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FROM
GOLDEN GATE -
THROUGH |
SUNRISE LANDS.
A TRIP THROUGH CALIFORNIA ACROSS THE PACIFIC TO
JAPAN, CHINA AND AUSTRALIA,
BY
EDWARD A. RAND.
AUTHOR OF “PUSHING AHEAD; “ROY’S DORY;” “BARK CABIN;” “TENT IN THE NOTCH,”
ETC., ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
THE ORIENTAL PUBLISHING CO.
COPYRIGHT SRCURED
Le BY
J. B. JENKINS,
1804.
‘CON DENTS.
CHAPTER. Pace
J. Wuo THEY WERE rs ; 6 ° ° ° e ° » 33
II. WersTERN FREAKS sees ‘ . ° ° ° ° + 23
III. At San FRANCISCO . : ‘i ° . ° . ° - 42
IV. At SEA ; ; aise . : ° . GS)
V. DISCOVERIES . ‘ . : ; ‘ . . eas . 60
VI. LIGHTHOUSES. ; 5 : , : ; ‘ , : Ro ont
VII. Jack BopsTay SPINNING YARN. : . . : a - 276
VIII. Sunrise Lanp at Last : . . . . . . - 94
IX. In YoxouaMa : 3 ; 6 5 ; . . - 202
X. EARTHQUAKES AND RAILROADS . : a ° e 3 DEO
XI. SIGHTSEEING IN TOKIO A " . . 6 6 . 118
XII. Ricx’s Fans : 5 : . . . ° ° . + 132
XIII. AsourT JAPANESE RULERS . . : . ° ° ° - 138
XIV. JapaNEsSE TEMPLE— AND A STORY . 9 ope ened her neL A
XV. CHILDREN AND CHILDREN’S SPORTS . : 3 “4 K . Ist
XVI A SHortT TRIP . So ‘ ; i ; : F Bass
XVII. A JinRIKisHa JOURNEY . . : : . . ° - 107
XVIII. Oxa anp MurRASAKI . 6 ‘ : _ ; 6 . » 190
XIX. Japan TEA . : ; : : é . . ° ° » 195
XX. Mourners aNnD RELicious FaITHs . : ° . . + 200
XXI. Tue Cat anp THE Fox : " Fi Heras . . + 209
XXII. Tue Bamspoo, Rain Coats, AND BLIND MEN . : : vee 207
XXIII. THE Rain . 226
XXIV.
XXV. ,
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXII.
XXXIV,
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVIL.
XXXVIII.
KXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
XLII.
XLII.
CONTENTS.
SPREADING CANVAS FOR AUSTRALIA . °
THE ANTELOPE
THE WIDE SEA
MAN AT THE WHEEL AND MAN
ABOUT TELESCOPES é %
CoraL IsLanps anD CORAL
NEw ZEALAND Z
AUCKLAND
Maoris.
THROUGH Cook’s STRAIT
AUSTRALIA, BY Rick RoGERS
SYDNEY 3
THE Storm , : f ;
“GoLtp! GoLtp!” , . ;
A Bic SHeep Farm
A QUEER CouNTRY . .
THE INTERIOR oF AUSTRALIA
CHINA aT Last . : .
CANTON . sda te .
OLD FRIENDS ASAIN . e
IN THE Moon .
24
247
251
256
262
266
275
278
- 283
286
299
308
319
327
342
353
374
382
LIST
OR ME US Aeni@inis:
PAGE,
All-aboard Boys. Lrontispiece.| The good Woman . ;
Sunrise Boys : 12| How the Voyage may erd .
All Aboard — Initial . 13|Joe. :
- Concord Bridge 14 | Sunset at Golden Ge and Fort Point
She interceded with the ore 15| The City of Tokio .
Nurse Fennel at home 17 |In high Northern Latitude .
The Suspension Act . 19 | Phases of the Moon
The Barrel Act . . . 1g} Under full Steam ;
Grandpa Roger’s Home in Sunimer . 20] Funny Ways of Making a Hire
Echo Rock 23|/A Bell Boat . : SEV
Lower Cajion of the ans 24) First class Light Ship on steam
The Grand Cafion looking West from fog Whistle ?
Toro Weap : 25 | Mt. Desert Lighthouse .
Gunnison’s Butte at the foo of ca. Fourth order Lighthouse at pentnele
Cafion . ; 27| L. I. Sound
Climbing the Grand Ciscn 28 | Lighthouse at the “Thimble Shoals,” ee
Bird’s-eye View of Terrace Cafions 29| Hampton Roads, Va. . :
_Winnie’s Grotto yuk 31/A modern Style of Lighthouse .
Interpreter and his Family . 32|How Uncle Nat spent his leisure
Marble Cajion 33| Hours .
Gate of Lodore . 35 | Walrus
Running a Rapid . 36| A Vessel turning into an eee
Island Monument Glen Canon 37|A Sleeping-bag .
Marble Cafion 38| Bound for the Ship
Buttes of the Cross in the eo Pid Icebergs on every Side
Wu-near Tur-weap . 39| A Kayak
Indian Village 40] On Snow Shoes
- Camp-Fire at Elfin Water Packer 41 | Jack when spilled out
Standing Rocks on the Brink of Mu-av Life Basket .
Cafion . 42 | Sending help through ine Ne to ne
How the Voyage neh, 43| Nancy Dee
Cape Horn : 43| Life Boat . :
Woodward’s Garaen 45 | A Greenland Whale
The Minute Man . 47 How many Waves there seemed to be
48
49
51
53
55
57
59
60
67
68
69
72
73
75
76
77
80
81
82
83
85
86
88
gt
g2
ia)
8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Ship Ahoy! .
Fujisan, the highest iseanewat in japan ;
The Sun as viewed from the Planets
A View in Tokiyo .
Dreamland
A Style of Dress
On a comfortable Sofa
Street in Yokohama
Daimiyo in Court Dress . ‘
The Way the Mikado careileds in
Japanese Fashion
New England Coasting . el
Reconnoitering for an Earthquake
The round Moon ae:
The Mikado on a Journey in Fare:
pean Fashion
The seven-stroked Home
Nihon Bashi :
The champion Oarsman .
Grandpa’s Clock
Pagan Temple in Japan .
A Sintoo God— the God of Longevity
Japanese Shops peer
Storks .
Rick’s Fans .
Young America pemnde a Japanece
Fence Cea en he eee
Our Japanese Luxuries on a_ hot
August Day j
A good Friend to Japan
Japanese Story-Teller
A Group of Japanese Mothers ond
Children : :
The last of the mesons : ;
Torii at Entrance to Shinto Temple.
Too Late .
A Doll Maker
Japanese Sport .
A Japanese Decorator
A Cemetery . :
A donely Meal for the fopanes: Wome
PAGE.
93
94
95
98
IOL
102
‘
103
104
106:
107
10g
IIo
Ii12
113
118
121
123
124
128
129
131
132
133
134
136
138
139
I41
145
149
152
153
156
158
159
163
One of the old-time Archers
Japanese Woman and Child
Kindness to the Birds
Making Tea .
Won't you take a Cup of Tea ae us?
Having a social Time
Out for a Walk .
Stretched out for the Nien
A Poetess :
An Old Japan See ; ; :
“The Frog Band is out serenading
Somebody ”.
First Chop
Bond of Union .
Japanese Mourners :
Beating the Temple Drum . ;
The Excursion of Tengon by Water .
A Japanese Mischief Maker
A Yankee Kitsune up to his Fun .
Mad because receiving Tails
Kitsune leading astray an innocent
young Creature :
The Sabbath of the Foxes
Japanese Boy
Rain Coat — :
Eastern Straw Goods .
Japanese Birds .
Eleven bare-headed hea Men .
A handsome Object
Bob Gray laughed at her 3
The Landlord’s Daughter nel oanine
on the Koto Seer
Chopsticks for one .
An interesting Time— A Marsan.
Trying to get a Crab off the Rocks
Mark of Respect
Over the fair blue Waters ae Boston
Harbor .
Uncle Nat’s favorite inmicctal
Entrance to Suwo Nada .
A Celebration by the Spider Hamat.
BAGE
» 167
170
171
175
£79
183
185
188
190
191
197
195
200
201
205
206
209
210
211
213
215
217
218
219
221
223
226
227
228
230
233
237
239
240
241
244
245
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Bound for Australia
What for Dinner :
On a Hogshead to see me ae ; ;
The Fishes taking Bumble-bee’s Leav-
ings . :
The Chronometer .
A volcanic Country in Winter
On the Ocean Wave
Telescope at Cambridge *
Telescope at Washington
What the Waves cover
Coral d
“Suthin’s Comin’
Came
A Lagoon
Siah’s Cousin
The famous Planet
Painting the Lion’s Head
A marine Flower Pot .
A Fan handsomer than’ te in
Japan .. -
Meduse or Jelly gh :
Young Jack Bobstay
Old Jack Bobstay .
Rick : :
A Trap for the cayeees ; ee
One Proof that the World is round
A Song of Home
What occasions the Tides
In Cook’s Strait :
Wiser than a whole ier of Owls é
The aspiring Rooster
A Source of Wealth
The Calm of Sunset
Sydney
Ralph leaning over the chil s Rail
“Glorious” to be a Sailor
Trying to carry a plate of Soup
Not so glorious to he a Sailor .
After the Storm
Hobson’s Bay Railway rie
”_and “ Suthin’
PAGE,
247
249
251
254
256
259
261
262
263
265
266
267
271
272
273
275
276
279
280
281
282
283
284
286
289
293
295
296
298
299
302
393
306
» 308
309
310
311
313
9
i PAGE,
Bourke Street, Melbourne, 1880, look-
ing East ; 310
Public Museum and leben 318
I wonder which way Home is . 319
Group of Aborigines 32)
A Dog ran up and barked at ine 327
Prize Australian Sheep 329
Not much Wool on them . 332
The Keeper of the Sheep fast eo 335
A Cousin to your Boundary Rider 337
Wake up, Rick 341
Bees! Lees! . : 342
All Aboard for cuneee land 343
On the jump . 344
The Black Swan 345
Lyre Bird ; 347
A familiar Creature . . . . . * 348
The Bower Bird 348
Hammock Bird. . . . 5G 349
A big Bird stalking toward hin ; 349
Through the Wilds of Australia . . 352
Trading with the Aborigines + 353
Christmas in Old England ESC
Kangaroo and Baby ass
Christmas in Australia 359
Chinese Artist : 362
On and across a Sea of elt : 363
Chinese Junk : 365
Chinese Rick and the Lamp 366
Out:door Scenes in China ; 369
An old Citizen of the Flowery Dance) 371
Hong Kong Woman saves 372
A young Celestial 373
Image of Confucius 374
Image of Buddha 376
A cheap Umbrella 378
Lord of the twenty-four Ueeiiee 379
Umbrella Procession . 380
Chinese Girls 381
Joe Pigtail 382
Rick’s Dream 384.
\\
\\ \
\
\N
deep.)
200 feet
THE COLORADO. (6
GRAND CANON OF
Pea An@ ars
ALL ABOARD! Wherever one may have a chance to take the cars for
the West, we invite them to meet us in San Francisco and join in this
proposed trip. It will cost but little; nothing for meals, or lodgings, or
extra clothing, for steamboat or railroad fare. The only thing needed is
the possession of the book itself, and a leisure hour under a garret-roof
that the rain is tapping, or by a blazing fire in winter, or out in a swinging
hammock when summer comes.
Are there not boys who like adventure, a fire and a chowder on the
beach, a climb, too, up a sand-hummock, though vicious gusts and pelting rain
may follow? Then all aboard for Sunrise Lands! Are there not some who
are shut upin sick rooms? We feel for you,and this trip is for you also.
We have spoken to the “clerk of the weather,” who has promised sunny
skies. There will be, though, one storm, but not a raindrop shall reach
you. And the girls—do we leave them out? They are all welcome. Plenty
of room for everybody. The Antelope is to be built in part of a new
material— iron and rubber. She will last, and yet she will swell to the
size of any desired passenger-load. All-aboard !
We would here express our indebtedness to the Rev. D. Crosby Greene,
D. D. of the Japan Mission of the American Board, and one of the transla-
tors of the Japanese New Testament, for timely suggestions as to Japanese
customs, and also acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs. E. W. and L. E.
Page of New York city, whose experience in Australia and elsewhere in
the Pacific has been a valuable one. And we want to be able to thank
every one, the young and the old, for going with us. We want all to know
Uncle Nat, Ralph and Rick, Jack Bobstay —but the last bell is sounding!
All aboard! E. A. RB
ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
CHAPTER I.
WHO THEY WERE.
< LL ABOARD for Sunrise Lands! All
aboard!” And wasn’t it the merriest
voice in the world saying this? Then it
must have been Uncle Nat who gave the
above invitation, for he had that kind of
voice. He was calling out to his enterpris-
ing nephews, Ralph Rogers and his brother,
Rick, as they took the cars at a California
station for San Francisco. Ralph and Rick
were Massachusetts boys whose home was in
Concord. Their father had long been dead,
but their mother still kept up the old home. “It’s good blood, what is
in you, boys,” the mother would say. “You know the Concord woman
in Revolutionary times, when Major Pitcairn aad his British troops came
to town. The court house had been set on fire, and it threatened to |
burn her house. She interceded with the major, her water pails in her
hands, and got him to put the fire out. She belonged to our family
Blood tells, boys. Don’t forget.”
“No, mother, but blood won’t put out fires. There has got to
13
14 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
be a man behind it, and mind makes the man here in America,”
said Ralph, “one day, threatening to swell to the size of a Fourth of
July speech.
“ But it is in’em, the blood after all,’ the mother said to herself.
“Their ancestors fought at Concord Bridge.”
Ralph was about fourteen, and Rick three years and a half younger.
Rick was just the sort of boy to get into a scrape, enthusiastic and
impulsive, and Ralph who was a bit cooler, would sometimes prove to
be the very boy to get Rick out of a scrape. Rick had a face for-
CONCORD BRIDGE.
ever on the smile, his blue eyes laughing, and his mouth also, except
—look out for such moments! When Rick looked sober, and talk-
ing excitedly, said, “See—see, R—Ralph! Look-er here! Couldn’t
you and I””—his mother did not need to hear the rest.
“Oh, dear, what is Rick up to now?” she would exclaim.
Rick’s soberness meant that the mischievous thought laughing out
of his eyes and mouth, had shaped itself into a plan, and would
si
NNWN
ny
i i WAY
AAAS
and \
WHO THEY WERE. “17
soon be heard from. Ralph’s face was more quiet and subdued,
and his eyes were of a softer hazel, but there was the same kind of
family-smile— their father had it before them—making its sunny
home in the corners of both his eyes and mouth. They were gen-
erous, big-hearted boys, though inheriting from our common father,
Adam, a good share of human infirmities, liking fun and their own
way more than was always convenient for their mother.
“Oh, dear,” she would sometimes say, “I don’t know what Rick is
coming to, and there is Ralph who is more steady, but he surprises
me also, now and then. But there, I mean to do the best I can,
and ask God to do the rest.” In all this she was very sensible.
An unwelcome guest, the scarlet fever, came into the house one
day, and when it had gone out again, it spitefully left Ralph and
Rick very “weak and mizable” as old Nurse Fennel said. Rick’s
round face, whose eyes and mouth were the hiding places of con-
stant and roguish smiles, looked quite narrow and sad, while Ralph
-stepped feebly as if his next request would be for a crutch.
“ Yes, mizable, jest mizable
them boys are, and you jest
need, Miss Rogers, to give
them a change of hair. A
change of hair is what will
fix ’em,” triumphanily said
' Nurse Fennel. She had
thought this out one day while
busily knitting, at the same
time offering to her tame
squirrel a home in her pocket.
She had lived in England in
her earlier days, afterward coming to Yankee-land. Consequently, the
NURSE FENNEL AT HOME,
18 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
peculiarities of dialect of the old and the new country had fastened
themselves upon her like the barnacles encrusting the piers of an old
wharf. “A change of what?” asked Mrs. Rogers, fancying that the
old lady wanted the boys’ locks to be removed. “Oh, I see now! But
they take the air and walk out every day.”
“T mean a journey, marm.”
“A journey?” thought Mrs. Rogers. “Where can it be?”
There happened along, that very week, Uncle Nat Stevens. God
bless the Uncle Nats with which he has sprinkled the world like
plums in a pudding. This Uncle Nat was a man past forty, and a
sea-captain. He had a stout body and a big head, a rosy face, brown
eyes and a brown moustache to match them. He had much energy
of manner, and he was a thorough seaman. He had helped himself and
gone up rapidly from post to post, but he was ready to help others,
and an old sailor said, “the cap’n was a regular chicken at heart if any
one might be swamped in a rough sea and need help,” for his heart
matched in size his head.
The day after his arrival in Concord, the captain and Mrs. Rogers were .
talking about family-matters. “The boys are pretty well, but they do
need a change,” affirmed Mrs. Rogers.
“Hillen Maria,” the captain replied in his bea rapid way, “you say
your lambs need a change, and I don’t wonder, for they look thin as a
potato-skin. Now see! You know I am said to be one of those folks
always along just in time to put their foot into everything.”
So he was, but it was a most excellent foot he brought with him.
“Now, let me tell you what kind of a cruise I shall be up to this
year. I am going to San Francisco, and there taking steamer, shall
run over to Japan. At a Japanese port, I expect to find my old |
ship, the Antelope. She has been in other hands the past year, but
when she reaches Japan, the owners wish to make a change, and
WHO THEY WERE. 19
want me to take her again.
Then I slip down through the
Pacific to New Zealand, across
the water to Australia, then up
to Hong Kong, and afterwards
I may go to India and Kgypt,
through the Mediterranean, home.
Look here, Ellen Maria!” Ellen
Maria looked.
“Now I am going to make a proposition,
and that is, to let me take your two boys
with me.”
Ellen Maria’s eyes went up and her hands
aa aE went down. “Massy!” she ejaculated.
“JT am in earnest, sister.
thing, for they are all pe-
tered out. They have lost
their vitality, or whatever
you call it. What a dif
ference between to-day and
the last time I visited you!
They are quiet as lambs
now, and sol called them
that. There, the last time
I was here, I remember one
of them got caught in an
apple tree back of your
sitting-room window. It
was hardly a case of inani-
mate suspension, but the
You must see that your boys need some-
THE BARREL ACT.
20 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
very reverse of it. The time before, when I was at home, one of them
tumbled into a barrel, and two of his young friends came to the
rescue and fished him out. To-day, their vitality seems all gone.
Now you let me have those boys and I will take the best care of them
while away, and bring them back to you safe and sound. Won't they
pick up while gone, and won’t they learn a lot also!”
GRANDPA ROGERS’ HOME IN SUMMER.
“That is splendid in you, Nat, but how can I spare them? Don’t
whisper a word to them.”
Those enterprising boys, “quiet as lambs,” got hold of the plan in less
than an hour, and five minutes after knowing it, presented themselves to
their mother in their best suits, carrying an old leather trunk between
WHO THEY WERE. 21
them, and in each unoccupied hand a travelling-bag, saying they wanted
to bid mother good-bye before starting to find the sunrise!
That settled the matter, and in a few days, it was decided that
they might accompany Uncle Nat on his trip.
“We must go to grandpa’s first,” said Rick.
Dear old grandpa! Like a stream coming down from a mountain-
top and watering many fields, is the influence of loving grandparents
over the generations below them. Grandpa Rogers lived in a house
approached by one of the prettiest, and most leafy walks of summer.
The trees were bare now, but the home itself was lke an old oak
covered with the foliage of many tender and beautiful associations.
When grandpa had been visited, Uncle Nat and his nephews left
New England.
The trip to California was made, and a visit also to some California
friends, the Peters. The Peters were sorry to have their Hastern
visitors leave, and the boys’ departure was especially regretted by a
colored youth on the premises, Josiah, or Siah, as he was generally
called. Siah was a stout, black boy caught up by the wave of some
colored exodus from the South, and carried West by it. He had no
father or mother, but had left an old aunty behind who sent after
him the prayers she could not personally follow. She sent also her
most dearly prized earthly treasure, a little pocket Bible. Asking
her minister to pick out passages appropriate to a young person,
she then drew with her own hand a big pencil-mark about them.
They were admonitions after this style: “My son, if sinners entice thee,
consent thou not.”
