
Native children, South Africa
Native Village, Rhodesia    /     An African King meeting with his Cabinet

FRIDAY, MARCH 28.—The mother and daughter with whom we have been traveling several days, Mrs. and Miss Meek, live fifteen miles off the railroad between Durban and Johannesburg, on a farm of twenty thousand acres. Mr. Meek, the husband and father, goes in principally for sheep, of which he has many thousand head, but he does general farming as well, and has two hundred and fifty natives on his farms, counting women and children. These live in small villages or kraals on the land, and both Mrs. Meek and her daughter speak the Kaffir language. Some of the Kaffir men on the Meek farm have six wives; the farm foreman has that number, and Mrs. Meek says he is a very reliable and capable man, in spite of his love affairs. The foreman has twenty-eight children, and each of his six wives lives in a different hut. When he takes a new wife, there is no marriage ceremony; he simply invites his friends to a wedding feast, which the other wives prepare. He buys his wives, usually paying ten head of cattle each; there are no love preliminaries, except that occasionally a young girl comes to the foreman’s kraal, and remains until he takes her as his wife. He is a prosperous man, and prosperous men are everywhere popular with the girls. The wives of the foreman get along very well together; they have always been accustomed to the system of plural wives, and do not seem to object to it. The children living in the kraals, Mrs. Meek says, are very healthy; more so than white children living in modern houses in the same vicinity. The grass-covered huts in which the natives live are less liable to leak in rainy weather than the houses of the whites, which are almost universally covered in South Africa with corrugated iron. Mr. Meek pays his native workmen about $2.50 per month, and board, providing they are reliable and steady. Their board consists of a certain amount of shelled corn; about all they eat is corn-meal porridge, and their idea of luxury is to have brown sugar to sprinkle over it. Most of them have gardens, and Mr. Meek loans them oxen and plows for cultivating them. A young native boy who herds cattle gets seventy-two cents a month. The native workmen employed on the Meek farm have their porridge ground and cooked by a native employed for the purpose, who never gives them too much, because the work of grinding corn in a handmill is a considerable task, and this task falls to the cook. The natives on the farm go to church once on Sunday, but they seem to attend the services as a means of seeing and being seen rather than because they are religious. A railroad is building toward Mr. Meek’s farm, and lately he refused $20 an acre for it. I am somewhat confused about the yield of corn per acre in South Africa, as the people always say a field yields so many bags per morgen; a morgen being a little over two acres, and a bag holding a little less than three bushels. But it may be safely stated that the yield of corn in no part of South Africa is equal to the yield in the corn belt in our section. Disastrous drouths are also very common; corn has been almost a failure for the past three seasons. I have not seen a good field of corn in South Africa. But Mr. Meek is a very prosperous farmer, because of his sheep, cattle and horses. He also milks a good many cows, and sends the cream to the railroad, “five hours” from his farm: distances are always computed here by hours, and not by miles. Five miles from his farm-house is a country village without a railroad, and there he does his “trading.” He is making an exhibit of stock at the Johannesburg fair, and his wife and daughter are very anxious to know whether they took any prizes.... Mr. Meek was born of English parents, but has never been to England. During the war he would not fight the English, and he would not fight the Boers, as his wife is of Dutch descent. So he left home, and went into Natal. His wife remained on the farm throughout the war, and was constantly surrounded by troops of the contending forces. Once, when they had an artillery battle, the shells flew over her house for hours; some of the shells fell in her door-yard, and, exploding, tore down fences and outhouses. Her children were away at school when the war began, and did not come home for eighteen months. Mrs. Meek managed to smuggle a good deal of the farm live-stock into Natal, where her husband received it and cared for it on land rented for the purpose. In smuggling sheep and cattle out of the country, Mrs. Meek’s main reliance was the native foreman, the wretch who has six wives; he was as faithful and efficient as it is possible for a servant to be. Occasionally the English talked of sending Mrs. Meek to the concentration camp, and burning her house, but she was always able to coax them out of the notion.... She has a native cook, a man, and pays him a dollar a week. The native women do her washing and ironing, and do it very well, for a dollar a week; in addition, they clean and sweep.... Mrs. Meek has never heard of a divorce among the natives on the farm where she lives. The men of some native tribes are married in church, by a negro preacher; in such a case, they are compelled to pay two shillings for a license, but this civilized plan is so expensive and troublesome that it is not popular. Besides, when a man is married in church, and pays two shillings for a license, he is liable to arrest if he marries another wife.

SATURDAY, MARCH 29.—We are at the far-famed Victoria Falls today, and traveled here from Bulawayo at the terrific pace of fourteen miles an hour. The conductor on the train wore a natty white suit, but did not make up the beds, though he sold the bedding tickets; the actual chambermaid was a very black native boy. I do not understand why sleeping-car porters are permitted on some night trains, and not on others.... I was in a sleeping compartment with a captain in the English army, who is on his way to a station in the interior, seventy miles from Victoria Falls. There, in company with another army officer, he will rule a district, assisted by a few native police. He says hunting is excellent where he is going, and he showed me his assortment of guns; including one specially intended for elephants.... The country between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls (280 miles) looks superior to that between Mafeking and Bulawayo, but we ran into the inevitable desert, and suffered considerably from dust. As we approached the falls the country became rougher, and an hour before we finally left the train we could see a cloud of mist hanging over the great cataract. When the train stopped at Victoria Falls station—the railroad runs four hundred miles beyond this point—we could hear the roar which will be in our ears constantly until we leave next Wednesday at 1 P.M.... There is no town at the Falls; only a hotel, a rambling, comfortable affair which can accommodate two hundred people. The charge is $5.25 per day each. Five miles away is the town of Livingstone, capital of North-west Rhodesia, but it has only a handful of inhabitants. From my room at the hotel I can see the famous railroad bridge which spans the Zambesi river just below the falls, and passing my window are wet and bedraggled people who have been through the Rain Forest. In order to see the falls to best advantage, it is necessary to go through the Rain Forest and get a ducking. Many of those who arrived on our train at 7 o’clock this morning will return at 1 o’clock this afternoon, thus avoiding a delay here of four days; after the train leaves this afternoon, there will not be another train until next Wednesday.... I doubt if anyone has ever seen, or ever will see, all of Victoria Falls. It may only be seen in pieces, and the spray will always hide much of the great spectacle from the most industrious visitor; whereas Niagara may be seen in a single glance, in all its majesty. Victoria Falls is a mile long; about twice as long as Niagara, and four hundred feet high, whereas Niagara makes a leap of only 162 feet.... Every time I looked at Victoria Falls, there was usually an Englishman present to inquire: “Well, what about it?” Meaning, “How does it compare with your Niagara?” The two falls are not alike, and cannot be compared; both are wonderful in a different way. Niagara is situated within a few miles of Buffalo, New York, one of the largest and busiest cities of the United States, and surrounded by a fertile and well-settled country. Niagara is in the center of parks, hotels, mills, street-railways, and civilization of many other varieties; an American bride who is not taken to Niagara on her wedding trip, may get a divorce on that ground, if the fact is presented to a court of proper jurisdiction, but Victoria is in a wild country in the mountains of Africa, seventeen hundred miles from Capetown, and Capetown is nineteen days from London, and twenty-nine from New York. Niagara makes a straight leap, whereas Victoria is more of a cataract. At Niagara, a great solid wall of sea-green water pours over a precipice; here, the force of the fall is broken in many places by huge rocks—at one place the fall is separated by a wooded island, and there are many other smaller breaks. At Niagara, the river above the fall is clean and swift, with no rocks. At Victoria, the river above the fall is broken into a thousand different islands; it looks like a shallow river overflowing in brush and timber land after a torrent of rain, and much of the water pouring over the falls is yellow and dirty.... Victoria Falls is in shape like a huge capital T; the falls represented by the top of the letter, and the outlet by the stem. The water pours into a great pool a mile long, and escapes by a narrow outlet not more than 150 feet wide in places. The water pours into the pool with a roar that may be heard twenty-eight miles, and stirs up a spray that causes constant rain to fall in its immediate territory. This spray is so great that it looks like a cloud against the sky, and may be seen before you hear the roar of the falls.... Yet the water from this great pool escapes almost as quietly as water from an undisturbed lake. After the water escapes from the great pool below the falls, through the stem of the letter T, it makes a turn at right angles, and sweeps around like the capital letter U; yet there is no great disturbance in any part of the outlet from the falls. At Niagara, the whirlpool rapids is one of the world’s wonders; at Victoria, the river a few hundred feet below the falls seems to be navigable—it does not look unlike the Waunganui river in New Zealand, down which we traveled in boats. I believe one of the Waunganui river boats could come up the gorge below Victoria Falls.... Every visitor, after looking at the wall of water pouring over the falls, asks the same question: “What becomes of the water?” Dr. Livingstone, who discovered the falls, asked the question. I was with a party of four when I first saw the falls, and all agreed that, in places, the river a few hundred feet below was not more than fifty feet wide, although the guidebooks say the width is greater. And this narrow river is not greatly disturbed a few yards below the great Victoria Falls; there is no swirling, leaping rapids, as may be seen four or five miles below Niagara. When looking at Victoria Falls, very much more water seems to pour over the brink than at Niagara; when looking at the river below, you are disposed to think the quantity is much less—as a matter of fact, the quantity is about the same, with Niagara a little in the lead.... At Niagara, you may see the falls from an electric car, and go down the Niagara river on top of the hills, and return beside the whirlpool rapids; but seeing Victoria is much more difficult. For nearly a mile you walk in what seems a pouring rain, but which is actually spray from the falls. Most visitors put on old clothes at the hotel, and quietly submit to the ducking; on their return, they take a hot bath, put on dry clothing, and sit on the verandas, and talk about the wonderful trip. During this walk of half a mile in pouring rain from the spray of the falls, you pass through what is called the Rain Forest. As rain is always falling, the vegetation is luxuriant, but not as luxuriant as I had expected. The path through the rain forest is always wet; sometimes you step into water over your shoe-tops, and the trees are always dripping; you cannot see the falls to the best advantage without passing through this Rain Forest, and you cannot make this trip without becoming as wet as though you had plunged into a lake with your clothes on. During this trip you frequently stand not a hundred feet from the falls, and the spray coming up from the pool is so thick that you cannot see a hundred feet beyond you. And all the time the great roar is in your ears, and the rain shifting with the wind. The sun nearly always shines here, and on this trip along the edge of the falls you may see a thousand rainbows; I am sure I saw that many today.... The Rain Forest is not down in the canyon, as one might imagine; it is on a level with the top of the falls, and sometimes not a hundred feet away from it. Imagine a street one mile long, and 400 feet below sidewalks on either side. One sidewalk represents the Rain Forest. Opposite you is Victoria Falls pouring into the chasm below, and causing a spray which shifts with the wind, and not only drenches you, but hides much of your view. The Rain Forest is simply the other side of the falls, and, to travel its entire length, you must make a detour, and cross the narrow outlet of the falls chasm by means of the rail road bridge.... The bridge below the falls is the highest in the world, and in walking across it you are 420 feet above the water in the gorge below. When it was being built, in 1903‒5, it was frequently described in the magazines as one of the great wonders of engineering. The bridge is of one span only, of the cantilever type, and 610 feet in length. From the bridge, the hotel, a half-mile away, and near the edge of the canyon, is in plain view. The bridge-tender is a negro boy, and visitors pay him a shilling each to cross and return.... The present is known as the wet season, and, the Zambesi river being at a high stage, the falls is rather more gorgeous now than it will be later on, when the river is lower. The Zambesi is one of the great rivers of Africa, and is referred to in a big way as we refer to the Mississippi or Missouri; citizens here frequently refer to “the vast territory south of the Zambesi,” as the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are dividing-lines in the United States.... The falls were discovered by Dr. David Livingstone in 1854, and named in honor of Queen Victoria. Livingstone died in Africa, of the fever. He had faithful friends among his native followers, and when they found him dead, they embalmed his body as best they could, and carried it fifteen hundred miles to the sea, whence it was taken to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.... The hills around Victoria Falls are covered with a growth of inferior timber, and this continues until the end of the railway is reached, 400 miles to the north.... It is estimated that nearly a million and a quarter of visitors see Niagara every year; barely two thousand see Victoria Falls annually, owing to its location far in the interior of Africa. In order to reach the falls from the sea at Durban, we were compelled to travel five days and nights by railroad train.... It is said the fall is 420 feet. It does not seem so great, because the lower part is hidden in the spray arising from the chasm into which the water drops. But while you cannot appreciate the unusual fall, you can easily appreciate that the fall is a mile wide, although broken all along the edge by islands and huge rocks. In thinking of Victoria Falls don’t imagine it a solid sheet of water a mile long, falling 420 feet. The falls are broken into a thousand different streams, and some of them strike rocks in the wall and break into spray.... I was not greatly moved when I first saw the falls, but felt that the sight was worth coming a long distance to see. Pictures of the falls are deceiving, as are pictures of everything. In taking pictures of Victoria Falls, photographers look for the fine views; the commoner aspects of the cataract are rarely photographed. I recall a noted photograph of the falls which is one of the most majestic things I have ever seen in pictures; but in order to take it, the photographer was compelled to climb down a cliff by means of ropes; so the picture is really unnatural.... There are thirty or forty guests at this hotel, and I have talked with most of them. They all seem to be well satisfied with the trip, but none of them rave about the falls as do the writers in the guidebooks.... No one seems to know the depth of water in the narrow gorge through which the water from the falls is discharged; soundings of 150 feet have been made without touching bottom.

Rhodes Memorial, Kimberley    /    Rhodes’ Grave
Victoria Falls Bridge
Naval Station, Pago Pago    /     Rhodes Statue, Bulawayo

SUNDAY, MARCH 30.—Today we again walked to the Falls from the hotel, a distance of half a mile. Captain Mosley, of the British army, who shared a sleeping apartment with me on the train coming here, accompanied us. The captain is changing his station, and has with him four hunting-dogs and a black boy who has been his cook seven years. This black boy accompanied us on the walk, to exercise the dogs, and on the way, the dogs in ranging about, encountered a bunch of baboons. The captain and black boy ran into the woods, toward the big noise the fight stirred up, and I followed them, arriving just in time to see the dogs whipped, and the baboons scamper up the trees. The captain says the dogs would have been killed had they found full-grown male baboons, instead of small-sized females and young ones. Baboons are a great nuisance all over this section. They have almost human intelligence, and are very adroit thieves. I have been told that baboons will attack a woman, if they find her alone, but that they have great respect for men, whom they associate with a gun. Near the hotel is a camp of soldiers, and they have a tame baboon. They also have a tame deer of a variety not much larger than a jack rabbit. The soldiers pick up the deer, and stand it on a table. There are dozens of different kinds of buck here, ranging from the size of a rabbit to the size of an ox. The soldiers told me that plenty of reed buck may be found within four miles of the Falls, but this is the closed season, and one of the duties of the soldiers is to protect the game. Last night one of the soldiers saw a leopard prowling around the camp. A few days ago a lion was killed within a few miles of the falls; the man who killed it brought in the skull and hide, and received a bounty of $7.50. Lions destroy a great deal of game, and the government pays for their destruction. The soldiers patrol a district 100 miles square, and say they rarely hear of lions attacking a man; they hear lions nearly every night, but rarely see them, as the animals are as sly as our foxes. The corporal with whom I talked says that during an experience of seven years in this section, he never personally knew a lion to attack man. He has heard of such cases, but you all know how common it is to hear stories that are not true.... The British captain with whom I spend a good deal of time, walking about, or sitting on the hotel veranda, is one of the quietest men I have ever known. He has always lived among soldiers, having been born in Benares, India, where his father was an officer in the English army. He lived there until he was twelve years old. Benares is as old as Babylon; when old Babylon was a flourishing city, Benares was in existence, and has remained a city continuously ever since, while Babylon has been completely destroyed, and its location almost forgotten. The captain tells of his experiences, when I question him, but is very reticent in speaking of the numerous forays in which he has engaged. I have no doubt he has had many thrilling experiences as a big-game hunter, but I cannot induce him to say much about them.... Another Englishman, named Green, who is with us a good deal, talks enough for half a dozen. He is a business man at Sheffield, England, and says that in case of war between England and Germany, the United States should assist England.

Indeed, Mr. Green thinks the United States should even now present England with a battleship, and assist in “bluffing” Germany, as New Zealand has done. One of the ladies present asked me:

“What are England and Germany quarreling about?”

“They have no quarrel,” I replied. “They are simply bullies strutting around and daring each other to fight. I have forgotten the exact number, but we will say for illustration that England had a hundred battleships, and Germany fifty. Germany ordered two additional battleships built, and England immediately ordered four new dreadnoughts. And this ridiculous proceeding has been kept up for years; England is pledged to build two warships for every one built by Germany. The two countries have nothing to quarrel about, but the English declare they must have twice as many battleships as Germany, and the Germans say they must have as many battleships as England. And an apparently intelligent Englishman named Green says that in case this foolish contest finally results in war between the two countries, the United States should quit agriculture, and mining, and manufacturing, and trade, and assist England, simply because the Americans and English read the same language, although they understand each other with difficulty when they talk.”

The Victoria Falls Hotel is owned by the railroad company, and when you visit the falls you will have no fault to find with it. Two hundred guests could be easily entertained, but I doubt if there are two dozen here now, as this is the dull season. Fall begins in this section with April, and visitors are most numerous during the cool weather. The most terrible cold-weather story I have heard here is that ice sometimes forms at night during the terrific cold prevailing in July and August.... The present temporary buildings of the Victoria Falls Hotel are to be replaced shortly with permanent buildings to cost $150,000. But in the present temporary buildings, guests willing to pay the price may have rooms with private bath, and during the worst weather the nights are cool. My bed is covered with a mosquito netting, as is the universal rule here, instead of putting netting at the windows and doors, but I have heard no mosquitos.... The Mr. Green referred to above has been looking at land in Africa with a view of buying for friends in England. English people have a great deal of cold, damp, foggy weather, and they hear much of the glorious sunshine of Africa; so Mr. Green’s report as to the possibilities of farming here will influence a good many. His report will not be very favorable. He has spent weeks in the different farming districts, and says he found farmers suffering from a three-years drouth. One man had a splendid prospect for corn, and thought the harvest would make him rich. Suddenly the hot winds came on, and in a few days the crop was ruined. This man offered his farm of 7,000 acres for sale at a dollar an acre; Mr. Green says he can buy millions of acres at that price, but will not advise his friends to take it, as the rainfall is uncertain, and the country infested with ants, ticks, flies dangerous to stock, etc. Possibly these pests will disappear in time; certain districts formerly dangerous are now free from the cattle-fly.

... Mr. Green says that in many of the best sections of England, agricultural land can be bought at $50 an acre; the choicest at from $100 to $150 per acre. This statement particularly interested me because that is about the range at which land sells in the district where I live. I had always imagined that land in England sold at much higher prices than in Atchison county, Kansas, fifteen hundred miles west of the sea at New York.... Mr. Green says that last January, in his section of England, there were only five days without rain; last summer, he saw only fourteen bright days. There is plenty of sunshine and plenty of dry weather in Africa, but Mr. Green says he will not recommend the country to his neighbors.

MONDAY, MARCH 31.—This morning a dozen guests from the hotel, including the two travelers from Kansas, took a boat trip of fifteen or twenty miles on the Zambesi river above the falls. After a walk of half an hour we embarked in a large gasoline launch, and ascended the river until about noon, when we went ashore on an island, and explored it until lunch was ready at 12:30. A Hindu servant, with a native helper, accompanied us from the hotel, carrying two large hampers, and they prepared tea, and served an excellent lunch.... The Zambesi river above the falls is a wide, rambling affair, full of islands, and so shallow that the course of our launch was marked for several miles. When we finally landed, it was because we could go no further on account of a rapids. The river contains more water than the Missouri or Mississippi river, I should say, but is not navigable. At places it is said to be a mile and three-quarters wide. A river in this dry country is a novelty, and people make long excursions to see the Zambesi. On either side there is a line of hills which do not look unlike the hills bordering the Missouri river, but the valley is covered with trees and brush, as was the case in the Missouri “bottom” fifty years ago. On the Zambesi, the river valley seems to shift from one side to the other, instead of being confined always to the east side, as is the case with the Missouri river in its entire course. The trees along the Zambesi are of a stunted variety; along the African railways, a fairly large tree attracts almost as much attention as a river. The African trees are not large and graceful, as are our maples, oaks, walnuts, etc. One of the wonders here is a cream-of-tartar tree which measures ninety-eight feet in circumference. It is actually a dozen stunted trees growing in a bunch, but it is regarded as a wonder, and every visitor carves his initials in the bark.... Hippopotami are quite dangerous above the falls, as they upset boats in a spirit of mischief. They are being shot, and two were killed the day before we went up the river. Some time ago four tourists rowed on the river, in small boats. Hippos upset both boats, and two of the tourists went over the falls; the other two drifted against islands, and were rescued. It was a man and a woman who were rescued, strangers to each other, but the tragedy made them friends, and a few days ago they were married.... There are also crocodiles in the river, and they are also a nuisance.

The man who ran the launch lives on the hotel farm, and says that since August last, crocodiles have captured twenty of the farm cattle. The cattle go to the river to drink, or to stand in the water during the heat of the day, and the crocodiles, some of which are eighteen feet long, drag them in. One of the soldiers from the camp near the hotel shot a crocodile while we were on the river.... I heard a curious discussion while we were eating luncheon on the island. An Englishman, a church member, had great respect for missionaries. All the others were residents of Africa, and their testimony was against them. One man said the superintendent of a penitentiary told him recently that ninety per cent of the convicts had been “converted” by missionaries. A mining man testified that negroes who had been under the influence of missionaries were nearly always less honest and less useful than natives who had had no such experience. A woman who lived on a South-African farm of 20,000 acres gave similar testimony, as did an army man who had served in Africa since the Boer war. Wherever I have gone, I have heard the missionary experiment denounced by white residents. I am taking no part in the controversy, but record as a remarkable fact that in Africa, China, Japan, India, etc., the testimony of white residents is nearly always against the missionary experiment. Every traveler remarks this, and comments on it.... This morning at 3 o’clock a rifle-shot rang out back of the hotel; one of the soldiers in the camp saw a leopard prowling around, and shot at it. A photographer living near the hotel has a cow, a calf and a donkey, and every night these are carefully locked up in pole fences that are leopard-proof.... This morning, when I awoke, I found a gentle rain falling in front of my room at the hotel. It turned out to be mist from the falls. This mist shifts with the wind, and in whatever direction we walk we run into it occasionally. At points quite distant from the falls it amounts to only a mist, or a very gentle rain, but at other places there is a heavy downpour. Along certain walls of the canyon below the cataract, dozens of waterfalls may be seen, and these are fed by the mists rising from the falls. There is seldom an hour during the day that a rainbow may not be seen from the hotel veranda. During moonlight nights a lunar rainbow may be seen which, experts say, shows one color not seen in the rainbow in daylight.... I was looking over the hotel register today, and ran across this entry: “Mrs. Annie E. McConnell, U. S. A.” I made some remark about finding a visitor from home, and the clerk said, laughingly:

“That woman became lost, and fourteen of us spent half of one night hunting her.”

The paths around the hotel and falls are very well defined, but travelers may easily become confused after nightfall.