As Siah could not read, he did not know just what precious stones
might be in these caskets, but their nature in general, he understood,
that it was “something bery good fur young folks,’ and it had its
influence. Certain stains, too, he knew were aunty’s tear-marks, and
22 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
this touched him. Aunty’s Bible and a certain amount of self-respect
had kept Siah, amid all his migrations, from that carelessness and
coarseness so incident to such a life. He was at work now on the
farm of Mr. Peters, Uncle Nat’s host, and he and the Rogers boys
“were excellent friends.
“J wish I could go wid ye,” said Siah. “Pears to me as if I must.”
There was no way opening itself to him, and to Siah’s great re-
gret, he was not able to jom in this “hunt fur de sunrise,” as he
called it. He followed them though as far as the door of the train
that was to bear them away, and when the engine began to sneeze
and grunt, he joined in the start, and grinning, raced as far as he
could, beside the track. Ralph and Rick turned to look at him once
more, and they caught a glimpse of his face, the smile gone, his big,
mournful eyes watching the vanishing train.
“There, boys, we are off at last,” said Uncle Nat, “and we shall
be in Oakland in three hours. San Francisco is not far from the
sea on a bay, and about half a dozen miles across the bay from San
Francisco, is Oakland. We get out at the latter place and are ferried
across the bay to San Francisco.”
It was evening when they took the ferry-boat for San Francisco.
All about them stretched the waters of the bay, one mass of black- _
ness, but before them flashed the lights of San Francisco, multi-
plying as they neared the city, brightenmg and sharpening, till they
seemed like the many camp-fires of an army resting on the slope
of a hill. .
CHAPTER Il.
WESTERN FREAKS.
OME one was making a
sound like a locomotive
whistle.
“Oh-h-h-h! Isn't that
steep? That’s like them.”
It was Rick. Hs was look-
ing at a book of pictures lymg
on a table in the parlor of the
San Francisco hotel where Uncle
Nat was stopping. When he
said, “That’s like them,” he
meant pictures of cafions, a fea-
+
‘ture of scenery the boys saw
Ae in California.
“Do you want me to tell you about the pictures? I have been all
through that country.”
This interrupting voice was a very pleasant one, and it sounded
directly above Rick’s head. He looked up and saw a man’s face over
him.
“Oh —is—this your book?” asked Rick.
“Qh that is all right. Now if you would like to hear about those pic-
tures you get that boy over there in the corner, for I guess he is
your brother, and I will tell you both about them.”
23
24 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS,
The stranger meant Ralph. |
“Ralph,” said Rick, approaching his brother, “a man is going to
tell you and me about some pictures. It is a country that uncle said
he was sorry-to skip on his way here.”
“That man?” he asked. “I know him; that man’s name is Greene,
for I saw him write it in the register in the office,” he whispered.
LOWER CANON OF THE KANAB. (3000 feet deep.)
“Yes, and this will illustrate the whole
who is Uncle Nat?”
subject.
The stranger
was very social.
“T want to tell
youabout the won-
derful cafions we
have in the far
West. Did you
ever see a cafion?”
“We saw one
on our way, sir,
and Uncle Nat
promised some
time to tell us the
reason for it,” re-
marked Ralph. “ It
was here in Cali-
fornia among the
mountains, and
Uncle Nat has
seen big, big ones
in the Yosemite
Valley.”
And Uncle Nat,
THE GRAND CANON, LOOKING WEST FROM TORO WEAP,.
“He is here, and at
of the group.
The stranger turned
and levelled a pair of
big eyeglasses at the
late arrival.
“Nat Stevens!”
“« Bill Greene!”
“Where did you
come from?”
“‘ And where did you
come from?”
“Boys, this is Mr.
Greene, with whom I
used to go to school
years ago.”
“Didn't I say it was
Greene?” whispered
Ralph in a tone of tri-
umph.
When the two old
school-mates had ex-
pressed their mutual
pleasure at the meet-
ing, and explained to
one another their
courses of travel, Mr.
WESTERN FREAKS. 27
your service, sir,” said some one in the rear
~ F
GUNNISON’S BUTTE AT THE FOOT OF GRAY CANON, (2700 feet high.)
Greene resumed his talk which had been so pleasantly inter-
rupted.
“TI was going to tell the boys what caused the cafions. some of which
28
ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
CLIMBING THE
GRAND CANON.
you have seen. Hither one of you
know, boys?”
“A drop of water,’ promptly
replied Ralph.
“Pooh!” exclaimed Rick.
“But, Rick, your brother is
nearer right than you would think
for. These rocky valleys down
through which rattle the moun-
tain streams, may have been af-
fected by convulsions of the earth’s
surface, but drops of water have
certainly been at work, cutting
and wearing away.
“A stream sweeps from the
mountains down into the plains,
and as it rolls on, it cuts like a
wheel into the earth. By-and-
by, the groove becomes very deep.
The river Colorado has hollowed
out a cafion over a thousand miles
of its way.
“‘ Here is what we term Terrace
Cajions, and you can see the deep
groove back through these steps
or terraces. At the foot of the
first terrace or step, we see the
water on whose surface drift
the boats of travellers of some
kind. In the Grand Caiion,
Ss
eS
—_
AFT
<=>
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF TERRACE CANONS,
o
ae
WESTERN FREAKS.
see what magnificent amphithea-
tres have been hollowed out in the
rock. The traveller finds traces of
volcanic action, the lava pouring
into the river-bed, and the water
cutting through the lava. It is
no trifling thing to go through
the Grand Cafion, where a fellow
is boxed between these high walls
of the river, and on he must go,
over bad places in the way, where
the water sweeps down and rushes
and whirls. Then you may come
to smooth water, one surface of
glass stretching from shora to
shore save as some long, wind-
ing ripple breaks it. It looks
pretty calm in the Gate of Lo-
dore, does it not?”
“Oh-h! oh-h!” broke out
Ralph.
His eyes were fixed on a deep
mountain-cut, and he began to
read: ‘“ Winnie’s Grotto, a side
cafion, walls two thousand feet
high.” Not only were the walls
high, but there were profiles cut
out in the outlines of the rocky
walls, faces that scowled at one
another over the deep, gloomy pit,
ad
WINNIE’S GROTTO.
(2000 FEET.)
3t
ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
ana the boys amused themselves by tracing their hard, stern lmeaments.
“One beautiful cafion is Marble Cafion,” ‘said Mr. Greene. “At
least two thousand five hundred feet high, are the lofty walls of marble.
INTERPRETER AND HIS FAMILY.
The shades of “marble are varied, and where the water has rubbed and
smoothed them, they are charming. Marble Caiion is sixty-five and
a half miles long, and starting with a height of two hundred feet,
this. is increased to three thousand five hundred feet.”
MARBLE CANON,
WESTERN FREAKS. 35
GATE OF LODORE,
“See that woman in black!” called out Ralph.
“That is a place,” remarked Mr. Greene, “which is called Islana
Monument, and it is one of the curiously-shaped rocks you will find.
36 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
They way “eke the form of domes, pinnacles, alcoves, sculptured cathe
dral lis.”
RUNNING A RAPID.
“Tt would take a pretty good climber to go up some of those walls,”
remarked Uncle Nat.
WESTERN FREAKS. 37
“Yes if he will try, he had better borrow a pair of wings to scale
certain places.”
Mr. Greene went on to say, “One statement I made, I want to fill
out. I spoke of the action of
water.in the forming of cafions
and referred to other agencies.
There have plainly been the lat-
ter. One day, I noticed in the
Colorado, masses of lava-rock,
some of them low, and yet others
rose up to a height of a hundred
feet and more. After a while, I
came to an old dead. volcano on
the right of a fall in the river.
From the mouth of this volcano,
immense lava-streams had been
discharged into the river, and it
looked as if in all, a mass twelve
or fifteen hundred feet deep had
been poured out. Then the water
cut its way through, and you can
see in some places .a line of
basalt on either side. Here isa
question that might be asked.
In the forming of caiions, why
did not the rivers run round the
mountains rather than through
them? Water when it meets an
ISLAND MONUMENT, GLEN CANON.
obstacle is apt to avoid it, but here the river flows through the mountain.
One might say the water found a split in the mountains and poured
38 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
through the split, but examination shows the water has been cutting
its channel. There is one theory which will stand till the next one
comes along, for science, as the
farmer said of his steer, is ‘an
uneasy crittur.’ We will suppose
the river to be running across
the country, its surface not espec-
ially broken, when one of those
changes may have taken place of
which we have evidence, a wrink-
ling of the surface through ‘the
contracting or shriveling of the
earth” The wrinkle may be along
one but not high enough to turn
the river from its course, which
chafes against this little elevation
and rubs its way through it. What
now if that process goes on, the
‘wrinkle’ rising, but no faster
than the water can cut its way?
At last, you have a mountain-
range going across the country,
and a river flowing in a deep
mountain-cut or cafion. Prof. Pow-
ell says:
“¢The mountains were not
thrust up as peaks, but a great
MARBLE CANON.
block was slowly lifted, and from this the mountains were carved by the
clouds — patient artists, who take what time may be necessary for
their work. We speak of mountains forming clouds about their tops;
WESTERN FREAKS. 3
the clouds have formed the mountains. Lift a district of granite,
or marble, into their region, and they gather about it, and hurl
their storms against it, beating the rocks into sand, and then they
carry them out into the sea, carving out cafions, gulches, and val-
leys, and leaving plateaus and mountains embossed on the surface.
“The action of the elements in this western country is marked.
A butte is a peak or elevation too high to be a hill but too low
for a mountain. We have some fine ones among or near the Colo-
“BUTTES OF THE CROSS IN THE TOOM-PIN WU-NEAR TUR-WEAP.
rado cafions. It is thought that the meeting of two lateral or side-
cafions will account for this, and the water has thus cut out these
buttes with their terraces and towers. Prof. Powell speaks of those
near Labyrinth Cafion, each one ‘so regular and beautiful that you
can hardly cast aside the belief that they are works of Titanic
art.
“¢Tt seems as if a thousand battles had been fought on the plains
40 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
below, and on every field the giant heroes had built a monument, com-
pared with which the pillar on Bunker Hill is but a mile stone. But no
human hand has placed a block in all those wonderful structures. The
rain drops of unreckoned ages have cut them all from the solid rock.”
“You saw a pretty old river, Mr. Greene,” said Ralph.
“Yes, that I did.”
“Did you see any Indians?” mquired Ralph.
J.MINTON.
INDIAN VILLAGE.
“Yes, we found it quite handy to have those who could interpret.
for us.
“ Sometimes, journeying alcng, we found arrow-heads, or flint chips, or
Indian trails, and then we might come to an Indian garden. When
WESTERN FREAKS. 41
we had them in our company at our camp-fire one night, they told
us a famous story though a pretty long one.”
“What was it about?” asked Rick, eagerly.
CAMP-FIRE AT ELFIN WATER POCKET.
“The name was So-kus Wai-un-ats, told by To-mor-ro-un-ti-kai, and
the first word in it was Tum-pwi-nai-ro-gwi-nump.”
“Oh dear me!” thought Rick. “Guess that will do.”
The others were laughing.
“Oh I know Bill Greene of old!” said Uncle Nat. “He is joking.”
But he was not joking.
CHAPTER III.
AT SAN FRANCISCO.
LL his friends knew that
Uncle Nat was an intelli-
gent traveller—who read as
he travelled.
The next day after the ar-
rival in San Francisco, he said
to Ralph and Rick, “I have
bought you some books, and I
want you to read.them. They 7
will tell you about many of |
the places we shall visit on your
journey.”
“Do you remember, uncle,
about the people coming here
for gold?” asked Ralph. .
“Yes, that began in 1848.
Gold for a long time was known to be here, but what started the
STANDING ROCKS ON THE BRINK OF MU-AV CANON.
great excitement was the finding of a piece of gold when they
were digging for a millrace at Coloma. That was in January,
1848, and people began to gather here that year. It was in 1849,
in the spring, that a big wave of emigration Swept over vur land
towards California. Some went over the plains, and others by the
Isthmus of Panama, and others still by the long route around Cape
42
.
AT SAN FRANCISCO. Ae
Horn. What the Cape Horn route may be, some poor fellows have
found out to their sorrow. The vessel starting out in hope may end
a wreck. The journey over the Isthmus of Panama in those days,
was no agreeable thing,
amid summer-heat, and
the way over the plains
was very tedious. How-
ever, many went to the
Land of Gold.
“T was a boy then,
and I remember how
high the gold fever ran
in my New England town.
A lot went off in an old
whaler called the Ann
Parry. I remember go-
ing down to the wharf to see the party off. All the place swarmed
with spectators, and those on board the whaler seemed thick as bees.
They had a long voyage before them, away round Cape Horn, the old
way, but who cared for that? Iremember one young fellow who had
been a tailor, but
HOW THE VOYAGE BEGINS.
he concluded to
change the first let-
ter of his occupa-
tion, and become
sailor. He started
to go up the shrouds,
and for a while thi
2 : tyro did very well.
CAPE HORN. But he showed that
44 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
he was a bungler, for his foot slippéd. Fortunately he did not tum-
ble. The people saw it, and laughed at the man who if a Jack Tar,
was plainly just out of the tar-pot. Well, a great many came here to
California from every quarter, and California became a famous place.
A big, fine city has grown up here.” |
Frequent excursions were made by Uncle Nat and his nephews from
their hotel. They visited the Presidio, Seal Rock, Woodward’s Garden,
Lone Mountain Cemetery, Golden Gate Park, and climbed the ao
hills that wall off the city from the Pacific.
“O uncle, take us to the Chinese quarter!” besought Ralph.
“Chinese quarter, Ralph? All right, I will,’ and Uncle Nat took
them the very day he was asked. They saw the little shops where
the butcher sells his pork cut in such queer pieces, displaying also
his chicken and fish, where the tea dealer peddles his choice herb, and
the clothier his funny tunics or blouses.
“ And—what is that?” asked Rick. “My!”
“That’s a joss-house,” said Uncle Nat.
“ Joss-house? What do they call it that for?”
“The Portuguese for God is deos, and De imperfect pronunciavion OnLy
this by the Chinese gives the word joss.”
They looked inside. It was some festival-day, for many people were
there. On the walls of the house were queer decorations, and near the
door, was a big bell that a Chinaman struck. There were ugly images
to represent the good and the evil powers, also the man cast out of
heaven, and before these, sandal-wood tapers were burning.
“The Chinese,” explained Uncle Nat, “believe in two powers, good
and bad. The good, they reason, will be friendly any way. It is the
‘bad that will harm them, and must receive -special attention and be
propitiated. Consequently they try to keep the latter quiet and well- .
disposed. Knowing how powerful is the influence of a good dinner,
WOODWARD’S GARDENS, CALIFORNIA.
AT SAN FRANCISCO. 47
they offer food of various kinds, and this explains the dishes you will
see in a joss-house. Then they have a certain course of life which
they feel they must lead, that they may secure peace hereafter, provided
the evil one does not inter-
fere. But that they may not
be expelled from the Chinese
heaven hereafter, they keep
in the joss-house the image of
the man that was cast out of
heaven, as a reminder.”
After the visit to the joss-
house, Uncle Nat stepped into
a store to make a purchase,
leaving Rick and Ralph on the
sidewalk. With their custom-
ary impulsiveness, they decided
it could do no harm to go
ahead a little way, and having
inspected the neighborhood they
could then return to Uncle
Nat.
“What's that?” asked
Ralph, as they turned a corner.
In the street was a young Chi-
naman in a blue tunic and
baggy blue trousers. He was
carrying a basket that must
have contained a heavy article,
for he often shifted the basket
from hand to hand as if it hurt
THE MINUTE MAN-
48 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISK LANDS.
him. He passed a group of street urchins, who evidently began at once
to plot mischief. Soon a boy ran up to him, and giving his tunic or
blouse an energetic pull, rushed to the other side of the street. When the
young man turned to face his aggressor, a second boy from an opposite
quarter rushed up unnoticed and gave a second fierce pull. Like a vane
shifting about on a very squally day, and
obeying the new current that impels it, the
Chinaman turned ‘to notice this new invasion.
But then a third
side of the first
assailant came up on the
attack, pulling and jostling
—a fourth arrived and a
fifth even —the young
man struggling in their
midst like a hen with a
parcel of hawks. He did
not dare put down his
basket even for a moment,
aware that the harpies
would have immediately
clutched it, and his reten-
tion of his property made.
resistance all the more diffi-
THE GOOD WOMAN,
cult. Ralph and Rick were
?
boys living in a town that had a statue of the “ Minute man” of revolution-
ary daysready at a moment’s notice to fly to arms and resist Britain’s
overshadowing power, and they were not going to see the weaker side
in a fight—be it Chinaman or freedman— crowded under foot.
“Come on, Rick!” shouted Ralph.
Rick generally went off at a bound any way, but if he saw Ralph
ahead, he would spring all the quicker. And away he went after
HOW THE VOYAGE MAY END. 49
AT SAN FRANCISCO. 5r
Ralph, rushing and shouting. Ralph grabbed a boy who had seized
the basket, and repeating an old trick which he had practised on
almost every one at home till they were about crazy, he neatly inserted
his foot between the boy’s legs and tripped him up. There was now
a fresh uproar. Round a street corner came a reinforcement of three
street Arabs longing for an opportunity to stretch their idle muscles.
Matters threatened to be come very seri-
ous for Ralph and Rick. A Gi Suddenly, Un-
cle Nat appeared. His big, brawny form
rose above the assailants
threateningly, as a broom
- over a cloud of mosquitoes.
“Away with ye,’ he
shouted, seizing a couple of
boys by the collar at once.
Was it a giant-torpedo ex-
ploding in their midst? It
certainly had the effect of
one. The hornet swarm
broke up immediately, leaving the young
Chinaman alone with his defenders.
“Look here, boys!” said Uncle Nat to
his enterprising nephews. “ Don’t stray off
so. Just wait for me and then when we see
any of the enemy about, we will charge on
them all together and rout them gloriously. g
There goes Joe Pigtail!” JOE.
“Is that his name?” asked Rick, looking wonderingly at the boy.
“No, Rick, but that will identify him to us. What grateful bows
he gave us! Let’s follow him.”
52 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
When the newly named Joe Pigtail saw that they were following him,
he stopped and waited for them.
“We wanted to look about Chinatown,” said Uncle Nat to Joe.
“ Chinee-town ? Goodee. Me showee,” and he kindly led them to
quarters they had not seen and to other queer shops, finally stopping:
before a house that had a laundry look.
“ Me— me!” he said, intimating that he stopped there, and beckon-
ing them in.
In the outer room. there were three men busy with laundry-work,
and through an open door a fourth could be seen occupied with some
kind of cooking in his shadowy cubby-hole. In the outer room, every- -
thing was very plain, and though there was an abundance of chances
to stand up, there was none to sit down unless one literally took the
floor. A side door into a yard had been swung back and looking across
this yard the boys could see into the next house where a middle-aged
American lady was seated beside a Chinese boy teaching him out of a
book. |
“She goodee woman —like you!” said Joe to Uncle Nat in compli-
mentary tones.
“Uncle Nat ain’t a woman,” whispered Rick to Ralph.
When they left the place, turning to look back, they saw Joe stand-
ing by a laundry table and gazing thoughtfully upon the retreating
party,
CHAPTER IV.
AT SEA.
HE City of
Tokio, a
vessel belonging
to the Pacific
Mail Steamship
Co., was lying at
her wharf. Men
were hurrying
about, giving or
obeying orders.
The last trunks
Se aE were going on
SUNSET AT GOLDEN GATE AND FORT POINT. :
board.
People
were saying good-bye, while the fizz of escaping steam that could be
heard, plainly said, that the leviathan was impatient to be off. Every-
thing was ready at last. Every fastening was released and one Sat-
urday in early spring the steamship gracefully, majestically moved
away.
© Hurrah!” shouted Rick enthusiastically, as he stood among the
passengers watching every movement.
“ Hurrah!” shouted Ralph.
“ Hurrah!” responded Uncle Nat and the other passengers, while
¢ group of enthusiastic boys on shore joined in three ringing cheers.
53
54 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISK LANDS.
In a few moments the pilgrims for the Sunrise were moving rapidly
down the bay.
“There are some sailing craft ahead, boys. They look slow, don’t
they, boys, old-fashioned and behimd the times, beside this craft. This
is the nineteenth century,’ observed Uncle Nat.
Just then the City of Tokio blew her whistle and she seemed to
shriek, “ Yes, ’'m the nimeteenth century and I'll beat and cross the
Pacific, see if I don’t.” She said this in one long breath, gasped and
said no more.