TUESDAY, APRIL 1.—On a public desk at the Victoria Falls Hotel is kept a book marked “Suggestions.” Visitors are expected to write in it how they liked the falls, and suggest improvements of the service. I suggest that the average visitor does not care to spend four days here, as he is now compelled to do. I have found the last two days hanging heavily on my hands. The hotel at the falls is excellent, considering that it is a long way from its source of supplies, but trains are slow, and the cars dusty and crowded. The average train is composed of compartment cars, with a corridor running along one side. These corridors are so narrow that two persons cannot pass in them, and it is quite a task to go through a train in reaching the dining-car. I have never in my life seen such dirty cars as they have in South Africa, but this is partly owing to the terrible dust which prevails everywhere; another explanation is that, as a rule, one porter is expected to clean all the cars, and in some cases there is no porter. But the trainmen are always polite, and the tracks good. The dining-cars would be satisfactory were they not overcrowded. Traveling in South Africa has been easier than I expected, and the hotels better, but some of the dust in the railway cars might be easily removed; the addition of one Kaffir and one broom to each train would prove a great help.... Near the railway station live two men who deal in curios. Both are hunters, and both are interesting, and I spend a good deal of time with them; but they hate each other in a way that is scandalous. There never was such a thing as rivals in business getting along. They try hard not to say anything against each other, but their enmity crops out in every conversation. One of them is married, and has his wife and baby here, and a bishop will arrive tomorrow to baptize the baby. The other man is a bachelor, and is trying hard to catch a leopard while I am here, in an American steel trap. Leopards prowl about the hotel every night, and several hunters have told me that a leopard is a more dangerous animal than a lion. A leopard is like a bulldog: he hasn’t sense enough to know about danger.... The dreaded tsetse-fly is found in this vicinity, and cases of sleeping sickness are not unknown. I had always imagined that a man suffering with sleeping sickness became drowsy, and slept a great deal, but residents say that, while the patient is drowsy, he cannot sleep, and is very restless. They describe sleeping sickness as resembling consumption in many ways.... In the vicinity of the curio shop is a police camp, in charge of a corporal. The police patrol this district, and this morning I saw a white soldier start out on a trek to last two weeks. He rode a mule, as horses do not thrive in this country. Two pack donkeys were led by two natives; one a cook, and the other an enlisted police officer. The two natives will walk during the entire journey, and one of them will carry a gun. The patrol officer told me he would travel about eighteen miles a day, starting every morning about five, resting from nine to three, and then traveling from three until nightfall. He rarely makes more than three miles an hour, as the donkeys are slow, and the sand deep. Wherever you walk here, you are compelled to wade through sand; sand is the soil in most parts of Africa.... The patrol officer calls at every house he encounters, and asks the owner to report any disorder in his neighborhood. The patrol officer did not carry a tent, and I asked him why. “Because,” he answered, “we don’t need it; there will be no rain.” After the short rainy season, the welcome patter of rain is not heard for nine months....

The engineer who attends to the electric-light plant at the Victoria Falls Hotel is an intelligent young fellow who, with a brother, tried farming in a remote district in Rhodesia. They are about starving; they would have starved had not this brother gone to work. The other brother lives alone on the farm, and at intervals comes to the hotel for supplies provided by his brother. They will eventually desert their farm, without much doubt.... The young soldiers at the police camp are industrious hunters, and one of them says he lately killed a crocodile on the railroad bridge which crosses the Zambesi river below the falls. Crocodiles often travel considerable distances from the river; in returning to water, this one by accident struck the railroad track, and was following it across the bridge. The soldiers at the camp have all sorts of pets, including monkeys, which they pick up when young, and tame. They irrigate a considerable garden with water carried from the river by natives. This section must be a terrific place when the weather is at its worst; it is at its best now, and we stand it with difficulty.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2.—We said good-by to Victoria Falls this afternoon at 1:10, and left by train for the East Coast. Captain Moseley came to the station to see us, bringing all his hunting-dogs with him. Tomorrow morning at 3 o’clock he leaves for his new station in the interior, traveling in a wagon drawn by eight yoke of oxen and driven by two negroes. One of the negroes will sit up all night, to watch the grazing cattle, and guard the camp, and every afternoon he will sleep in the wagon. Ox teams travel very slowly, and the captain will walk most of the way, and hunt as he goes along. A negro servant accompanies him as cook, and will remain with him at the new station. His nearest white neighbors will be sixty miles away, and he does not expect to receive mail more than once in three months.... The train is not crowded, for a wonder, and we were given a double compartment thrown into one. Our traveling acquaintances, Mrs. Meek and her daughter Bettie, are still with us, and they have equally good accommodations. The South-African railway men take good care of you when it is possible.... The Bishop arrived at the Falls this morning, and baptized the photographer’s baby. A young curate came with him, and sat on the veranda and drank five highballs in quick succession. But the incident, like women smoking cigarettes in public, attracted no comment here. The Bishop is a genial man, and was soon surrounded by the women. The women dearly love an ordinary preacher, but to talk to a Bishop is an event in a church-worker’s life she never forgets.... During the dry season, full-grown cattle may be bought in parts of South Africa at $10 a head.... When I went into the hotel dining-room for breakfast this morning, the head waiter informed me in a whisper that a few fresh eggs had just been received from the hotel farm, and advised me to order soft-boiled eggs. This head waiter was born in the West Indies, and some of the men under him are Hindus, some of them negroes, and some of them Portuguese.... This is written on a piece of railroad track seventy-four miles long without a single curve, which is not a very big story: in Argentine, South America, there is a similar piece of track twice as long.... Possibly the reader imagines that ‘way over here I am a stranger in a strange land. As a matter of fact, I know nearly every passenger on this train; also, the conductor, and the waiters in the dining-car. I came up with the trainmen, and I spent four days with the passengers at Victoria Falls. All of them are either English or Colonials; no Americans except ourselves. Awhile ago, the conductor came into my compartment to visit awhile. He is an Englishman, but astonished me by saying that he likes German ships better than English ships. On English ships, he says, visitors are looked at with suspicion, whereas visitors are always welcome on a German ship. The conductor will go through with us to Beira, from Bulawayo, and has promised to do his best for us in the way of securing accommodations on the train. Englishmen who live out here soon have their sharp edges worn off, and become more agreeable.... There are certain American things that seem to be universal. Wherever we go, we see Eastman’s kodaks, National cash registers, Selig’s moving pictures, Colgate’s perfumes and soap, Chamberlain’s cough syrup, the Ladies’ Home Journal, Robert Chambers’s books, and Mr. Rockefeller’s gasoline.... It costs a good deal of money to have washing done over here, and we are wondering over the fact that the most reasonable laundry bill we have paid was at the Victoria Falls Hotel, where we expected nothing but highway robbery. When we registered at that hotel, the manager said he had two rooms reserved for us. They were double rooms, excellently located. Mrs. Meek and her daughter slept in one room, on two small beds, and they are grumbling because they were charged exactly what we were charged. It is so unusual for me to get the best of it that I am rather enjoying their indignation.... I have often heard of the extreme brightness of the nights in Africa. I cannot see that they are any brighter than the nights at home, except that there are a good many more prominent stars. In the north, we hear a great deal of the Southern Cross. We see it every night, but consider it insignificant. We are on the opposite side of the earth from Kansas, and the constellations we see there cannot be seen here. Pope, the Englishman, in describing great distance, wrote: “Far as the polar walk or milky way.” The people in Africa don’t understand the sentence: the milky way cannot be seen here, nor is our big dipper visible.... Tonight at ten o’clock, before going to bed, I went forward into the dining-car to get a drink of water, and found the car full of men drinking; a custom more common in this country than at home. The English laugh at our American habit of drinking ice-water. There is a certain Hot Water much worse, known as John Barleycorn, and Englishmen drink too much of it.... Poor Mrs. Atterbury, who has lived in South Africa nineteen years without a sight of her old home in St. Joseph, Missouri, says she longs to go home in order that she may again see pretty girls and babies. Mrs. Meek, our traveling acquaintance, who has always lived in the Transvaal, admits that pretty girls and babies are scarce here. They do not seem to thrive in this climate. Another peculiarity is that nearly all the women have black hair; a blonde with blue eyes is a great rarity in Africa. When a woman’s hair isn’t black in Africa, it is a fiery red.... The country between Victoria Falls and Bulawayo seems to be better developed than the country between Bulawayo and Mafeking. This afternoon, eighty or a hundred miles from the falls, we stopped at quite a coal-mining town, and saw great rows of coke ovens.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3.—In order to reach the sea at Beira, we were compelled to travel back to Bulawayo from Victoria Falls, and remain there from 7:30 A.M. until 10:30 P.M. We devoted the day to an automobile ride, and visited the Khami ruins, fifteen miles from the town.... Many centuries ago, Africa was inhabited by a race far superior in intelligence to the present native negroes. These people left the country hurriedly, for some reason, and it was one of their deserted towns we visited today. Some learned investigators say the ruined and deserted cities were built long before the Christian era, probably in the time of Solomon, and that the gold with which Solomon’s temple was adorned, amounting in value to ten million dollars, was mined in Africa. There seems to be no doubt that the gold mines in Rhodesia were worked many centuries ago; the workers in the mines today find unmistakable evidence of previous occupation.... The ruins we visited are scattered over a good many acres, along a river in which there is only stagnant water. Some of the more extensive buildings seem to have been used for defense. These are of stone, without mortar, and hundreds of feet of the walls are in as good condition as they ever were. There are great cisterns for holding water and grain, and modern builders say the cement was probably made on the ground, by a process of which they have no knowledge. Some of the cisterns, if cleaned out, would probably hold water today. Many relics have been picked up about the place, which may be seen in a museum at Bulawayo, and these indicate that the inhabitants were nearly as far advanced as the ancient Egyptians; they were able to smelt metals, and they had various kinds of domestic utensils, pottery, implements of war, etc. The people of Khami knew something of dentistry, of medicine, and of astronomy. Five hundred ruins or vestiges of former buildings are found in Rhodesia, extending over an area 800 by 700 miles, and all these are undoubtedly much older than Columbus, and probably older than Christ.... Recently ruins have been found in Thibet very much older than the ruins in Egypt, and, as investigations are more carefully made, the fact becomes more apparent that no one has yet been able to realize how old the world actually is.... In going to the Khami ruins, we passed hundreds of negro women walking into Bulawayo and carrying vegetables, chickens, firewood, etc. They were all naked above the waist, and invariably carried their loads on their heads; one woman carried a watermelon in this unusual way. The chickens were carried in rough home-made baskets.

... The ruined city of Khami is in a wild and desolate country. On the way there, we saw only one or two farm-houses occupied by white men, and not many native huts. The country looked dry and worthless, and the roads were badly washed by torrential rains. The ruins are located in hills, and the day was so hot that we did not climb up to several of the most extensive-looking fortresses. Nothing is positively known about Khami; who the people were who built the town, when it was built, how long occupied, or when deserted, is pure conjecture.

FRIDAY, APRIL 4.—We should have left Bulawayo last night at 10:30, but the train was late, and we did not get away until after 1 o’clock this morning. By the time we got our beds made, it was almost time to get up for breakfast. This is the first time we have found a train more than a few minutes late in either Australia, New Zealand, or Africa.... I awoke at daylight in the prettiest country we have seen in Africa; a country as handsome as the prairies of Illinois must have been a hundred years ago. Thousands of acres of gently rolling prairie land, but it looks better than it really is. In 1896 the dreaded rinderpest killed all the cattle and game in this section, and carts stood idle in the roads because there were no oxen to move them; the air was rendered offensive by the stench from dead animals. Whether you try to raise stock, fruit or corn here, you have pests to deal with, and they seem to be more persistent and numerous than pests are elsewhere.

We hear of great drouths, and of the people paying a shilling a gallon for water. Some of the towns have built electric-light plants, but often there is no water for the engines, and people use candles for illuminating. Enterprising men build modern hotels in the towns, but frequently there is no water for the modern baths, and the guests do well to get enough water to drink.... Another pest here is white ants. They kill forest trees, and undermine the foundations of houses; they devour furniture and clothing—yet the country is so fair that it seems a pity to turn it over to desolation. On the line between Bulawayo and Salisbury there are a good many towns, including one built around the best gold mine in Rhodesia. And how the people turned out to see the train come in! At one place we estimated that there must have been five hundred around the station. Trains travel over the line only two or three times a week, and people seem to come from great distances in the country to see the trains go by. But between the stations there were millions of acres of land as wild as it was in the days of Adam.... Early in the morning our English passengers walked about in pajamas when we stopped at stations; Englishmen love that sort of thing. At Victoria Falls they visited the Rain Forest in pajamas, and in Johannesburg I was told that on Sundays and holidays, pajamas are worn around houses and yards until lunch-time. Englishmen show their pajamas so much that I cordially hate that particular form of night-dress; Englishmen have the same passion for running around in pajamas that American boys have for running around in baseball suits.

... In spite of occasional calamities such as 115 in the shade, and drinking-water selling at a shilling a gallon, Rhodesia is progressive, and encourages every enterprise. I have been frequently told here that the United States agricultural bulletins are the best in the world, and that they are read with interest in Rhodesia. Another statement you hear frequently in Africa: “They have adopted the American method;” but the trouble is, they haven’t the American means to work with.... A London man told me today that he buys Harper’s Magazine regularly for two cents, although Americans are asked thirty-five cents for it. A good many of the American magazines sell their surplus copies in London at ridiculously low prices.... The negroes in the most civilized portions of Africa practice witchcraft, and the authorities are compelled to closely watch the native doctors and priests, to prevent outrages and murders.... We arrived in Salisbury at 5:30 in the evening, and remained there four hours; railroad trains make long stops at stations here without any apparent reason, unless it is that the engineer, station-master and guard cannot agree on starting. The first preliminary for starting a train in Africa is for the station-master to ring a hand-bell. Next the guard blows a tin whistle, to indicate that he is ready, and the engineer then blows a blast on the steam whistle. I have heard these preliminaries gone through with a dozen times before the train finally started; when the station-master is ready, the engineer isn’t, and when both these officials are ready to start, the guard isn’t. When the guard is ready, the engineer and station-master seem to conclude to let him wait awhile. And so, after a time, they begin all over again, and, in the course of fifteen minutes, finally get away.... There is an English woman on the train who is leaving Africa because of bad health. Her husband is also an invalid, as a result of the fever; in addition, he lost everything he brought to the country. This woman says there is a plague for everything in Africa. We walked about Salisbury with her, while waiting for the train to depart at 9:30 P.M., and the town seemed as disconsolate as our traveling acquaintance.... I ate dinner in Salisbury at a little restaurant, and shall always remember the place, because of two very pretty girl waiters, and because of the large number of young men who came in to flirt with them.

SATURDAY, APRIL 5.—Soon after breakfast this morning, we passed out of Rhodesia into Portuguese East Africa, at a little town the name of which I have forgotten. A Portuguese customs officer came on board, but did not bother us, beyond asking if we had either pistols or guns in our luggage. Being assured that we had not, he bowed very politely, and departed. The governor of Portuguese East Africa joined us at this station, traveling in a private car with his wife and a party of friends. A number of ladies and gentlemen had gathered to say good-by to the governor and his lady, and I shall never forget the politeness of these people. Our compartment was within a few feet of the observation end of the private car, but the Portuguese never saw us, while other people on the train stared at us as though we were very odd specimens of humanity.... Soon after passing into Portuguese territory, the railroad ran through mountains, and the ride was interesting all the way to Beira, which town we reached at 9:30 P.M. This section is tropical, and bananas and cocoanuts grow in profusion. Near one town we saw hundreds of acres of growing corn; and it was much better corn than we had been seeing in Rhodesia and other parts of South Africa. It wasn’t such corn as we grow, but it was probably half as good as an ordinary crop in eastern Kansas. I estimated one field I saw at four or five hundred acres; there were several others of fifty to a hundred acres. But the fields were widely separated. In eastern Kansas every foot of the land is devoted to crops, or pasture, or orchard, but here the occasional fields of corn were separated by miles of wild land. There is more rain in this section than in the vicinity of Bulawayo or Victoria Falls, and the stations on the railway more numerous.... As evening approached, we noticed that in the native villages, pots were boiling at open fires in front of the huts. Cook-stoves are unknown among the natives, and they have very little to eat except corn-meal mush. They make an intoxicating liquor out of corn-meal, and their holidays are largely devoted to revelry. The natives nearly all have cows, and drink a good deal of milk, first letting it sour, and become what we call clabber. Some of the greatest scientists claim that the free use of clabber-milk will preserve life well beyond a hundred years. The primitive races which live longest are liberal users of sour milk, which is claimed to destroy an intestinal bacteria very fatal to human life.... The line of railroad to the sea at Beira was built to get cattle to market from the fly district, Natal and the Cape having quarantined against cattle in Rhodesia and other districts subject to disease. The line from Bulawayo is seven hundred miles long, and operated through Portuguese territory by special concession. It passes through as interesting a country as we have seen in Africa.... At seven o’clock in the evening we passed into a swampy country, and mosquitoes became a pest. These were the dangerous mosquitoes, and we fought them viciously. And all day the weather had been oppressively hot.... At 9:30 P.M. we reached Beira, and had to pass our baggage through the custom-house. This ceremony concluded, we went to the Savoy Hotel in what they call a “trolley” here. A narrow-gauge street-railway has been laid all over Beira, but cars are not operated either by electric or horse power. Every citizen owns his own car, a small, light affair pushed by negro men. On the principal streets there are three tracks, and there is a system by which traffic is regulated. When we went up-town in a passenger trolley, the hotel porter came along behind, with our baggage on a freight trolley. Freight of every kind is carried to every part of Beira by these street-railway lines, and there are little steam locomotives which handle heavy freight at night. Beira is a Portuguese town, and passing through it at night on a trolley pushed by two negro men, was an unusual experience. When we reached the postoffice, the mail trolleys were unloading, and we were compelled to wait several minutes.... Reaching the Savoy

Hotel, which is modern and comfortable, we went out on the veranda in front of our rooms, and saw the German ship “Burgermeister,” brilliantly lighted up, lying in the harbor. We shall go on board tomorrow, and remain twenty-four days, until we reach Naples, in Italy.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6.—This morning we took a ride around Beira on a trolley pushed by a negro man. The site of Beira is a sandbar reclaimed from the sea, and there is not a horse in the town; indeed, there is not a horse within a hundred and fifty miles of Beira, owing to the horse disease. There are no mule or ox-drawn vehicles, and no automobiles, owing to the streets of sand, so the queer street-railway supplies all transportation. There are cement sidewalks, but in the middle of the street the sand is ankle-deep.... The town looks like Manila, in a way, except that it is not so large. Banana and cocoanut trees grow everywhere in dooryards, as do the bright red flowers common in the tropics. Every house is raised six or seven feet above the ground, for additional coolness, and under many houses we saw natives cooking meals at open fires. In front of nearly every house was a private trolley; we saw hundreds of them during the ride. They were usually for two passengers, and covered, for the sun is always very hot here. I should say the average private trolley costs fifteen or twenty dollars, and has four light iron wheels. One man may easily lift a trolley off the track, which is the manner of disposing of them when not in use. As the town grows, the street-railway tracks are extended, and many house-owners build private lines to their premises. It is the most curious thing I have seen on the trip; I had never before seen street-railways of this kind, or heard of them. There is a bathing-beach here, and it can be reached only by these peculiar hand-pushed cars. The street-railway lines extend not only to every residence section, but to every business section, and to the railroad yards as well as to the ship docks. The lines were built by the city, and were not very expensive, as the rails are light. The up-keep is provided for by an annual tax paid by every trolley-owner for the privilege of using the tracks. Many business men have several trolleys; one or more for their own use, one or more for the use of their families, and one or more for freight purposes. Although the streets of Beira are composed entirely of sand, the sand is heavy, and does not blow about as dust. The weather last night was cool, but the days are very hot.... The Savoy Hotel at Beira overlooks the sea, and its grounds would be flooded at high tide but for the protection afforded by a sea-wall. One might sit on the back porches of the hotel, and fish in the sea. The waiters are native boys wearing white coats, and dresses such as women wear. A black man wearing a coat and dress is a queer sight, and I know of nothing in towns more unusual than Beira. It is thoroughly Portuguese, and everything is quaint and picturesque. Beira has a very bad reputation; you hear up the line that everything that is disagreeable will happen to you there, but we rather liked the place. The hotel was good, and the people polite; we encountered nothing disagreeable at Beira except tremendously hot weather.... We went aboard the “Burgermeister” at 2 P.M., and sailed two hours later. A Cape Town theatrical man named Sam Marks, had a letter of introduction to us from traveling acquaintances, and secured us seats at table with his wife and three other English-speaking people. So everything was very pleasant until Adelaide went down to her room to dress for dinner. She found that she had been assigned to a cabin with a Portuguese woman and a little baby. The woman cannot speak English, and has a Kaffir man nurse for the baby. The Kaffir man is in the woman’s room most of the time looking after the baby, and was there when Adelaide went down to dress. The chief steward, when the matter was called to his attention, was sorry, but proposed no other remedy than to keep the negro boy out. We then took the matter up with the captain, who speaks very good English, and he arranged it by giving Adelaide a room to herself.... No religious services were held on board in honor of the day, but a dance was held on deck, in the evening. The ship band plays a concert every morning at 10:30, and every evening at 9 the orchestra plays.... When we left Beira, the sea was as smooth as a millpond. At 10 P.M. a wireless telegram announced that a bad storm was raging there. For several days we have had intensely hot weather, but at sea we found a delightfully cool breeze, and Captain Ulrich says that at this season we should have smooth seas and agreeable weather all the way to Naples.... The passengers are mainly Germans, as this is a German ship. There are a few English, a few Colonials, and a few Portuguese, but we are the only Americans. In the steerage there is a great mingling of races, including Hindus, negroes and Arabs. These people bring their own bedding, and do their own cooking. As soon as the freight was stored away, and the forward hatchway covered, the steerage passengers settled down for the night, and produced their bedding and cooking utensils. Some of them eat rice, and some of them eat corn-meal mush, but all of them eat with their fingers. Somewhere a fire is provided where they may cook their food, and plenty of water may be had at a convenient faucet. The firemen are Arabs, and they mingle with the steerage passengers. I had always imagined that an Arab was fond of ease, and lazy, but Captain Ulrich says they are the most reliable firemen to be had, and the most efficient.

MONDAY, APRIL 7.—We have spent a good part of this day lying off Chindi, a decaying town at the mouth of the Zambesi river. We arrived at 9 A. M., and anchored in the open sea, where we rolled and pitched gently until 4:30 P.M. It seems the “Burgermeister” is ahead of time, and the tender did not come off until 2:30 P.M. It brought two hundred negro boys, sixteen to eighteen years old, and entirely naked except that each one wore a cloth about the loins. These boys had been sent to work on sugar plantations by labor agents, who received a pound each for finding them. But the boys soon contracted dysentery, and are being sent home. When the tender came alongside, many of the boys were seasick, and some of them crying.