“There is the Golden Gate!” exclaimed Uncle Nat. “What a
pretty sight!”
Between two ridges of land stretched the waters of the Golden
Gate, and outside was the broad and shining sea.
“This is the entrance to the bay of San Francisco, boys; and there
is the Pacific we must cross. Can’t you say the lines you repeated
at the hotel the other night?”
Ralph was proud of his accurate memory, and he recited the lines
he had recently seen among Bret Harte’s poems:
“Serene, indifferent of Fate
Thou sittest at the Western Gate.
Upon thy heights so lately won,
Still’ slant the banners of the sun,
Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O warder of two continents?
And scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,
Thou drawest all things small or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.”
The boys were so much interested in their new surroundings that
THE CITY OF TOKIO. 55
AT SEA. 57
they were sorry to see the sun sinking toward the western rim of the sea.
“T would
like,” said
Ralph, “to
have that sun
catch on some
peg in the
clouds, and
hold on
awhile. Ok,
Uncle Nat,
didn’t you
once say you:
saw the sun
keep up above
the sea and
not go down
at night ?”
“ Yes, and
it was so
“AGALILVI NUYFHLUON HOIH NI
strange to
have the
watch say
eight, nine,
ten, eleven,
twelveo’clock
at night, and
stil see the
sun shining,
shining in the w
58 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
itude to accomplish the feat. In any Arctic country, it must be strange
to a person from the Southern land to see the sun day after day wheel
round the heavens. In Greenland, the sun is always above the horizon
in June and July, and then there are days where his absence is only
long enough to give him a little dip below the horizon and up he comes
again. While it is summer in Greenland, and that season exceeds four
months only in few places, vegetation makes great advances.”
When night came, they were out upon the bosom. of the Pacific.
The big steamer steadily made its way over the lonely, darkening waters.
The stars brought forward their tapers one by one and lighted up the
windows of the sky. The wind came in chilly breaths. The dull,
heavy swash of the waters about the vessel could be heard. Our three
pilgrims were fairly afloat, gomg west as Uncle Nat said, to find the
east; moving toward the sunset to search out the sunrise lands.
The boys saw the moon rise above the water.
“Uncle Nat,” asked Rick, “why are there so many moons, a family
of moons with different faces, and not one thing looking the same all
the time?”
“Come into my state-room.”
In the state-room, Uncle Nat took a book out of his trunk and
showed the boys a picture of the sun, the earth, and also the moon at
different points in its journey about the earth.
“There in that outside circle is the moon as it appears to the sun,
now showing a bright surface. But in the inner circle is the moon
at different points as it appears to the earth. Take when the moon is
between the earth and the sun, and we have the moon’s dark side
turned toward us, or we get no moon at all. But a little farther
along, we catch a bit of the moon’s bright side like a crescent, and fayr-
ther along —” )
~ “Oh, I see!” choad Rick. “It is easy enough now, after you
AT SEA. | 89
know. And when the moon is round on the side opposite where you
started, we get the whole of the bright side, cr it is fullmoon. Goodie,
goodie!”
“You have got
it now, Rick,”
said Uncle Nat,
smiling at his
nephew’s enthu-
slasm.
“Ralph, do you
understand ?”
Ralph nodded
his head but
looked glum ; “T
—I—don’t feel
right — here,”’
and he laid his
hand on his
OF THE
stomach.
“ Ah, 2¢ is com-
ing on, I see.
Well, I will put
you right to bed,
and fix you all
nice.”
The mysteri-
ous “it” soon
made Rick put
his hand to his stomach. and Uncle Nat had his hands
GHAPTER V.
DISCOVERIES.
EOPLE on board a
_ steamer easily be-
come acquainted, and
Ralph and Rick were
disposed to know
everybody. Recover-
ing from their “ touch
of seasickness,” as Un-
cle Nat termed it (“a
touch heavy enough
to knock a feller over,” Rick thought) they were continually mak-
ing exploring expeditions. They would take a peep at the engineer, then
look at the furnaces, then at the cook’s quarters, finally mounting to
the saloon. After a while, back they would go, nodding once more
at the engineer, and then fetching up near the furnaces. The third
afternoon out, Ralph had circumnavigated the steamer several times,
and finally stopped 40 watch the furnaces. Only one person seemed
to be at work there, and he was shoveling up the big lumps of
coal preparatory to a feeding of the red, angry furnace-mouths.
The shoveling ceased, and now from a dusty corner, Ralph heard a
series of noises, a rat squealing, a cat mewing as if hungry for the rat,
and then a dog growling as if hungry for cat and rat both. At the
same time, what did he see? A lump of coal that had flashing
60
DISCOVERIES. 61
eyes, open mouth and white teeth? There were several appearances
and disappearances of this kind, and Ralph thought that it went
ahead of any “magic exhibition” that the Rogers brothers had
ever given in the old barn at Concord. “It is gone!” said Ralph.
“No, there it is!” Agam, he saw the face, and heard a lion
roaring as if in full pursuit of dog, cat and rat. Ralph had seen and
heard enough in this magic-haunted spot and turned to leave it, when
a familiar and pleasant voice said, “Chile, don’t you know me?”
“Siah!” exclaimed Ralph. “It’s Siah! It’s Siah!” he shouted.
It was indeed the rollicking, laughing Siah who came out of the
shadows in the corner, at the same time that he took down his coal-shovel
screening his face. He came forward with a funny air of self-importance
as if he were the ruler of Soudan showing himself to his subjects.
“Don’t you see it is your ole frien’, Siah?”
“Yes, but how did you get here?” asked Ralph.
“Well, I couldn’t get here without doin’ some walkin’, sartin
sure. So much to begin wid. You see after you left it was awful
lonesome roun’ de place, an’ I jes’ axed Massa Peters ef he couldn’
spare me.. An’ he said, he hated to hab me fur to go, but ef I
couldn’ be contented, I might go. So I trabeled on—”
“Not all the way on foot?”
Yes, the ardent Siah had footed it to San Francisco.
“J felt like takin’ a-sea-viyage wid my frien’s, I tole de boss
—dat’s Massa Peters—an’ trab’lin’ here, J foun’ out de steamer
dat was gwine, an’ I knew from what you said which one it was,
an’ I jes’ hired out as one ob de han’s. You know I want fur
to see de worl’, an’ ef I do I must begin early. Den it gibs me
a chance to see you and your libely bruder.”
And so Siah was following his friends to Japan. What he
would do when arriving there, he had not considered.
62 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Dat question,” he told Ralph, “am too many days off. I might
be dead “fore den, an’ de question not hab any importance. So I
won't raise de question till I get dar.”
“It’s Siah! Siah! It’s Si—ah, Rick!” shouted Ralph.
A hurried sound of feet was heard in a moment, and two men
came rushing up.
“‘ Where, where?” they asked.
“Where is what?” said Ralph.
“Fi—re? Quick!”
“ Oh it’s Si—ah, I said.”
“Nonsense! The next time you holler, take your dinner out of
your mouth,’ and the men retreated in disgust.
“Et he had some dinner in his mouth, he’d be more pleasant.
Guess he’s hungry,” said Siah.
Rick now appeared, and together he and Ralph ea over their
treasure found once more.
“Uncle Nat,” said Ralph, “Siah told me a lot about the fire-
room and the fires there, and it was real interesting.”
“Did he tell you anything so interesting as the kindling of fires
when you have nothing to light them with?”
“Nothing to light them with, Uncle!” exclaimed Rick. “That
is not very likely.”
“The savages do it though. Capt. Cook found a drilling process
common among the Australians, where they took a stick of dry,
soft wood, and setting it on another piece, twirled it between their
hands, the friction producing fire in less than two minutes. The
Sandwich Island method is the same in principle, and also that
among the Gauchos of Buenos Ayres, though the last place one
end of the rubbing-stick against the breast as a carpenter would
his bit. The Esquimaux, an old navigator said, pointed his stick
ate Hit,
Swiss pump-drill,
Method in use among the Gauchos of
Buenos Ayres,
Sandwich Island Method. Blunt stick
run back and forth in groove.
FUNNY WAYS OF MAKING A FIRE,
63
DISCOVERIES. 65
' with stone, and twirled by means of a strip of leather, in this
way boring into stone even. In Switzerland, an apparatus has been
used called the ‘Pump-drill,’ the hand bringing a cross-piece down
that unwinds a cord and sends the spindle round. When the hand
is lifted, the cord is rewound and so on. The Troquois used a sina-
ilar instrument.”
When Siah was told of this, he said, “Smart folks in dis world,
honey.”
It was Rick’s turn to make a discovery the next day. He had
strayed among the Chinese passengers on board, and some of these
were moving a quantity of heavy freight in that part of the
Steamer.-
“A —hoo—hoo!” shouted a celestial to Rick who was wn
pleasantly near a rolling barrel. Rick did not hear. His mouth
open, a smile sweeping over his face and wrinkling it, he stood
watching one of the Chinese who was ticklmg the ear of a sleeping
country-man with a chip. The barrel was quite near the unconscious
Rick when a Chinaman rushed forward and seizing him drew him
aside. Then Rick’s friend stood grinning and bowing as if an old
acquaintance.
“Why, Joe Pigtail!” said Rick. “You here?”
“Me — ee here,” answered Joe. “You go—ee over to my
‘coun — tree?”
No; dam going to Japan.”
. “Me see you.”
“Yes, I hope so, and I will tell my brother and ‘Uncle Nat.”
Siah and Joe Pigtail on board! How the attractions of steamship-
life were multiplying! Now if they could make the acquaintance of
a sailor and get him to ‘spin some yarns,” happiness for the Rogers
brethers would be complete. But-where could they find “him?” They
66 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
investigated the merits of several candidates. One though was pro-
nounced “dirty.” A second had a “squeaky voice,’ an infirmity not
generally favorable to yarn-tellng. “Crosser than pison,” was the
comment on a third. The fifth day out, Rick said mysteriously to Ralph,
“JT have found him; Come!” Rick led Ralph away and pointed out a
grizzled via tar who was coiling up a rope, his back tured to the boys.
“ Ain’t he chuncky?” whispered Rick.
?
Suddenly, the “chuncky” sailor tuned. He had a big head, or as
Ralph told Rick, “He spread a good deal of sail in his face.” The
lower part of his face was fringed with a gray beard, and he carried at
the neck a black kerchief, with immense ends. Under the heavy eye-
brows of gray, there were two kindly lights that twinkled. “Blue
lights,” Ralph called them, “like those that a feller in trouble on the
water at night would be glad to see. Something like a lighthouse.”
“ Hullo, boson!” the sailor sang out to Rick. “ You here again?”
This title, “boson,” tickled Rick.
' “Ves, sir; and here’s my brother Ralph.”
Ralph held out his hand; “‘ How do you do, Mr. ” he hesitated,
not knowing what to call this big lump of salt pork.
“ Bobstay! Jack Bobstay, that’s my name for young folks, and Jack
is glad to see you.”
“ And what is it for old folks?” asked Rick. :
“ Ah, no matter about them. In this case they are not to be taken
into account. What my name may be, don’t make the difference of a
button on a mermaid’s best go-to-meeting gown. Jack Bobstay at your
service!”
Here the old sailor made a low bow.
Ralph and Rick were delighted with Jack Bobstay, and they eagerly
introduced him to Uncle Nat, Siah and Joe Pigtail. The Rogers brothers
felt that their circle of acquaintance was widening.
CHAPTER VI.
LIGHTHOUSES.
Bue said Uncle Nat, after
supper one evening, “if you
will come into my state-room at
once, I will show you some pict-
ures of lighthouses, and tell you
all I know upon the subject.”
The invitation was accepted
eagerly, and there were two pair
of bright, searching eyes turned
toward the pictures. that Uncle
Nat pointed out.
‘Tn the first place, where rocks
or shoal water may be, we have
beacons or buoys if they will an-
swer. We make beacons of stone
and then again of wood or iron.
A BELL BOAT.
A very common kind of bouy is
simply a spar anchored at one end, and that we calla spar-buoy. Buoys
may be of iron, and-in that case are made hollow and will float. I know
of dangerous rocks off Boston Harbor called the Graves, and a horn-buoy
has been put there. The sea, when uneasy and moving, forces the air
into this horn, and what a solemn groan it has! Then a bell-boat may
be used, and the motion of the waves will keep the bell dismally sound-
67
68 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
ing. We must have something in such places, for the risks are great
and a wreck is an ugly sight for the sailor.
FIRST CLASS LIGHTSHIP WITH STEAM FOG WHISILE.
‘Sometimes a lightship is used as in this picture. Such a vessel must
be strongly built, one too that will swing easily at anchor, and be in
readiness to meet any emergencies arising from her perilous position.
You can see the chain-cable that moors this one, and she has a steam
fog-whistle with which she keeps piping away in the mist. The light
‘she shows at night is carried at the mast-head. You notice the uneasy
throw of the waters around her, showing that shoal sea is close at hand.
Off in the distance is a steamer, and a sailor with a spy glass is trying
to make her out. Now we come to the lighthouse, and this picture is
one on Mt. Desert. It is of the ordinary kind, a tower built on a
MT. DESERT LIGHTHOUSE, 69
fre Rees
f ees
ae
a
ads
2
Bie
irae
feats
=
LIGHTHOUSES. a1
good strong foundation, and it is doing excellent service with its
warning beams. Near by, tossing in the angry “waters, is a fragment
of a mast, and the moonlight shows a vessel away off, that looks as
if in a ticklish position. A structure like this is common, but here
is one that is simply a house on a solid base of stone-work, and in
the cupola of the house is the lantern. It is a Long Island Sound
light. Rather a lonesome home that would be for you, boys.
FOURTH ORDER LIGHTHOUSE, AT PENFIELD L. 1. SOUND.
«
The vehicle halted, and the man and his female-assistant stared at the
passing, rattling train.
“There, don’t you suppose they envy us, derice ae
“Yes, captain, and perhaps they hate the foreign mnovation. When
the telegraph wires were put up, the farmers were so hostile that when
one was stretched over their fields, they said the evil spirits would not
favor their crops, and they — not the evil spirits but the farmers, though
the latter acted like them — cut the wire and then tried to smash the
glass insulators of the poles! It was a mystery to them how a message
could go over the wire, and they would watch curiously a long while
to see the news travel! When this railroad was opened less than ten
years ago, I was present. They had a big time, and the big officials
including the mikado, or emperor, were present. One very marked
thing was the presenting of an address to the emperor by a deputation
of four merchants. That was a great thing in Japan, when the mer-
chant-caste, which does not stand high, thus approached and saw the
mikado, a being once bottled up and kept in the dark, so to speak, like
phosphorus.” é
« What is that man doing?” asked Ralph calling the doctor’s atten-
tion to a person who seemed to be stopping at the side of a road they
passed. The stranger was intent on work he held in his lap.
“ That must be an artist,” answered the doctor, “and he seems to
- be sketching something. The Japanese, you know, are very fond of
drawing and painting. Some of their sketches are ugly and grotesque,
but very original certainly. And they show genius of a certain kind.
Here is a horse,” and the doctor showed a picture he had with him.
“This horse certainly is full of fire and yet the artist executing it did
it in seven strokes, adding a few brush-sweeps for tail and mane.
The Japanese have peculiar skill in outline drawing. They will dash
vff the form of a bird, and the whole thing is very spirited.”
CHAPTER XI.
SIGHT-SEEING IN TOKIYO.
a the capital of Japan, interested the
boys very much, and in the company of
g Uncle Nat and the doctor, they started out
to see what they could find.
“What is this street?” asked the
inquisitive Rick.
“This is the Tori, a prominent
street in the capital. You
see how many people are
here. All sorts of
craft sail into these
quarters,” answered
the doctor.
Rick was interested
in the conveyances
there. There were
THE SEVEN-STROKED HORSE. (See page 117.)
the man-carts for mer-
chandise, the jinrikishas for passengers, and there was the kago, a
vehicle that offered foot-sore pedestrians a ride if they would get
into a ccvered basket suspended from a pole borne’on men’: shoul-
ders, but this last vehicle is one seldom seen in Tokiyo. There was a
great, busy throng in the street, and side by side walked Old Japan
118
SIGHTSEEING IN TOKTYO. 11g
and New Japan. There were those still clinging to the Japanese dress,
and some that wore the coat and pants fashionable beyond the seas.
There were police who like American police wore uniforms. A
horse and carriage went past the boys. And the shops, who could
count them? ‘Their style was peculiar, their roofs being heavily cov-
ered with black tiles. Where these tiles were jointed, they showed nar-
row white strips of mortar. ia
“O see, Uncle Nat,” cried Rick. “See that man selling goo:s.”
It was a Japanese not actually selling to a purchaser, but w citing
for one. He sat on a floor that had been covered with matting, and on
either side were piles of his goods offered for every one’s inspection, the
front of the store having been entirely removed.
“Tf you would like,” said the doctor, “we will look at some of the
streets about here. You will find special lines of goods in those we
visit, and the array is interesting. Let us go to the Dyers’ street.”
Here were dyed goods, and one readily detected the odor of the
vats for the immersing of articles to be colored. In another street
there was nothing but bureaus and cabinets.
“See,” said Ralph, “there’s a man sawing and he pulls the sav
toward him rather than pushes it from him as we do.”
“The teeth are not set the same way as ours but the reverse,”
replied the doctor.
In a third street, they found goods that had come across the seas.
“The old beer bottles!” exclaimed Rick who was a total abstinence
boy. “Must these things come over too?”
They went into Bamboo street where the shop-keepers sold bamboo
poles. One street the boys called pretty, as folding screens were
there, and upon these, pictures had been sketched and poetry written.
“We have plenty of streets in Tokiyo,”’ said the doctor. “Some
are named after the occupations of the people in them, such as
i20 ALE ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
Blacksmith and Cooper. There are those named after trees or
flowers like Cedar and Chrysanthemum. Plum. Orchard street may
be found, also Wheat and Indigo streets. There are those pore
fanciful names like ‘ Abounding Gladness.’ ”
They had been looking at the signs displayed by different stores.
A goldbeater announced his presence by huge spectacles, substituting
gold for glass. The kite-maker was advertised by a cuttle-fish, and
a trader in cut flowers showed the sign of a little willow tree. Every
spiked white ball—and these would average eighteen inches in
diameter — threw the boys into a pleasureable excitement, for the
white ball meant a candy shop. Still strolling about, Ralph suddenly
exclaimed, “There is water, doctor!”
“ Yes, that is a canal, very handy in carrying goods Anan ‘and we
jave many canals in Tokiyo.”
“Couldn’t we have a boat-ride, Uncle Nat?”
“Oh yes, I would like to have a ride myself. Here, here. Take
us round, won't you?” said Uncle Nat, calling to a boatman who
brought his craft to the bank at once. “Don’t you see, boys, how
he understood me.’ Hither I talk good Japanese, or he knows good
English. Step aboard! ”
The craft was one that carried what the boys called “a cunning
cabin,” a little house in the centre, and through its windows. they
could look and see what was passing, as the boatman. polled it
along. There were the skiffs of fruit sellers, and boats loaded with
merchandise, or fishermen sculled along their crafts while boys on
the banks took their first lesson in the piscatory art, and into the
canal dropped their lines “for a bite.”
“We go at a pretty good rate, don’t we, Rick? Almost as fast as
you did, last summer, when you tried to make that boat go,” said
Ralph.
NIHON BASHI.
T2I
> re 4 ) n
SIGHT-SEEING IN TOKIYO. 123
«What was that, Rick?” inquired Uncle Nat.
Rick was blushing. He did not recall that exploit with satisfaction,
for it was one day when deeply in love with a very young lady at
a summer resort, he attempted to give her a boat-ride on an adjacent
pond, and in his excitement had forgotten to untie the rope!
Ralph very kindly spared the champion oarsman any further morti-
fication, and the subject
was dropped.
Another day, they went
to the famous Nihon Bashi,
a bridge, and from it looked
off upon the tiled roofs of
the city and upon the
snowy cone of Fugisan.
Before them, too, were the
towers of the famous cas-
tle of Tokiyo. This castle
was also visited. They
saw its walls of stone, the
deep, wide moats without,
extending eleven miles in THE CHAMPION OARSMAN.
all. That day, one other
noteworthy place was reached, a. palace belonging to the emperor. Beau-
tiful grounds measuring a hundred acres adjoined this palace.