They were transferred from the tender to the ship in a huge basket, ten or twelve at a time. Many of the boys had sore feet, having walked to Chindi from the plantations where they were employed. All of them were thin in flesh, and nine out of ten had no baggage; nothing to eat out of, and nothing to sleep on: no possession whatever except a loin-cloth, and some of these were made of grass, or of old matting. The slaves of olden days could not have presented a much worse spectacle. These boys worked on the sugar plantations at $1.75 per month. Counting interest on money invested, and taking into consideration the fact that old slaves must be cared for, that is cheaper than owning slaves.... Ten white passengers also came out on the tender, and of course these were brought on board before the negroes. The passenger basket is a huge wicker affair in which six to ten persons are locked. Then it is hoisted, by means of a donkey engine, from the tender to the deck of the ship, or vice versa. Sometimes, when passengers are disembarking, and the basket is being lowered to the deck of the tender, the waves send the tender upward quickly, and the passengers get a bad jolt. In the open sea, the small tenders roll and knock about so much that this method of handling passengers is necessary. Several children were brought on board, and in every case they screamed with fright. But if the tackle holds, the method is safe enough.... The “Burgermeister” is the best ship we have been on since leaving home. The food is abundant, and well cooked, and the service excellent in all respects. Captain Ulrich is the youngest captain I have ever seen on a steamship; he is not more than forty years old, and probably under that age. He is a famous man on the line because of the dignified interest he takes in passengers. He told me last night that during the present trip he hadn’t had an hour of bad weather; and he left Hamburg February 25, and came through the dreaded Bay of Biscay and the stormy English channel.... Chindi is the port of entry for Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, and the Zambesi river enters the ocean there. Small boats ply on the river, and there are sugar plantations in the interior. It is generally believed that Chindi will be greatly harmed by a new railroad to be built from Beira.... Nyasaland is one of the modern achievements in colonization. Although in the heart of the Dark Continent, and given over only a few years ago to the most appalling barbarism, it now has a railway service, settlements lit by electricity, vast tracts of land under scientific cultivation, an improved wagon-road 100 miles long, a stable government, and cheap land, on which may be grown corn, cotton, and tobacco. I hear even at this distance of one planter who made $10,000 in one year from tobacco.... In order to reach Nyasaland at present, travelers leave ships five miles off Chindi, being transferred to tenders in baskets. At Chindi they take small boats for Port Herald, two hundred miles up the Zambesi river. The negro engineers on these steamboats get $3.75 a month. The captain of the boat is a white man, and an engineer, but natives have learned his trade, and now do all the work in the engine-room. This is true all over Africa: the white men show the negroes, and the negroes pick up all the trades. At Port Herald begins a railroad one hundred and thirteen miles long, with very stiff grades, running into the interior. There are only four white men employed on the line: the general manager, the traffic superintendent, the chief accountant, and the locomotive foreman. All the telegraphers are negroes, and do their work well for $2.50 a month. In order to become telegraphers, it was necessary for them to learn to read and write English. The head boy in the general offices of the railway, a very capable clerk, gets $3.75 a month. The locomotive engineers are Hindus, and receive $30 a month; but the firemen are all negroes, and receive but $3.75 a month. All the firemen are capable of running engines, and do run them at times. It is only a question of a few years until negroes succeed the high-priced Hindus as locomotive engineers. The section reached by the railroad is devoted largely to tobacco and cotton. One planter has five hundred acres in tobacco, and employs eight hundred natives; it is estimated there that tobacco requires a man and a half to every acre. These natives receive $1.25 a month and board, but their board costs only two cents a day; they eat only corn-meal, which costs a dollar a hundred pounds as a rule. That amounts to less than $2 a month for a good workman. A tobacco planter in Nyasaland is satisfied if he gets five hundred pounds of cured tobacco per acre, one-third of the yield in the United States, and he sells it on an average for seven or eight cents a pound. You would think his freight bill would eat up his profits, but he pays only half a cent a pound for transporting his crop to London. The rate is purposely made very low, to encourage tobacco-growing.

It is not equally low on second-class merchandise in other parts of Africa; that rate from Capetown to Bulawayo, a merchant told me, is four cents a pound.... Food is very cheap in the interior of Africa. In Nyasaland, a half-dozen chickens may be bought for twenty-four cents. A young man on board is an employee of the Eastern Telegraph Co., and is being transferred to Zanzibar. He says he has chicken so frequently that he despises it; his associates lately joined him in a protest to the company against chicken. The chickens here are small and tough: every native raises chickens, which are compelled to pick up a living: they are not fed. The natives do not eat them, but carry them great distances to market.... The whisky used by the natives is made of corn, by a very simple process. They crush the grains of corn, pour water over the mass, and allow it to ferment. Then they add water, and put it away in earthen jars until needed.... One of the most interesting men on board is an official of the British company which built the railroad from Port Herald, two hundred miles up the Zambesi river from Chindi, into Nyasaland. He is going to England for his vacation; the ships are all crowded now, as this is the favorite season for the exiles to go home. He says the English cotton and tobacco planters in Nyasaland are not very prosperous; they make a living, but not much more. They are pioneers, and pioneers rarely make a great deal of money. This man is named Metcalf, and had an attack of the African fever today. He dosed himself with quinine, and, going to bed, covered himself with blankets. There he perspired and suffered until the attack wore off. Many of the passengers of the “Burgermeister” are invalids going home to recuperate after an experience with the climate of Africa.

TUESDAY, APRIL 8.—It is fortunate I am not seasick, and laid up, for my cabin window looks out on the deck where the steerage passengers are. Early this morning I heard a babel of voices, and supposed all the negro boys were on deck, and talking at the same time. Looking out of my window, I discovered that fifteen or twenty Hindus were doing all the talking, while the two hundred negro boys were sitting around in perfect silence. The steerage passengers can look into my room, if so disposed, and often do. Before I finished dressing, the two hundred negro boys were fed. Each was given three ship biscuits, and weak tea was provided for those who could get to it. When the boys gathered around the teakettle, they reminded me of pigs around a swill-trough. The stronger boys drank the tea from cups made out of the hollow of their hands, and the weaker ones, or runts, got none. Several of the boys were living skeletons, and had evidently been very ill. I threw an apple to one of the runts, but he had never seen that kind of fruit before, and I was compelled to inform him by means of signs that it was good to eat.... Six of the boys sat together, and divided everything given them. I was told that they were brothers, although there wasn’t a year’s difference in their ages. Their father probably has a dozen wives, as polygamy is practiced by nearly all the natives.... While the negro boys were scrambling for the scant food provided by the steamship company, the other deck passengers were eating breakfasts of their own providing. In one place, six Hindu men were eating, seated in a circle; they seemed to be traveling together. In every party of Hindus, one of the number seems to be a half-servant, and he waits on the others. Several of the negro passengers are dressed like the Hindus, and do not seem to know any other language than Hindu. Other parties of diners on the deck were Arabs, and all ate with their fingers. Yesterday, as soon as the ship anchored off Chindi, the Hindus began fishing, the pastime of lazy people everywhere. All of them had hooks and lines in their baggage, and the cook provided them with fresh meat for bait. A dozen or more fish were caught, of a variety resembling our catfish. One Hindu family caught three fish, which were “cleaned” for dinner in the dirtiest manner imaginable. I saw the Hindu mother finally prepare the fish for the fire, and this was the way she did it: Each piece of fish was dusted with curry powder before going in the pot, as we dust fish in cracker-meal for frying. Then she put in a few pieces of potato and onion, and a crushed mass of some sort of vegetable. The woman’s hands being covered with curry and the crushed vegetable referred to above, she washed them in water, and poured the water into the pot with the fish. Then the half-servant took the pot away, and evidently placed it on the stove of the crew cook. In an hour he brought it back, and the mess was allowed to cool, after which the six members of the family gathered around, and ate with their fingers.

The mother made a drink in the following manner: A little condensed milk was poured into a dirty washbasin nearly full of water. Sugar was added, and this beverage was passed about, and drank with a relish. One member of the family was a girl of fourteen, rather pretty, but dirty beyond description. A boy of eleven was also very good-looking. The mother, after dinner, lit a cigarette, and handed it occasionally to her husband, who took a few puffs, and handed it back to his wife.... Speaking of smoking cigarettes, last evening Adelaide and I sat with a party on deck to drink coffee after dinner. There were five ladies in the party, and Adelaide was the only one who did not smoke a cigarette with the coffee.... The poorer class of Hindus seem to be the laziest class of people in the world; the poverty of the people of India is due more to shiftlessness than to British oppression.... The weather has been superb all day, and land in sight nearly all the time.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9.—Shortly after breakfast this morning, we went ashore at the old Portuguese town of Mozambique, and wandered about until the big ship whistle warned us, at 1 P.M., to go on board. When we went down the ship’s side to enter the small boats which carry passengers ashore at a shilling each, we were mobbed by the Arab boatmen, who were quarreling over our patronage. They fought viciously, and many of them fell into the sea, but we had had no excitement for several days, and rather liked the commotion.

There were certainly two boatmen for every passenger, and the noise they made was tremendous.... Mozambique is Moorish in design, and I greatly enjoyed my visit there. The streets are narrow and crooked, and the houses hundreds of years old; in some of them may still be seen the windows of mica with which they were originally fitted. Everywhere are the most delightful little parks, and wherever you go in the town you cannot see your way out, as the streets are crooked, and you see only queer old houses with thick walls of stucco. In most towns the streets are straight; there are long rows of houses on either side, and the streets end in a distant view of the country. But Mozambique apparently tries to hide the fact that it is a small town, so no street runs straight for more than a block or two, when it turns; thus you are constantly in a maze of houses. The streets are not more than thirty feet wide, and as all doors are open, owing to the intense heat, the visitor gains an intimate idea of the habits of the people. The Portuguese are related to the Spanish, so their houses have interior courts, and these are provided with gardens or fountains, when water can be had. I have never seen anything more quaint than the shops of Mozambique; it is a small, dull town, and its people are therefore polite. Seven out of ten of the inhabitants are negroes, but the negroes live in a location to themselves, and their houses are almost as unusual as the houses in the white town, for they differ from all the other negro huts I have seen in Africa.... Mozambique has an old fort, and the stones with which it is built were brought from Portugal in the rude ships of three or four hundred years ago. Its cannon are falling to pieces from rust, and I doubt if there is a big gun in the place that could be fired; but a Portuguese garrison is maintained there, and we were compelled to give up our cameras before going in—the soldiers feared we might take pictures of the fortification and sell them to their enemies. Portugal is the weakest of all nations, and has always been kicked about. It is unprogressive and poor, and people out here have very little more respect for the Portuguese than they have for the Kaffirs. Brazil once belonged to the Portuguese, and it became such a prosperous country that the court left Lisbon and located in Rio de Janeiro; the colony became greater than the mother country. But the inevitable revolution soon came, and Brazil is no longer a Portuguese colony, although there are more Portuguese there than in Portugal. Portuguese East Africa will become independent as soon as it wants independence.... The old fort in Mozambique has been assaulted and captured by the Arabs many times. This section was formerly the center of the slave trade. The Arabs began stealing the natives of East Africa and selling them as slaves, but the Portuguese saw that the traffic was profitable, and the two rivals for supremacy in what became a world industry, often clashed. It is related that on one occasion the Arabs besieged Mozambique fort many months, and when the garrison surrendered, only three of its defenders were left. There are no better fighters than the Arabs; they made up the armies with which Mahomet and his successors almost captured the world. The Mohammedan influence is still strong here; everywhere we see black men wearing the red cap which indicates the Mohammedan. Occasionally the red fez is supplanted by a white embroidered cap, indicating that its owner has visited Mecca, the holy city. On the ship, most of the deck passengers are Mohammedans, and we often see them at their prayers. A Mohammedan is as proud of his religion as a Salvation Army man, and when he is not praying, he reads the Koran with as much interest as a Christian Scientist reads “Science and Health.” As Christians say of the Bible, and Christian Scientists say of Mrs. Eddy’s book, every reading of the Koran displays new beauties.... Among our deck passengers, the only one who has been to Mecca is a big negro, and he is as devout as a Methodist class-leader. He has a prayer-rug, and seems to loan it to the Indians. Both the negroes and Indians should be ashamed to accept the Mohammedan religion, for it is a mark left on them by conquerors. Mohammedan Indians associate freely with negroes, but the Indians who have remained true to Hinduism do not.... In the history of the human race, probably more cruelty was practiced in the slave trade between Mozambique and Zanzibar than anywhere else in the world. And the negroes in the interior do not seem to be any more capable of defense now than they were when anyone was at liberty to enslave them. Human slavery is no longer practiced, either because of civilization among the stronger races, or because it doesn’t pay. Why should a planter go to the expense of buying slaves when he can hire a black laborer for $2 a month, and confine him to quarters, and make him work as many hours as he chooses? This is done in

British territory all over Africa.... In Mozambique we visited the public market, and found that many of the negro women had their faces whitened like circus clowns, in order to look like white people. Adelaide weighs only a hundred pounds, and has rather a small waist, and all the negro women thought her waist was disgracefully small. One of them asked if she might measure it with a string. Permission being granted, and the measurement made, the string was passed around, and attracted a babble of disgusted comment from black ladies with the middle-age spread.... Young chickens were sold at the market at eighteen cents each, and everything else was equally cheap. Mozambique is built on a coral island, three miles from the mainland, and everything is brought in by boats.... The Englishman is a grave sort of person, and has little sense of humor, but Sammy Marks, the theatrical man, made me laugh today. In walking about Mozambique, we came across a school in which forty children of all races were reciting in chorus to an Arab teacher seated on the floor. “Children,” Mr. Marks said to them, “don’t you know this is a free day? Sammy Marks is in town, and you can take your books and go home.” Some of the children understood the words “free day,” apparently, for after a little preliminary chatter, every child in the room dashed out the front door, leaving the teacher to wonder what had happened. The English are great in commerce and war, but I never before knew one who had a real sense of humor.... One of the passengers on the “Burgermeister” is a Frenchman, and as he sits at our table, we know him very well. He is an old traveler, and knows how to handle ship servants. He eats more food, and drinks more wine, than any other human being I have ever been acquainted with. But he is a very polite man, and speaks German as well as French, so that he is of the greatest assistance when I get into difficulty with the German waiters. He is always buying champagne, and has five or six boxes of cigars in his cabin. He usually has not only his waiter hovering over him when in the dining-room, but the chief steward as well, and his capacity for getting what he wants is so great that he amuses me, although an electrical engineer at the same table is mad at him, and talks about a personal encounter.... I visited Mozambique with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager from Capetown, and theatrical men are usually able to get what is coming to them. But Sammy Marks could not find a ricksha for hire in Mozambique. We saw plenty of rickshas, but were told that they were privately owned. Just as we acknowledged that rickshas were an impossibility in Mozambique, along came the Frenchman in one. Learning that Mrs. Marks and Adelaide were very tired, he gallantly turned his vehicle over to them. He went away for a few minutes, but soon came back riding in another ricksha, and continued with us in it until we returned to the boat-landing. Mrs. Marks speaks French like a native, having been born in Paris, and when I make a remark at table that interests her, she translates it to the Frenchman. One day I was asked to tell an “American story,” and it happened to greatly amuse Mr. and Mrs. Marks. The Frenchman did not catch the “story,” saying I talked too fast in telling it.

Thereupon Mrs. Marks translated it, and the Frenchman was convulsed with laughter. Mrs. Marks telling my “story” in French, and the Frenchman listening seriously and intently, was a very amusing experience to me.... When we were ready to return to the ship, we found the tide out, and the Arab boatmen carried us to their boats. One boatman, in carrying a very fat woman, stumbled and fell in the water, and the fat woman was soaked.... Arriving at the “Burgermeister,” my boatman demanded 800 reis for carrying two of us to the town and back. The amount startled me, but it turned out that 800 reis amounts to only ninety-six cents in American money.... A Portuguese gentleman became a passenger on the “Burgermeister” at Mozambique, and a number of friends came aboard to say good-by. They were so busy drinking in the smoking-room that they did not note the whistle which blew for visitors to depart; so when we were a mile out, we were compelled to stop, and signal for a tug to come after them. As the visitors departed each one embraced his friend again, with great deliberation. Meanwhile Captain Ulrich was walking the bridge, swearing like a pirate. Just when it was thought the captain would explode with indignation, he was told that the mail had not been sent on board, and he was actually compelled to turn the huge ship around and return to the harbor, where we whistled ten minutes before the sleepy Portuguese put off in a boat to see what the noise was about. We were delayed an hour and a half by the sleepy Portuguese, and nearly everyone on board is cursing them. The Portuguese are everywhere regarded as slow and unenterprising, and countries controlled by them do not prosper.... I shall long remember Mozambique as the quaintest town I have ever visited. I had never heard of it, therefore it was a surprise.

THURSDAY, APRIL 10.—I awoke very early this morning, and found unloading in progress at Port Amelia. The deck passengers were up, as it was necessary to disturb them in order to remove the hatches and get at the cargo. But when we are at sea, the deck passengers divide the space over the forward hatch, and make rooms for themselves with bundles and boxes. Some of them have carpets in their bundles, and nearly all of them have bedding. A tarpaulin forms a covering over them, and at night their quarters are lighted by a bunch of electric lights. It is surprising how well these deck passengers get along, and how comfortable they are. They may buy supplies of the ship steward, and seem to have plenty to eat. Most of them are going back to India, which is not far away from this coast. It was from India that the small Arab boats came, after the Mohammedan conquest, and made slaves of hundreds of thousands of the people of the East Coast of Africa.... Here is an exact description of a dinner I saw six Indians eat yesterday evening: They squatted around a large pan of rice, which had been cooking most of the afternoon on the galley stove. In the centre of the rice was placed a small pan containing a yellow liquid; probably curry. In the curry-pan was a spoon, and the diners used this spoon to ladle out the curry into the rice. Each man covered the portion of rice in front of him with curry, and then stirred up the mass with his fingers, in order that the curry might be thoroughly mixed with the rice. The diners were very polite; when one of them used the spoon, he passed it on to the man next to him. The rice and curry being thoroughly mixed, the diners made it into balls with their fingers, and put it in their mouths. During the meal they discussed the gossip of the day in the most animated manner, as do diners who have many articles of food, served with plate and silver. One old Hindu in the party doesn’t seem to be very well, and he soon retired from the circle, and three others followed him not long after, but two young fellows remained until both pans were scraped clean. Civilized men eat a great variety of food, but the more primitive races do not seem to care for it.... Port Amelia is located in the finest harbor I have seen in Africa, but it is in the wilds, and does not amount to much. The place was founded by a major in the English army, who had been cashiered for bad conduct. He sold his rights to a British company, which secured a franchise for a railroad to Lake Nyanza, and hopes to finally be able to finance the venture. Any story of the American frontier may be duplicated in Africa; adventurers are bold, and capital timid. Several Arab boats which seemed to be hundreds of years old, came off after cargo. These boats do not exceed sixty or seventy feet in length, and sail all along the coast and to India. Several of the passengers accompanied Captain Ulrich ashore before breakfast. The captain is an enthusiastic photographer, and takes pictures in natural colors with an ordinary camera. Anyone may do it by using the special plates which are sold in most trade centres. The captain sells his pictures in Germany for very good prices.... Port Amelia was a short horse, and soon curried, and by 10 A.M. we were out at sea again, being entertained by a Hindu fakir who obtained permission to come up on our deck. This man has been my neighbor ever since I came aboard at Beira; he is camped on deck, with his family, in front of my window. He has a wife, a daughter of fourteen, a son of twenty, and a son of nine, and an old retainer who seems to be half cook and half assistant. My neighbor proved to be the cleverest man of his class I had ever seen. The collection amounted to only $2.50, and the old man was considerably disappointed, saying he did better in the second-cabin the day before. The son of twenty attempted a trick, but failed to do it, and was hooted by the passengers. Then the father attempted it, and succeeded without any difficulty. The old fakir knew me, having seen me in my room many times, from his quarters on deck, and addressed most of his conversation to me while doing his tricks. He talks a little of half a dozen languages, and Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager, says the old fellow would prove a drawing card at any theatre.... There is a woman on board who is said to resemble the late Queen Victoria. I think she started the story herself, as she seems very proud of the alleged resemblance.... The people on this ship are much politer, and much quieter, than were the passengers on the English ship “Anchises,” on which we sailed from Australia to South Africa. The English go crazy about ship sports, and greatly annoy those who want to be quiet, but the Germans are more considerate of others.

FRIDAY, APRIL 11.—We have spent this day in the open sea. Usually we are in sight of land, but if there has been any in sight today I have not seen it. There was a rain-storm this morning, but it soon passed away. This is our fifth day out, but the sea has been remarkably smooth; I have never seen it equally gracious, either on the Pacific or the Atlantic. We have not had enough motion to disturb the weakest stomach, and I shall always remember the Indian ocean with gratitude. The weather has been hot, but usually we can find enough breeze to be comfortable. A good many slept on deck last night, finding their cabins stuffy.... The leader of the band and orchestra is a waiter in the dining-room. I cannot understand why a man able to lead a very good orchestra with a violin, and a very good band with a cornet, is compelled to work as a waiter. The bass player in both organizations is our table steward, and he is very capable, although he cannot speak a word of English.... There are eight at our table. One was born in France, one in Alsace-Lorraine, one in Scotland, one in England, one in Wales, one in Spain, and two in America. One of the ladies traveled three years in India and two in Australia, with a circus owned by her husband, and did a riding act. She is now a widow, and conducts a riding-school in Johannesburg. One of the men is a Johannesburg electrical engineer, on his way to America to study late developments in the science. Another is Sammy Marks, a theatrical manager, who will shortly open a new theatre at Nairobi, British East Africa. This town is 350 miles inland from Mombasa, and on the way there he will pass by rail through as good a game country as there is in Africa. His wife looks and talks like an American girl, and, being accused of it by me, replied that she was glad of it. She was born in Paris, but has lived in Africa since she was a little girl. Still another man at our table is the Frenchman before referred to, one of the politest and oddest characters I have ever known. He is an automobile agent, and told me that on his present trip he sold eighty-five machines in Africa. He doesn’t like the Germans on the ship, and makes them all the trouble he possibly can. One day at dinner he ordered fish, and six different kinds of meat, which he nibbled at, and sent away. He always drinks two kinds of wine at dinner, and sometimes three. He keeps the waiter so busy that the others at the table complain of neglect. The food on the “Burgermeister” is surprisingly good and abundant.... I suppose there was never a chief steward on an ocean-going vessel who was not a mean man. He it is who must say “no” when passengers become unreasonable. When a woman complains to a retail grocer of one of his clerks, the grocer sides with the woman, but at heart he believes the clerk was right. It is the same way when a passenger complains to the captain of the chief steward: the captain is sympathetic, but believes the steward is right. Our chief steward is a big, good-natured man, and while we are all in league against him, we are disposed to like him. The captain is not only the youngest man I have ever seen in command of a ship, but the best-looking. The chief officer is not over thirty years old. All the members of the crew are young, and speak enough English to “get along” after a fashion with the English passengers. One woman ordered a cup of tea, and the waiter brought her two bottles of whisky, opened. Another woman ordered a plate of crackers, and the waiter brought her a whisky and soda. These are cases you hear of; I have had no trouble, and congratulate myself that I chose a German ship instead of an English one. There is a quiet gentility about the passengers I greatly admire. I heard before coming on board that there would be no English-speaking passengers. Nearly all of them speak English, and the bill of fare is printed in English, as well as in German. The African trip is not an advisable one, owing to the great distances, but anyone who makes it in spite of my advice to the contrary, should go home by the East Coast in a German boat.... There are a large number of young men on board, and all of them well-behaved. There are only two girls on board, and only ten women altogether. The orchestra plays every night, and there is usually dancing; the five dancing women receive a lot of attention.... The feeling between the English and Germans is more intense than I expected to find it. When an Englishman asked me what would be the attitude of the United States in case of war between Germany and England, I was amused, but since then a dozen have asked me the same question. They all seem to think the United States should assist the English. On one of the ships of the German East Africa line, a few weeks ago, there was an incident which might have precipitated the long-talked of war between Germany and England. Among the passengers were several Englishmen; one of them with a title. On this line it is a habit among the women to drink coffee after dinner in the smoking-room. The Englishmen did something that was considered offensive by the German women, and, the captain hearing of it, he promptly called the Englishmen to account. The Englishmen were furious; particularly the one with a title. He said the women had no business in the smoking-room; that he had done nothing offensive, and would not be corrected by anyone, captain or no captain. The captain also had a temper, and he replied that if a titled Englishman didn’t know the ordinary rules of politeness, he would teach him. The two men glared at each other a few moments, and the incident was closed, but it might easily have resulted in serious trouble; if the captain had put Sir Thomas in irons, an international complication might have arisen speedily. The Germans have hasty tempers, and are slow to apologize; the same thing may be said of the English, and both have a very good opinion of their fighting ability; with Germany rather in the lead in conceit, since the Boer war.... This morning the band played a selection which closed with “God Save the King.” Two Englishmen who sat near me, arose to their feet, and stood until the hymn was finished. Yesterday the band played “The Watch on the Rhine,” but the Germans paid no attention to it; they did not even applaud. Last night the band played

“The American Patrol,” closing with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but the two Americans on board paid the air no special attention.... A printed notice was placed on the bulletin board this afternoon, stating that Law mass will be celebrated in the ladies’ parlor next Sunday, at 10:30 A.M. There was great curiosity to know the meaning of Law mass. Being a printer, and accustomed to the mistakes of printers, I was able to solve the riddle: the printer should have set up the word “low” instead of “law.” The mystery was nothing more than a typographical error.... There is a bride and groom on board, and the fact that one or the other is sulking most of the time has attracted a good deal of attention.... One passenger has attracted everyone’s admiration because he is a fine walker. Most people walk in a very awkward manner, but this man, a Portuguese count, walks with so much grace as to attract compliments.... At 9 o’clock tonight we came to Zanzibar, and were at once surrounded by the usual crowd of screaming boatmen. Near us was anchored the steamer for Bombay, and the Hindu deck passengers packed up and departed. I shall miss them every morning when I look out of my window; they came to know me, I was so close a neighbor. The Hindu juggler was my favorite: he had a far-away look that would have become a mystic. The big negro Mohammedan who took so much pride in his prayers also stood high in my estimation, as he was a very dignified and quiet man. I went down to the gang-plank, and said good-by to these two as they disembarked carrying their pans and pots, and boxes and bundles.... Some of the passengers went ashore, but I remained and listened to the band concert, and watched the unusual scene of activity about the ship. The men engaged in unloading are mainly Mohammedan negroes, and they make more noise and do less work than any other workmen I know anything about. They not only scream all the time, but keep up a sort of song. At intervals they all quit the work on which they are engaged and clap their hands in unison.