“This is a big place,” observed Uncle Nat “ this city of Tokiyo.”
“Yes, captain, and so the old emperor Iyeyasu was right when
he believed the city would be something, and in making bounds
for Tokiyo, he went far beyond the settled quarters and set up towers
and gates without any connecting walls, believing that’ some day
they would be erected. People laughed at his work, but he was
124 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
right. We have seen to-day some-of the better parts of the city.
This will do for to-day, I guess.”
“No,” thought Rick, “it won't do. I have not ridden in a ‘Jim
Ricker’s Shay’ yet. I
will, if Uncle Nat lets
me, this very day.”
That afternoon, while
Uncle Nat and the doc-
tor were away, Rick and
Ralph were in their room
at the hotel.
“T wonder what time
it is, Ralph.” |
“T don’t know, Rick,
for we have no clock.”
“‘ Oh dear,” sighed the
younger brother in his
heart. “I wish a clock
was as handy here as at
grandpa’s.”
That clock at grand-
pa’s, how Rick when
younger would watch it!
But he was thousands
of miles away from
GRANDPA’S CLOCK. . grandpa’s -and nothing
like a clock was in the room. He went down to the hotel office to
learn the hour. Passing the outer door, he looked through and saw
a jinvikisha waiting by the sidewalk. Its runners wore big bow]-like
hats, and were dressed in blue shirts and blue tights. A thought came
SIGHTSEEING IN TOKIYO. 125
to him ; why not take this jinrikisha and go down to that store where
Uncle Nat and the doctor said they were going?
“The shopkeeper’s name is Inu and I can write it, I guess,” con-
cluded Rick.
Uncle Nat, however, had not said that the man’s name was Inu.
Rick had asked for it, and Uncle Nat answered, “I knew, but” —
That moment he was called out of the room. Rick caught the “J
knew,” he did not hear the “but.”
“ Ah,” thought Rick, “it is Inu, which is a Japanese word.”
It happens that the word means “ dog.” :
Uncle Nat had told the boys to pick up all the knowledge they could,
and they had been practicing on a few Japanese words and Rick could
write “Inu.” He put “Inu” on a slip of paper, pointed in the supposed
direction of the shop, and as he handed the slip to the bearers, with
a lordly air mounted the jinrikisha. The men took the paper, read
it and threw it away. Then they turned to Rick, smiled affectionately,
and trotted off with their princely burden. One runner would have
been enough, but Rick meant to go im a style as ostentatious as
possible.
“How intelligent the Japanese are,” said Rick, “and, what a good
knowledge I have of the language. I shouldn’t wonder if I could
find my way all over J apan myself without Uncle Nat and the doctor.
Nice, knowing people, these Japanese.”
The men had said to, one another, “Inu! It means that he has
lost a dog and wants us to find it. We will do what we can.” Away
they went.
He soon noticed that they stopped and made inquiries, a fact which
he could not understand, for he supposed that every one knew where
“Mr. Inu” kept. The men wheeled into various streets, occasionally
halting and apparently asking questions.
126 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Look here!”’ Rick shouted. “ Why don’t you go to Mr. Inv’s?”
The men smiled blandly and nodding went on. Once they stopped
and patting a dog, made signs to Rick. He was in disgust.
“Lazy fellers!” he bawled. “Don’t stop to fool with that dog.
You don’t half earn your money. Don’t you know Mr. Inw’s place?”
“Tt is not his dog and. we must hunt farther,” they said and
till smiling they trundled forward their small load of a volcano.
Rick was now furious. .
“Tt is [-nu,I-nu! Must I spell it, [-n-—u! Don’t you under-
stand, boobies ?”
On they went, stoppimg now and then to speak to people. Rick
thought to himself, “How hateful these men do look!” The day
‘was quite warm for spring, and these intelligent Japanese had laid
aside their hats, and their half-bald heads went bobbing up and
down like gooseberries rolling over pebbles. Rick thought of Charley
Ross, the Philadelphia boy, and conjectured that these men must
have been poor Charley’s kidnappers, and what if they should kid-
nap him too!
“Stop!’ he yelled.
The men now were not so smiling, for they were tired of the
game. They again stopped, and, began to jabber away at Rick
like parrots. He in his turn was thoroughly vexed, and was spitting
out his anger at them. He began to doubt whether it would be so
easy to get through Japan if all the people were such boors as these,
and how he longed for Uncle Nat. A crowd had now collected,
and things looked squally.
In the mean time, Uncle Nat and the doctor had returned to the
hotel and there were inquiries at once made for the missing Rick.
A servant reported that Rick had been seen in a jinrikisha moving:
off from the hotel-door.
SIGHT-SEEING IN TOKIYO. i 127
“Moving off?” repeated Uncle Nat. “TI guess it is time for me to
move off also, and hunt up that young traveller.”
The doctor offered to accompany him. ‘They hunted and hunted
but in vain. At. last, they saw in the street a crowd, and in the
midst of this, was the lost Rick, screaming away at his runners, they
heartily screaming back.
“Ship ahoy!” shouted Uncle Nat making his way through the
crowd. Glad enough was Rick to bring his independent travels in
Japan to an end and return to the hotel with Uncle Nat. He
tried to tell his uncle how it had happened, but Uncle Nat was
greatly puzzled to understand the course of his remarks.
“Took here, young man,” said Uncle Nat, “the next time you want
to make a trip, you had better know just where you are gomg, how
you are going, and if you don’t get there, whether you can get back.”
Rick thought so too.
The next day they all went to a noted spot in Tokiyo, Asakusa.
“Why it looks like Boston Common on the Fourth of July,” said
_ Ralph. They had reached rows of booths making a showy display
of goods. There were shops too for the sale of toys, of ladies’ hair pins,
and smokers’ comforts. Then came booths where one could buy little
idols or amulet bags or incense burners. This showed they were
nearing the more sacred part of Asakusa. When they reached the
temple, they found a motley collection of idols, some of the figures
being hideous. There were gardens too in which grew the azalea,
camellia, lotus and chrysanthemum.
Everywhere were people. Some were trading at the tobacco booths,
or drinking out of little cups at the, tea-booths. There were men
saying their prayers . before the temple-shrines, and robed priests
were bowing in their services. It was a queer mixture to the boys,
“a great gala day,” as Ralph said, “and some praying thrown in.”
128 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
a
At E
ll A
“Oh, see thas,”
exclaimed Rick,
1 ei
KAMLMAADD
Before Binzuru, a
/medicine-deity, was a
girl who rubbed a leg
of the god and then
her own.
«That means,”’
said the doctor, “ that
she has hurt her leg,
and is transferring vir-
tue from the god to
her limb. For gen-
erations they have
rubbed the poor god
so much that his face
is decidedly worn.
PAGAN TEMPLE IN JAPAN.
~ Nose and ears, you
~see, have all gone.”
The travellers that
day saw also Shiba,
a collection of tem-
ples and tombs. In
* Shiba sleep some of
the old Japanese sho-
| Lie
gunsor military rulers:
<=
| eee ||
ea HK iN TS eee ne ee of the dead:
i ‘Cl
=
( “thy bell a famous resting-place
:
That night the doctor showed the ie % Pichune of the god of
Longevity
A SINTOO GOD—THE GOD OF LONGEVITY. 129
SIGHTSEEING IN TOKIYO. 131
“You see he is riding contentedly on a stork, and the stork is
very calmly sailing above a flood.”
“T should think, doctor,” said Ralph, “he would scare the life out
of a man, rather than put life mto him.”
JAPANESE SHOPS.
CeHeAG PE aban Xe Tole,
RICK’S FANS.
ON’T you think, doctor, that the Japanese
people are funny, to have so many fans?”
asked Rick, running in from the street.
“Tt might seem so, but then” — here the
doctor looked at the little fellow who was trying
to carry a quantity of fans in his hand— “but
then somebody else seems to like fans also.
Where did you get so many?”
“Oh, I picked ’em up in the street. Some I
bought, you know, for they are so cheap. I am
going to give them away to my friends.”
- Here Rick arranged them in order, as shown
in the illustration.
“There, that first one, a sort of half-round one, is for Aunt Mary;
“the next, that opens and shuts, is for mother; the round one is
for Nurse Fennel, and those three others are for my three cousins— Aunt
Mary’s girls. The one with the long handle is Uncle Thomas’, because
—bhecause he has short arms, but a long neck, and has some way to
reach up. The little one at the bottom is for a baby in the next
house.”
“But, Rick, you have not disposed of all the fans.”
Lay
RICK'S FANS. 133
Rick blushed. He had kept one for Amy Clarendon, if he ever met
that beloved object.
“ Why, doctor,” said Rick, anxious to change. the subject, “I saw a
man giving a piece of money to a beggar, and
he put it on a fan.”
“And I heard of a poor fellow of pretty high
rank who was sentenced to death, and his fate
announced to him by presenting him with a fan.
There are all sorts of fans, as you will find out.
The other day, I was pretty warm, and a gen-
tleman, at whose house te called, handed me a
fan that you could dip in water. Its material
was waterproof, and the water on the fan as it
evaporated would cool
‘the breeze it wafted upon
you. You will find all
kinds of pictures on fans,
‘SNVA SHOU
and various inscriptions,
also. Some are very
pretty and ingenious. A great man may stick
his autograph on .a fan. Here in Tokiyo, they
make some elegant fans.”
“Don’t you think Japanese artists are queer?
I mean, they have an odd way of painting.”
“Tt seems to us so, Rick. They have an appre-
ciative sense of what is funny; and then, they
rather enjoy the horrible. It is worth while to
notice some things on fans, for they are emblem-
atic. You are apt to see on fans the bamboo and
sparrow, or the willow and swallow, and these are sions of domestic
134 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
happiness. As for the matter of
emblems, it is worth while to no-
tice those on all kinds of articles.
Sometimes, certainly, they are very
significant and appropriate. For
instance: When a little gown is
given to a baby, you will be likely
to see on it the pine-tree and stork.
These mean long life.
“The stork is a favorite bird
in Japan; and when it comes to
art they love to reproduce the
bird, with his long legs and long
bill.”
It was Ralph’s tum the next
day to bring in something curious,
and his article was a dwarf tree,
given to Uncle Nat by a friend.
It was growing in a small pot, and
YOUNG AMERICA BEHIND A JAPANESE FENCE.
for a pigmy, it looked very vig-
- orous.
“That is a pine tree, Ralph.”
“A pine?”
“Yes; the Japanese are won-
derful gardeners, and while we at
home like to see how big a flower
-we can get, they delight most in
seeing how little a thing they can
produce. They like to raise pines only a few inches high. And
then, they like to bring their growing things into all kinds of
RICK'S FANS. 138
shapes. You may see a vegetable cat staring at you out of
the evergreen you notice; or, it may be a European wearing a
hat, and wrought out of the same material. You may see hens, or a
rooster, or a Japanese junk under full sail. They trim, also, the larch
in this way. One flower, that is a kind of national blossom, is the
chrysanthemum. It is adopted as the Emperor’s crest, and it
appears about government offices. Flowers are exceedingly popular,
and in every house they try to have flowers on New Year’s day.
When the plum blossoms in February or early March, the cherry
in April, the lotus in July, the chrysanthemum in autumn, and the
camellia in winter, there are multitudes of admirers ready to appreciate
these beauties. With certain kinds of blooms are sure to come excur-
sions of the Japanese, to rejoice over them.”
Uncle Nat heard the conversation between the doctor and his nephew,
and pulling out his pocket-book, he said: “ Perhaps, doctor, you will be
so kind as to tell me the meaning of these pictures, which I found
on some bank-bills.”
The doctor took up the bills and remarked: “The J apanese are
very proud of their history and love to preserve it in their sketches.
Here is a bank-bill modeled after our American bank-bills, and this
picture has an interesting story connected with it. Over five hundred
years ago Go Daigo was emperor. There was an opposition to him,
and falling before it he was sentenced to banishment. On his way
to exile, a young nobleman, Kojima Takanori, tried to rescue his sov-
ereion; but, mistaking the road, he and his followers were too late to
accomplish their purpose. His followers would not go farther with
him, but he determined to proceed alone. For several days he tried
to reach the sovereign’s side, and say in private sczse word of hope ;
but the emperor was so closely guarded, there was no chance to bring
this about. Kojima then thought of this stratagem. Stealing into
136 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
the garden connected with the
quarters where the emperor’s jail-
ers were passing the night, Kojima
found a cherry tree. Scraping off
its bark he wrote on the white sur-
‘face inside two lines, which, trans-
lated, mean:
Oh Heaven, destroy not Kosen
While Hanrei still lives!
“The emperor’s guard the next
morning saw the scraped tree and
the characters there, and wondered
what had happened; but it was a
fortunate thing for the emperor
that they could not read the lines.
They showed them to him, and he
saw the meaning at once. The
OUR JAPANESE LUXURIES ON A HOT AUGUST DAY,
reference was to Kosen, a Chinese
king, who, cast down from his
throne, was elevated again by a
faithful vassal, Hanrei. The signifi-
cance of it was at once appreci-
ated, and Go Daigo was secretly
comforted. He-knew that he could
not be friendless; and Kojima kept
his word, ‘afterwards bravely fight-
ing for him. Here is another bank-bill, having a picture of a famous
archer, whose bow the efforts of four men could not bend. ‘The
RICK'S FANS. a
old Japanese archers were pretty good at their work, doubtless; but
I like a gun, Ralph. What does a bow amount to before a gun?”
“ Bow before gun? Why, it amounts to bow-gun, doctor.”
At the doctor’s request Ralph repeated these lines, inscribed on a
fan, written by Pan Tsieh Yu, a lady of the Court, presented to the
Emperor Cheng-ti, of the Han Dynasty (Chinese) B. c. 18. They have
been translated by Dr. Martin:
Of fresh new silk, all snowy-white,
And round as harvest moon,
A pledge of purity and love,
A small but welcome boon.
While summer lasts, borne in the hand
Or folded on the breast,
Twill gently soothe thy burning brow,
And charm thee to thy rest.
But al! when autumn frosts descend,
And autumn winds blow cold,
No longer sought, no longer loved,
"Twill lie in dust and mold.
This silken fan, then, deign accept,
Sad emblem of my lot —
Caressed and cherished for an hour,
Then speedily forgot.
CHAPTER XIII.
ABOUT JAPANESE RULERS.
OR one day, at least, the
subject of fans was the
great and pressing one be-
fore the minds of Rogers
Bros. The next twenty-
four hours there was some-
thing else to engross the
boys’ attention. They soon
1. Silk Worm. 2. Cocoon. 3. Chrysalis. 4. Moth, found out that the children
A GOOD FRIEND TO JAPAN. °
were a very important ele-
ment in Japan life. . Rick and Ralph came hurrying to Uncle Nat, their
cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Oh, Uncle Nat, what do you suppose we saw?”
“TJ don’t know; but something funny, Rick, I don’t doubt.”
“Yes; a lot of boys and girls round a man, who seemed to be telling
a story, for he kept talking away, and they were listening and laughing.
And what do you suppose he did ?”
“T couldn’t guess, ’m sure; but I'd just say that he stood on
his head.”
“He—he—went round getting money; and I rather think he
stopped in the middle of his story on purpose, and wouldn’t tell the
rest unless they paid him.”
138
ABOUT JAPANESE RULERS. 139
“Rick is probably right in his guess,” said Dr. Walton, “for that is
a way a story-teller may have. They will work up the children to a
hot stage of interest, and then will not cool them off until the cash
comes in. The Japanese like to tell stories, and the children like to
hear them. The better class of story-tellers have places where they
narrate their stories, and charge an admission fee. I remember once
I was travellmg im the country, and as I passed by an open door I
heard voices. As I looked in I saw a man, who, I think, was a father
sitting on the floor, and two children were in his lap. He held a bowl
in his hand, and while one of the children was pouring something into
it, he seemed to be telling them a story; laughing away as he
went on. There are some funny stories, the Japanese story-tellers
recite.”
“ Doctor,” asked Uncle Nat, “does not Japanese history go back a
long way? You tell us, and we three boys will listen.”
140 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“The Japanese themselves claim a credible history for twenty-five
hundred years, but we outsiders get into the fog a few centuries after
Christ, when we are trying to deal with Japan’s history. The Japa-
nese can count up a list of over one hundred and twenty rulers,
called mikados. Some of these have been very famous, and eight
rulers, by the way, were women. There was an empress, Jingu Kogo,
who became famous, though she was not formally declared the sov-
ereion of Japan. Japanese mothers have shown some brave qualities.
“Yes,” said Rick, “I met some this morning, and they looked real
pleasant.”
“Jingu Kogo, I imagine, could look fierce as well as pleasant. She
conquered Corea. An order she gave her soldiers is worth remembering
by young people who have obstacles in life to meet: ‘ Neither despise a
few enemies, nor fear many.” It was her son, Ojin Tenno, who did
an excellent thing when he sent to China to find out about silk ;
' obtaining, also, some one from Corea to teach his people concerning
silk. The silk-worm has been a good friend to Japan. He also intro-
duced Chinese characters, and a better breed of horses. If I gave the
long string of queer Japanese names, you could not remember about
the rulers; but I want to speak of one way Ojin had for finding out °
a wrong-doer. He was told by the brother of his prime minister that
the latter was plotting against the government, and the emperor made
the informant and the minister both run their arms down into boiling
water, to see who was guilty. It is said that the brother could not
stand it, and was therefore judged to be guilty, and was executed.”
“When was it the Roman Catholics came to Japan?” asked
Uncle Nat.
“Tn the sixteenth century the Romanists came to Japan, and for a while
they prospered; but Catholicism was almost entirely trampled out under
the bloody foot of the persecutor. It should be said, though, that the
Ly 7
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IB ve
CUSTOM HOUSE,
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ABOUT JAPANESE RULERS. 143
Japanese had had some reason to complain, as all the methods for
diffusing Christianity can not be approved. The Japanese showed that
they could torment as successfully as Western persecutors. Nobly,
though, did Christian converts prove their sincerity. Some were burned
to death. Thousands were thrown down from the rock of Pappenberg,
in Nagasaki harbor. Cheerfully did they let their persecutors hurl them
into pits, there to be buried alive. The government for many, many
years prohibited Christianity. All over Japan was set up the kosatsu,
or edict-board, forbidding the religion of Christ. I have seen a famous
one near Nihon Bashi. It plainly said: ‘The evil sect called Christian
is strictly prohibited.’ That day, though, has passed away. You will
ask how it is that the hated foreigners have been allowed to come again
in such numbers, bringing their hated religion.
“The Dutch for a long time previous to this century had certain
privileges of trade allowed them. In 1853, our Commodore Perry
came here with several bull-dogs or war-ships, treating amicably with
Japan, and yet the Japanese saw that the bull-dogs could growl, if
_ necessary. Japan now agreed to open some of its ports to foreign
trade. Foreign nations pressed closer upon Japan, Americans, English,
Russians, French and Dutch treating with Sunrise Land. In 1868
came a civil war in Japan. For six hundred yearsa set of military
rulers called shoguns were in existence. They lived at Yedo, as Tokiyo
was formerly called, and though inferior to the emperor, yet they had
such a military power in Japan that the mikado must oftentimes have
been a kind of big, invisible, shut-up nobody at Kiyoto, the other capital
and Japan’s sacred city. The shogun or tycoon, as he has been
called, had been signing foreign treaties, and not the mikado; and
dissatisfaction followed such abuse of privilege. People cried: ‘ Honor
the mikado, and expel the barbarian!’ At last, war broke out between
mikado and shogun. The result was that the mikado came to the
144 ALL ABQARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
top of the heap, his rightful place; and to Yedo, whose name became
Tokiyo as a part of the change, he went, as Japan’s lawful ruler. But
now, what did the mikado party do but espouse the cause of the ¢ bar-
barian;’ and lo, the new Japan! There were men wise enough to see .
what was best, and seeing, obeyed their convictions. Foreign ideas
are making Japan over; and among these ideas is the blessed religion
of our Saviour.”
“Rick,” whispered Ralph.
The youngest of the “three boys” had gone to sleep over the
history of Japan, and Ralph gently punched him. Rick rubbed his
eyes, then opened them. ;
“Rick, the doctor knows a lot about Japan. Let’s get him to tell
a Japanese story,” whispered Ralph.
A story! Rick was wide-awake at once.
“Doctor, can’t you tell us a storv like what the Japanese story-
tellers tell?”