SATURDAY, APRIL 12.—Zanzibar is unusual in many ways, but not as unusual as I expected it to be. I measured several of its streets this morning, and found them nine feet wide. These were mainly residence streets; the principal business streets are a little wider, and automobiles run in them. I met a gentleman named Hay in Zanzibar, an official of the cable company, and called at his home several times. He lives in the queerest house I have ever seen. It fronts on the sea, and was built and occupied many years by an Arab gentleman. The house is enormous in size, and some of its rooms must be thirty or forty feet square; it amused me immensely to see a dining-table, set for two, in the centre of the enormous dining-room; Mr. Hay has no children, and he and his wife are the sole occupants of the big house, except that four native servants slip about as quietly as mice. In the centre of the house is an enormous court, open to the sunlight, and when I visited the place we used to run across this, to avoid sunstroke. The bath-room of the house is another large room, with a depression and drain in the cement floor; every floor in the house is of cement and the walls of rough stucco plastered outside and inside. The water for bathing is carried to the Hay home by negro women, and for this service they receive three shillings a month, or seventy-two cents. The women carry the water on their heads, in Standard Oil tins, and have the best figures in the world, because of their habit of carrying loads on their heads. In the Hay house, as in all the other homes in Zanzibar, there is a roof garden, where the dwellers go when the nights are excessively hot. The Hay servants receive $1.25 a month, and board themselves. Mr. Hay told me they were great thieves; most of the other white people I met in Africa spoke highly of the honesty of the blacks. The approach to the house is a crooked street nine feet wide, and the front door an elaborate affair of bronze. An Arab invests a great deal of his money in his front door, as river pilots are said to invest most of their money in watch chains. This queer, rambling house rents for $20 a month. While sitting on its veranda, looking out to sea, a warship lying only a few hundred yards away fired a salute of a dozen guns, and caused Adelaide to scream, as the guns were pointed directly at us.... Mr. Hay has lived on the edge of the east fifteen or twenty years, as an employee of the cable company, and says that in his bachelor days he never shaved or put on socks except when a ship was expected in the harbor. The arrival of a ship in these far-away places is a big event to the white residents, as they nearly always dine aboard, and hear gossip from home....

Zanzibar, the town, is not as large as I expected to find it. I don’t know how many blacks are scattered over Zanzibar island, which is 50 miles long and 25 broad, but the total white population amounts to less than one hundred and fifty. Of white women and girls, there are only fifteen; and all of them smoke cigarettes, one citizen told me. When I meet a woman over here who smokes cigarettes, I am usually told that her husband is coaxing her to quit the habit. While in Zanzibar, the subject of women smoking cigarettes came up, and several men said to me: “My sisters never smoke; they would as soon think of cutting their throats.” I have rarely known a woman cigarette-smoker who did not tell me that her husband objected. Nice women smoke, but they would be nicer if they didn’t. Cigarette-smoking in women seems to be associated more or less with drinking: I sat in a party one night, at one of our stopping-places, and one woman drank five highballs, in addition to smoking nearly a box of cigarettes.... There is one narrow, crooked street in Zanzibar which is occupied entirely by Hindus. The street is so narrow that a carriage cannot be driven through it, and the shops of the tradesmen are very small; a merchant may sit in the middle of his shop, and reach everything it contains. Many of the occupants of the street are jewelers, and manufacture very wonderful articles with very simple tools. Leading off the street referred to are other narrow streets, and there is nothing more curious in Cairo or Delhi. Prices are actually very high in Zanzibar, unless you haggle with the merchants. One woman who was asked $35 for a cat’s-eye, finally paid $5 for it; another was asked $7.50 for an opal, and got it for $1.25. A professional horse-trader might do well as a shopper in Zanzibar, but the ordinary traveler is robbed. In San Francisco are curio stores displaying eastern goods five times larger than any similar store in Zanzibar. And in San Francisco the one-price system prevails. There are still larger stores in New York for the sale of curious things of Japanese, Indian or Chinese manufacture, and the merchants are reliable, whereas if you attempt to buy anything in Zanzibar, you usually deal with a rogue.... I had an automobile ride in Zanzibar I shall always remember. We drove across the island, a distance of twenty-four miles, and were almost constantly passing through native villages. The natives of Zanzibar seem to be more prosperous than the other negroes we have seen, and they have adopted all the customs of the strange races they meet here. Everywhere we saw negro women hiding their faces behind veils, a custom learned from the Hindus. We also saw negro women with gold buttons in their noses, rings on their toes, and bracelets on their ankles; they had seen these customs practiced by other women, and adopted them, without any particular reason.... I believe I saw more cocoanut trees on Zanzibar island than I ever before saw anywhere; and everywhere the people were preparing copra, the dried meat of the cocoanut. Copra produces an oil used in soap-making, and is in brisk demand. Wherever we go here we get the disagreeable smell of copra; it reminds one of very rancid butter.... We also passed through many miles of clove trees. Ninety per cent of all the cloves produced in the world are raised on Zanzibar island, where conditions are just right. Cloves are widely used in the manufacture of perfumes; in nearly every perfume is a little of the oil of clove. The clove trees are eighteen to twenty-five feet high, and do not look unlike orange trees. The crop is gathered by native women and children, and finds its way to every portion of the world. The island of Zanzibar is not unlike the island of Ceylon, of which it reminded me. Rice is extensively grown, and the banana and mango flourish, as do mosquitoes, malaria, donkeys, goats, and the inclination to go naked all the year ’round. Returning from the automobile trip, we were late, and the driver, a Hindu, tore like mad through the streets of the native villages. We lit our lamps at a native village, and entered Zanzibar after nightfall. Riding through the narrow streets of this old town after night, in an automobile, was an experience I shall always remember, for Zanzibar reminds every visitor of the towns described in “The Arabian Nights.” It is a typical Arabian town, and there seems to be a mystery and a romance behind every door. The town was ruled for hundreds of years by a Sultan, until the English took charge. There is still a sultan, who receives a salary from the English government, but some day he will be deposed, and there will be no further pretense of a Sultan having anything to do with the government. The old palace of the Sultan—an ugly affair which looks like a boarding-house—is used for offices by the British. Near the palace is the harem, now deserted, since the present Sultan has but one wife. The Sultan who had trouble with the English was educated in

England, and spent much of his time, and all of his revenues, in Paris. One day an English gunboat sailed into the harbor, and the captain told the gay Sultan that he had been ousted. The Sultan resented the high-handed proceeding, and sent word to the defenders of his dignity to sink the English gunboat and put the insolent captain in the dungeon. There was an old fort near the palace, on the walls of which were mounted a few rusty iron cannon. The defenders of the Sultan tried to fire these at the English gunboat, but they burst, one by one, and almost wiped out the Sultan’s defensive force. The captain of the English gunboat then began dropping shells into the palace, and, with one solid shot, sank the Sultan’s navy: a small vessel which carried four guns. The last remnants of this wreck were being removed from the harbor the day I was at Zanzibar.... Near the middle of the town is a place called “The Gardens.” It was formerly the bathing resort of the wives of the Sultan. The place is now used as a town hall, and I went there with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager, who wished to engage it for an attraction. He paid twelve shillings for the use of the hall. Dances are also held in the hall; the bathing-pool is covered with planks when the hall is rented. On other days, the bathing-pool, formerly the resort of the Sultan’s wives, is used by the school-boys, and scattered around the hall I saw a good many pieces of gymnastic apparatus.... Our summer weather is never as hot as the hot weather of Africa. Whenever we go ashore we carry a sunshade, and, with that protection, suffer more from heat than we ever suffer at home.... After our return from the automobile trip, Mr. and Mrs. Hay were our guests for dinner on the ship. They remained until nearly midnight, listening to the band concert, and “visiting.” Their boatman was anxious to go ashore, but Mr. Hay dared him to; there is a law here that a native boatman who takes a passenger out to a ship, must wait until the passenger is ready to return.... This afternoon we drank tea with an English official on the other side of the island. The official invited in several other Englishmen and their wives. The Englishmen were very polite, but I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life. I didn’t know when we started on the automobile ride that there was to be a function; it was arranged as an agreeable surprise by Mrs. Hay. I am sure the polite Englishmen enjoyed the parting as much as we did.... Dozens of native guides came on board last night and this morning, offering their services. Most of them had big names; one called himself George Washington, another Abraham Lincoln, another Oliver Cromwell, etc. But one quiet, modest negro said to the passengers:

“Me Poor Charley.”

And Poor Charley was a favorite; everyone who needed a guide tried to engage him.

SUNDAY, APRIL 13.—England and Germany are not far apart in East Africa. We left Zanzibar, which is in British territory, at 5 A.M. this morning. Four hours later we were in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of

German East Africa. I shall remember this place particularly because the ship entered its harbor through an entrance which did not seem to be more than two hundred feet wide in one place, and because of the great number of Germans who came aboard, and remained all day, and nearly all night, drinking beer and singing songs. Most of our German visitors wore uniforms; Germany uses more uniforms than any other country in the world, population considered. We went ashore at 9 A. M., and found a very pretty modern town with the usual fifty blacks to one white. There is a hotel at this place which is considered a wonder, and a good many of the passengers went there for lunch or dinner.... All the time we were walking about, black ricksha boys followed us, and finally they proved a blessing when a rain came up; we entered the vehicles, and went to the hotel, where we found a lot of our passengers drinking beer on the verandas.... Cocoanut trees grow in great profusion here, and on one I counted fifty-four nuts. I have always had a notion that four or five nuts is a pretty good average for a cocoanut tree.

MONDAY, APRIL 14.—We have been in three different towns today: Dar-es-Salaam, Zanzibar, and Tanga. We left Dar-es-Salaam at daylight, and stopped at Zanzibar for the mails at about 10 A. M., remaining an hour. Several of our friends came on board, but none of the passengers went ashore. Dozens of Indian merchants came out to the ship, and worked rapidly, as they expected the whistle to blow any moment. The passengers also shopped rapidly, having heard that goods might be had at low prices during this brief shopping period. Hundreds of purchases, mostly of useless trifles, were made. Most travelers are as particular to buy presents for all their friends as they are to remember them at Christmas-time. When the whistle finally blew, there was a scramble of merchants and their assistants to get into the little boats, and one man was compelled to jump and swim for it. Many of the passengers ordered clothing of the Zanzibar tailors, on Saturday, which was delivered today. A pants and coat of white duck, so generally worn here, cost $2.50 for the best quality, and as low as $1.75 a suit for lighter material. The ladies also ordered skirts, and the charge was $2.25.... At 11 A.M. we left Zanzibar, and six hours later were at Tanga, also in German East Africa. We have made very little progress in the last three days, our time being devoted to loading freight. But I think we took on most of all at Tanga. All through the night the steam winches were going, and they did not cease work until after breakfast. One gang of men slept while the other worked. The forward winches are not many feet from my cabin window, and all through the night there was a tremendous racket, but, greatly to my surprise, I slept fairly well.... The usual uniformed Germans came on board at Tanga, and visited our officers. At Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga every vacant berth on the ship was filled with a German, and several are sleeping in the music-room. Five of the new passengers are babies, and several of the others are Kaffir nurses. One of these nurses is a man with whiskers, and certainly six feet high. To see him caring for a baby is very amusing. Still another new passenger is a Kaffir girl, a nurse, but she is so scantily dressed that she has been refused the run of the upper decks.... A young German girl left the ship at Tanga, and we hear she is engaged to the ship doctor. Their love affair has been the subject of much gossip, and when the girl left for shore in a small boat she wept bitterly. Bets of two to one are freely offered that the engagement will not result in marriage.... There is general relief because a young bull, which has been on board ever since we left Beira, departed on a scow at Tanga, after being lifted over the sides by the steam winches. The bull seemed to understand that he was about to get rid of his long confinement in a narrow box, and behaved very decently while being unloaded.... The trip up the east coast of Africa is distinguished because of its many stops, but this makes it a long trip. We are becoming tired, and did not go ashore at Tanga.

TUESDAY, APRIL 15.—There must be a tremendous amount of cargo on this boat. We ceased loading at Tanga at 9 o’clock this morning, and at 5 P.M. began again at Mombasa. At 5:15 we went down the stairway at the side of the ship, and a fight began among the boatmen over our patronage. The negro crew of row-boat No. 5 won, and we went ashore, stopping on the way at the “Adolph Woerner,” lying in the harbor. Landing, we walked a block to the street-railway, which is one of the queer affairs called a “trolley” over here, although there is no trolley. The street-railway runs from the port, called Killindini, to Mombasa, a mile and a half away, and only handcars, pushed by native men, are operated. There is a double track, with branches to every important section of Mombasa. Every citizen of importance owns one or more handcars, called “trolleys,” and these are lifted off the track when not in use, and you see them standing everywhere about the town. The fare up-town by trolley is not five cents, as is the case in the United States, where the people are mercilessly robbed by the corporations; the fare is forty-eight cents per passenger, after 6 P. M., and twenty-four cents during the day. Three men pushed our trolley, and, when they came to a piece of down-hill track, they all rode. We had employed a black boy as guide at the landing, at thirty-six cents an hour, and when we struck an up-hill piece of track, the guide also helped push. Thus with four men we got along very well, and were soon in the heart of old Mombasa, said to have been besieged oftener than any other town in the world; which is a pretty good story, if true, for there is fairly accurate authority for the statement that Jerusalem has been besieged and taken fifty times.... The trolley system of Mombasa stops at the postoffice; we left our car there, and walked into the old part of the town. In Zanzibar the streets were crooked, but in the old section of Mombasa the buildings seem to have been built without any order whatever. There are no streets; only spaces between the buildings, and these are very narrow. The inhabitants of the section through which we passed at about

6 P.M. are mainly people from India, and thousands of children were playing about the narrow passages, or in the quaint shops, which were almost as small as shops set up by children at play. It was almost dark, and the usual illumination in the average shop was a lantern. The shopkeepers wore turbans, and all sorts of strange clothing, and there was a touch of every country except the country I am most familiar with. I could not have named one-tenth of the articles displayed in the shops, and in one place a phonograph was playing Hindu airs as strange to me as the old town of Mombasa. We went to a market where hundreds of people were quarreling over food prices, and where the people seemed to come out of foreign books rather than out of real life. Occasionally we came across a wholesale house, and in the offices of these we saw Hindus working at typewriters. Drinking-shops abounded, and out of these came drunken men who leered at us impudently and curiously. There were a good many native hotels with guests sitting idly about. Mothers ran everywhere hunting their children, and the streets, not much wider than our sidewalks, were crowded with jabbering, gesticulating men and women who seemed to us to be rather ill-natured.... We passed an old fort which looked as large as Edinburgh castle, in Scotland; Mombasa is a big town, and prosperous, and its institutions are on a large scale. The guide said there was a still more interesting fort fifteen minutes away, and we went there by trolley. The fort is situated on the seashore, and only a ruin, but it looked very interesting in the moonlight. The old cannon used in defense of the place, I don’t know how many centuries ago, were still looking grimly out of ruined portholes, and just below the portholes the waves were tumbling noisily, as if anxious to climb up the rocks and complete the ruin of the place. Near the old fort was a lighthouse, flashing its signals out to sea, and directly in front of the lighthouse was the wreck of a steamship. The tide was out, and we went on board for a few minutes. There is probably nothing which so completely depicts ruin and desolation as a wrecked ship, lying on its side, and stripped of everything of value by vandals and the sea. We also climbed up to the lighthouse tower, and the keeper showed us the mechanism. It was the first lighthouse I have ever inspected at close quarters; usually they are located on rocks hard to get to.... When we went back to town, neither English nor German money would satisfy the trolley-boys, so I went into the shop of a money-changer, and paid twelve cents for enough Indian rupees to satisfy my creditors. The three trolley-boys who had taken us to the old fort took us to the landing, at a breakneck speed. One of the three rode all the time, and they relieved each other at the work of pushing. When the grade was down hill, they all rode. Down one long hill we must have traveled at the rate of thirty miles an hour. When we left the trolley, we were seized upon by a boatman who had wandered from the landing to get the first chance at ship passengers returning from town.

“Promise me, master,” he said; “me No. 67.” We promised, and followed him to the landing. Other boatmen constantly joined our procession, and we were soon in the center of a howling, fighting mob, but we had promised No. 67, and were faithful to him. At first, he was one to a hundred, but as we neared the landing, his three companions came to his assistance, and we were finally able to go aboard No. 67. I sat in the stern, and handled the tiller-ropes, and the ride out to the ship was cool and enjoyable.... Arriving at the ship, we found it surrounded with freight barges, and loading in furious progress. Eight steam winches were at work, four forward and four aft, and hundreds of screaming natives were swarming over the barges and down in the hold where the freight was being stored. A man who lives in this part of the world, and is familiar with it, says that when the natives are talking, they are at work; when they are quiet, he stirs them up with a stick, for he knows they are loafing. The loading on the forward deck was not ten feet from my cabin, and the quartermaster assured me it would go on all night. At 10: 30 there was a short rest, and the native workers swarmed up from below, and over from the barges, to be fed. The crew cook gave them pans of either rice or corn-meal mush, I could not tell which, and the men sat around in groups, and ate it with their fingers. The deck passengers, who have comfortable quarters over the hatchway when we are at sea, scatter everywhere when the hatches are uncovered, and loading is in progress.... I was much interested in a negro man who had two wives. The women had little babies of about the same age, and the husband seemed as fond of one wife as of the other. The husband was a young man, perhaps twenty-five, and his wives were still younger. The black babies were much better behaved than the white ones in the first-cabin. Since the arrival of the five white babies, the “Burgermeister” has been turned into a nursery. Some mothers are disposed to be apologetic when their children annoy others, but the mothers on the “Burgermeister” look at the other passengers as though they are a mean lot for not assisting in taking care of the babies. When a baby cries in my presence, I somehow feel as though I made it cry. I learned the various processes of caring for babies in bringing up my own, but had I not learned the art long ago, I might learn it all on board the “Burgermeister,” from intimate association with it. All the babies are German, except one Portuguese.... I was more interested in Mombasa than in Zanzibar. It is larger, and has better public buildings of every kind. The general impression is that Mombasa has a bright future, while Zanzibar seems to be as large as it can ever hope to be.... The known history of Mombasa began a thousand years ago, but many say this section was settled, and was the scene of fierce wars, long before the Christian era. It has been Portuguese territory and Arab territory, and they quarreled and fought over it constantly until the British took possession, and told both contending factions to behave themselves. If the old forts in Mombasa could talk, they might tell tales of bloodshed and cruelty that would startle modern mankind.... Mombasa is the port of entry for the vast territory of Uganda, a name which calls up memories of Livingstone, Speke, Grant, and Stanley. The railroad beginning here runs to Victoria Lake. It was this railroad on which Roosevelt made his trip into the interior, riding on the cowcatcher much of the way, and being in constant sight of big game. I have seen no wild game except one pheasant, and a good many baboons, but it is all around us, a few miles in the interior.... Imaginative writers draw beautiful word-pictures of this country and its future, but the facts are that it is a country beset with many pests and difficulties. I have talked with men from many sections of it, but they do not tell stories of wonderful prosperity. On the contrary, they tell stories of hot weather, of natural difficulties to be overcome, and of hard pioneering. Whoever lives here must not expect health; he must “go home” as frequently as possible, to recuperate, as do our soldiers in the Philippines. There are as many undeveloped “natural resources” in the Philippine Islands as in Africa; the greatest difference is that the African natives are better workers than the Filipinos, and not so much attention is paid to their liberties as we are paying to the liberties of the Filipinos.... This section is known locally as “British East.” Some say British East Africa is a better country than Cape Colony or Natal, or the Transvaal, or the Orange Free State, but the general evidence is that it is not.... The “Burgermeister” has a wonderful cargo in its hold. This morning I saw a lot of ivory come on board, and asked an official what else we carried to the markets of the world. We have rubber, cloves, Colombo roots, ginelda wood for tanning, chrome ore, a great lot of copper ore, gum copal, copra, cocoanut fiber, carianda seeds, great quantities of bullock and goat hides, ostrich feathers, wool, raw cotton, coffee, tobacco, cotton seed, cotton-seed oil in barrels, etc. A great deal more freight was offered than the ship could accommodate, and much was left in the barges after the “Burgermeister’s” hold was full. This freight comes from the interior, and was brought to the coast by rail, by river, and by bullock team; it does not represent the product of a section, but of a continent.... We were told on coming on board last night that an American and his wife had been added to the passenger list during our absence. I looked the man over, and at once offered to bet two to one that he was not an American. He wore a green hat, with the brim turned down all the way ’round. No American ever wore a green hat, or wore it with the brim turned down in that fashion. Besides, he smokes a pipe all the time, and carries a bag of tobacco attached to his belt; an English custom.... We lost nearly all of our friends at Mombasa. Many of the passengers are new, and we must start all over in becoming acquainted. Nine out of ten are Germans; there is an English line of boats plying on the East Coast, and the English prefer their own ships. Whoever travels out here will notice friction between the English and Germans.... In spite of every cabin on the ship being full, and in spite of the long delays in loading freight, the chief steward feeds us well; it is not too much to say that the food is as good as may be had on the best ships of the fine Atlantic fleet. While in port, we have so many visitors that we are crowded, but at sea, we settle down, and do very well.... There are several cases of the plague at Mombasa, but not much attention is paid to them. The plague is always a pest here, and occasionally it gets a big start; not long ago, Zanzibar was a closed port for six months, and visitors were compelled to remain there until the quarantine was raised. The Zanzibar hotel is a very bad one, and a good many of the visitors hired houses and cooks, and lived very comfortably.... Nearly all the natives of Mombasa are Mohammedans, and when we passed through the town just after darkness set in, it seems to me I saw thousands of men praying in the mosques. I have never seen a Mohammedan woman praying; with people of that faith, it seems to be the men who are religious. Among Protestants, you will find ten religious women to one religious man.... The old fort at Mombasa was once besieged thirty-three months, and when the garrison finally surrendered the victors found only eleven men and three women to butcher.... The Uganda State Railway begins at Mombasa, and runs to Lake Victoria, source of the river Nile. On the way is Niarobi, probably the most promising town in British East Africa. It was to Niarobi Sammy Marks was going, to open a new theatre. Nearly all the way to the lake, big game is constantly in sight from the railway carriages. Lake Victoria is the second largest in the world, only Lake Superior being larger. A trip of five days is provided on Victoria Lake, in large and comfortable ships, which are occasionally out of sight of land. It is in this section where ten thousand natives died within a year from the terrible sleeping sickness, which is so fatal that the government is now forcing the blacks to leave the infected district.... On the railroad to Victoria Lake is Tsavo station, where a pair of man-eating lions devoured thirty-three natives during the construction work. Colonel Patterson wrote a book about “The Man Eaters of Tsavo,” and its fame is worldwide. The terror of the native workmen on the railway finally became so great that work was suspended for a time. Then one of the engineers fixed up an iron cage, and spent five nights in it. The second night he shot one of the lions, another the third night, and the last one the fifth night. A good many hunters in Africa laugh at the Tsavo story as greatly exaggerated; indeed, I have heard it openly stated here that the Lion Lie is one of the greatest jokes in Africa. Every hunter, the African people say, takes home a fierce lion lie, and the world has come to believe thousands of big stories about these animals that are ridiculous.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16.—At noon today we left Mombasa for Aden; no more stops for five or six days. Loading at Mombasa continued without interruption for eighteen hours, and when the colored laborers went away on barges, they cheered because of the completion of their long task.... Outside the harbor, we encountered the first motion of the voyage, and several of the passengers went to bed. The motion was not great, but it was the first we have had. We had been wondering what the “Burgermeister” would do in case of heavy weather, and found her specialty is a pitch. The pitch is far more agreeable than the roll.... We had been told by the captain to expect the hottest weather of the voyage between

Mombasa and Aden, but found the weather cooler at Mombasa than at any other stopping-place, and at sea there were actually spots on deck that were too cool.... At Mombasa we took on an entirely new lot of deck passengers, and lost a number who greatly interested me. One was a negro boy of fourteen, whom a woman passenger was taking to Nairobi as a servant. She met him on the streets of Mozambique, and, being attracted by his fair promises, took him on board. The boy claimed to be able to speak five languages in addition to “Kitchen Kaffir.” This is a language which all Kaffirs understand, and it is the native language usually learned by whites. I have a notion that a half-savage boy of fourteen speaking five languages, speaks some of them very imperfectly.... The captain, or some one for him, has suppressed the six babies on board. Nearly all of them have male nurses, and these negro men, who are traveling on deck-passage tickets, almost monopolized the first-cabin deck. They had cribs and fences in which they confined their charges, and getting about was almost impossible. There was so much grumbling that the babies and nurses have been sent to the deck below, and we see no more of them, although we can hear them. The halls of the baby deck are encumbered with all sorts of nursing-bottles and other apparatus of that nature, and we are compelled to wade through it when we go to our rooms.... The lower class of Hindus are the filthiest people in the world, judging from what I see of them on the lower deck, where a good many of them are located as passengers. I cannot avoid seeing all their domestic arrangements, and their indifference to dirt is amazing. I notice that a good many of the negroes in Africa have adopted the Hindu religion, having learned it from the Indians, who come to the East Coast in great swarms. Religion naturally appeals to the negro, and he adopts any form of it which attracts his fancy. But the great bulk of the negroes on the East Coast are Mohammedans, having learned that doctrine from the Arabs who sold them into slavery. You would think the negroes would detest the Mohammedan religion and the Arabs, but they do not. Many of the natives who are unmistakably Africans, claim to be Arabs, and this evening I saw six Mohammedan negroes saying their prayers at the same time. They observed me watching them, and took particular pains to “show off.” One of them had a string of beads of the kind used by the Catholics, and I am certain that he had picked up this addition to his Mohammedan religion from the Catholics. All religions become badly mixed by their different forms appealing to other sects.... The orchestra played a concert on deck this evening, for the first time in several days; we have been so busy loading cargo that there was no time to think of music.... I find that we took on an American passenger at Mombasa; A. B. Hepburn, of the Chase National Bank, of New York, and Comptroller of Currency under President Harrison. He has been hunting in the Niarobi section, and told me he was the only one in his outfit who did not get the fever.

THURSDAY, APRIL 17.—We crossed the equator at noon today, and are once more in our proper hemisphere. There were no exercises; usually the sailors engage in foolishness, and scare those who have not crossed before, by threatening to duck them in the swimming-tank. There is not a great deal of foolishness on German ships; on the English ships, so much is made of sports that many passengers seriously object. I selected a German ship instead of an English because I was thoroughly disgusted with the Sports Committee on the “Anchises.” Every hour of the day, almost, on the “Anchises,” a boy went about beating a gong, to announce another meeting of the Sports Committee, which arranged for potato races, sack races, and other silly performances. Nothing of that kind on the “Burgermeister;” the passengers are genteel and quiet, and let each other alone.... The English universally speak of the tomato as “tomahto.” If that pronunciation is correct, why do they speak of the potato as “potayto?” If “tomahto” is a correct pronunciation, “potahto” is also better than “potayto.” ... I notice that nearly everyone speaks a little English. We have on board Germans, Russians, Portuguese, Chinese, Belgians, French, Arabs, Hindus, and Kaffirs, and all of them speak English, more or less. English will soon become the universal language; there is no need of Esperanto, a language I have never heard of anyone speaking. A band of reformers are urging that all races learn Esperanto, in order that all men may have a common language, but Esperanto is not making much progress.... Owing to the crowd in the dining-room, my bath-room steward assists in waiting at my table. He is a very capable and agreeable man; every morning when I go to the bath-room, he says: “Good morning, please.” ... I believe that every woman on board, with one notable exception from Kansas, smokes cigarettes. Young women walk about the decks alone, smoking, and it always seems to me to be foolish. The fact that Adelaide does not smoke, causes a good deal of favorable comment among the men. “I may be old-fashioned,” I have heard many men say, “but I don’t like to see women smoke.” ... We have heard no American news for weeks, except that J. Pierpont Morgan’s body has arrived in New York. I see this announcement in every newspaper I pick up; when a cablegram is received here, the newspapers warm it over for days.... In the cablegram announcing Morgan’s death, the impression was given that he had a bad stomach, and starved to death. The passengers talk a good deal about this very rich man starving to death.... An Englishman whom I know very well, and who talks Kaffir, takes a good deal of interest in the negro passenger who has two wives. Today we went down to the lower deck, and discussed matrimony with the man. Asked if the system of plural marriages pleased him, he replied that if he had it to do over, he wouldn’t marry at all. It seems that all the Kaffirs who are deck passengers try to flirt with the man’s two wives, and he is very uncomfortable. He says he showed his respect for women in a practical way, by marrying two of them; that he pays their fare on the present journey, but that a lot of young fellows expect his wives to neglect him in order that they may amuse them. There is a good deal of the same thing in the first-cabin, and several wives make their husbands very uncomfortable by flirting with the young men.... The barber on this ship charges only twelve cents for a shave; the price on all other ships I know anything about is double that amount.... The Germans and English have talked of fighting so long that I almost hope they will finally be punished by getting at it. War is so unnecessary, atrocious and wicked that every nation that even talks about it should be punished.... This morning we passed an Arab dhow. It was not more than sixty feet long, yet vessels of this type have been sailing these seas for centuries. They have but one sail, and a crew of only four or five men, but they are often entrusted with valuable cargoes. They are stoutly but crudely built, and the one deck is covered with straw thatch. The captain of an Arab dhow has no scientific knowledge of navigation, and no instruments to take the sun, yet he knows the currents and the stars, and makes as good time as modern sailing-ships. Captain Ulrich looked at the dhow through his glass this morning, and said the captain was taking every advantage of wind and current, and that the most able navigator could not do better. Ships of exactly this type were used thousands of years ago, and some I have seen along this coast looked to be fully that old. An Arab dhow has no conveniences whatever, yet they carry passengers as well as freight. Passengers and crew live together under the single roof of thatch, and cook and live in the most primitive manner. If the Arabs are not the dirtiest people in the world, only the lower order of Hindus can wrest that distinction from them.... Many of the passengers who came on board at German East Africa ports, are half sick, and say they have had enough of the African climate. I hear no praise of rural Africa from those who have lived there; there are prosperous and healthy people around Capetown and Durban, and in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, but the interior of the country is grievously afflicted with dry weather and serious physical pests.

FRIDAY, APRIL 18.—We have not been in sight of land for several days, but the sea remains calm, and the weather cool; nothing going on except the band concert at 10:30 A. M., and the orchestra concert at 9 P. M. After the last-named event, we walk around awhile, and then go to bed.... There are two amateurs on board who are returning from a hunting trip, and on the aft deck they have a number of trophies. A majority of the male passengers live in Africa, and have hunted a great deal, so the two amateurs do not attract much attention. Leopards are the great pest of the country, as they are very numerous. One man told me this morning that only a few weeks ago, a leopard killed a negro boy in his hunting camp. No hunting story is more than half true, so I do not pay much attention to them. A hunter offered me a pair of buffalo horns today, but I refused the offer; they were not worth the trouble of carrying them home.... Captain Ulrich, of the “Burgermeister,” does not sit at the head of the centre table in the dining-room, but occupies a side seat at a side table.... Men object to wearing evening clothes because of the stiff shirt. Soft shirts with pleated fronts are generally worn with dress suits on the “Burgermeister,” and they are said to be the latest in London. A coat and vest of white duck, the coat as short as a waiter’s jacket, are also substituted for the black coat and vest.... Every little while I meet a man who says he prefers second-class to first class on a ship, because of the lack of formality in the second-cabin. At Victoria Falls I became acquainted with a man, and saw him again today on the second-cabin deck. He says the informality there is so pronounced that some of the Englishmen spend half the morning in the smoking-room wearing nothing but pajamas. That, it seems to me, is carrying informality too far. When a man travels in the second-cabin, he does it to save money, and not because it is “more democratic.” I hate democracy when it amounts to impoliteness and rudeness, as is frequently the case.... There is a burly German officer on board in whom I am much interested, because of the scars on his head and face. The scars were evidently received in a student duel at the university, and I should like to see the bully boy who decorated him so artistically.... I hear it stated every hour of the day that Africa is a country of “great promise.” It seems to me that Africa has been “promising” long enough, and should cease being a game country. The United States turned the buffalo ranges into farms; Africa would also get rid of its game if there were any demand for its land from agriculturists.

SATURDAY, APRIL 19.—Today we are off Samoliland, the most worthless part of Africa. It is controlled by the Italians, and is about as savage as it ever was. There is one seaport in Samoliland, but steamers rarely touch there, as it has no business.... The weather, which we expected to be very hot in this part of the world, remains cool. You often miss it when you expect misfortune.... There is a young Canadian on board named Goult. It was at first reported that he was an American, and he does look like one, as all Canadians do. He and his wife have been on a hunting trip into the interior of Africa. They had an outfit consisting of one hundred and fifty native men, who packed their supplies and tents. The natives carried their own food, which consisted of several thousand pounds of corn-meal; in addition to this, they had meat when game was killed. The hunt lasted nearly four months, and very few of the men deserted. When a native porter deserts, he loses all pay coming to him; besides, he is liable to arrest and imprisonment. Mr. Goult had a professional guide and hunter with him, who organized and managed his outfit. They killed four lions, but no elephants, although other game was fairly plentiful. Mr. Goult says game animals in this section are infested with a tick which renders them disgusting at times. Mrs. Goult told me this evening that she suffered no hardship; that roughing it in Canada is very much rougher.... The band on the “Burgermeister” is a very good one; much better than is usually found on ships, and the leader has excellent taste in choosing his selections. And this man is a waiter in the dining-room, and young and good-looking.

... The “Burgermeister” is a slow ship, and makes about fifteen miles an hour: only half as much as some of the big liners on the Atlantic. The Atlantic is the dandy of oceans: no other has equally fine ships. But on the fast ships of the Atlantic there is a vibration from the engines that is disagreeable. The slow ships are much more comfortable than the fast ones. And the Atlantic is also the bully of oceans; a voyage without rough weather is rare. If the Atlantic were as smooth as the Indian ocean from Beira to Aden, people would hear less of seasickness.... The captain is taking home with him a baby deer that certainly does not weigh a pound and a half. It is not as big as a rabbit, as it belongs to a family of deer noted for diminutive size. The captain amused the passengers this evening by feeding his baby with a bottle. First the captain smelt of the bottle, to see that the milk was not sour. The baby has been ill, and the ship doctor has been attending to it.... By-the-way, the doctor has been behaving very well since his sweetheart left the boat at Tanga. The women expected him to be gay, but he has been very quiet and thoughtful, and the men are proud of him.... There is nothing lazier or duller than a voyage in quiet seas. At one time this afternoon, every passenger on my side of the deck was asleep.

SUNDAY, APRIL 20.—We were awakened this morning by the ship’s band playing hymns in the halls. Soon after I went on deck, land appeared, the first we have seen in four days, and we remained in sight of it all day. Between us and land a ship was steaming southward, and a school of porpoises also appeared, disturbing the sea for miles. They were as lazy as the natives, and jumped in a leisurely, slow way that amused us. About noon, Cape Guardafui appeared. Guardafui is the most eastern extremity of the African continent, and when we rounded it about noon, we were in the Arabian sea, and the ship’s prow was pointing toward home: due west. The rocky point around which we turned to enter the Arabian Sea, bears a striking resemblance to a huge crouching lion, when viewed from a distance. We passed quite near the shore, but saw no signs of life: nothing but a desolate waste of sand and rock.... After rounding Guardafui, we were in the Gulf of Aden, which looks small on the map, but we shall steam on its surface thirty hours, out of sight of land, before reaching Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea. We are now in that section referred to by Kipling as “East of Suez:” land of poor crops, poverty and misery. A few days’ sail to the east from Guardafui, and the traveler reaches India, where ignorance is worshipped as mystery, and where men of the tenth or hundredth generation know no more than did their fathers.... Africa is larger than North America; it is almost as large as the American continent, and is controlled by such enlightened natives as England, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Portugal, yet from one end of the country to the other there is no such thing as a public school for the natives. Indeed, I have heard many Englishmen openly declare that education is the ruination of the native. I don’t dispute the statement; I only call attention to two different ideas of the importance of education. In the Philippine Islands, in Guam, in Porto Rico, in Honolulu, in Cuba, we are insisting upon education as the solution of the native problem; over here, the powers insist that education only makes the native problem worse. At home, we are called upon to contribute money with which to send missionaries to the heathen. Over here, where the heathen lives, the whites almost universally say that the missionary causes useless trouble. I am not trying to settle the question, or argue it: I am merely calling attention to a queer phase of it.... A gentleman told me today that in Portuguese East Africa, where he lives, there is a Catholic mission in charge of French priests. In the chapel, there are huge oil paintings showing pictures of hell. The devil is represented as a negro. In one picture, a native is dying, and hundreds of fiends surround his bed, waiting until life is extinct, that they may torture him. There is education of this sort in Africa, but no school-house for the natives.... Religious services were held in the dining-room at five o’clock this afternoon, conducted by a German. The full band was used instead of an organ; the preacher would line a hymn, and then those present would sing it, accompanied by the band.... The ship’s library contains books printed in German, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch, which will give you an idea of the different nationalities patronizing this line.

MONDAY, APRIL 21.—At 9 o’clock this evening we came to Aden, in Arabia, said to be the hottest town in the world. Every drop of water used there is condensed from the sea, although there is a white population of two thousand, including English soldiers, and an Arab population of forty thousand. There is a tradition that rain fell at Aden three years ago, and that every roof in town leaked, but previous to that time no rain had fallen in the town or its vicinity for many years; many of its elderly citizens had never seen a rain-storm, and looked with wonder upon the one which fell three years ago. Aden is located on a rock seventeen hundred feet high, and this rock may be seen far out at sea. The town is an important coaling station, and the English have tremendous fortifications—almost equal to Gibraltar—in the rocks. The harbor is a large one, and almost land-locked, and we thought the place a very pretty one, by moonlight. Although Aden has such a bad reputation for hot weather, the evening was delightfully cool. We were not permitted to land, owing to the plague, but our ship was promptly surrounded by Arabs in boats, who bartered with the passengers until after midnight. The Arabs had ostrich feathers, cigarettes, post-cards, and dozens of other articles to sell, and these they sent up the ship’s side in baskets, for the inspection of the passengers. If the passengers were interested in the goods offered, they asked the price, said it was too much, and offered half; then the dealer became excited, and screamed back that he wouldn’t take it, although he often did. There were dozens of these boats, and the uproar was so incessant that sleep was impossible. The ostrich feathers offered were poor, and those who bought, even at greatly reduced prices, were probably worsted.... The old town of Aden dates back to the days of Tyre and Sidon, and was a celebrated commercial centre long before our Christian era; for many centuries it has been a fortified town because of its strategetical position. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries it did an enormous trade with China, India and Egypt, and its market was the clearing-house of that day for the treasures of the East. For tens of centuries, Aden has been the cockpit of fierce fights for ascendency amongst the Arabs, Abyssinians, Persians, Turks, and Egyptians.... A gentleman who lives at Aden says he pays $20 a month for water, which is delivered at his door in tank-wagons drawn by camels. Some of the numerous shops in Aden sell nothing but condensed and bottled water, and the price in quantity is usually a dollar per hundred gallons.... Many years ago, great tanks were built at Aden, to catch the precious rainfall, but these have not been in use for many years, although tourists usually visit them.... Aden is a great camel market, and much of the famous Mocha coffee is shipped from this point. There is just one industry in the town: the manufacture of cigarettes, which is in the hands of Greeks, and who bring their tobacco duty-free from Turkey and Egypt. The walls of the houses are built of a cheap concrete, and plastered.... A third-class passenger on the “Burgermeister” is a little German girl, five years old, traveling alone. She was brought on board at Dar-es-Salaam, to be taken back to Germany. Her mother died three days before, and her father was somewhere in the interior, trying to make a fortune. The little girl’s mother arrived in Dar-es-Salaam only a week before her death. Now the child is very ill, and it is not believed she will live to reach her friends in Germany. The women passengers are doing all they can for the child, but she cries almost constantly for her mother, and not much can be done for her.

TUESDAY, APRIL 22.—This morning at 11 o’clock we entered the Red Sea, through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb. The straits are about ten miles wide, and are made narrower at the entrance to the Red Sea by Perim Island, which the English have fortified. On our right, Asia; on the left, Africa,—two continents in sight. The Red Sea is a great highway for ships since the completion of the Suez Canal; ships for India, China, Japan, Ceylon, Australia and Africa now pass this way. From 7 o’clock this morning until 3 P.M. we passed fourteen ships: six were in sight at one time. Most of them passed us so closely that we could read their names.... All over the world, you hear how terribly hot and disagreeable a passage through the Red Sea is. I have been through it twice, and both voyages were cool and pleasant. Ask anyone who has been through the Red Sea, and he will tell you he had a pleasant voyage, but those who have not made the trip, say it is dreadful. If you have a head-wind, they say, the voyage is endurable, but if you have a following wind,—well, passengers can’t stand it, and beg the captain to run the other way for a time, and give them some relief. We have a following wind today,—that is, the smoke from our funnels is ahead of us,—but we find the weather more agreeable than it was at Beira, or other points on the east coast of Africa.... We are rarely out of sight of land, and this afternoon we passed the Arabian town of Mokka. We spell it Mocha, and famous coffee comes from its vicinity. Mocha coffee is like the Blue Point oyster; it is very rare, and there are many imitations. The town of Mocha has no harbor, and ships rarely call there, so the little coffee it produces is sent to Aden. Further up the coast is the town of Jiddah. It is from this place that pilgrims start for Mecca, sacred city of the Mohammedans. Only one white man has ever visited Mecca, as white people are not allowed in the place. This man, an English officer named Burton, disguised himself as an Arab physician. He spent several years in familiarizing himself with the Mohammedan religion and the Arab language. After his preparations were complete, he shipped as a deck passenger at Suez and successfully deceived the dozens of real Arabs and Mohammedans with whom he was intimately associated. The pilgrims to Mecca from Jiddah are cruelly robbed by the Arabs through whose country they must pass, and the party Burton traveled with had one pitched battle with the thieves. Burton wrote a book telling of his experiences, and I know of nothing more interesting in the way of adventure. A railroad is now being built to Mecca, if it has not been actually completed, and Jiddah will lose much of its former importance. War and slavery are common in most of the Arab towns along the Red Sea, and it is dangerous for ships to send parties ashore, unless heavily armed. During the hot, dry season, many of these towns are entirely deserted; the inhabitants go into the mountains, and remain there until the weather becomes endurable. The Red Sea has a shore-line of more than three thousand miles, yet the country surrounding it is so worthless that there is almost no town of importance on its shores, and no river runs into it. There is no rain in the vicinity of the Red Sea, and it loses eight feet every year from evaporation, which must be made up from other seas where there is more rain and less heat.... You hear a great deal of the “Mysticism of the East.” This mysticism is as foolish as the doggerel used by children when they count the buttons on your coat: “Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief; doctor lawyer, merchant chief,” etc. Mysticism never means anything. The West solves riddles, and discovers how to produce a hundred bushels of corn per acre: the East pays great attention to Mysticism, and has more poor, dirty and ignorant people than any other part of the world. When the plague breaks out in the East, as a result of foolish pilgrimages to Mecca or Benares, the pilgrims say the plague is a part of the Mysticism of the East, and continue to drink holy and dirty water. But the men of the West have a better doctrine: its chief tenet is, “Clean Up,” and the plague disappears before it.... All our deck passengers left us at Aden. Men who spend half their time saying their prayers do not flourish in the great world west of Suez.... The passengers spend a good deal of their time in reading. I often hear them talking of the books they are reading. “How do you like it?” one will ask.

“Oh,” the other will reply, “it serves to kill time, but is rather foolish.” What queer things you find in books! And how much alike many of the famous ones are. “Adam Bede,” “The Manxman,” and “The Scarlet Letter,” were all written around an “idea” that is unnatural, unclean and absurd.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23.—We are in a wider part of the Red Sea today, and are not meeting so many ships; the few we have seen have been far away. Yesterday we were in a part of the sea almost as narrow as a river, and we could not avoid meeting all passing vessels. At one time last night so many brilliantly lighted ships were in sight that we were reminded of a night parade of electrical features at a celebration.... We have had a strong head-wind all day which travelers pray for in the Red Sea, and toward evening the “Burgermeister” acquired considerable motion.... The English passengers on board organized a Sports Committee this morning, and are now busily engaged in arranging for such elevating sports as “In a Pig’s Eye,” “Are You There?” potato-races for women, etc. The traveling Englishman has lately gone crazy about ship sports; he is like a Methodist who believes in sanctification by baptism: he will talk of nothing else, and insists on arguing the question with you. In England, only cheap people at country fairs engage in such sports, but on English ships, dukes and princes are expected to take part, for the honor of Old England. The German passengers are not enlisting for the sports, but the English urge them to take part to the point of annoyance.... I have heard none of the passengers mention the fact that the water in the Red Sea is not red; the fact that the water in the Red Sea is blue, now seems to be generally known.... A passenger in the third-class is very ill, and the ship doctor, and a German military doctor who volunteered his services, decided that the man has malaria of the head. Malaria is so common in the tropics that now they have it in the head.... A peculiar thing about the “Burgermeister” is that several of the gentlemen passengers wear white socks. Somewhere on this trip I met a man who was irritable because his white socks attracted attention. He should be on the “Burgermeister,” where they are quite common.... I heard a woman make a remarkable statement last night. She said: “I have been traveling four months, and have not seen a single married man attempt to flirt; all the flirting I have seen has been done by married women with young men.” I submit the statement as unusual, without comment.... The dance last night was a failure; the orchestra played several numbers which did not attract any dancers at all, and only five couples danced during the entire evening. All the women dancers were married, and their husbands sat around and frowned at the young fellows who were dancing with them. There is nothing in the notion that husbands want their wives to be very popular with other men.... During the concert this evening, the tall negro man nurse who has whiskers, appeared with a bottle of milk, and submitted it to the inspection of his employer. The woman smelt and then tasted the milk; it seemed satisfactory, for she gave it back to the tall Kaffir, and he disappeared, probably to feed his charge.