“ Ha, ha, Ralph! Do you want me to mount a chair, and begin
in style?” :
“Oh, yes.”
“And pass a hat?”
The boys who had spent all the money allowed for that day,
looked aghast. A thought helped Ralph out of his corner.
“Pass it for the benefit of two penniless boys from Concord! Oh
yes, doctor.”
- “We will compromise, Ralph, and not pass any. ”
i'r ITH US?
’? YOU TAKE A CUP OF TEA W
© WON'T
A JINRIKISHA JOURNEY. i LALO
curiosity I want the boys to see, if agreeable to you, captain. I mean the
famous Buddhist idol, three miles from Kamakura.”
“We will certainly go,” replied Uncle Nat.
_ Arriving at the designated spot, the sharp eyes of the two boys
were turned in every direction, and their mouths were full of questions.
The big idol, Dai Butzu, interested them exceedingly.
“This idol, boys,” said the doctor, “is a big bronze image of Buddha.
You see he is squat in a gigantic lotus-blossom.”
The. god’s eyes were shut and he appeared to be enjoying a nap, his
hands resting in his ample lap.
“Oh-h-h!” said Rick.
“There he is! The man whose religion is that of Buddhism
believes that the final and desirable state of the good is one of un-
conscious rest, and the god, you see, is in that condition. Look at
his head! It is covered over with shells —the shells of snails. An
old fable runs that when Buddha came up from the sea, these snails
travelled at a wonderful pace, for them, and clustered upon the head
of his sacred majesty, making a kind of shield against the sun. Then
it is also said that the shells represent the god’s wavy hair.”
Rick and Ralph were on the hunt at once for adventures. They
found a chance to get inside the image, and they saw a number of
shelves there ‘supporting little images. Coming out again, the boys
‘looked over the idol once more.
“He has big ears,” said Rick, “and oe is a good sign; for they
say that folks with big ears are generous.”
‘The last thing that the boys desired to do was to climb up and
perch on a thumb of the god.
When they started to leave, the doctor said: “ You will find many
temples in Japan, and some are very rich in their style of arrangements
within. I remember one that I saw the past season. Its roof was
182 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
very heavily tiled. Before the temple-steps stood four men, their
heads reverently bowed. The sight touched me, though the men
were idolaters;.and made me long for the time when the light of
a better day would come to them, and show them the Saviour.” 3
When twilight came they stopped the jinrikishas at the door of
a public house, or yadoya. The landlord met them when entering, and
prostrated himself, bowing his shiny scalp, and with his forehead
touched the floor several times. The building was quite large.
“Slide back all these paper walls about us, boys, and you would
get an immense room; a plan they resort to. in Japan when they
want plenty of space,” said the doctor.
“Supper most ready?” asked the captain, as they paeted into
an inner room. :
“ Almost, I guess,” replied the doctor. “I noticed in the kitchen
that things seemed to be in the condition of a lively bake or a
lively boil.”
They all sat down upon the mat- sere floor, and supper was
brought in and placed on little low tables.
_ “What have we here?” asked Uncle Nat. “Jack Bobstay has
been in Japan, and we ought to have him here to give his opinion,
boys. But here comes the doctor, and he will tell us.” |
Blessed old Jack Bobstay! How Ralph and Rick wished him
there. The doctor, who had been out of the room, now returned, and
gave his opinion about the dishes furnished for supper.
‘«Tet’s see! Here are egos, and here is rice, and here is tea,
and here is—give it up!. It is some mysterious Japanese vegetable
compound. Ah, here is some fish!”
_*“T can’t say I like Japanese living as well as I do the roast-
beef style,” said Uncle Nat; and it was the opinion of all.
Supper over, Ralph and Rick clamored for a story.
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“A story? Hold on
‘a minute or two. I
think it would be a
good idea to have a
little fire, and I will
ask our landlord to let us
havea brazier of coals,”
replied the doctor.
A little furnace
of hot coals, known
as the hibachi or fire-
brazier, was soon sur-
rounded by a group of
listeners squat upon the
floor and anxiously
awaiting the doctor’s
story. Ralph looked
about him. There were
the floor-squatters in
that strangely fur-
nished room, neither
chair nor lounge be-
neath them, the brazier
before them, paper
walls lighted by a Jap-
~ anese lamp about them.
“This lamp,” said
the doctor, “has a
saucer filled with rape-
seed oil which feeds a
A JINRIKISHA JOURNEY.
“MIVM V Yor INO
185
186 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
lighted wick. People are using kerosene lamps in many places.”
The. boys thought it would be fun to listen to a story seated around
a Japanese brazier. The doctor began :
“Tt is claimed that the authentic history of Japan goes back to
the seventh century before Christ. It is not easy to give precise
dates, but when we think of Rome’s long existence, we must remember
that Japan is at least as ancient a country, and probably has had a
longer life. The history of Japan is full of exciting deeds, bristling
with strife, a great many heroes figuring in the contests.
“Japan makes me think of England, in some things. They both are
islands, and both have been jealous of foreign interference, and both have
had civil wars. Just as England had its war of the Roses, so Japan had
its war of the Chrysanthemums, that flower representing a kingly
line. Then England, you know, had its Spanish Armada; that big,
burly collection of old scows coming to overthrow English power.
So Japan was threatened by a Chinese Armada. There were one hun-
dred and seven thousand Chinese, Tartars and Coreans in thirty-five
hundred junks. It is now six centuries almost to a ycar that this
big flock of evil birds, their wings outspread in an evil flight, came
toward Japan. The birds folded their wings off the city of Daizaifu.
Now the Japanese are brave. The children are trained to despise
death, and to have a very delicate sense of honor, which is sometimes
very foolish and very bloody.
“The Japanese sailed out in their lighter craft, showing their spunk
-and daring; but though they annoyed the enemy and did valiant
deeds, they accomplished nothing substantial and decisive. They lost
many lives, as the Chinese junks carried catapults or machines for
throwing stones, and they cruelly pelted the Jupanese navy. The
Chinese finally swung an iron chain from one vessel to another, to
intercept the attacks of the Japanese. The Chinese also sent parties
A JINRIKISHA JOURNEY. 187
to the shore, but the Japanese routed them; and they built earth-works
along the sands, to keep off the invaders.
_ “A Japanese officer, Michiari, was pleased to see this Chinese inva-
sion, as he had prayed for this very thing. Writing his prayers on
pieces of paper and then piously committing them to memory, he
finally set the paper-prayers on fire, as that is supposed to be a quick
way of getting a message to a god.’ The ashes he swallowed! That
process must have touched the heart of a wooden god, even.
“ Michiari now packed two boats with daring men, and off he went
to the Chinese fleet. His pigmy craft were despised by the Chinese,
for the Japanese were apparently unarmed.
“¢He is coming to surrender himself,’ said the Chinese concerning
the Japan leader.
“But the latter had no such idea. He threw out his grappling-
hooks, seized a junk, and then his band with keen swords attacked
and overpowered the crew. Burning the junk, they left for the
shore. The whole nation was fired by such heroism, and help came
from every quarter. All over the land, too, there was a going up
of prayers at the temples. The emperor wrote out a prayer and sent
it by a messenger to a temple, and the story runs that when the mes-
senger reached the shrine and presented the prayer, a bit of cloud
was seen that grew. into — what ?
“Into one of the cyclones, so well known in that part of the world ;
and it burst upon the Chinese fleet. How it raged—that awful
storm ! |
“Tt reminds one of the terrible gale destroying the Spanish Armada
off the English coast. In that Japanese cyclone, the Chinese junks
were swept helplessly upon the terrible shore-rocks, and many men
were drowned. The survivors reached Taka island, intending to
build boats there in which they could sail to Corea; but the Japanese
188 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
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thought it just the time to improve his
STRETCHED OUT FOR THE NIGHT.
came upon them, and,
overpowering them,
left only three to
carry home the tidings
of the sad disaster on
the shores of Japan.
“That was an aw-
ful catastrophe. Al-
though it happened
hundreds of yearsago,
it is by no means for-
gotten, and to-day
you may hear a Jap-
anese mother refer-
ring to that great
Chinese Armada, as
she tries to quiet her
child with the ques-
tion :
“
Y
ros i
Pa
z
L ei,
GH, :
ELEVEN BARE-HEADED BLIND MEN.
THE BAMBOO, RAIN-COATS AND BLIND MEN. 225
The blind men had heard the jinrikishas,and were now scattering
like a flock of sheep at the coming of a big dog. They were
speedily left behind.
Ralph thought of a visit he made the winter previous to the
Institution for the Blind at South Boston, Mass. There he
saw the sightless pupils bending over their books, with their finger-
tips feelmg their way along the curiously raistd letters into a
larger knowledge, — “a bigger place to think and live in,” as he said.
He saw the work-shops where the blind were trained to an acquaint-
ance with various useful occupations. He recalled one lady who,
guided by her finger-tips, read for him several verses out of the
blind folks’ Bible. Remembering these things, Ralph could but hope
that everywhere the blind might receive an education, and above
all the Gospel. :
CHAPTER XXIII.
A HANDSOME OBJECT.
THE RAIN.
AM afraid it was a bad omen,
seeing that fellow in the rain-
coat. The rain must be coming, for
the clouds look dark and watery
enough,” called. out Uncle Nat.
Word was passed to the jinrikisha-
bearers to hurry up; and away the
went rapidly.
“Hold on!” shouted Uncle Nat.
“Put on your night-caps!’’
Ralph and Rick knew what that’
meant.
The runners stopped, and chattering
away, raised a hood of oiled paper that
went with each jinrikisha, securely
covering their passengers. A chilly
spring rain was now slanting down
in heavy, sweeping lines. Ralph and
Rick for awhile enjoyed a ride under
their “night-caps,” but as they were obliged to alight several times,
either for lunching or consultation about the way, the chillmg rain
was disagreeably felt by them. When they stopped for the night,
226
THE RAIN. 224
Ralph said, “Rick, if we could only get to a good warm stove-fire,
and not one of those little brazier things, wouldn't it be nice? If
we have a rain at home, we can warm up good. Oh Rick, do you
remember Nan Smith we saw in the rain near our house, when the
wind took her umbrella and turned it inside out, and Bob Gray
laughed at her?”
Did Rick remember?
He had not ceased to laugh
about it to that day,
and Ralph’s words set him
to giggling again. x
“Oh we had the fun at XN
home, didn’t we, Ralph?”
“Yes, Rick,” said the
shivering Ralph. “And
didn’t they have nice
stoves in Concord, too?
Good, I tell you.”
The boys were decid- .
edly out of sorts with BOB GRAY LAUGHED AT HER.
Japan and its little braziers.
“T ’spose, Rick,” said Ralph, “we must go into a paper-walled
room and sit down on our legs like a Japanese, and hold out our
hands over a few coals, and try to catch a little heat in them.” _
“Have a kotatsu, a kotatsu, boys?” inquired the doctor cheerily.
“ What’s that, doctor, the Japanese for cigar?” asked Ralph.
“The Rogers brothers never smoke.”
“TI am glad they don’t; but they sometimes get chilly and there’s
‘a remedy for it. Come this way, please.”
“Does ko-ko-tadstool mean a cup of tea?” inquired Rick.
228 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Come this way, Rick. Ralph may take his in this room, but
you can take yours in the next room.”
“ Flis what?”
' The boys were very curious. A servant girl entered, bringing in
one hand a shovel of hot coals, and in the other a wooden frame
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THE LANDLORD'S DAUGHTER PERFORMING ON THE KOTO.
and quilt. She lifted up a piece of matting in the floor, and there.
was a bowl lined with stone. Emptying her shovel of coals into
this bowl, she set the frame over it, and then laying down the quilt
she left the room. |
“Now, Ralph,” said the doctor, “we are all Peay: ,
“Going to bake me?”
“Not quite; only warm you up.”
“Oh, it’s what you told us about; cremation?”
THE RAIN. 229
“You'll see.”
Ralph now prepared himself for this “oven,” and taking a seat
on the frame, wrapped the quilt about him.
“There,” said the doctor, watching the gratified look on Ralph’s
face ; “‘isn’t that first-class ?”
“Oh it’s bamboo-nice. Get you a ko-stad-stool, Rick!”
Rick was speedily enjoying his turn, and as they were in
adjoining rooms, the paper-walls were slid back, and the boys could
talk with one another from their “ovens.” America. was now for-
gotten, and also old Concord, with its glorious associations. What
was it the boys heard —music ?
“ Hear that, Rick! The band is out.”
“Doctor Walton said our landlord’s girl was a musician, and I
guess she’s agoin’ it, Ralph.”
The landlord’s daughter was indeed “agoin’ it.” She was playing
ona Japanese instrument, the koto, her fingers thrumming the strings
of waxed silk stretched above a sounding-board of hard wood.
They were soon ready for supper, which they enjoyed thoroughly.
“T wish I could get used to Japanese chop-sticks, but I can’t,
doctor,” said Uncle Nat; “there’s nothing like home-tools after all,
so I have brought out knives and forks as usual, from my bag;
but it is encouraging’ to know that practice makes perfect. I read
of a man somewhere in the East who had broken a law, and this
was the penalty: to sit in a cask, fastened there, only his head and
hands sticking out. His wife had come up to feed him. On her
back was a fat little baby with a curious long top-knot. That wife
would run a pair of chop-sticks into a little bowl of rice, and then
run them into that rogue’s open mouth, with a good deal of
~ celerity.”
After supper, while seated around the brazier, the soft light of the
230 ALL ABOARD FOR S UNRISE LANDS.
evening lamp falling over the stork-decorated walls, the boys peti-
tioned for a story. a
“Tl tell you three, boys. The first is about a famous Japanese
CHOP-STICKS FOR ONE.
hero, Nitta Yoshisada. As he was a captain, he was asked to aid
in a rebellion against the mikado; but he refused, and left with his
men. ‘Then he raised all the forces he could, and lifting his banner
against the rebels, resolved to attack a coveted place, Kamakura.
The-road to it passed near the ocean, and the evening before the
intended attack, Nitta made a speech to his. men by the sea-shore.
Taking off his helmet, he reminded them that their master, the mikado,
had been driven away into exile, and that he had gathered forces
to chastise the rebels. He then made a prayer to the god of the
sea, asking him to look into Nitta’s heart, and bid the tide flow
back and open a path for his army. Then he bowed himself. Seizing
THE RAIN. aa
his sword, he dedicated it as an offering to the gods, and cast it into
the tumbling surf. The water swallowed up the golden-hilted
sword.
“The next morning, as the story goes, the water had flowed back,
and the army with Nitta at its head tramped on, reaching Kamakura,
and attacked it to conquer it. The story has been a favorite one
for illustration by Japanese artists and on bank-notes Nitta has
had a place. The truth probably is that Nitta was favored by a
very low tide and ‘so reached Kamakura. It is a little suspicious
- that he did not find his sword, when the tide went down so far at the
god’s bidding.
“Now here’s a story about a Japanese god; only a little
story, to tell what the god of food did when summoned to bless
the earth at the time of fitting it up. Facing the land, he
breathed, and his breath became boiled rice; looking towards the
sea, he breathed again, and lo! the fish came. Then he turned to
the hills and breathed, and there appeared four-footed creatures,
some with coarse hair, like bears, and some with fine hair, like
rabbits. The god was doubtless pleased with the results of his
puffing; but when some of them were presented, they were not
acceptable to a fault-finder, Tskiyomi. The latter, not liking them,
killed the enterprising but unlucky god of food. But this food-god
when dead even, could not seem to stop his work of creating; for
it was found that his head had become horses and oxen. From
his forehead grew millet; silk-worms were coming from his eye-
brows, sorghum from his eyes, rice ‘from his bosom, wheat and
beans from his loins. What could you do with such a manufac-
turing machine? And now may I tell you a temperance story?
“ Sosano, famous in Japan myths, when going through a forest
was met by an old man, an old woman and a young woman.
232 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
The young woman was crying sadly. Naturally, it attracted Sosano’s
attention. A Japanese lady richly dressed— her hair looped and
bowed — in her long robe and her big obi, sporting her fan and-
her umbrella, gay as a gaillardia-blossom, is quite a handsome
object anyway ; and when a woman cries, who can stand it? Sosano
could not. He learned from the old people the nature of the
trouble: that the young woman had been appointed to be a sacrifice
to an eight-headed serpent. Sosano at once offered his aid, if the
reward of victory could be the young woman herself. All consent-
ed. He filled eight big tubs with that fiery drink, saké. On wriggled
the eight-headed monster, but when he saw the eight tubs he smelt
the saké and stopped Then he dipped a head into each tub and
drank up every drop—the greedy creature! He became so drunk—
so boozy drunk —that Sosano easily killed him. So Sosano saved a
life and earned a wife. He gained something else, also. When cutting
up the big snake, Sosano found it difficult to cut through the tail ;
and what did he discover when he succeeded in splitting it, but a
Oh, I
can’t pronounce it,”’— and the doctor stopped hopelessly in the
wonderful sword that had a wonderful name, muraku
middle of the name.
“Tf,” said Ralph, his eyes flashing, “if they would just put rum
to that use, — kill snakes with it, I think it would be a good thing.”
“So do I; and this story is the first instance I ever knew where
any good came from stuff like whiskey, when taken just as a drink.”
“The Japanese have some very funny ideas, doctor,” said Uncle
Nat.
“Yes, some interesting ones, certainly.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Ralph, “I wish I could see that mat—the
shing you spoke about to me to-day.”
“ Matsuri ?”
“AN INTERESTING TIME” —A MATSURI. 233
THE RAIN, 235
“Yes, sir.”
“That is an interesting time —a festival. A matsuri-procession I
- once saw was several miles long. Gay banners were displayed in
the procession, musical instruments sounded, and I saw a legendary
character represented. The people turned out in holiday-clothes to
admire the show.”
It was a bright spring day when Rogers brothers neared Kiyoto.
_As they journeyed on they heard the notes of a bell —rising, falling,
then rolling away in soft, tuneful echoes.
“That reminds me,” said the doctor, “that there is a big temple-
bell here in Kiyoto that I want the boys to hear. Then there are
shops and factories to be seen. It is a big place, and its situation
is one of much beauty. The mikado once had his residence here. It
is known as the sacred city, and the Japanese are proud of it.”
A lot of sight-seeing awaited the travellers. Silks, fans, and fine
porcelain are turned: out in large quantities, and the Rogers-eyes
must necessarily look into these things.
“That bell, doctor!” said Rick the second day. -
“Oh, I won't forget it.”
The doctor led his companions to a oan where they saw an
immense bell. It was struck by a heavy beam swung against it
by a row of men..
“There, boys,” said the doctor, “I could stand inside that bell,
and Uncle Nat stand on top of me, and we could each afford to
wear our tallest hat, I guess.”
When struck, what tones issued from it, the echoes rolling far off!
They visited another temple, and Ralph noticed a peculiarity needing
explanation.
“What are those spit-balls stuck all over the idols?”
“ Spit-balls! Oh, there are prayers on those papers. People have
236 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
chewed written prayers rolled them up into a ball, and then thrown
them at the god. He is freckled all over with them; but he seems -
to be no worse for it, and the worshippers feel all the better, for
they are sure then that the prayers have reached him.”
“Don’t you think, Rick,” asked Ralph, “it would be a good
idea to give a god an immense ear and let the balls drive at that?
He would be all the surer to get the prayers.”
“Oh Ralph, his ear would soon be all filled up, and he’d be deaf
as a haddock. I guess what the doctor said was the way is the
best: to freckle him all over.”
Lake Biwa, not far from Kiyoto, was visited. It is a beautiful
body of water, and an attractive spot for excursionists.
The next city seen by Uncle Nat & Co. was Osaka, and the steam
cars carried them to it.
“We leave Old Japan for the New,” said the doctor, “riding by cars.”
“ And the exchange seems good,” declared the captain.
“We have a railroad between Tokiyo and Yokohama, and one
in this neighborhood joming Kobe, Osaka, Kiyoto and Otsu; only
seventy-six miles in all. They are extending this last railroad.”