THURSDAY, APRIL 24.—I awoke early this morning because of a strange and unusual sensation. I feared I might be catching the fever, or plague, but later discovered I was cold. A chilly head-wind was blowing, and this in the Red Sea, which rumor says is as hot as a furnace! The passengers went about wearing overcoats all day. At 2:30 P.M. we passed out of the tropics.... For two days we have been in that part of the Red Sea which is two hundred miles wide, and have not seen many ships; but tonight we were in a narrow part, and four ships were in sight at one time. All of them were small; there are many ships in the east, but no very big ones. If one of the big ships of the Atlantic should appear at Bombay or Colombo, people would travel hundreds of miles to see it.... The general impression in America is that an English lord is an effeminate little man who only knows enough to carry an eyeglass in one eye. As a matter of fact, some of them seem to be quite useful and manly. Lord Delamere is one of the conspicuous figures in the development of British East Africa, and has done much for that country. In addition, he is the world’s greatest lion-hunter. Up to 1911, he had killed seventy lions, single-handed. Of the first forty-nine he shot, not one escaped. No other lion-hunter has a record half as good as Lord Delamere.

Street-Car in East Africa    /     Ricksha Boy, South Africa
Car to Kimberley Diamond Mines
Bullock Teams, Victoria Falls    /     Transport Wagons, Rhodesia

Another useful man in Africa is Lord Carnworth, who is an extensive farmer, as is Lord Delamere. Both these men engage in expensive agricultural experiments for the general good. Lord Carnworth lately wrote a book entitled, “A Colony in the Making.” It displays a wonderful knowledge of British East Africa. Among other things, he says the American hunters who come here are game hogs, and places Mr. Roosevelt in that class. He also speaks jestingly of the dangers of hunting in Africa. The terrible rhino, which in books is never content unless he has a hunter impaled on his single terrible horn, is not thought to be dangerous by hunters who live in this country.... In his book, Lord Carnworth discusses the native labor question quite frankly. He says what practically all the whites here say: that the missionaries are doing no good—that their converts are worse than the unconverted negroes. I quote his exact language:

“Inevitably but unfortunately the mission-educated native does not bear a good name, either among his fellow natives or among Europeans. It is, alas, a very generally accepted fact that one should beware of mission servants, who almost invariably lie, drink and steal.”

Speaking of Roosevelt reminds me that in German East Africa I saw his hunting book, translated into German, on sale at the bookstores. Everyone knows of him, and around Mombasa all the natives say with pride that they saw him. There are dozens of big-game hunters on this boat; most of them know men who were with Roosevelt, and one of them was in Roosevelt’s party for a time. They all say Roosevelt was very popular in Africa, but that Kermit, his son, was cordially despised. Roosevelt himself, they say, is a thorough sportsman, and a man of undoubted courage. He is not considered a particularly good shot, but they say he is the luckiest hunter who ever handled a gun. Besides, everything was specially arranged for his hunt. Not only all the white residents, but all the native chiefs, did what they could to locate game for him; he did not have the trouble of the usual hunter. It is further said over here that Roosevelt was a great talker, and that he would quit hunting any time to tell about his well-known theories for bettering humanity.... It is also agreed that hunters are very unpopular among the actual residents of Africa; not that the residents object to the game being killed, but every hunter requires a large number of natives for his outfit, and these are drawn mainly from the farms, where labor is scarce, and badly needed. There are millions of native men able to work, but most of them won’t work. In the native settlements, the hard labor is mainly performed by the women, children, and old men; the stalwart fellows who would do the work in a civilized community, strut about covered with grease, looking for fights with other tribes. The whites say these idlers should be made to work; that it is better that they work for a shilling a day than spend their time in idleness and mischief, and I would not be surprised to hear that the British have adopted a Vagrancy Act to reach the loafers.

FRIDAY, APRIL 25.—One of the passengers plays the piano a good deal, and plays it well, and I have just learned that he is a noted lion-hunter. That is the funniest combination I have ever heard of; a piano-player who is a lion-hunter.... There is on board a captain in the British army, and a captain in the German army. You would think they would affiliate, but they do not; on the contrary, they glare at each other. The German captain wears his uniform a good deal, and as the British captain does not, I am satisfied that he thinks the German is lacking in taste.... Among the passengers are two elderly men married to young wives; Germans who occupy official positions of some kind in German East Africa. They are the most loving couples on board; the old husbands always have their arms about their wives when on deck. If there is any one thing particularly fitted for privacy, it is love. I think the old gentlemen believe that the other passengers talk about them—and they do—and want to show them that their young wives are satisfied.... We have been having Sports today, the English gentlemen having had their way.... Every little while two men dash by with their legs tied together. They are practicing for the three-legged race, and have already run over two babies and one negro boy nurse. In the Ladies’ Potato Race, two women fell headlong, and the exhibition of dry goods was as indelicate as that seen in a dry-goods window to show new spring underwear. There is something wrong with every woman’s figure, and a potato-race brings out the irregularities.

SATURDAY, APRIL 26.—We reached Suez at 1:30 this afternoon, after a chilly ride through the narrow end of the Red Sea, which is known as the Gulf of Suez. All morning, land was in sight on both sides, and lighthouses on lonely islands were frequent. At 3 o’clock this morning we passed Mount Sinai. I have asked about half the passengers what happened on Mount Sinai to make it famous, and they don’t know.... Three hours before reaching Suez we saw a steamship that had gone ashore during the night. Another vessel was assisting it, and we did not stop.... We had a long wait at Suez before being admitted to the canal. The port doctor, a woman, amused us by coming on board, and marshaling us in the music-room for inspection. As our names were called, we walked past the doctor, and she looked at us in a manner intended to be searching. I was called out as “Herr Howe,” while Adelaide answered to “Fraulein Howe.” ... We had a scheme to go to Cairo by special train from Suez, and rejoin the ship at Port Said, but the authorities would not let us land, owing to our taking on a dozen or more Arab firemen at Aden, where there is plague. But dozens of Egyptians surrounded the ship, in little boats, and offered us all sorts of articles, which they sent up for our inspection in baskets. One ship went into the canal ahead of us, having been waiting longer, and a dozen or more boats came out carrying mud from the canal dredgers. Finally a launch appeared, bringing the long-expected pilot, and at 5:30 P.M. we steamed slowly into the canal, passing within a few hundred feet of the main streets of Suez. In an hour, we passed two freight steamers, and they gave us right of way, as ours is a mail-boat.... The Suez Canal, as everyone knows, runs through the Egyptian desert, and the desolation on the Arabian side interested me greatly. The canal requires so many workmen that it is fringed with residences of one sort and another; some are boat-houses, some are huts, and some are sightly stations. And every quarter of a mile there seems to be a dredge, to keep the channel the required depth. Every foot of the canal, on both sides, is being lined with stone, and for this work a great many Egyptian laborers are required.... On the Egyptian side there is a fresh-water canal, supplied from the Nile, and this is used to irrigate a considerable stretch of country. With a glass, we could see a good many typical Egyptian farm-houses, and Egyptian agricultural life in various stages; but on the Arabian side, there was the lonely desert you have seen in pictures and read about. At one place we saw a caravan of camels in camp for the night: the drivers in one group, and the camels in another. At another place we saw a jackal among the little hills composed of dirt from the canal. The animal was gaunt and ugly, and looked at the ship indifferently. There was a great deal to see, but the sun was declining rapidly, and at 7:30, when we left the deck and went down to dinner, we could see nothing fifty feet beyond the lighted decks.... There was to be a dance after dinner, beginning at 9 o’clock, but the night was cold, and before that hour the travelers from Kansas went to bed; just as the ship entered one of the lakes which form thirty miles of the canal. In this lake we steamed at full speed, whereas in the canal proper we had been running at five miles an hour. At Suez, we took on a special lighting apparatus; not a headlight, but a searchlight. This was attached to our prow, and lighted our way.... The engineer of the “Burgermeister,” a fat German we all admire, sat on deck while we were passing through the canal, reading a newspaper. I asked him how often he had been through, and he guessed that he had made the trip seventy times. His ship makes four trips a year around Africa.

SUNDAY, APRIL 27.—When I went on deck at 5:30 this morning, the sun was just peeping out of the Mediterranean, and Port Said was in sight. I was the only passenger on deck, and although I expected Adelaide every moment, she did not appear until we were tied up in Port Said, an hour and a half later; the Suez Canal greatly excited me, although I had been through it before, but it did not greatly excite Adelaide. Half a dozen Arab sailboats, loaded with coal, passed in the canal; they had the peculiar sails seen on boats on the Nile, and were so old that I wondered they did not fall to pieces. On the larger boats were three men, and two on the smaller ones. The masts were very tall, and in this flat country the sails catch enough wind to push the boats along.... When Adelaide appeared at 7:30, I proposed that we go ashore before breakfast. She agreed to the proposition, and we were walking the streets of Port Said ten minutes later, as the ship was tied up within a hundred feet of the principal street.... Port Said is said to be a very high-priced and dishonest town, but the boatman charged only six cents each to take us to land, and the price of a carriage is only fifty cents an hour. We engaged a guide, because one followed us, and began explaining things, and we could not get rid of him. Besides, he said his price was only a shilling an hour. In no other town we have visited have we found prices as low as in Port Said, which has a worse reputation than any other town in the world. Port Said has regulations for the protection of visitors, and enforces them. When you go ashore, you do not pay the boatman, who may charge you any price he sees fit, but you pay an official at the landing. Get rid of the notion printed everywhere that Port Said is “tough.” In addition to being an orderly place, it is very interesting. Sunday is not observed in the town, for two reasons: 1. Ships arrive and send passengers ashore nearly every hour of every day, and these want supplies on Sunday the same as on other days; 2. The sixty thousand inhabitants are mainly Mohammedans, and they have no Sunday.... There were several other ships in the harbor, and the streets were crowded at 8 A.M. In front of one café, an orchestra of fifteen men and women was playing, and playing well. Most of the shops are devoted to tourist trade, but we visited an Arab market instead of the curio stores. The older portion of Port Said is as purely Egyptian as Cairo, and as dirty and oriental. The streets are narrow, and the houses high, and the native shops are as interesting as they are anywhere. Our guide was an Arab, and took us to his church: a Mohammedan mosque, which we could not enter without putting coverings on our feet. Everywhere we heard exploding fire-crackers; today is some sort of Mohammedan festival.... We received a lot of mail from home; the first in more than four months. After getting our mail, we lost interest in Port Said, and went back to the ship to read our letters. We found these so interesting that at 10:30, when the “Burgermeister” left for Naples, we barely glanced at the famous statue to Ferdinand de Lesseps which adorns the entrance to the canal.

MONDAY, APRIL 28.—We are approaching the Blessed Country of Bad Weather again. This morning the sky is as threatening as it is on the morning when you give a picnic, and when you wish it would do one thing or the other. No country can amount to much without bad weather: the trouble with Africa and Arizona is too much fine weather.... The Mediterranean, which we all dreaded, was as smooth last night as a millpond, and shows no disposition today to change its pacific character.... The first thing you think of, on boarding a ship, is that funny people travel. We meet a few nice, normal, sane people, but most of them are freaks. On every ship we meet the foolish son of a rich man, who is allowed to travel to keep him away from home. The woman traveler is nearly always peculiar; she is usually an old widow with money, and as ugly as she is cranky. There is a professional traveler always met with who has no sense, and very little politeness, but he has been everywhere. It is a mistake to imagine that only rich and agreeable people are met in traveling. The best people remain at home; we have met neither dukes nor princesses on the trip, and very few we remember from one ship to another.... There is a kind of traveler who annoys you by his looks. A man of this type came on board at Port Said. He is a faded-out old rat with gold teeth, very thin and sandy hair, and a waxed moustache. He is quite impatient because he has not created a flutter on board, since it is plain to be seen that he has traveled a great deal; he is not content to wait a few days, until news of his exploits gets about easily and naturally.... Another man came on board at Port Said who is accompanied by a wife and three daughters. The ship is crowded, and this man, who is paying five fares, sleeps on the floor! People are that foolish about traveling. People generally are as crazy and disagreeable about traveling as the English are about Sports.... The women have great respect for the bishop of their church, but they have greater respect for a woman traveling with a maid. Every woman believes she is entitled to a maid. There is a woman on board who has one. The other women say she is the slouchiest dressed person on the ship. You may say that is envy, but it isn’t: it’s the truth.... When you buy anything, pay for it in cash. It is so easy to sign a check, or have it charged. When the passengers buy wines, they sign their names to a slip of paper, and settle once a week. One of the amusing things on board is to see the men studying their bar bills. Every passenger thinks he has been robbed, but his signature confronts him for every item, and he cannot get a fair start at indignation.... The New York banker, Mr. Hepburn, mentioned elsewhere as returning from a hunt, does not have much confidence in the future of Africa. It has too many pests and too much dry weather, he says. Besides, much of the country is volcanic, and the soil a thin vegetable and leaf mold. Mr. Hepburn says that while hunting, one of his guides was an Englishman who was once a member of parliament, with an income of $60,000 a year. But he went the pace, and spent his money, and is now a guide in Africa at $5 a day. Another guide in the Hepburn party was a man named Cunningham, who was attached to the Roosevelt expedition. Cunningham is a very noted man, and receives $400 a month for his services. Although Mr. Hepburn is a New York banker, a former comptroller of the currency, and noted big-game hunter, it is so dull on board that he spends a good deal of his time teaching Adelaide card tricks. He is an elderly man, and so modest and polite that we regard him as a credit to his country.... A party of eight came on board at Port Said, and I am glad they are not Americans. They are English or Colonials, and have taken the ship. They are very superior in three particulars: 1. They went to Port Said two weeks ago in the “Tabora,” a larger and newer ship than the “Burgermeister;” 2. They were in Cairo four days; 3. They have been in Palestine. They sit together in the dining-room, and every other word they use is “Tabora,” a leviathan of 8,000 tons. These people are going to London, and this is their first trip. There are three girls in the party, all of them in love with one sweet young man, and they hold his hand on deck. The other passengers look at them in astonishment, if not disgust. Americans are said to be “loud.” I don’t believe they are half as bad as they are reported to be. A German ship captain once said to me: “The Americans are, as a rule, our best behaved passengers, followed by the Germans. The worst behaved are the English.” ... In the traveling I have done, I have seen few “loud” Americans, but I have seen many “loud” English. And it is the English who criticise us most.

A case of middle-age spread in Africa     /     Native Workmen, Kimberley Diamond Mine
Traveling by Machillas on the Zambesi
Native Village in German East Africa     /     Khami Ancient Ruins

TUESDAY, APRIL 29.—We have seen no land since leaving Port Said, except that we passed the island of Crete. Some say we passed it last evening, and some say we passed it this morning: it has been pointed out to me twice, and both sights of it were very hazy.... Ships are not seen as frequently in the Mediterranean as in the Red Sea; we have seen but one steamship in two days—a big P. & O. liner en route to India. On the Red Sea, a half-dozen were frequently in sight at one time. The explanation is that the Mediterranean is wide, and ships keep a considerable distance from each other, whereas the Red Sea is often almost as narrow as a river.... There are two women on board from Johannesburg, but they did not know each other there; indeed, they had never heard of each other before coming on board. Each says of the other: “I cannot imagine who she can be.” ... When a German leaves the ship’s table, he bows very politely to those passengers remaining. I believe this very pretty custom is confined entirely to the Germans.... The barkeeper has been humiliated, and relieved from duty; I don’t know what his offense was, but I hear he is charged with becoming impatient while on duty. The Germans say that when a man is employed to serve the public, impatience is a gross offense, and I agree with them. For a day or two, the barkeeper did nothing, and was the most contrite and penitent human being I have ever seen, but this morning he appeared as a waiter in the dining-room, and is trying hard to regain the favor of the chief steward.... There are many foolish things for men to do, but probably the most foolish is to buy champagne. Every day at dinner I see dozens of men pay three or four dollars for a bottle of champagne, simply to “act smart.” Boys are not the only ones who “act smart” in company, and force their parents to whip them.... The passenger who has his wife and three daughters with him attracts a great deal of attention from the men. His women-folks have four pieces of fancy work under way all the time; think of that man’s dry-goods bills! And I cannot sleep at night from thinking what his laundry bill must be. There is a laundry on board, operated by Chinese, who do excellent work, but their prices are something to talk about. I sent out a little dab of washing the other day, and the bill was $6. I pay for waists for only one woman, whereas that other man must pay for waists for four. It should be against the law for any man to take care of four women.... The New York banker who is returning from a hunting trip in Africa, is a director in the Texas company, which is trying to become as great a robber as the Standard Oil Co. He told me today that a few months ago his company let a contract to an American firm for an additional tank steamer, at $590,000. A foreign builder offered to build exactly the same ship for $380,000. The Texas company was compelled to pay forty per cent additional because of our policy of protection. What becomes of that additional $210,000? Does it go to American labor? ... Most of it, probably. When you pay high prices for meat, the farmer is being benefited; when the Texas company pays a high price for a ship, the workmen who fashion the ship, and mine the steel that goes into it, are benefited. Taxes, however collected, mean a burden to the consumer. When you pay twenty cents for an article which formerly cost ten cents, three cents of the excess goes to the workman, and seven cents of the excess is charged by the American politician for cost of collection. It is the workers who pay taxes and the tremendous cost of collection.... I have frequently spoken in these notes of hearing the English everywhere compliment America. The notion that foreigners sneer at us, is a mistaken one. In the London Telegraph, a copy of which I picked up today, I read a page reference to the death of J. Pierpont Morgan.

“The field of the American financier,” the article said, “is a country sixty times the area of England, the most richly endowed territory in the world, inhabited by ninety millions of the most energetic wealth-producers on the face of the globe.”

In the same article I read that Mr. Morgan once called on the German Kaiser. Afterwards the Kaiser said he was surprised to find Mr. Morgan “not well informed regarding the philosophical development of nations.” I often think the philosopher is an unimportant man; he looks into the future, and sees many things that are not there. The philosopher is a recluse; a thinker. He hides away from mankind, and writes books about subjects he does not know much about. J. P. Morgan knew mankind intimately, and benefited it because of his knowledge. He made bets that the people would do certain things at certain times, and became rich because of the accuracy of his knowledge; yet he is accused of knowing nothing about “the philosophical development of nations”! He had a tremendous fund of practical knowledge, and that beats all the philosophy in the world. Morgan believed that in the human family, character was everything; that character was the basis of all credit, and that the simple doctrine of good conduct for its own sake, is the greatest religion in the world. How superior Morgan’s simple religion was to the Hindu’s philosophy! Morgan was an humble citizen, yet he accomplished more than did Kaiser Wilhelm, a philosopher and a king. A nation fought Morgan continuously and bitterly, yet he was undoubtedly a public benefactor. Wilhelm had the love of a great nation, yet he undoubtedly talks too much, and has been repeatedly humiliated for the habit. Wilhelm is great in spite of his indiscretions, being a king; but J. P. Morgan was great in spite of the fact that he lacked the friendship of his own nation, and was compelled to do his good work in the face of bitter and often malicious opposition.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30.—When I went on deck this morning, several of the passengers were ahead of me, gazing at mountains off to the right: Italy. By 9 o’clock we were close to the shore, and with a glass could see many villages still in ruins from the earthquake of five years ago. The sides of the mountains were terraced, and used as vineyards. In one place, in a canyon far up the mountain, we saw a village which seemed to have been built around an old castle. We were approaching the Strait of Messina, and ships were as numerous as they were in the narrowest part of the Red Sea; at one time, seven sailing-ships were in sight, and several steamers. Presently, on the left, Sicily appeared, and we gazed at Sicily awhile, and then went over to the other deck and looked at Italy, unable to decide which was the more interesting. Both are very mountainous, and much alike. Villages are thick, not only along the shore, but the sides of the mountain are spotted with them, and in both Italy and Sicily we saw many curious old castles and monasteries. On both sides, also, we saw many ruins from the earthquake, although they seemed to be rather more numerous in Sicily than in Italy.... Just before entering the Strait at the narrowest part, where it is only two miles wide, we saw the town of Messina, which was almost completely destroyed by the earthquake of 1908. Hundreds of the wrecked houses seem never to have been rebuilt, and they present a scene of desolation, but around them many new houses have been built. This is also true on the Italian coast. Many of these new houses were sent from America, ready to set up. Messina had a population of eighty thousand.

Its old citadel was not destroyed, and we saw a good many ships in its harbor. Opposite Messina is the Italian town of Riggio, which is six or seven hundred years older than the Christian era. On both sides of the Strait we could see broad streams (perfectly dry as a result of a recent drouth) coming from the mountains.... The captain said we should be in the most interesting part of the Strait at 1 P.M., the lunch hour, and ordered lunch postponed half an hour. His prediction was exactly verified, and nothing could have driven the passengers from the decks at 1 P.M., there was so much to see.... At 4 P.M. we came to Stromboli, a volcanic island in the sea. Captain Ulrich said he would pass on the south side of the mountain, that we might better see the volcano; the distance was greater, but this change in the ship’s course enabled us to get a very fine sight of Stromboli. From the south side we saw the crater, and the smoke pouring out of it in great volume. There is no lighthouse on Stromboli, as the volcano furnishes a red glare by which mariners steer their course at night. You would think people would keep away from a lonely island in the sea which smokes all the time, and is liable to erupt, and destroy everything for many miles around, but they don’t. We saw two villages on Stromboli: one of them of good size. The larger one is located a considerable distance from the crater, but the other is not a thousand feet from the track of the lava as it descends to the sea. And these smoking volcanoes not only bark; they bite. Only a few miles away is Messina, where eighty thousand people were destroyed only five years ago. In the other direction is Vesuvius, which has taken a greedy toll of human life for many years; the last time in 1906.

THURSDAY, MAY 1.—I have seen many prettier sights than the far-famed Bay of Naples. Many people say a look at the bay caused them to forget the frets and worries of life, but I had no such feeling. We arrived early in the morning, when the town was partly hidden in mists, but later I saw the bay in bright sunshine, from several points of advantage, but it did not greatly impress me. The Bay of Naples is so large that it is not a harbor, therefore a breakwater has been constructed, and behind this our ship anchored, in company with a good many others.... I have spoken elsewhere of English becoming the universal language. This morning I heard the Italian pilot telling the captain of the ship a piece of war news. The pilot talked broken English. A Frenchman, a Portuguese, a Belgian and a Hollander gathered to hear the war news, and they all understood English.... After the usual medical inspection, which always seems ineffective and useless in the first-cabin, the passengers were allowed to land. We went to the Hotel Vesuve, where I had been before, and were given two excellent rooms overlooking the bay. In front of the hotel was a street, and then the sea, and from my window I watched the fishermen at work; they were so close that I could have hailed them, and asked what sort of fish they were taking out of the nets. Directly in front of our windows was an old castle and fort, and soldiers were always passing in or out of the gate. The Hotel Vesuve is the best of the dozens at which we have stopped, and the price is only thirty-six francs per day; that is, we have two of the best rooms in one of the best hotels in Italy, and the price is $3.60 per day each, including meals. Living at the hotels in South Africa is pioneering compared with living at the Hotel Vesuve in Naples. Living at hotels is a joke at home, but living at the Hotel Vesuve in Naples makes a man think of breaking up housekeeping.... Adelaide thinks Naples is the most delightful town we have seen; and the list of towns we have visited includes Pompeii, which was destroyed by an eruption from Mount Vesuvius in the year 79. It was so completely covered up by ashes that its site was forgotten, and it lay neglected for seventeen hundred years. Then the work of digging it out began, and is still in progress, and will continue for many years to come. Pompeii existed long before Naples; it was an old city when Christ was born, and was a seaside resort of the Romans. Probably everyone has read the story of Pompeii, and I shall not print it again, except to express my astonishment over the fact that much of the finest art work in the world today was found in the ruins of Pompeii; the moderns have not been able to equal it. Everything of interest found in the ruins may now be seen in the museum at Naples. The people of Pompeii had excellent plumbing at the time of the eruption; probably the ancients thousands of years earlier knew much that we now call modern. In the museum at Naples may be seen jewelry from Pompeii that would pass for an exhibit made in 1913; patterns are the same, and the work equally good. The implements used today by dentists and doctors may also be seen among the relics from Pompeii. There is an ugly instrument known as the speculum, which may be seen in drug stores and doctors’ offices; I have no doubt it was used too much three thousand or more years ago, for I saw one in the museum at Naples. It was found in the ruins of Pompeii, and it is exactly like the instrument used too much today.... I will mention another thing about Pompeii the general reader may not know. The Romans and Greeks who occupied the town were a dissolute, pleasure-loving lot, and they left many relics that are shown to men only. In the big museum at Naples, there is one room probably forty feet long, and half as wide. In it are preserved literally thousands of disreputable things found in Pompeii. They include statuary and pictures in mosaics. I heard a woman say lately that she despised Pompeii so much that she did not enjoy her visit to the place; probably her husband had told her what he saw in the Dirty Room, and she hated the people who formerly occupied the deserted houses and streets. The people are certainly improving in morals all the time; we are not as good as we should be now, but we are better in every respect than the ancients were. I often wonder that the ancients, who believed in so many gods, were not scared into better conduct.... Pompeii is reached by railroad train from Naples. If you take an express train, the twenty miles may be traveled in half an hour. Electric cars also run there, but they make many stops, and are much slower. When you are in Pompeii, you are near Vesuvius, the mountain which has destroyed so many lives. It is particularly peaceful just now, and I saw no smoke issuing from the crater. Seven years ago it went on a rampage, and destroyed several villages and six or seven hundred lives. At that time the mountain lost three hundred feet of its top, and is so insignificant-looking now that a good many visitors to Naples do not make the journey to the summit, which is easily accomplished by electric and cog railway. A mountain near Vesuvius is now higher than Vesuvius itself, but the wicked old pile will grow, and no doubt will erupt at some time in the future, and kill thousands again. Stromboli, which we saw yesterday, is a much more impressive sight at present than Vesuvius.

FRIDAY, MAY 2.—It has been said a good many times that Italy has too many churches and royal palaces. Naples has two royal palaces, although the king lives at Rome. One is in town, and the other in the country, near the sea. We visited the king’s town palace, as it is open to the public two days of the week. There are eight hundred rooms in the place, and twelve hundred servants care for it.... A room in a king’s palace is usually a huge affair, probably 100x50 feet, with an oval ceiling, and great chandeliers containing candles specially manufactured for royalty. The furniture in each room is of a different pattern; fancy chairs and divans made of gilt and brocade. No palace seems to have been made as a place of residence for a family, but for show, and intrigue, and murder, and dancing, and alarms, and riots. Most of the famous murders in history have taken place in palaces. Not far from the king’s town palace in Naples is an old palace now occupied by soldiers as a barracks. It is a dirty place, but we were taken to the upper rooms where are preserved relics of royalty nearly a thousand years old. These include a chapel, decorated by artists of great fame. Then we were taken down a winding stairway into a terrible place where dead bodies were displayed in coffins. The dead bodies in the coffins were those of princes, and cardinals, and all of them had died violent deaths. One cardinal had an expression of agony on his face which will haunt me for months; he had been smothered in the most inhuman way. The bodies we saw were dressed in the magnificent clothing they wore when they were murdered. This sight was seen in a noisome hole underground, and was so terrible that Adelaide almost cried when she begged me to take her out. We had a guide with us, and a warder from the castle, but neither of them could tell us much about the place, except that it is a relic of Spanish occupation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.... In thinking of the magnificence of palaces and castles, always remember the terrible murders that have disgraced them. A king fills us common people with awe, but he always has a brother, an uncle, a cousin, or some other near relative who knows that he deserves death. I think I have longed for nearly everything else, but I never longed to be a king, nor would I care to live in a palace with twelve hundred servants, any one of whom would poison me for two dollars and promise of a postoffice.... On the way to the king’s town palace we passed through the old part of Naples; a district of tall houses, all of them crowded with poor people. The street was very narrow, and the sun was almost obscured by clothes newly washed, and drying in the sunlight. The wash-lines ran across the streets, and were so thick that I thought the sight the most curious I had ever seen. The streets were so crowded with children that we got through them with difficulty, and every little while some one who had been to America, hailed us in bad English. The lower floor of every house was nearly always occupied with a little shop, in which a family also lived. In one of these places, a little child was lying dead. The body was surrounded with candles, and five women sat in the room. For some reason, the mother of the child wanted us to look at it; she came out into the street, weeping, and made motions indicating that she wanted us to go in, which we did. The guide said the woman’s husband was in America, and that she felt a friendly interest in us on that account.... The street was a steep one; so steep that we went down it by means of broad steps. I have seen a street almost exactly like it in Jerusalem. The cross-streets were narrower and steeper than the main street we traveled, and I was almost disposed to agree with Adelaide that Naples is the most interesting place we have visited.... James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, issues an edition of his paper in Paris, and it is sold all over Europe by street peddlers. Twenty times a minute we were offered a copy of the Herald; the peddlers knew we were Americans, and were so insistent that I always carried a copy of the paper in my pocket, to show them I had one. They also sold the New York Times, and I carried a copy of that paper, too.... Flowers grow in great profusion in Italy, and are sold by street peddlers who are hanging onto your carriage half the time. I bought fifteen very fine roses, on one occasion, for ten cents.... The Italian lire and the French franc are of the same value, twenty cents, and the franc circulates everywhere in Italy, as the lire circulates everywhere in France. If you ask for Italian money in Italy, you are as apt to get francs as lires.... Prices may have advanced abroad, as at home, but I doubt if the advance has been as great. Adelaide needed a pair of gloves, and the price at one of the best shops in Naples was fifty cents a pair. The same gloves would cost $1.50 at home.... You hear a great deal about tips abroad: how the servants mob you at hotels, etc. The tip nuisance is worse in New York than it is in Naples; besides, larger tips are exacted in New York. Carriage-hire here is less than half what it is in New York, and when I land in that American city I shall pay for rooms at the Waldorf-Astoria more than I paid for rooms and meals at the Hotel Vesuve. And Naples is one of the greatest resorts in Europe, and the Hotel Vesuve is one of the best hotels in Naples.... We expressed a desire to see the San Carlos theatre, one of the most famous in the world, and the guide promptly took us there, and had it lighted up for our special benefit. I was willing to give the theatre man forty cents, but our man said twenty cents was enough, and that was what we paid. The cathedral in Naples is also a famous place, built in imitation of St. Peters, in Rome. And it is a very good imitation. The guide took us through this church, and never gave the priest guides more than half a franc, or ten cents each. I suppose he robbed us a good deal, but I never caught him at it. You are always hearing that when you shop in Naples, the shopkeeper is compelled to add something to the price for the guide. One day the guide left us for a few minutes, in a famous arcade, and we found prices the same as when the guide was along. English is spoken nearly everywhere in Naples and throughout Italy, because so many of its citizens have been to the United States.... The Italian girls are nearly all good-looking when young, but after they are married and have children, most of them become too fat. I have always thought it a good joke on a man to marry a girl weighing a hundred pounds, and have her increase her weight to two hundred, or two hundred and fifty. And the joke on the man is particularly good if his daughters, on reaching fifteen or sixteen, are also very fat.

SATURDAY, MAY 3.—I had intended sailing from Naples on the North German-Lloyd ship “Princess Irene,” a favorite, but when I reached Cook’s office I found the ship crowded. I was offered the second officer’s room, if I paid $60 extra, but in pursuance of my vow to avoid favorites in future, I concluded to travel to New York on the French ship “Canada.” This ship is new, and has not yet had time to become a favorite, so I secured very much better accommodations at a lower price than was demanded for the German boat.... In Cairo, Egypt, is a famous hotel known as Shepherd’s. There are at least four hotels in Cairo better than Shepherd’s; there are half a dozen just as good, and another half-dozen where you may secure satisfactory accommodations. Avoid favorites of every kind, if you wish fair treatment.... Wherever a traveler goes, he encounters free advertising for the United States, but I saw a stars-and-stripes sight in Naples this afternoon that greatly impressed me. The “Canada” and “Princess Irene” were docked side by side, and as both were to sail at 6 P.M. for New York, both displayed the American flag. When I went to the dock at 4 P.M., the decks of both ships were black with emigrants, and they were still going up the gangways as thick as ants. When Adelaide and I went aboard the “Canada,” the sailors were compelled to clear a way for us to the first-class decks, where there were fifty passengers, as compared with three or four hundred in the second-cabin, and nearly two thousand in the steerage. Once on the upper decks of the “Canada,” we could see a similar crowd of emigrants on the “Princess Irene,” which lay alongside, and the emigrants kept coming until six o’clock, when the big whistle blew, and the gang-plank was drawn in. Three ships left Naples for New York today, and all of them were crowded with emigrants. And this doesn’t happen occasionally; it is of daily occurrence—not only here, but in many other ports. In every part of the world the people know about the United States, and go there in constantly increasing crowds, although South Africa, and Australia, and

South America, and New Zealand, and Canada, and many other countries, are offering inducements to immigrants.... We got away a little after 6:30 o’clock, and found the sea kind again; this is our twenty-fifth day at sea without discomfort. There was a shower of rain just before we left Naples, which drove to cover the thousands of weeping women who had come to the dock to see friends depart, but outside the bay the sea was calm. Ten or fifteen poor children were on the dock, begging the passengers for pennies, but the rain didn’t bother them. There was one boy who could turn handsprings, but while he was showing off his accomplishment, the other children got the pennies. The moral is, attend to business, and don’t show off.

SUNDAY, MAY 4.—When we awoke this morning, the “Canada” was lying in the harbor of Palermo, in Sicily, where it spent the day in taking on more emigrants. As the ship was to remain until evening, we went ashore at 8:30 for the day, accompanied by an old gentleman of seventy-six, who acted as guide.... I have neglected Palermo in my reading; I knew almost nothing about it. I didn’t know it contained another palace belonging to the king of Italy, and about four hundred thousand people.... A few men are natural-born gentlemen. Our old guide was such a man. He lived in the United States, as a young man, and we were much pleased with him.... In Italian and Sicilian towns, nearly every family owns a milk goat. These goats are sent to the country, to graze, and are brought in every night and morning to be milked. We drove up-town in Palermo just as the milk goats were being collected by the herd boys. The goats know where they belong, and often climb two or three flights of stairs, to be milked. Milch cows are also driven into town, and milked in the streets. The calves accompany their mothers, and to insure that they will not get lost, are tied to their mother’s tail. There is a certain brand of Italian cattle, and they have not changed since the days of the Romans; every section of the Old World has its particular kind of cattle. In South Africa we saw a good many queer-looking cattle from Madagascar, imported after the rinderpest had killed nearly everything in Africa. In Egypt we saw another kind. India has another variety, and the Scotch and Irish also have varieties of their own. In the United States we are constantly improving cattle, and have no favorite except the best.... Although we visited Palermo on Sunday, the public market was in full blast. One man was making a tremendous outcry to attract attention to his beef. He said it was very cheap; the price was thirty-two cents a pound. Beef is very high-priced in Sicily, and so are fish, but poultry is quite cheap.... Palermo has a wonderful cathedral, and the guide took us there, during a mass. There was a large choir of men and boys, and an archbishop conducted the service. The old guide was a devout Catholic, and frequently crossed himself while in the cathedral, but he took us through the worshipers, to look at the different wonders, and the worshipers didn’t seem to mind it, or pay any attention to us. Occasionally we stopped, afraid to go on, but the old guide motioned for us to come on, and we walked among kneeling women to join our conductor. There were several chapels in the place, all of which were shown us, but the big service finally became so interesting that we spent a quarter of an hour in witnessing it. We saw many very old priests in the enormous building, and our guide seemed to know all of them; indeed, he seemed to know everybody everywhere, and to be universally respected. There were certain valuable relics and jewels belonging to the cathedral. In order to see these the guide conducted us into apartments which seemed to be private, and occupied by a considerable number of clericals. The guide knew all these men, and they bowed to him respectfully.... Then he took us to the private grounds of a count. The gatekeeper saluted our old guide with great respect, and, as we strolled about the grounds, the guide was at liberty to pick fruits and flowers for Adelaide. He next took us to a very old church, where we saw a quaint lot of monks. These queer men knew our guide, too, and he took snuff with one of them who opened a door to what seemed to be subterranean vaults of some kind. We walked down several long flights of steps, and entered a place where thousands of dead bodies were displayed. Many of the bodies were in coffins with glass tops or sides, but most of them were fastened against the stone walls. The guide said the bodies were buried for a year or two, and then taken up, and displayed in this queer way. There was nothing offensive about the place, except as thousands of grinning skulls are offensive. The guide did not know how many bodies were displayed in the place, but I should say the number was far above ten thousand. Some of the bodies were of infants, some of old men, some of young girls, some of priests. I had never before seen anything like it, nor did I know any such thing existed in Palermo or elsewhere.... Then we went to the royal palace, built in 1132, and which is occupied once or twice in a decade by the King of Italy and his family. We went into the private rooms of the king and queen, and saw their beds, and their baths; we saw the kitchen, and dining-room, as well as the state apartments. And all the palace attendants were very respectful to our old guide; he was permitted to roam about with us without restraint. Once, when he wanted to show us a certain apartment, he took a key out of a private drawer, and we walked a long way down one of the battlements to a tower where the room was.... But the best thing we saw during the day was the chapel of the old palace. It was a wonderful piece of art work, the entire interior being covered with valuable paintings and more valuable mosaic work. This chapel was in the class of the wonders to be seen in India. We visited it twice, and both times services were in progress. As we had done at the cathedral, the guide conducted us among the kneeling worshipers, and he knew every priest and monk he encountered, and they all spoke to him respectfully. I don’t believe I have ever seen anything that attracted me more than this chapel, built in the eleventh century. The interior is of marble, and the decorations of mosaic work laid in designs cut in the marble.... At 1 P.M. we rested at a little hotel on the side of the mountain overlooking

Palermo. The old guide knew the proprietor, who waited on us himself, and tried hard to give satisfaction. We had macaroni cooked in Italian style, fish, wine, and quite a hearty lunch, but the charge for four of us—including the guide and driver—was a little less than $1.40. Then we went on up the mountain to a wonderful old church in a wonderful old town, the name of which I have forgotten. It was a feast day of some kind, and a great celebration was being held in the wonderful old town. The streets were packed with the merrymakers, and all sorts of hawkers were selling all sorts of articles that were queer to us. On our way down the mountain we saw a wonderful valley devoted to lemon orchards. The owner of one of these orchards lived several years in St. Louis, and, knowing we were Americans, invited us to see his lemon crop. The lemons were just ready to pick, and the yield was very good, apparently. The proprietor told me he had twelve acres; that the land was worth $1,000 an acre; and that all of his lemons were shipped to the United States. He was much interested in a rumor that the new president, Mr. Wilson, would remove the duty on lemons, but I was compelled to confess I did not know anything about it. As it was Sunday, all of the farmer’s family, including his wife and children, and hired men followed us about. There were two boys in the family, and they climbed trees, and loaded Adelaide down with various kinds of fruit. The lemon orchard, I noticed, is irrigated, but neither the proprietor nor the guide could tell me where the water came from. Usually it comes from wells, and is raised with sweeps turned by donkeys and horses.... We returned to the docks at 5:10 P.M., after eight very delightful hours in Palermo. The boatman was waiting, and the old guide went aboard with us, carrying Adelaide’s great collection of fruits and flowers. During our absence we had taken on six hundred more steerage passengers, and their friends surrounded the ship, in boats. In half an hour the big ship backed out of the harbor, and pointed its nose for New York.

MONDAY, MAY 5.—I think every man believes his “luck” is atrocious, and that he rarely gets an “even break.” But I am perfectly satisfied with what they have done to me on the “Canada.” It is a new ship of fourteen thousand tons, and there are only fifty passengers in the first-cabin. As a result, we have plenty of room, and the officers give us whatever we want. I have a room to myself on the best deck, and Adelaide has another just like it next door. Between our rooms there is a private bath, which has been turned over to us for good measure. On most ships the beds are hard. On the “Canada,” our beds are provided with springs, and we have real bedsteads. I have two windows in my room, and Adelaide has two in hers; our bath-room is as big as a stateroom, and is provided with a shower-bath, in addition to the usual tub.... In the dining-room, we have a table to ourselves; a small table for two, with a side electric light, in addition to the ceiling lights. On our table twice a day are quart bottles of red and white wine, always full. This wine is free; it is a feature of all French boats.

The cooking is the best I have ever enjoyed on a steamship or hotel, and the attendance perfect. Our waiter is a Frenchman who speaks almost no English, but the chief steward (a German, by-the-way) speaks English, and sees that we are not neglected. The meals are French, except that we have an English breakfast; which means that we have eggs, chops, fish, bacon, etc. On the continent, breakfast almost universally consists of coffee, bread and butter, and jam. At the fine Hotel Vesuve, in Naples, we had this sort of breakfast, although we could have eggs if we called for them. In Paris it is almost impossible to get anything to eat before noon, except at hotels patronized by Americans and English.... Our rooms are in charge of a woman; we see a man in overalls occasionally, but the woman is in charge. On German ships, the dining-room stewards not only care for the rooms, but play in the band; on the “Canada,” waiters in the dining-room have nothing to do with the sleeping-rooms.... The first-class passengers have two big decks. In the rear of the upper deck is a handsome smoking-room. At the rear of the next deck below, the deck on which our rooms are located, is a music-room. At the other end of the deck is a writing-room. Just below the writing-room, and reached by a grand stairway, is the dining-room. All these rooms are very handsome, as the ship is less than a year old.... What do we pay for all this luxury and magnificence? Less per day than we paid on the “Maunganui,” between Wellington and Sydney, where I shared a room 9×10 with three others. Adelaide shared a room of similar size on the “Maunganui”

with three other women. The “Maunganui” was a favorite; the “Canada” is a new and unknown ship struggling for recognition from the traveling public. Moral: Keep away from favorites; they will always impose on you.... Another pleasant thing about the “Canada” is that there is not a single Englishman on board. There is no Sports Committee, no loud talk, and no noise. About half the first-cabin passengers are Americans, and they are so well-behaved that I am proud of them. The others are French and Italian, and they are also quiet and modest.... When we look down on the lower decks, we see a seething mass of humanity: Italian and Sicilian emigrants. Fortunately the weather is fine, and most of them are on deck; only a few of them are seasick. Some people can’t go on a millpond without becoming sick, and we have a few of this sort in the first-cabin. The three or four hundred passengers in the second-cabin we cannot see, as they are on a deck under ours.... This morning I saw four barbers at work among the emigrants; barbers who are going to the United States to work at their trade. The barbers charge four cents for shaving, and six cents for hair-cutting. The barber in the first-cabin charges only fifteen cents for a shave, and he is a good workman. The emigrants eat on deck, now that the weather is fine. Each one seems to get a loaf of bread, and a bucket containing soup and meat. A cheap wine is also given them; also macaroni. They are well treated, as the Italian government has a commissioner on board to look after their interests. This commissioner sits on the captain’s right in the dining-room, and has one of the best rooms on the ship.... The emigrants are all poor people, but very wasteful, now that they have plenty. Every day enough bread is wasted on their deck to feed dozens of people, and this is swept up and thrown overboard by the sailors.... These emigrants are objectionable, in one way. In case of a panic, we would all go to the bottom. Nothing could control them, and we haven’t enough boats to float twenty-five hundred people, even if order were maintained. But the “Princess Irene,” the favorite, is carrying even more emigrants than the “Canada.” I have never before been on a ship where the decks were black with emigrants; there are a few hundred on nearly every ship, but the crowd on the “Canada” frightens me.

TUESDAY, MAY 6.—The weather remains fine, and the sea is as smooth as we found it in the Red Sea, or on the east coast of Africa. The Mediterranean narrows up at its western end, as we approach Gibraltar, and becomes a great harbor. At six o’clock this evening we were within a few hundred yards of the mountainous coast of Spain. The Mediterranean being narrow at this point, we are seeing many ships: seven were in sight at one time this evening.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7.—At 4:30 this morning, a steward knocked on my door, and said:

“Gibraltar.”

I climbed out of bed, hurried into a little clothing, and went on deck. Daylight was faintly appearing. On the right, two or three hundred yards away, was the rock of Gibraltar, where the English have a huge fortification which is said to be so old as to be a joke. No one is allowed in the fortification, but it is common report that the big guns are so old and rusty that it would be dangerous to fire them. The rock of Gibraltar is an island, and puts out into the sea. Behind it is the town of the same name; a place as big as Atchison. The picture of Gibraltar shown in advertisements of the Prudential Life Insurance Company looks exactly like it, except that the bay and town behind the rock are not shown accurately. Half-way up the rock of Gibraltar was a light, and a long shelf; I suppose the shelf is a part of the fortification. In the town were occasional clusters of electric lights, as may be seen in any modern town just as daylight is appearing, and I could see a lighthouse on the African shore off to the left. Creeping through the straits were a number of ships, one of them within two or three hundred feet of the “Canada.” Then I went back to bed. I aroused Adelaide, and told her of the sight on the opposite side of the ship, but she concluded not to get up.... Soon after breakfast, we passed Tangier, and left Africa for good. We have been in sight of Africa almost constantly since March 2, when we landed at Durban. During the twenty-four days we were on the “Burgermeister,” we were out of sight of it a few days after leaving Port Said, but this morning we saw the African continent again, at its north-western end, at Tangier, in Morocco.... An hour later, we were out of sight of land in the Atlantic ocean, which Adelaide had been afraid of, but there was little motion, and the weather was warmer and brighter than it has been since leaving Port Said. The barber, when he shaved me this morning, predicted rough weather when we get behind the Azores, but certainly we are having beautiful weather now, and have had it continuously for thirty-two days.... There is an American on board who said to me this morning: “I shall never travel at sea again. Wherever you go by ship, travel is rendered disagreeable by the English. The English are intensely disagreeable to me, and in future I shall keep away from them. They are the most impolite people in the world, and do not realize that everything English is not perfect. They pronounce words wrong, and regard you with pity if you pronounce the same words correctly. The English are headed for a big tumble. You and I will not live to see it, but Canada and Australia will throw off the English yoke. That will encourage India, and Africa, and many other countries, to do the same thing. England is seeing its best days right now; let the Englishmen swagger while they may. The English remind me of a big trust: they paid too much for their various possessions, and are bound to ‘bust.’” ... I do not feel that bad about the English, but I certainly remark that the “Canada” is much quieter than it would be were a majority of the passengers sons of John Bull. So far, I have not seen a single passenger running around in pajamas.