Rick sent his mother a letter telling her what he thought of
Osaka. ;
“ This is a big place, I tell you, mother, and I guess as many as three hundred
thousand people must live here. There is a river and there are canals
and there are lots of bridges, and the doctor, he knows a lot I tell you,
he says there are heaps of wickedness here. We went down to a place
and saw some children playing in the water and trying to fish. I saw a
crab on the rocks that they tried to get off. My! If I ain’t glad I was
brought up in Concord and didn’t have my head shaved! After we had
seen Osaka, we came to Kobe where we are now. It is not so big as
Osaka, only forty thousand people counting in Hiogo, the native quarter,
but there are many of our folks here and so it seems quite natural. This
TRYING TO GET A CRAB OFF THE ROCKS, 237
THE RAIN. 239
is one place where foreigners (like me and Ralph) have a chance to trade
and live. There are only seven of these places. Lots of tea and silk
are brought here to be sent to the people outside, and perhaps I saw in
the street to-day a chest of tea that will get to Boston and you may buy
a pound out of it. There are good many vessels here, and some American,
English and French men-of-
war. Wesaw a man-of-war, . / Gh |
and a boat was alongside of i
Cir
her and the sailors were
holding up their oars. That — J fal = hh i\ at pofak
: / A Hun Et =
is a mark of respect to some- &
body, and Ralph said it was il Hk | (
to us who were near there e eadie f) eal lw
in a boat. Funny, isn’t it, | —
to be in a sea-port and not 2 fp : | | |
have any wharves like Bos- = i | || i | Mh
ton? They have to carry SS IG Greg "IL
goods ‘off to the ships. Then — Wh.9¢ Net nee
to carry people, they have little boats —(igt net Fee
that we foreigners call sampang and they —~ i £5 ST =
only asked ten cents to carry our party ¥ = fuss
out to see a vessel! Realcheap. Don’tI wish — vais —
you and Nurse Fennel could have a ride! To-
morrow, we are going on board Uncle Nat’s ship, gee Ne ge
the Antelope. I think I shall like it, but I know I shall miss Siah and Jack
Bobstay and Joe Pigtail” (here especially to the memory of Joe Pigtail
from whom parting had been so painful, Rick gave a deep sigh, deep, deep as
the lowest button on his jacket). ‘Oh I believe I am about through, mother.
Oh I want to say something more about those children I saw fishing. I
hope you will let me fish when I get home, all I want to. You know I used
to make believe last summer, sitting on a bank and holding a pole over
Boston Harbor. If there had only been a hook and line on my
stick |”
240 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“The idea!” said his mother, when she had gone through Rick’s
scrawl, putting in the punctuation marks somewhat as they stand
above. “If I had known that, I could not have had a moment’s
peace.” And she tried to picture to herself how Rick must
have looked suspending a stick over the fair blue waters of Boston
Harbor!
UNCLE NAT’S FAVORITE JINRIKISHA.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SPREADING CANVAS FOR AUSTRALIA.
epee the Antelope, boys,” exclaimed Uncle Nat enthusiastically ;
and he stood up in the sampan carrying them, while its tanned,
bony-armed proprietor stopped sculling and looked off with the others
to enjoy the sight of that swift sea-runner.
“There she is, boys, doctor, and the old flag is up too! ‘Doesn’t
that look good?” asked Uncle Nat.
241
242 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Three cheers for the Antelope,’ shouted Rick. “ Hun
“Three cheers,” shouted Ralph, “for the flag. Hur—”
“ Three cheers,” shouted the doctor, “for the brave captain of
the Antelope. Hur —”
“Three cheers for the distinguished passengers,” shouted the cap-
tain. “Hur—”
“Three cheers for us all,’- modestly inserted Ralph; and these
were given.
The bare-headed sculler of the sampan shared: in the jubilee as
well as he could, and when the others lifted their hats, Uncle Nat
saw him involuntarily raising his hand to his head, but forgetting
the destitution of a hat, he grabbed the first thing handy, and gave
his top-knot such a vigorous’ pull that the expression of his face
changed from joy to disgust. The extra fee that Uncle Nat con-
siderately gave him was like the application of a very soothing plaster
to the sore spot on his scalp, and he bobbed and chuckled excitedly.
“And this is the Antelope,” said Ralph, preparmg to mount the
vessel’s side. But whom was Ralph looking at? His face was directed
toward the bows of the vessel. Was some one standing there and
nodding to him?
“ My, Rick, if that ain’t Siah and Jack Bobstay !” exclaimed Ralph.
Returning Ralph’s gaze, and coming now toward the ship’s gangway,
were the two old acquaintances met on board the City of Tokio.
“Halloo, Siah! That you? And halloo, Mr. Bobstay!” shouted
Rick.
In about three seconds more, Ralph and Rick had climbed the
Antelope’s ladder and were advancing toward Siah and Jack.
“‘Siah, where did you come from?” :
“Oh, Ts-dropped down kind-er-easy.”
“And how did you get here?” asked Rick, addressing Jack Bobstay.
SPREADING CANVAS FOR AUSTRALIA. 243
“Oh, I fetched up here and anchored all right. You ask your
uncle, the captain.”
Uncle Nat was jubilantly walking about the deck, exclaiming:
“There, this is something like! I like to feel something solid under
2
me;” and he stamped with his foot. “I would give more for two
feet of ship’s plank—just enough to stand on—than for all the
Jim-Ricker-Shayses between here and Cape Cod. This is my style
of carriage ; my favorite jinrikisha. What did you say, Ralph? You
want to know how I got your two friends here? That was a secret
and surprise for you two boys I have been keeping all the way
from Yokohama. I told Siah and Jack when we left them there
that I expected to turn up eventually in Kobe, and my ship would
be there; and if they wanted a job, that I would give them one.”
_ “And here we are,” replied Jack, “turning up all right, like a
new ship with masts in, and sails bent, and jest about ready for
sea.”
“Oh, ain’t this splendid!” said Ralph to Rick; “Siah here, Jack
Bobstay, the doctor and Uncle Nat.”
“We will go soon,” said Uncle Nat; “I want my mail.” That
came from Yokohama.
“Japan has a postal service,” explained the doctor, “and summer
before last it was reported that over forty-seven millions of letters
and other pieces of postal matter, including almost ten millions of
newspapers, had been sent through the post the year before. The
post office savings banks did number about three hundred, and there
are more now probably.” |
Two days from that time, the Antelope that had for the past
fortnight been loading under the supervision of Uncle Nat's first
officer, was ready for sea; and receiving Rogers brothers and friends,
she weighed anchor. Leaving behind her the men-of-war, the merchant
244 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
vessels, the clumsy junks, the little sampans, the Antelope steadily
pushed her way out of harbor. The boys watched awhile the retreating
houses and lessening shipping of Kobe, the hills of green that walled
in the spot and now began to dwindle, and then they turned to
ENTRANCE TO SUWO NADA.
look in the direction of the water. Uncle Nat was busy at his
post, giving directions in his energetic way; but the doctor was withy
the boys, to answer any questions he could.
“If we had the time, Ralph and Rick, we might go from here across
the Inland Sea. It is encircled by many islands of Japan, and is
more like a big lake than a sea.”
“ How big is it?” asked Ralph.
“Tt is not far from two hundred and fifty miles in length, and it
is from ten to thirty miles in width. There are many islands in
the Inland Sea. The most of them have good soil and are well
cultivated. In a voyage across the sea, my attention was specially
called to one island, that must have been from five hundred to a
thousand feet high ; and it was terraced for crops. The Japanese are
SPREADING CANVAS FOR AUSTRALIA 243
good farmers and know how to use their land to advantage. On
that island they probably were cultivating rice—what they call
the upland variety; and barley also. Many people live on the
shores of the Inland Sea, and I think it has a coast seven hundred
miles long. It has been called the Mediterranean of Japan.”
“What is the Suwo Nada?” inquired Ralph.
“That is apart of the Inland Sea.”
“JT wish we could cross this sea,” said Rick.
“We are going to Australia, and must bear away in a southerly
A CELEBRATION BY THE SPIDER-FAMILY.
direction, going through the channel of Kii into the Pacific ocean.”
“Tt must be pleasant sailing in the Inland Sea,” said Ralph.
“Yes.” said the captain, joining the party; “I can testify to
246 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
that, and yet the Inland Sea has its trials. A mischievous little
creature makes its home in this sea; some kind of mollusk, and he
has a borer and will bore holes in timber a third of an inch in
diameter. If any mollusk should be in these parts, the Antelope is
in no danger. She is well sheathed.”
No, neither mollusk below or storm above seemed to be menacing.
Under the quiet sunny sky of Japan, there stretched out one placid
surface of silver.
Ralph and Rick, tired of sight-seeing, went into the cabin of the
Antelope and began to look about them.
“A mollusk!” shouted Rick.
“Nonsense! It’s only a spider.”
“Only! There is a number of them up in that corner-web kit king
about.”
“Kicking about! Well, it’s spring, and they probakly feel like
celebrating ; same as their brothers and sisters on land.”
BOUND FOR AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE ANTELOPE.
lea boys were very enthusiastic over the Antelope, and as soon
as Uncle Nat was at liberty, he showed them about the ship.
Theré was much to be learned; for the boys’ previous visit to the
Antelope had been very hurried, and they had obtained little knowl-
edge of this courier bound for parts farther south.
“The cabin seems like a. house right upon the deck,’ said Rick.
« Certainly, Rick; and one name for it is that of the after house.
It is for the captain and any passengers we have, and sometimes
the officers. Now look around. You sce this little house is divided
into two rooms. First, one comes into the forward cabin, and in
the rear, is the after cabin. There, in the after cabin, are our
quarters.” |
“ Ours, uncle ?”’
“Yes; and there will be passengers in the two empty state-rooms.”
“ How nice it is!”
It did look pretty, for Uncle Nat had ordered it to be newly painted
and furnished for the voyage. A bright Brussels carpet was on the
247
a48 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
floor, and as its prevailing colors were scarlet, gold and black, it
was a showy affair. On the starboard side of the cabin, was a lounge
covered with scarlet rep. There were also a few chairs, and a cir-.
cular table that had a white marble top. On one wall was a looking-
glass, and opposite was Uncle Nat’s trusty barometer. Overhead,
was a sky-light, and swinging down from it was a lamp; and up
in the sky-light, secure to its frame, was also a clock.
«“ What is the clock up there for, Uncle Nat?”
«When you are on the house, you can look down and see it.”
On the house! Rick knew where he would spend his time. “Up
on its ridge-pole too,” he said, “if it has one.”
“T should think the waves would break in the sky-light, uncle.”
“So they would, Ralph, if wed let ’em; but we have shutters
with which we cover the windows, and then the water may smash
upon it all it pleases. We generally have a motto up in the cabin,
and I guess I will get it now. See here! Come into my clam-shell!”
Uncle Nat’s “clam-shell”’ was a state-room just beyond the scarlet-
covered lounge.. It was larger than the other state-rooms, having
a bigger berth, under which were drawers. A desk of black walnut
was there also.
“ Here is our motto, and I will take it out and hang it now.”
Rick read the motto in its neat gilt frame: “God bless our
ship.”
“That is a good one,” thought Rick.
“And now do you want to see your clam-shell?” asked Uncle
Nat, opening a stateroom door. Ralph and Rick sprang delightedly
forward, Rick exclaiming: “Isn’t it cunning?”
It contained two berths, one above the other. In one corner was
a stand for a wash-bowl, and on the wall was a little looking-glass.
On the floor was.a strip of carpet like that in the cabin. Above
THE ANTELOPE. 249
the upper berth, was a little window allowing the light to come in,
and allowing a passenger to look out.
“ And we eat out —”
“In the forward cabin, Ralph. That is not so important as the
question whether
we have anything
to eat.”
“Ah, Il risk
Uncle Nat for
that.”
“T don’t know
about that. The
dining-table is in
the forward cabin,
and let us take a
look at it. Are
you hungry,
boys?”
The boys con-
fessed they were
a littl. They
had taken an early
WHAT FOR DINNER?
breakfast ashore,
and by this time were longing for dinner. Going into the for-
ward cabin, they saw a long dining-table of black walnut, with strips
about a foot apart running its entire length.
“What are those strips for, uncle?”
“ Those, Ralph, are to keep the dishes in their places. When the ship
is uneasy, away would go our dishes to right and left if we did not
fence them in. Then overhead is that rack, and there after dinner, we
250 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
- can set our eastors and tumblers — fitting into those holes, you see.
Halloo, the cook has been in, and begun to set the dishes on for
dinner. I wonder what we are going to have! Probably bean soup,
salt horse, and some kind of pie.”
“Salt horse, uncle?”
“You ask the cook, Rick; ” ae Uncle Nat here Poniced his eye
mysteriously.
« And what is this mast?” asked Ralph, pointing to a stout mast
coming down through the cabin.
“That is the mizzen mast, boys. You must learn the names of the
masts. This is the mizzen mast toward the stern, and then comes a
mainmast; and the one toward the bows is the foremast. And now —
Uncle Nat here went to a door in the corner of the cabin, and opening
it, added: “Do you want to see our pantry? Below, you see lockers
where we stow our stores, canned goods, and so on. Above, are shelves
for the crockery; and you see we have to fence it in, like the dishes on
the table. We hang our mugs on that row of hooks along the edges
of the shelves. In that corner, you see a cupboard. Now, instead of
looking at dishes, you shall have what goes in the dishes;” and Uncle
Nat led them out into the cabin, where dinner was now ready.
Every hour the Antelope was making good progress.
“‘She is stretching her legs,” said Uncle Nat.
“Only instead of putting her legs down into the water, she puts
them up into the air, and goes that way,” replied Rick.
Every hour he grew more and more fond of the ship; patting the
vessel’s side that afternoon, he whispered, “Dear old Antelope!”
Feet up-or feet down, the Antelope seemed to sniff the cool sea-
breezes blowing across the water, and raced still harder.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE WIDE SEA.
ALPH and Rick —
poth had a touch
of sea-sickness; and
Ralph said he felt as
if the Antelope were in-
side of him, tossing and
pitching, rather than
outside. But the at-
tack soon passed away.
eS | Rick set out on an ex-
ii
ae
ploring expedition, and
.
i A :
a \\\\ | to hunt up the sailors’
quarters. They were
this time he proceeded
in the “forward house,”
near the bows of the
vessel, and correspond-
ing with the cabin.
““ What’s here?” ask-
ed Rick, spying a door
“ON A HOGSHEAD, TO SEE ME OFF.”
open.
He put in his head, and saw the quarters fitted up for the officers,
251
252 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
resembling the state-rooms in the cabin, but fitted in plainer style.
“ And what next?” asked the explorer.
In the rear of the officers’ quarters were open doors, from which
escaped a warm savory smell; and while the ever-hungry Rick was
enjoying it, a dark face suddenly popped out. Popping out, it then
popped in again, as if the owner had taken a sudden look at sea and
sky to ascertain the weather, and then had retired to private life again.
Tt was a funny head; both black and bald, save where two little woolly
knobs of white hair projected back of the ears.
“That must be ‘Old Bumble-bee,’ the cook,” thought Rick; and he
retreated. :
The cook’s real name was Solomon Bumble; but the crew preferred
to call him “Old Bumble-bee.”
“You can launch that name easier than t’other,’
)
explained Jack
Bobstay to the boys; then he said in a whisper, “Jt is also in accord-
ance with the facts; for the old cook has a stinger, which he knows
how to use.”
Uncle Nat had also told the boys that the cook was “a bit testy,”
and he would not keep him, “but ‘Old Bumble-bee’ gets nice messes
for the table; andthen you see, boys, we have to put up with some-
thing in everybody, and with a good deal in ourselves, which I some-
times forget; but I certamly want to remember it.”
The cook having once examined the sea and sky, had now put his
head out again. Giving one look at Rick, he retreated into his palace
a second time, shutting the door. Rick now went to find Jack
Bobstay.
«And is Boson glad to be at sea again?” asked the old tar.
‘Oh yes.”
“T remember my going off in a ship my first voyage. My aunt was
there, and she stood her younger son on a hogshead to see me off. I
THE WIDE SEA. 253
can see him waving his hat now. Are you goin’ to make a sailor?”
“T don’t know.”
_ Judging by appearances, it would seem as if Rick intended to be
a cook, so persistently did he haunt “Bumble-bee’s” quarters, trying
to get in.
“Jolly!” thought Rick the next day; “that door is open ;” and into
the mysterious sanctum he triumphantly stole. “Now I am going to
see what things are like in such aplace. Long and narrow; but then,
it must be snug and warm, on a cold day. Two doors too; one on
each side.”
Rick continued to look about and talk to himself.
“Here is the stove; and what a-big black one! It has got an iron
railing all round the top; that’s to keep the pots and kettles from
sliding off. And there’s a sink next the range, where ‘Bumble-bee’
must wash his dishes; and on the other side there seems to be a locker
9
for dishes and so on;” and he opened the door and peeped in. “ Oh,
there’s a seat opposite the range, where a fellow can sit down. And
here’s a door open. What’s here?”
It was a smoky little room, on the same side of this retreat as the
seat, and it contained a single berth, whose bedding testified to long
and frequent occupancy. Here, Rick heard a footstep approaching.
“Which door shall I run out of? I guess I will take this one,”
and out he popped into “ Bumble-bee’s” arms! The meeting was very
affectionate at first, but “Old Bumble-bee” recoiled.
Rick then saw that he was smoking — vigorously smoking —and it
seemed as if the cloud of smoke rolling up from his pipe had whitened
his knobs of hair.
“Ugh!” he growled; “I don’t ‘low nobody in dar, ’cept de cap'n
orders it.”
Rick humbly retreated.
254 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
en
to let the boy stay.
“T must be gwine
now, and lock up!”
“T am hungry,”
said Rick pitifully.
“You must wait
for your supper.”
“Don’t you have
anything left over
when we have eaten
dinner ?””
“T gibes it to de
fishes ; dat. is, de leay-
in’s.”
That closed the last
| H “Sides, it will be gettin’ hot 7
in here and might roast ye.”
: | “Oh, I can stand considera-
i ble, Mr. — Mr. — Bumble-bee.”
eu Rick, in his anxiety to “ mis-
ter” the cook, had forgotten to
call him by his right name.
“Who tole ye to call me
dat way?” he asked testily.
“Oh —TI mean Mr. Bumble.”
tH “Dat sounds more ’spectful.”
ac
a
a
aM
LH Bumble-bee, though propi-
tiated, did not feel inclined
1
4
x i
a A ++]
e UA TEE
= La]
a +E
ss
a
Zz
Q
oO 1
z
ical TH
= i
& Hi
3
By
wn
a 2S
e a
5 (@® 1
a \
2
TUN To ae
door of hope, and Rick moved out of Bumble
THE WIDE SEA. 258
bee’s dingy palace, and began an investigation in the unvisited portion
of the forward house. To the explorer’s delight, he found an open
door near the bows of the vessel.
“Tt must be the forecastle,” exclaimed Rick; and he thrust in
his inquisitive head. “Who is that so chunky sitting on a chest?”
he thought.
The “chunky” sailor turned and sang out merrily, “Ho! Boson, you
bere?”
“And you here, Mr. Bobstay ?”
“Of course. Come in and see Old Neptin in th» forec’stle.”
“This is the for- for - castle ?”
“Yes; don’t you see the sleeping-places ?”
There were twelve berths round the dusky little hole.
“Well, where do you sit? Don’t you have chairs?”
“ Saltpetre! what a boson. We sit on these ere kids,” and Jack
slapped the battered blue chest he occupied.
Rick saw three little windows, admitting a kind of twilight into
the forecastle ; and a funnel-hole above showed that a stove had been
there some time.
“And this is all?” asked Rick.
“All? Yes; did you expect more?”
Rick did not answer, but inquired for Siah.
“Siah? There is his berth, but I don’t know where the occupant
is.”
Rick here took out of his pocket a brilliant little picture of a forest
in autumn, and pinned it to the dingy wail.
“.There! Doesn’t that look better?”
“Boson goin’ to brighten and fix up this old hole?” Jack Bobstay
laughed at the idea. Those dirty walls, the blackened funnel-hole,
the disorderly berths, did seem so forlorn!
CHAPTER XXVII.
MAN AT THE WHEEL AND MAN IN THE MOON.
HO is that steering?” asked Rick one morn-
ing, catching a ees of a man’s head aft
of the cabin.
“He is the man at the wheel,” said Ralph in
tones of pride at his vast nautical information.
“No, it ain’t. It is Jack Bobstay.”
That magical name started up both of the
boys, and they flew along, taking different
sides of the ship, aiming, though, at the
===. same beloved object, Jack Bobstay, and
colliding with him in a style of so much
THE CHRONOMETER, wheel’? was almost knocked over.
emphatic affection that “the man at the
“Come, youngsters,” roared Jack good-naturedly, “you are wuss
than a squall of wind in the Bay of Biscay.”
“ Fixcuse us,” said Ralph. “We were in a hurry to get to you.”
“Good deal of the gentleman about them rough-and-tumble
youngsters,” thought Jack. )
_ “What’s this?” asked Rick, eying sone ae he did not understand.
It was a case fastened to the cabin-wall, and divided into lzttle
compartments. In one was a clock; in a second, a lamp; and in a
third, a compass.
256
MAN AT THE WHEEL AND MAN IN THE MOON. 257
“What is that? The binnacle, we call it. It is handy, you know,
when you are steerin’, night as well as day.”
‘“ But I should think the sea in a gale of wind would wash into
those places and break the things.”
‘Oh, there are little wooden slides—don’t you see em? We clap
"em right over the binnacle, and she’s tight asa ship right after the
ealkin’ and paintin.” Then you see that bell next you? Right over
the binnacle, I mean ; and you sometimes hear it a-goin’. Jam the one
when steerin’ to watch the clock, and strike the —”
“Oh I know what that is,’ said Ralph, anxious to show that he
did know some things. “And I’ve seen a chromo —”
“A chromo? Them were very fashionable last time I was at home.”
“I mean Uncle Nat’s chromom—”
“Oh chronometer! Yes, yes, you're right,” said Jack, kindly.
“ And Uncle Nat said he’d show it about this time,” affirmed Ralph,
rather glad to retreat, and take with him his chagrin at his mistake.
A rush for Uncle Nat was now made by Rogers brothers, and they found
him in the cabin bending over his chronometer. )
“Oh boys, you here? I believe,” he said, raising his eves to the
clock, “I said I would show you my chronometer about this time.”
“Why, it is a big watch, uncle?”
“Yes, Ralph, only it keeps time much better than watches generally.
Great pains are taken with it, and the intention is to have it as
perfect as possible. You see it is put in a good, first-class box, and no
matter how much the ship rolls, the chronometer is set so as always
to stay level.”
Having seen Uncle Nat’s “chromo,” Ralph was now anxious to see
his spy-glass, and Uncle Nat very obligingly produced the shi\’s glass.
“Don’t you remember what you told us about the sun, when we
were in the steamer?”
258 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Yes; Ralph.”
“Well, I would like a good chance to see the moon through a big
glass.”
“T hope you may have as good a one as I had once.”
‘How did the moon look, uncle?” —
“Tt looked very rough, Ralph,forthere were spots all over it, and
some were bright and some were dark. It was once thought that
the shady spots were water, and names. were given accordingly;
one was called the Sea of Tranquility, for example. But those seas
seem to have all dried up now, or gone somewhere, for astronomers
have come to the conclusion that they are not seas, but great level
tracts, and the bright spots are mountains, because in the sunlight
they cast a shadow as a mountain would. I havea book,” said Uncle
Nat rising, “that gives you a picture of the surface of the moon.
Here it is; I’ve found it. See the mountains, how sharp some of
their tops are, and others are round and seem to be hcellow.”
“Why, uncle, they look like a volcanic country in winter.”
“Well, they are considered to be dead volcanoes. There is one
moon-volcano whose crater is over fifty miles across, and its sides
run up eleven thousand feet. You said ‘a volcanic country in winter,’
and that is what I guess the moon is; a kind of white, wintry icicle.”
“A cold place for the man in the moon,” said Rick.
“But splendid when the sun lights it up,” rejoined Ralph.
“How do you know, Ralph,” asked Rick, “that the sun lights it
up?”
“Guess I know what I’m taught at school, sir,” said Ralph proudly.
‘“‘Here, boys,” asked Uncle Nat, anxious to ward off discussions
about the cold moon, knowing them sometimes to be very hot,
“wouldn't you like to look through a glass big enough to show
you the moon like that?”
SS sss
A VOLCANIC COUNTRY IN WINTER. 259
MAN AT THE WHEEL AND. MAN IN THE MOON. 261
“Where could we find it?” asked Rick.
A call for the “cap’n” came from “Bumble-bee.”
“Boys, I will tell you about telescopes to-morrow,” said Unele
- Nat.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ABOUT TELESCOPES.
aes next day Uncle Nat
told the boys about
telescopes.
“There is a very fine
one at Cambridge, in Mas-
sachusetts. The object-
glass, and that is the
glass at the telescope-end,
next to the object looked
at, measures fifteen inches
|. across. Here is a picture
of it. You see that the
roof over it is shaped like
a dome, and a hole in the
dome allows any observer
to point this telescope at
the heavens. Then the
dome is made to turn by
TELESCOPE AT CAMBRIDGE, U. S.
means of machinery, so
that the telescope can be pointed at different parts of the sky.
Look at the chair, too, where the man sits; for that can be moved
about on rails you see encircling the telescope, and there is a con-
262
ABOUT TELESCOPES. \ 263
trivance for lifting or lowering the chair. There is a telescope in
Washington that has an object-glass measuring twenty-six inches
in diameter.”
Rick thought it would be nice sometime to slip down from Concord
and ride in that “cunning chair” at Cambridge, while Ralph inquired
how they could “keep a telescope i
from wriggling.”
“They are very particular
about the. support of the
telescope,” said Uncle Nat.
“In observatories often,
_ the telescope rests on a Me Me
solid tower built up from (!''/
the ground. That makes |
it very steady. If resting |
on the floor of a building,
it would shake with the
building. When a man is
AEE Etat,
TUTATCUVUE)
mma EN til
ce mt
Il
looking at a star, he can
not bear to have the tele-
scope jarred in the least.
One of the planets’ is
Saturn, and you do not
know what a beautiful . =
object it is when seen
through a telescope of
good magnifying powers.
ee
—
Soy
TELESCOPE AT WASHINGTON.
I will tell you about it sometime when I have a good chance.”
After this talk with the boys, Uncle Nat went out to promenade
the deck with them. When they had strolled as far as the fore-
264 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
castle, seemg Jack Bobstay in the door, mending his pants, they
stopped for a little chat. ‘‘ Have you seen the latest improvement,
sir!”
“No, I haven’t, Jack.”
Jack pointed out Rick’s autumn-picture on the wall.
“You don’t know how that brightens things, cap’n.”
“Y-e-s,” said Uncle Nat, as if occupied with other thoughts. He
was saying to himself: “Tf my nephew is doing something here, why
doesn’t the uncle ?” .
“Jack, this for’c’stle looks dirty, and I wonder if we can’t fix it
up? How would an oil-cloth look on the floor—bright and prety?
Would the men like it?”
“Like it! I guess so; and I believe it would set us to improving
the place all we could.”
“T would paint it, but it would make a dirty job for you now.
I might touch it a little overhead’””— and he looked at the dirty
funnel-hole —“‘and when in port we will paint it gay.”
“Cap'n, we will have a ‘For’c’stle Improvement Society,’ and do.
our best, sir.”
The crew took a great interest in the plan. The floor was scrubbed,
bunks were scrubbed, walls were scrubbed; the captain sent a few
pictures from a lot he had in his stateroom, adding the oil-cloth
for the floor, and a paint-brush, “to touch up here and there,” and
putting in a cushioned settee, also.
“Amazin’,” soliloquized Jack Bobstay, as he faced Rick’s picture,
“what a little beginnin’ may lead to, and especially a beginnin’ | by
a child.”
Uncle Nat was a Christian by name and at heart. He believed
in treating, a sailor as a man, and tried to sail his ship by the chart
of -the Golden Rule. Some sailors tried to take advantage
ABOUT TELESCOPES. 265
of this, but, as Jack said, “he was a cap’n, while a Christian.”
. “The cap’n’s hand is on the helm, and he has a knack at makin’
a feller feel it; but he will do it in a gentlemanly way,” said Jack.
Uncle Nat was particular to keep Sunday on board his ship, and
he believed it had a good effect on the men. Every man off duty
was expected to attend morning service in the cabin. Assisted by
the doctor, Uncle Nat read certain portions of the prayer-book, the
men responding and joming in the singing.
“Rick and I have joined the choir,” Ralph wrote home after their
first Sunday. eh
That first Sunday! It was a day of much beauty; and after the
service, it seemed to Doctor Walton’s reverent nature as if the many,
many waves smiting together their restless tops, and the wind
humming, whistling, roarmg through the rigging, were all lifting
up their voices to God in one grand chorus, of praise.
WHAT THE WAVES COVER!
CHAPTER XXIX.
CORAL ISLANDS AND CORAL.
HE voyage
before the
Antelope was not
to be a short one.
Uncle Nat said,
“We are going
to Australia, but
New Zealand is
the land first to
be visited.”
Day after day
they sailed in a
south-easterly di-
rection, passing
island after island
that gemmed the
Pacific. Some-
times they came
quite near some
coast of green
swelling out of
the water, only to subside again, and then melt like a gem of
266
CORAL ISLANDS AND CORAL. 267
emerald in a dissolving sea. Rick was puzzled about the equator.
“Won't we find it hot when we cross the equator, Uncle Nat?”
“Oh, perhaps not. The sun may be clouded, you know. What
do you think the equator is, a kind of red hot line stretching through
the water, and sizzling all the way, Rick?”
Rick could not say.
When his uncle told him one morning that they had crossed the
equator, he felt quite disturbed to think he had been ignorant of it,
and that the event had passed off so quietly.
“We did not melt, surely,” said Uncle Nat; “and on the other hand
-we had quite a cool wind to keep us company.”
How the wind did blow a few days after that! Siah had occasion ~
to remember the uneasy sea that
came with it. He had been assist-
ing Bumble-bee, who was getting
up a special dinner—a chowder.
Rick took a fancy to it, and as he
said he could not wait for dinner,
being “awful hungry,” Siah with
the air of a grandpa, had told
him: “Chile, you shall have a
bowlful forehand.” = -
He filled a bowl and started
for the cabin. On the way he
heard Bumble-bee’s voice calling
him back. Settimg his bowl on a
little shelf outside the forward
house, and sniffing at its contents, he began talking to -himself:
“SUTHIN’S COMIN”? — AND SUTHIN’ CAME.
“Jes say to de cap’n dar’s suthin’ nice comin’ to-day, Siah.”
“Suthin’ -nice comin’,” he repeated, and was about reaching
\
268 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
up his hand after the bowl. At that moment the sea. gave an extra
pitch, and, as he was saying again, “ suthin’ nice comin’,” down tumbled
the bowl of chowder! Siah saw it on its way, and turning round
tried to dodge it, only to catch its contents on his dark Wc: now
covered with a savory but unwelcome cap.
“ Anybody lookin’ ?” thought Siah.
There was a roar from three or four dark woollen shirts near the
forecastle, and Siah was glad to steal away and wipe in secret the
new kind of hair-oil from his head.
That day Ralph and Rick both declared to Jack Bobstay that
they saw “ bushes” off in the water.
“ Bushes, boys! Those are coral’ islands.”
“Oh, tell us about them.”
“Well, I have been on them, and so know something about them ;
but if you want a full account, sure and reliable, you go to the
cap'n.”
Uncle Nat acceded to the boys’ request fcr mformation; and that
afternoon they were all upon the quarter-deck, ready to take up the
interesting subject of coral and coral islands.
“May I not get Siah, uncle?”
“Yes, Rick, if he is off duty.”
“ And may I come too?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, certainly.”
The captain was soon ringed by a circle of listeners, and no one
was, more attentive than Siah, who regarded Uncle Nat’s head as
a kind of book-case packed with volumes.
“You want to know something about these coral islands we occa-
sionally pass. Let us then begin with the coral itself.
“To produce coral a little animal is at. work, called a poly: a tic”
creature. having a mouth, having also a stomach, and that 1s apovt
CORAL ISLANDS AND C ORAL. 269
all there is to it. Around this mouth are long little feelers or tentacles
that play in and out, taking up and then expelling the matter. The
sea water leaves behind its caleareous or limy matter, which is de-
posited in very thin strips in the sack or body. The lime-matter left
behind is the coral which keeps increasing as the polyp begets children
‘in the form of buds; for these develop into coral-making factories,
and go to work very soon.
“The coral-buds are sometimes sprouted sidewise, and then the
coral branches out like a tree; or the polyps may take a notion to
arrange themselves so as to form a convex surface, and keep growing
that way, in which case you have a kind of dome. Coral is very
beautiful in some of its colors and shapes. Its forms have been likened
to fans and even flowers, but the gardens that these bloom in are at the
bottom of the sea. Sometimes coral is shaped like a vase covered with
a flower-like growth.”
The captain paused. :
“ Well,” said Siah, who was quite a utilitarian, “ these are pretty; but
what good do dey do?”
“In various ways they are useful, and here is one: What we call
carbonic acid in the atmosphere is very essential, but it may be ex-
cessive, and so the plants, trees, gardens and forests take it up. This
carbonic acid is in the‘rivers in the form of lime-salts, and that too
much may not get into the sea, it is thought that the little polyp has
its mission; taking up the limy water and retaining the lime as coral.
That, though, is only an opinion.” |
“And then they build islands, uncle, don’t they? They are useful
that way.”
“Yes, many islands and reefs are built in that way. Off Australia is a
reef with occasional gaps, over one thousand miles long. Some are ring-
like, and the people of the Maldive Islands call them atolls. Matter will
270 - ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
collect on this coral-ring, seed and soil finally gathering there, and the
next thing to. be seen isa cocoa-nut tree; and then by and by a whole
grove is there. Outside these atolls roll the breakers, rushing violently
up the beach of powdered white coral; but within the atoll, the water is
smooth and placid. The color of the inside water is that of a bright
green.”
“Sea-water! How can de sea-water get in? To le corals leab a
door open in de ring?” inquired Siah.
“ There is generally an entrance to these atolls, rings or lagoons, as
oe
A LAGGON.
they also are sometimes called, the water flowing in and out; and as the
entrance is on the leeward side, it is a smooth one. Whethersthe polyps
leave that gate open, I can’t say. It has been thought that they build
on the tops of sunken land, hills and the like, and the opening is that
natural one where the water among the hills once found its way out,
and the ocean-tides now keep it open. The polyps can not work at a
CORAL ISLANDS AND CORAL. “73
point deeper than twenty or thirty fathoms beneath the surface of the
water, but on the eminences of this sunken land they can easily build.
When the land sinks still further, it carries the coral formation down to
depths below the point where the animal can work; and this explains
why his work is found so far below the ocean’s surface.”
“How is it,” inquired the sagacious Siah, “dat de openin’s ’mong de
hills fur de scape ob de water should always be on de leeward side?”
?
“You must not ask too many questions,” said Uncle Nat laughing.
“They will upset any theory.”
In the consciousness of an increase of knowledge, Siah had a new
strut all that day. He took it upon himself to attempt the enlighten-
ment of Bumble-bee, who rewarded him by saying that he had never
heard “sich a mess of nonsense in all his life. Dose polypusses de
cap’n tole about, is jest childish! Coral grows kase — it do! ”
Siah only wished that he had the books out of which he could confute
the ignorant Bumble-bee.
“Ef I could only read,” he sighed to Ralph in secret.
“Can’t you read?”
Siah shook his head.
“Don’t you know your letters?”
“Only as fur as pot-hooks,” and there came another mournful, de-
‘spairing shake. ‘
“ Pot-hooks? What letter is that, s?”
Siah nodded. .
“Tl put you through, Siah, and don’t you worry.”
Within twenty-four hours Siah was master of the alphabet. Ho
then prepared himseli to take up a-b, ab, and a-p, ap, declaring thai
he felt as proud as his cousin John C. Fremont, when some
“pusson at a ball stuck two posies into his hair.”
Very soon Siah learned something else. He was near the boys
272 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS,
and Uncle Nat one evening, when Ralph exclaimed, “Do you
remember you said something about Saturn one day, when talking
about telescopes, and said it was a beautiful
object seen through a telescope?”
“Yes, and I promised to tell you about
it. Do you want to see a picture of Saturn?”
“Tf you please.” ;
Uncle Nat brought a book from his state-
room and showed the famous planet to the
young people.
“There,” he said, “if you can, imagine a
body in volume seven hundred times
larger than the earth, encircled by
such rings. You see that there are
three; but the mnermost can only
be seen through a telescope of great
magnifying powers. ‘These rings are
regular in form, being concentric,
or, having the same centre., You can
imagine how magnificent — to a Sa- Seago aN:
turnian — must seem those vast arches sweeping above the planet. Then
Saturn has eight satellites or moons, the largest compaing with mercury
in size. Light up the arches, kindle up the moons, and the heavens to
a Saturnian must be marvelously grand.”
The party now left the cabin, when Rick ‘said, “Oh, see that.
shooting star!”
It flashed downward like an arrow of fire, quenched at last in
the sea. y
“Where do they come from, uncle?”
“That is a question, Rick. Once people said they came from
CORAL ISLANDS AND CORAL. 273
the moon — out Of its volcanoes; but now the theory is that millions
of these fragmei ts are journeying about the sun, and sometimes the
earth cuts across
their path, and
then they come
showering down
through-the air.
In November
and August —
toward the mid-
dle—we see
more of them.
Sometimes they
burst, and their
fragments. are
scattered upon
the earth. You
will see accounts
in the papers of
meteors that
have struck the
earth and been
picked up. They
have been found
weighing over
one thousand
pounds in this
country, and a
large one is in
the Smithsonian
THE FAMOUS PLANET.
274. ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
Institute at Washington. South America boasts of one exceeding
all others in weight.”
«What is in them?”
“What are they composed of? Iron, mostly, nickle coming next;
phosphorus also, and other substances. They were known in ancient
times. Pliny speaks of one big as a wagon.”
«How big was de wagon?” .
*Siah, you ask too many questions.” —
“What do they call shooting stars, uncle?”
“ Meteors; meaning, in the air; or aerolites, air stones; or bolides,
meaning things thrown — balls.”
Siah told Bumble-bee all about this wonderful subject. He was
disgusted, especially with the new names.
“Eber since I was a boy, dey call dem shootin’ stars; a plain
name, and well known in de fust circles. What was the cap’n’s
last name?”
“ Bald — bald — bald-di-dese, I b’lieve.”
And Bumble-bee was still more disgusted.
CHAPTER XXX,
NEW ZEALAND.
HEY were now
sailing near
the coasts of New
Zealand, which rose
in slopes of soft
azure ‘above the
rolling waters of
the Southern Pa-
cific.
“ Boys,” said Un-
cle Nat, “I have
something to pro-
pose. There are
books enough in
the cabin to help
you. I want that
you should learn
all you can about
Australia and New
Zealand. § Ralph,
you may take New
Zealand, and at
another time Rick may tell about Australia — write up an article, boys!”
275
276 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
For these important papers, there was a good deal of preparation,
and for several mornings the boys’ heads were almost hidden behind
barricades of books. There was great interest manifested in the reading
of Ralph’s article, which antedated Risk’s production a number of
weeks :
“ The first European who visited New Zealand, was Skipper Tasman in 1642,
and being a loving Dutchman, he gave the place a name after a district at
home. It now belongs to England. The principal islands in New Zealand are
Stewart’s, South or Middle, and North. We are going to the North Island, and
hope soon to anchor in Auckland karbor. Im all, there are as many as a
hundred thousand spare —I mean square miles in New Zealand, and it would
take a line eleven hundred miles long to measure from one tip of New Zealand
to the other, and one of three thousand one hundred and twenty miles, to go
round the coast. It is not so very wide—the greatest width at any point
being two hundred and fifty miles. Next to Concord, it must be a pleasant
place to live in; for the thermometer doesn’t go up so very much in summer,
or so far down in winter, but stays about where one would like to have it.
When we have our winter, they are having their summer. Their winter
starts in June, their spring in September, their summer in December, and
autumn in March. That is a kind of turning of things upside down.
“Jack Bobstay who has been in New Zealand says there is fine land, big
forests, and lots of volcanoes; and some volcanoes that still spit fire. There are
springs, too, that spout hot water. There is gold, and there are lots of coal,
and there must be a half a million of people, and any quantity of sheep.
“The first inhabitants are called Maoris, and they have been a pretty rough
set, and are mostly in North Island. They did like to make themselves
hideous in war by tattooing; but tattooing is going out of fashion. Capt. Cook
did a good thing for the people by bringing here various vegetables, and among
them was the potato. He let loose some pigs, also, so that the New Zeal:
anders have plenty of pork, and as it runs wild in the forest, a man can get it
for nothing, provided he can shoot it.. I think Jack Bobstay is right when he
says New Zealand has a future before it.”