THURSDAY, MAY 8.—Our magnificent French cook had macaroni for dinner today, and, while I liked it better than the Italian way of preparing it, I did not like it so well as the American way. Italian macaroni did not please my taste. It was not cooked enough, to begin with, and had the tomato sauce baked into it. It is a sight to see Italians eat macaroni. It is cooked in long strings, and the Italians poke it into their mouths in a fashion that is not at all pleasing.... Six whales were in sight at one time this afternoon, and probably there were many more in the school we did not see. An hour later, we ran into the biggest lot of porpoises I have ever seen. They were quite close to the ship, on both sides of it, and seemed to be following us. A porpoise looks like a fish weighing twenty-five to forty pounds, and leaps entirely out of the water when in a sportive mood. Jumping out of the water is probably a fish’s method of taking a bath.... We have our chairs on the upper or hurricane deck, and, when we take a walk, pass the wireless room, where an operator sits all day and night with receivers at his ears, to catch any call that may be in the air. When the operator reads, he has the receivers fastened to his ears, and I have seen him eating dinner in his room when rigged up in the same queer way.... A dove has been following the ship several days. It is very tired, and this morning I saw it attempt to light on the waves; then it fluttered up into the rigging, and rested there awhile.... Near the entrance to the dining-room there is a notice in French and English. Among other things, it says the management will appreciate the courtesy if passengers dress for luncheon and dinner. We are wondering what a proper dress for luncheon is. The rules also say that dogs are not allowed on board, but one has the run of the ship; and, since he is the only nuisance on board, we wonder that the officers stand for it. I never cared much for those who go crazy about dogs. Senator Vest, of Missouri, once wrote a false and sentimental tribute to dogs, and the Dog People were so much encouraged by it that they are very pronounced nuisances everywhere. No one has a right to keep a dog that is a nuisance to others; whoever does not know this is unfair and impolite in other ways.... The big ship “Canada” is doing a very fair job of pitching this afternoon, but we have been at sea so long that we do not mind it. There is a noticeable thinning-out on the steerage deck. So far, we have been at sea fifty-three days since leaving San Francisco, and have been seasick only four or five days. We were sick three days on the Pacific, and two between Australia and New Zealand, but during the last forty-seven days at sea we have experienced no inconvenience. I sleep at night as I never slept before in my life; there is just enough motion to rock me to sleep.... In Italy, a traveler from the United States wonders at the general use of wine. All classes drink it, and it is very cheap; I bought a bottle of very good wine in Naples for six cents. The poor people use it instead of gravy or milk; on the ship, I see emigrants soaking their bread in wine. Every vacant plot of ground in Naples is devoted to grapes and vegetables. In the heart of the town, wherever you find a vacant lot, you find a garden. I have never seen anything growing in

Italy except vegetables and fruit; I wonder where the wheat comes from with which they make macaroni? The Italians say American flour makes better bread than the Italian flour, but inferior macaroni. The Italians are poor, as a rule, but nearly all of them are fat; particularly the women. The poor people of Italy do not eat meat once a week; the Italian emigrants on the ship get it twice a day. But they are very wasteful of it, and complain as much as though they had always been accustomed to the very best. One of the officers says that on the last trip, the ship was compelled to bring back twenty-two emigrants who failed to pass the examination in New York. The charge against one man was that he had been a professional beggar. This man made a great deal of trouble during the voyage to New York; he was always finding fault with the food, although it was abundant. I asked the officer why the ship gave the emigrants so much food that they threw it overboard; his reply was that the Italian commissioner on board insisted on a liberal supply, and the captain was at his mercy. The emigrants are pretty well crowded in their sleeping quarters; one hundred and fifty men sleep in one room, in a bed which runs up in broad tiers. If the owners of the English ships running between Australia and New Zealand ever hear of this, they will die of mortification because of their moderation in putting only four in a room.... We had a moving-picture show last night, with the explanatory lecture in French.... The barber who shaves me every morning says he has been going to sea a good many years, but never started on a voyage on Friday; that a ship never leaves its initial port on Friday. The barber is mistaken. For thirty years or more, the P. & O. line has sent a ship out of London every Friday. Nine-tenths of all you hear is untrue. The barber also says that the famous expression, “See Naples and die,” is founded on a play on words. In the bay of Naples there is an island called Morreai, which in Italian, means something connected with death. The original saying was, “See Naples and Morreai,” but in a spirit of levity the English translated the saying, “See Naples and die.”

FRIDAY, MAY 9.—This afternoon we passed the “Lusiana,” an Italian emigrant ship also bound for New York. The “Lusiana” left Naples a day before we did, but it is slow, and we overhauled it. We passed it within a hundred yards, and marveled at the manner in which it pitched and rolled; probably the big “Canada” was cutting up in a similar manner, viewed from the decks of the “Lusiana,” which were black with emigrants. The emigrants did a good deal of cheering as we passed.... The “Canada” is also a faster ship than the “Princess Irene,” the favorite, and we are hoping that we may overtake it, and jeer at the passengers. The “Princess Irene” had a start of nearly twenty-four hours, as it did not stop at Palermo.... By-the-way, as we left the “Lusiana” behind, I caught the geographies in a ridiculous error. They all say that at sea, the last sight of a disappearing vessel is the top of its masts; which proves, the geographies say, that the world is round. The curvature of the earth is something like an inch to the mile, so that the funnels of a ship would not disappear under five hundred miles, if one could see that far. Three hours after we passed the “Lusiana,” it was a mere speck on the horizon, but we could plainly see its hull. After it had entirely disappeared from view by the naked eye, we could see its hull with the aid of glasses. The ships were probably fifteen miles apart when we finally lost sight of the “Lusiana,” and the difference between them, in the curvature of the earth, did not exceed fifteen inches.... The hull of the “Canada” is white, and it must have presented a very pretty sight to the passengers on the “Lusiana,” who were all of one class: emigrants. But down below, the “Canada” is probably a little untidy. Everything below its two top decks is crowded with emigrants, and they are not very clean. In the evening, they sing a great deal; a trombone-player, en route to New York to join an Italian band, leads with his instrument. Among the first-class passengers is an Italian opera-singer who is about as good as any of the second-rate tenors at the Metropolitan Opera House, and he sings every evening.... Nearly all the emigrants seem to wear home-made socks and shoes. Most of them are young men; I doubt if there are two hundred women in the entire lot. Many of them have been over before, and will return home when outdoor work ceases next winter, as the price of the passage is only $25. The weather is chilly, and the emigrants sit on deck wrapped in blankets furnished them by the steamship company. In addition to a blanket, each is given a sack stuffed with straw, and on these they sleep.

Nearly all of them eat in groups on deck, and this morning I saw them pouring olive oil into tin cups containing either coffee and bread, or wine and bread, I could not tell which.... I write this at a table in a little alcove on deck, and the screaming of the emigrants as they excitedly talk to each other amounts to a roar. This noise is in my ears continuously, except when I go to my room, which is amidships, and far removed from the emigrant decks forward and aft.... The cooking on the ship continues to astonish us, it is so excellent. So far, we have not had a dish duplicated at lunch or dinner. You would think anyone could scramble eggs; it may be difficult to unscramble them, as the late J. P. Morgan once observed, but there should be little difference in the process of scrambling them. I am fond of scrambled eggs, and have been eating them all my life, but the manner in which they are prepared in the “Canada’s” kitchen is new and delightful. This morning I asked the chief steward to take Adelaide into the kitchen, to learn the chef’s secret of scrambling eggs. Adelaide says one secret of his delicious cooking is that everything is reeking in butter. It is possible that a German or English crew would suit me better than the French crew of the “Canada,” when it comes to the general work of the ship, but the kitchen and dining-room, and sleeping-rooms, are better managed on this ship than on any other with which I have been familiar on two voyages around the world, and three shorter trips by sea. I do not want any better accommodations than I have on the “Canada.” ... Much as I admire the Germans, I cannot help noting that their language does not sound as well as French or Italian. To a man who does not understand languages, the German sounds worst of all, unless it is the Russian. On the “Burgermeister,” where we heard German constantly for more than three weeks, we used to laugh at its funny sounds. I know of no uglier sounding word than the German word “yaw,” which means “yes.” If I were a young man, and should propose to a young and beautiful German girl, and she should reply with what poets say is the sweetest of all words, yaw, I should feel disposed to run away to South America, or South Africa, or some other country where it is too hot.... I have never known anyone to struggle quite so hard against baldness as the barber on the “Canada.” When his hair is in order, it looks all right, but the other morning, while I was being shaved, the window blew open, and the barber’s hair went to pieces. He is bald, but has cultivated a lot of long hair on the side of his head which he combs over his baldness. The wind threw this long hair out of place, and as it flapped around, the barber was as flustrated as an old maid suddenly discovered in her night-gown.... Speaking of the barber reminds me that he says all the officers of the “Canada,” except the captain, wanted more pay, a few months ago, and walked out just before the ship was to sail from Marseilles. The ship had a big lot of passengers aboard, but the general manager was stubborn, and he fooled around for a week before he could find another set of officers.... We hear on the upper deck that the six hundred Sicilians among the emigrants are not as good workers as the fourteen hundred Italians; and that in addition to being lazy, the Sicilians use a knife with very little provocation. In Sicily, you hear a great deal of the vendetta, wherein a man will knife another man who is a second cousin to an enemy.... This morning we passed the Azore islands, where Columbus stopped on his famous voyage. Usually the “Canada” passes between the islands, and quite close to shore, but owing to rain and mist we passed on the longer and safer course.

SATURDAY, MAY 10.—It turned out just as the barber predicted: Behind the Azores we encountered rough seas, and the big ship “Canada” has been jumping today like a greyhound. The wind is blowing heavily, and there is an occasional shower of rain. After every shower, there is a rainbow; one of them made a bow over the stern of the ship, and followed us for fifteen minutes. We were late for breakfast this morning, but the steward said we were the first ones in, and no others came while we were there. We have suffered no inconvenience from the rough weather, except that we became tired of bracing ourselves. The sailors dislike rough weather; they do not become seasick, but rough weather at sea is disagreeable, as it is on land, and results in gloomy thoughts and bad tempers. Rough weather rolls you about in your bed at night, and the most experienced sailor cannot sleep as well as he can when the weather is good.... I have frequently mentioned the barber. On every ship, the barber shop is headquarters for news. In the days before newspapers, people went to the barber-shops for the gossip of the day. The “Canada’s” barber is a German, but speaks French and English. He lived in London four years, and told me today that he found, after learning English in London, that Americans could not understand him very well. Which corroborates my statement that the people of the United States and the English do not speak the same language.... The man on the “Canada” who has least to do is the barkeeper. I have not seen a single drink ordered in the dining-room. On the “Burgermeister,” nearly everyone ordered something from the bar at luncheon and dinner, and paid extra for it, but on the “Canada,” two kinds of wine are furnished free. The profit from liquor on the German ship must have been enormous. Two kinds of keg beer, light and dark, were sold, and nearly everybody drank one or the other. The weather was very warm nearly all the time I was on the “Burgermeister,” and the cold beer was particularly agreeable. But on the “Canada,” I have not seen the barkeeper fill a half-dozen orders. The weather is chilly, and we wear our heaviest winter clothing; besides, there is no German beer on draught.... This is the sixth day out, and we have had strawberries every day. It is surprising how fresh and palatable the cook manages to make everything taste. We are paying about seven dollars a day each for our accommodations on this ship, which include two rooms on the best deck, a private bath, three of the best meals I have ever eaten, and bouillon at 11 A. M., and tea at 4 P.M. We would be charged about the same price in the second-class on the big Atlantic liners. The “Canada” is a new ship, working for a reputation; that is the only explanation I know of. Anyone going abroad, by taking this line, sees Palermo, in Sicily, and Naples, in Italy, on the way, landing finally at Marseilles, in France. Some of the other ships of the line stop at Lisbon, in Portugal, and at the Azores, also.... You can pay almost any price for accommodations at sea. It is said John Jacob Astor paid $5,000 for accommodations on the “Titanic,” and the management didn’t do a thing but drown him. He had three or four rooms, two baths, a private dining-room, etc. Speaking of J. J. Astor reminds me that he made financial mistakes, as well as the rest of us. In closing up his estate it was found that he had ten million dollars worth of securities which were practically worthless. But Astor could drive a hard bargain, on occasion. He once found a man who was hard up, and who wanted to sell a yacht which cost half a million dollars. The yacht was new, and the man thought he ought to have $450,000 for it. But Astor finally got it for $90,000. ... There is a man on board who is the best newspaper scholar I have ever known. He is familiar with everything that has appeared in the newspapers for the past twenty or thirty years. I have posted myself on the news of the past five months by talking to him. He is very entertaining, and quite modest; he frequently says: “I know nothing about it myself; I only know what I read in the newspapers.” I have never before known a man quite like him.... We have dinner at 6:30 on the “Canada,” but the passengers never come into the dining-room until a quarter of an hour later, when the table d’hôte dinner begins. At the fine Hotel Vesuve, in Naples, the dinner hour was

7:30, but the guests were always a quarter of an hour late.... Our guide in Naples was a rather sullen American, and we learned today that he was formerly a very rich man. His father died seven years ago, and left him a fortune, but he ran through with it, and is now a guide, at $2 a day. He spent most of his money in Monte Carlo, at the gambling-tables. This information I get from the newspaper scholar, quoted above, who is an old traveler. He says he knows the guide well, but refused to give me his name. I have the guide’s card, but the newspaper scholar says it is not his real name.

SUNDAY, MAY 11.—The bad weather continues, and we cannot take our usual walks. We sit in a protected place on the upper deck, wrapped in rugs, and talk about getting home. Adelaide has decided that she does not care to remain in New York long; that she wants to get home as soon as possible; so if we reach that city Thursday night, as expected, Friday afternoon will see us on a railroad train headed westward.... While on the Pacific ocean, I met a life insurance man named Adams, who told me that he traveled constantly, and that his expenses, afloat and ashore, averaged $11 a day. He kept no expense account, he said; at the end of the year he charged the company $11 a day for expenses, and that was almost exactly what he spent. Today I made a calculation, and found that the present trip has cost us $11 a day each, almost to a penny. So if you want to know what traveling costs, here is an estimate you may depend upon. This means rapid traveling, by railroad and steamship, and sightseeing in the towns with the assistance of a guide. The estimate includes the purchases a traveler is compelled to make, and cannot be reduced much unless you travel second-class, and deny yourself many things. At Palermo, we hired a guide, and drove about nearly all day in a new two-horse carriage, with liveried driver. The expense was considerable, but we saw dozens of things that those who did not take a guide and carriage, failed to see.... A stewardess on the “Canada” has enormous feet. She is rather a pretty woman, but her feet are much too big. Americans have smaller feet than any other race.... There is a young man on board who has a tremendous lot of hair, which he never combs. There is something peculiar about him, and today we found out what it is: he is an artist.... There is a woman on board who left New York in February, a bride. She said to me today: “I’m not happy; but I’m as happy as married women usually are, and am content.” I’ve been thinking about the statement, and have almost concluded that she is a smart woman. Isn’t she smarter than the woman who marries, expects to be happy, is disappointed, and becomes sour over her disappointment? ... I see that Edward Bok, editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, is offering prizes to husbands who will write the best articles under this title: “Why I Wanted My Wife to Become My Wife.” The prize articles will be written by sentimentalists who will write, not the truth, but what the editor wants. The husbands who know the truth about marriage, rarely tell it.... A man on board is a great reader, and gets a new book out of the library every day. He sits near me on deck, and frequently criticises the authors of the books he reads. Still, it is easier to be a great critic than it is to be a great author.... This man knows many things I never heard of. He says he once knew a boy only seven years old who was an ordained preacher in the Methodist church. I knew better, but I did not argue with him. I’ve quit arguing; I hear foolish statements every day without contradicting them. In the smoking-room today I heard a man say that a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church need not be a priest, and that a cardinal might marry if he chose. Another man said Mark Twain was once a preacher, and had a regular charge.

MONDAY, MAY 12.—This has been the most disagreeable day of the voyage. The wind blew a hurricane, but shifted so frequently that it kept the sea down, although it was so bad that most of the passengers were ill. The captain, when he came down to breakfast, said to the few present: “I’m sorry.” Meaning the weather; he had promised us a fine voyage. The captain is a very polite man; when he comes into the dining-room, in the morning, he speaks to most of the passengers, and goes about to shake hands with some of them. He is very solicitous of those who are ill, but Captain Trask, of the American ship “Sonoma,” thought it a disgrace to be seasick, and would barely speak to any of his passengers so afflicted. He used to say he was never seasick in his life, and that seasickness was “just a notion.” ... Adelaide, the farmer’s daughter, does not mind the terrific motion of the ship, but I have a slight headache, and do not care to eat much.... The barber says conditions down among the emigrants are bad. Most of them are in bed, in rooms containing hundreds. All the married couples occupy one large room, and sleep in their clothes. The unmarried women occupy another large room, and the unmarried men another. There are tables down below, where the emigrants may eat their food, but they eat on deck when the weather will permit. For breakfast they are given a soup thick with vegetables, and coffee; for dinner and supper they have boiled meat, potatoes, macaroni, onions, wine, and bread. They are given so much to eat that we all note the manner in which they waste it.... During the worst of the storm today, a large woman sitting on deck attempted to go below. She foolishly attempted to descend an open stairway, and the wind blew her skirts over her head. This rendered her hysterical, and she began screaming. Seven stewards were required to carry her to her room, from which retreat she sends word on deck that she is so humiliated that we will not see her again.... Owing to the storm, our run was cut down to 368 miles today. The storm seemed very serious to us, but on the log, the officers described it simply as: “Rough sea; north-west gale.”

TUESDAY, MAY 13.—At 10 o’clock this morning we ran into a smooth sea, and the sun struggled out. By

11 A.M. all the emigrants were on deck, chattering as usual.... The chief steward gave us declaration blanks at breakfast; which means we are nearing New York.... We are in communication today with five other steamships, and Cape Race. The cost of a wireless message of ten words to the United States is marked on the bulletin board as $3.80.... Every day of the voyage we have had a different fish for dinner; apparently as fresh as when caught. I shall long remember the King fish as the best of the lot. The butter is also surprisingly fresh, considering the fact that no farmers can come in with a fresh supply. I shall always remember my voyage on the “Canada” as the most endurable I have ever made; and in my time I have been a passenger on two dozen different ships. The passengers are quiet and polite, and there has been no talk of Sports; no games of any kind are played, and it has been an ideal voyage in all respects, except two days of bad weather.... The barber, a German, intends to quit. He says he likes the French crew; that he gets along better with them than he got along with his own countrymen on some boats, but he is not earning as much as he thinks he should. A small passenger list is pleasant for the passengers, but disastrous to the ship’s employees.... We had artichokes for dinner today. I wonder where the idea originated that they are good to eat? They seem to be very popular in Italy; I saw great stacks of them in Naples and Palermo.... One of the women passengers appeared at dinner tonight wearing an automobile bonnet and gauntlet gloves. I do not bother myself much about taste in women’s dress, but that shocked me. Another woman passenger is too ill to appear in the dining-room for her meals, but is able to sit in the smoking-room every evening, and puff cigarettes. I’ll never become accustomed to women smoking.... The young man who paints pictures in oil, and who has a shock of hair which he never combs, is extremely good-natured. Which means that he can’t paint much. A genius is always cross and impolite.... The emigrants are not allowed to buy beer, so those in the second-cabin buy it, and hand it over to the emigrants. I cannot see much difference between the passengers in the second-cabin and the emigrants. Many of the second-cabin passengers have friends among the emigrants, and visit them a good deal. Two of the second-cabin passengers are young French girls, accompanied by their mother. We hear they are going to the United States to get rich husbands. The opinion prevails abroad that America is full of rich men who will take nearly anything in the way of a wife. It is a mistake. America has more attractive girls than any other country, and half of them are compelled to get jobs.... The Americans in the first-cabin live mainly in New York and Boston; we are the only Westerners.... One of the passengers in the first-cabin is a woman with two children. She has perfect manners, and is no doubt a good woman, but I have somehow got the notion that her husband doesn’t appreciate her at her true value. The other women say she is All Soul, but probably her husband thinks that is the trouble with her; I never knew a spiritual woman to please any man except her pastor. I am satisfied that within a few hours after her arrival home, she will say to her husband: “I would like to have a private talk with you.”

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14.—The man who intends to quit traveling because he meets so many disagreeable Englishmen, said to me today: “An Englishman is as crazy to know everything that is going on as a young Jew traveling-man. And what annoys me is that the Americans submit tamely to criticism from the English. Every day you see English criticism of Americans in books and newspapers, but the Americans never strike back. It isn’t true that Americans attract attention abroad because of their rudeness; nine-tenths of the charges made against American travelers are invented by the English. Ask any American who has traveled, and you will find he dislikes the English. The English do not like Americans, and Americans might as well throw off their reserve, and admit that they do not like the English.” ... The captain said this afternoon that the “Princess Irene,” the favorite, is only twelve miles ahead of us, and that we shall probably pass it tomorrow night.... About sunset, there was great cheering on the steerage deck. Some one had reported land in sight, but the report proved untrue.... There is a very fat Italian woman in the first-cabin, and she has a very fat daughter. Her husband is a passenger in the second-cabin.

THURSDAY, MAY 15.—At the Captain’s Dinner this evening, free champagne was served, in addition to the two kinds of wine we have had free twice a day since leaving Naples. The captain, whose name is Bouleuc, made a speech in broken English. Sometime tonight we shall reach New York, and cast anchor until daylight, when the doctor, customs officers and immigration officers will come on board to see if they can find anything suspicious.... People are as proud of ability to speak French as they are proud of art or musical culture. I know an American woman on board who has been reading French books all the way from Naples; yet she confessed to me that she knows very little French. She simply wanted the reputation (which she did not deserve) of being a French scholar. An American man whom I know very well, sharply criticises the French of a woman who sits at the captain’s table, and who talks constantly and volubly in French with the captain. Yet the man confessed to me that he knows only enough French to “get along.”... We thought of remaining up until we could see the lights of New York, but abandoned the idea at 9:30, and went to bed.

FRIDAY, MAY 16.—When I awoke this morning, the “Canada” was lying off Sandy Hook, in company with eight other ships that had arrived during the night, and were waiting for the port officers. Among the ships was the “Princess Irene,” the Favorite. It had a start of twenty-four hours, as it did not stop at Palermo, but we arrived as soon as it did.... We landed at 10 A. M., and greatly admired every man, woman, child and building we saw. The first thing we did was to make a dash for the Pennsylvania Station, where we arranged to leave for Home at 5 P.M.... What a wonderful building the Pennsylvania Station is! Nothing else like it in the world; except a few blocks away, where may be found the New York Central Station, which is still finer.... I showed Adelaide as much of New York as I could from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. In Johannesburg, we paid fifteen cents street-car fare each to the zoölogical gardens. In New York, we went three or four times the distance for five cents, on the way passing under a great river. This is some of the Robbery to which we Americans are compelled to submit.... When we wanted a lunch, we went into a beautiful place, and paid sixty-five cents for all two healthy Americans cared to eat. This in wicked, extravagant New York.... Some of the buildings we saw were thirty-eight stories high, and the streets through which we passed cannot be duplicated anywhere.... We wanted a guide to show us about quickly. We secured a bright young man from the Postal Telegraph Co. He was polite, intelligent and capable. What do you suppose this Robber Corporation charged us for his services? Thirty cents an hour.... Soon after we left the Pennsylvania Station, our train passed under the Hudson river, and emerged in New Jersey. This state is not a fair sample of the country in which we live, but how we enjoyed seeing it! The green at Home is a healthier and better-looking green than the green in the tropics.

SATURDAY, MAY 17.—We have spent this day passing through Ohio and Indiana. They are better states than New Jersey, and our enthusiasm is increasing. We are passengers on an all-steel train, and in no other country in the world are equally good railroad accommodations to be had.... Early in the afternoon, nearly a thousand miles from the sea, we came to the fourth or fifth city of the world: Chicago. An American we saw last in New Zealand, Dr. Beeson, met us at this place. Our social relations are rapidly improving.

SUNDAY, MAY 18.—This morning, when the conductor came in to take my tickets, he said:

“Why, hello!”

I knew him: we were getting almost in sight of Home. When we went into the dining-car, the negro waiter spoke to us by name.... Shortly afterwards, the conductor sat down beside us, and, looking out of the south window, said:

“I never knew before you could see Potato Hill so plainly from this side of the river.”

Then the Pullman conductor came in, and said:

“The next station is Atchison.”

Transcriber’s Notes.

1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.

2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

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Table of Contents

- Travel Letters from New Zealand Australia AND Africa

- Travel Letters from NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA, AND AFRICA

- TRAVEL LETTERS FROM NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA, AND AFRICA.

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