CORAL ISLANDS AND CORAL. 297
A good word was said for Ralph’s effort, “for,” said Uncle Nat, “ it
is in a nutshell, and you can pick out the meat quick. I think, myself,
that New Zealand has a fine future before it, as you say Jack Bobstay
believes.” |
“Yes, uncle, Jack Bobstay has been round a good deal, and has a
pretty good knowledge of things.”
The boys were always ready to say a good word for the honored
Bobstay. |
“Tf he had only had a chance, uncle,” said Rick, “he might have
made something handsome.”
“ Well, that is true ; but if boys would only improve the chances they
do have, the world would fare better.”
Jack always had a yarn ready for the boys. He told them that very
day about “touching up” the British Lion when in an English port.
“Tt fell to me, boys, to paint round the bows of the ship, the figure-
head, and so on. I tell you, youngsters, being a Yankee tar, I painted
that lion faithfully, and I couldn’t help putting a streak into that lion’s
eye to represent a scratch from the American eagle. I don’t know as
it was just the thing, but then a man must be true to his country.”
CHAPTER XXXI.
AUCKLAND.
PLENDID!” said Uncle
Nat, and in the exact
sense of the word, was the
view splendid. A bright New
Zealand sun was shining down
on sea and land, as the An-
telope moved into Auckland
Harbor. A strong wind was
behind it, and before it were
the many little waves, each
foam-crested, as if they were
A MARINE FLOWER-POT.
hammocks of blue im which
white sea-gulls were sitting and swinging. On one side of the entrance
was Ranjitoto Island, lifting into the air three volcanic peaks, their con-
cial shapes suggesting three tents. On the other side was North Head,
carrying two more volcanic peaks. On either side was a deserted
encampment of fire-gods.
“ And that is Auckland, Uncle Nat?”
“Yes, Rick, that is Auckland ; and she is a beauty!”
The homes of almost thirty thousand people were massed on the
rising ground before them, while at its wharves tapered the masts of
vessels belonging to various nations. But Auckland is noticed in a
278
AUCKLAND. , 279
letter from Ralph to
Nurse Fennel. Hecom-
menced with a reference
to Uncle Nat, and the
information he gave his
nephews.
“You don’t know how
many things Uncle Nat
aud Dr. Walton tell ‘us
about. Uncle Nat tells
us more about the sea, and
Jast night he showed us
some queer but pretty
things in a picture book.
I shall have to go to the
‘book and get the name,
and here it is put down
as actinia or sea-anemone.
There isa kind of bag,
the bottom sticking to
the bed of the sea, and
then they keep what they
call tentacles shooting up
out of the mouth like
branches of a plant, and
the ® whole Uncle Nat
called a marine flower-p to
And if you will believe
it, what seem to be the
blossoms are the parts with which they seize their food. And Uncle Nat said
if they feel like walking, they upset themselves, stand on those long branches
or arms, and walk off!
a NVave NI ONIHLANV NVHL UYNOSANVH,, NVA V
280 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Then he showed us what he called a fan, and said it was handsomer than
anything in Japan. It is really a kind of jelly-fish, and it throws out long,
delicate tentacles. Uncle Nat says he has been in places where jelly-fish send
out a light; he calls it phosphorescence —a bard word—and it lights up the
waters in motion, and he has told breakers that way.
He says the sun-fish that
come ashore in Boston Harbor, after a storm, are relatives of the fan-fish.
“But there, I was going to tell you about Auckland. If you put on your
MEDUS OR JELLY-FISH.
specs, you will see
Auckland on the map,
in the northern part
of North Island, New
Zealand, and it is nice
to get among our.own
people again. This
city is in a very nar-
row part of theisland
—not more than six
miles wide—so that
the city has two har-
bors,. and two seas
come tumbling into
them. About a mile
from the city is Mt.
Eden. It used to
spit fire all the time,
auntie, but it is
plugged up now, and
quiet asa lamb. Un-
cle Nat took us in a
carriage to the foot
nf the mountain, where we got out, and then. climbed for about halt
1 hour to the top. It was a splendid view down on Auckland, then across
to the sea, and then off on the mountains.
They call the hole where the fires
AUCKLAND. 281
come out of the mountain, the crater — and we went down into it. Rick felt
round with his hands to see if he couldn’t find a warm place, for he told me
rao , “
\
wl
YOUNG JACK BOBSTAY.
he thought if we did we might get a crowbar and drive it down and see the
fire spout. Ain’t Rick a great boy? It was easier getting down into the crater
than up out of it.
282 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“There are some nice stores here in Auckland ; railroads that go off into the
country; gas lamps, paved streets, a botanical garden and the telegraph. It is
a smart, lively town, I think, and has some pretty places. The big Pacific
Mail steamers call here, so that itis quite handy, if you feel like coming out.
You know there is gold in New Zealand. They find it in places in the rocks,
and then they say there is gold on the sandy beaches, and the gold hunters are
called beach-combers, and they think the sea in storms brings the gold ashore,
but they say it really comes down the rivers, and so into the sea. I don’t care
where it comes from, if some would only get into my pocket.”
Ralph closed his letter affectionately, and then went off to find Jack
Bobstay.
“TI have just written a letter to my auntie, Mr. Bobstay,”
“ Your auntie?”
“She is not really, only our old nurse.”
“Tt is nice to have somebody you can call auntie, and I did have one
years ago.”
Then Jack told ae about his boyhood, and the fishing village
where he lived with an aunt. He told
about the bluffs back of the beach, what
he did, how he dressed, his boat, and his —
dog Fido. He did it so graphically that
Ralph seemed to see a boy in a boat grasp-
ing the oars, a dog at his feet, a coil of
rope behind him, while drawn up on the
shore were several fishing-boats.
“That was when I was young Bobstay,”
said the old tar, “and now I’m just old
: =e
OLD JACK BOBSTAY. Jack Bobstay. }
CHGAC DT a) op x Tels
THE MAORIS.
ho are those, uncle?” asked Rick.
Uncle Nat was riding out into the coun-
try with his nephews, accompanied bye Mr. Arden,
-a New Zealand acquaintance.
“Those, those are—” and Uncle Nat stopped.
“Those are Maoris,’ said Mr. Arden, answer-
ing for Uncle Nat.
“ Maoris? Oh, I remember Ralph told about
them,” added. Rick, “in his piece on New Zea-
land. They are the real natives.”
The men in this group of Maoris were stal-
wart and tall; a little darker than Spaniards.
Two women were with them, dressed in dirty calico
RICK.
gowns and wearing ornaments of green stone. The
hair of these women was curly and long, and their eyes black enough
to go on a blackberry bush. One held a pipe between her teeth,
and tattooes were on her face. During this visit the doctor had
taken out his pencil and sketching paper, and he began to draw
the face of the elder woman. But the subject of the sketch was
not pleased with it, and told the doctor the reason; because he
had omitted the tattooing on her face.
“Oh, is that it?” said the doctor. “I always mean to be ac-
283
284 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
A TRAP FOR THE SAVAGES.
commodating, and can easily fix this,”
and as he spoke, he made some ugly
gashes across the pencil-portrait, and it
greatly pleased the old lady.
“Do they live in a_ village?” asked
Ralph.
“Yes, villages after their fashion,” an-
swered Mr. Arden. “Some of the Maoris
have sheep-farms, and some are soldiers
or sailors, or traders or mechanics, for
they learn quite easily. They feel that
they must yield before the English. They
call the white man Pakéha, and they
have this verse about him: .
‘As the Pakéha fly has driven out the Maori
fly,
As the Pakéha grass has killed the Maori grass,
As the Pakéha rat has slain the Maori rat,
As the Pakéha clover has starved the Maori
fern,
So will the Pakéha destroy the Maori.’
“They say of the advance of the English,
‘Can you stay the surf which beats on
Wanganui shore?’”
“They are brave men and good fight-
ers,” said Ralph, who was proud of the
extensive knowledge of New Zealand affairs he had acquired.
“Oh, yes; “we English know that,” replied Mr. Arden readily.
“Tl tell you a good way to fix them!” How Rick’s eyes snapped.
THE MAORIS. 285
“You know—you know at home we had savages once; and a
man was out chopping wood one day, and he saw Indians coming — so
Nurse Fennel told me. He knew he must go with them as their
prisoner, but he first asked a favor. He was splittmg a log with
a wedge, and would they just put their hands imto the crack and
help pull open the log? They were very willing, and put their — their
hands in, and the man knocked the wedge out. Didn’t they yell
and kick!”
“Do you think that really happened, Rick?” asked the doctor.
“Well, Nurse Fennel said something like that did happen, and
she wouldn’t tell a lie.”
After the return of the party to the Antelope, Rick thought that
he had something of interest to say to Bumble-bee, the cook. He
was absent from the sacred kitchen, and Rick smelling a nice, savory
stew in the pot, ran a big long spoon down into it, and was ladling
out a generous taste, when he heard steps. Lookmg up, he saw
Bumble-bee coming.
“What yer-rup to here?” asked Bumble-bee.
Rick was silent, and clapped his spoon behind him.
«Ah, young man, I see de stew runnin’ out ob dat spoon “hind
ye. Dat’s. allers de way. Wrong doin’ leaves a tell-tale “hind it.
T’ll forgib you, but nebber forget dat a wrong will leave a track “hind
it dat will show you up some day.”
The moral was excellent, but Rick was too absorbed in watching
Bumble-bee to think of anything else. Bumble-bee’s eyes were
rolling, and his face twisting into queer grimaces.
“Booh!” exclaimed Rick, when he was safe outside, “I know what
Bumble-bee is; he’s a Maori!”
CHAPTER XXXIII,
THROUGH COOK’S STRAIT.
AILING away from
Auckland, the Ante-
lope was headed for Wel-
lington, the capital of
New Zealand; a hand-
some city on the south-
ern shore of North Is-
land. As they’ neared —
Wellington, Uncle Nat
said to the boys:
ONE PROOF THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND. “We are not only ap-
proaching the capital, but Port Nicholson also. I speak of it be-
cause I want to say something about the natives of this country. There
have been wars between them and the English, and the land-
question has been a bone of contention.
“In 1839 a vessel named the Tory arrived at Port Nicholson and a num-
ber of natives came on board. From the ship’s deck various headlands,
rivers and islands were pointed out, and the natives were asked if
they would sell them. They said yes; and in less than three months
a tract as big as Ireland was bought of the accommodating natives, and
many chiefs signed papers of sale, but only few understood. fully
what they were domg. About nine thousand pounds were paid away
286
THROUGH COOK’S STRAIT. 287
in goods. Some of the articles must have been extremely useful,
as among them were sixty red night-caps, and twelve sticks of sealing
wax, and twelve shaving brushes! If this is a specimen of the land
transactions, we don’t wonder that there has been trouble with the
natives. There is only one safe way to proceed in this world,
boys, and that is to be sure and start right; then, you may go ahead.”
The call of the Antelope at Wellington was very brief. A few
goods were left and a few received, and two passengers came ahoard.
Then, the Antelope lifted her white antlers again and bounded away
to sea. The passengers were ladies who had been teachers in New
Zealand, but now wished to return to their homes in America, and
for “ variety’s sake” preferred to go part of the way im a sailing vessel.
“What is the oldest one’s name?” asked Rick.
“Wayland; Miss Wayland, they call her,” said Ralph.
“And I heard Miss Wayland call the other Lissa, and Uncle
Nat called her also Miss Percy.”
“Yes, Miss Lissa Percy or Miss Me-lissa Percy,” said Ralph. “ That’s
the way she writes her name, for I saw it on a card.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if Uncle Nat should like Miss Wayland,
and the doctor like Miss Lissa Percy?”
These gentlemen were both bachelors, and Rick’s remark was
quite a blow to Ralph who had already taken a fancy to Miss Lissa.
Uncle Nat quickly found out that they were singers. He was
quite a musician himself, and he proposed the first evening of
the voyage that they have a sing together out upon the deck. There
stood Uncle Nat, playing away, his cheeks swollen to the size
of small bellows. The first mate, Jenks, held the lantern. The doctor,
. Miss Wayland and Miss Lissa were looking over a sheet of music,
while Gibbs, the second mate, stood in the rear and assisted in the
singing.
ALI ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
oa
28
«“Tet’s have a song of home; ‘Home Again,’ say,” said Uncle Nat.
«What's that?” thought Rick, who had retired to his elevated
berth, but was now awakened by the singing, and so thrust down
his head to ascertain the matter.
«What's that?” thought Ralph, who was in the lower berth; and
running out his inquisitive head, he thrust it up excitedly. The two
heads collided.
“Ow-w-w!” yelled Ralph.
“Ow-w-w!” yelled Rick. _
No bumping, though, could destroy their curiosity, and slipping on
their clothes they rushed eagerly out. Climbing up into the rigging,
they looked down upon the singers. i
“ Aim’t that nice, Rick. Miss Lissa is the best singer.”
“No; I like Miss Wayland.” 5
“She isn’t.”
“She is.”
“Isn't” and “Is” came pretty near quarreling up there in the rigging,
but the cessation of the singing removed the occasion of strife, and
the boys went back to their berths.
Said Uncle Nat at the breakfast table, the next morning, “It would
be nice to have a Mutual Improvement Society of some kind. Here
are the boys, and if we could have something for them, I know it
would work well; and it might instruct us all.”
Everybody applauded the idea.
“ What shall we call our society?” inquired Uncle Nat.
“Call it the Antelope Guild,” said Miss Lissa, “as guilds are very
fashionable.” ;
Ralph thought this name was very sensible.
“All right,” said Uncle Nat. “Perhaps Ralph will be secretary
and put up notices.”
A SONG OF HOME. 289
THROUGH COOK'S STRAIT. 2gt
And Rick, what would he do? He fairly itched to help.
“ T’'ll be —be ‘ saxton’!”
“Sexton?” said Miss Wayland; “TI hope you don’t want to bury us.”
«“[—J will fix the cabin, you know, and —and —”
“Oh, yes,” said Uncle Nat, coming to Rick’s help; “you can fix
up the cabin and show the audience in, and so on.”
That day there appeared on the outside of the cabin this notice:
Antelope Guild.
A meeting will be held to-morrow afternoon, in the cabin, at three o’clock,
and a lecture will be given on Capt. Cook. Everybody cordially invited.
RaueH RoceErs, Secretary.
Underneath soon was seen this P. S. in another hand:
_ Seats provided for all. Rick Rocesrs, “Saxton.”
The ship was passing through Cook’s Strait. It was a breezy day
and the Antelope sprang from billow to billow, leaving a big print
of foam wherever her feet touched the sea. The passengers gathered
in the cabin, and the sailors were also invited to come. Jack Bobstay
was off duty and was shown to a “front seat” by the “saxton.” Siah
was there, and so was Bumble-bee, who had washed up the dinner
dishes in a hurry, and then spent a couple of hours bedecking himself.
He came in a swallow-tail coat, and wore an enormous white bosom,
“bearin’ down upon the company like a whole flock of white sea-gulls,”
Jack Bobstay said.
Rick, Ralph and Siah were ‘leaning over the edge of the table, their
eyes intently fastened on the captain. .
“Captain Cook!” said Uncle Nat, clearing his throat. “There are
two things about Capt. Cook that it is worth while to remember” (here |
Uncle Nat looked down into the shining eyes of the young auditors):
“One of the two things is that Capt. Cook rose from a humble place to
292 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
be the able man he really was. In the year 1745, as I make it out, a
young fellow stepped on board an English collier at Whitby, and asked
for a position as cabin boy. Depend upon it, there were some hard
things and some menial things to be done, but you all know there is
a chance to get up from the hold of a ship to the mast-head, if one
is willing to climb; and so it is about the positions in all sea-service.
James Cook was the one to climb. I imagine that he was no loafer ;
that he was prompt and obedient, and that he was just the one to
be thoughtful and studious. Such a boy watching the tops of the
ships go down at sea, would be likely to infer it was one proof that
the world was round. I can easily imagine James Cook to be that kind
of a thinking lad. The cabin boy began to go up. He became a
mate and then a master.
- “Tn 1755, Cook entered the royal navy, still climbing up, climbing
up, just as when he was on board a collier. He was finally appointed
to the frigate Mercury, a vessel that took part in the expedition of
Gen. Wolfe to Quebec — is there a boy here who has not read that
story? James Cook piloted the fleet up the St. Lawrence, making
soundings, and setting buoys. He led the boats of the fleet to the
attack upon the French, and saw that the soldiers were successfully
landed. ;
“ Another thing for us all to remember is that James Cook never felt
that he was too old to learn. Stepping to a higher position, promoted
to the Northumberland flag-ship, how did he spend his leisure time —
smoking a dirty pipe, and sipping grog? Look into the cabin of the
Northumberland. 'There he is, bending over books on mathematics and
astronomy. One who studies about the sea, cannot well dispense with
a knowledge of the heavenly bodies. Take that question of the tides:
It is thought that the moon attracts and raises the water, producing
high tide, and when the sun and moon draw together — for the sun has
THROUGH COOK'S STRAIT. 293
an influence on the water — then we have our highest or spring tides —
the lowest be-
ing called neap-
tides, when sun
and moon do
not pull togeth-
er. This is all
based on the
principle that
one mass of
matter will at-
tract another.
The tides are
an illustration
of the connec-
tion between
studies of the
sea and astron-
‘“SHCIL AHL SNOISVOOO LVHM
omy.’ Cook
studied the sub-
ject of the hea-
venly bodies.
He made such
able observa-
tions on an
eclipse of the .
sun that he be-
came a marked
man. He also published a number of very valuable charts.
“Boys may think of Capt. Cook as only a kind of rough-and-ready
294 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
man, hot for adventure, but he was really a student and a man of
science. Consequently, when the Royal Society wished to obtain
observations on the passage of the planet Venus across the face of
the sun, Cook was picked out as the man to command a vessel that
would go to the Pacific ocean and visit parts favorable to an observation
‘of the sun. He sailed from Plymouth, England, in 1768. He ac-
quitted himself with great credit in that voyage. About this time
men were talking over the point, is there not some great southern
continent ? I suppose they thought the world might lose its balance
if there were not. something away down here at the south to balance
the heavy lands at the north.
“ After Capt. Cook and his companions had looked at the sun
all they cared to, they continued their voyage and came down here
to find a southern continent. Then it was that Capt. Cock visited
New Zealand, that had not had a visit from a European for over
a hundred years. He saw first this strait we are now sailing through.
He did not receive a very cordial welcome from the natives of New
Zealand, and it fearfully astonished them when one of their number
dropped dead at the firmg of a musket by an officer of Capt. Cook.
Fire-arms puzzled them.
“Capt. Cook visited Australia in 1770, examined a long piece
of its coast, and claimed it for Great Britain. He sailed on, meeting
with various adventures, reaching England once more. ‘The keel
of his ship had made a furrow of foam all round the world, but it
took three years to do it. Yet people were not satisfied; and to
learn finally if there might be a southern continent, Capt. Cook was
sent once more, when forty-four years old, to circumnavigate the
globe and find the southern continent. He made new discoveries, and
his two ships sailed over sixty thousand miles; but they did not find
the big southern land that was anticipated. In all that long voyage,
THROUGH COOK’S STRAIT. 295
so good was his management that Capt. Cook lost but one man
by sickness, and not even a spar of any special worth. The cabin
boy was now a famous man. He kept studying, however, for though
IN, COOK’S STRAIT.
one may be wiser than a whole family of owls, still there is always
something to learn.
“In 1776, he received a gold medal for a valuable essay. People, you
know, must always have a hobby. They now began to ask whether
they might not get to Asia by sailing to the northwest, and Capt. Cook
296 ALE ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
was thought to be the man to find out. The summer our country
declared its independence — when was that, boys?”
“1776,” said Ralph promptly.
“The summer of ’76, Capt. Cook sailed away again. I wonder it
‘ he thought he might
never come back. He
sailed away, resolved to
pierce the ice-land by
way of Behring’s straits.
He made a faithful
trial, but Jack Frost
finally drove him back.
That was in 1778, and
Capt. Cook named the
point he succeeded in
“WISER THAN A WHOLE FAMILY OF OWLS.” reaching, J oy Cape. In
the course of this voyage,
he had discovered the Sandwich Islands, and he now turned back to
these ; not to give up his attempt however, but only to get ready for
another northern voyage, which was like the cabin boy of old
days, who was bound to win if he could. He discovered a new island,
Hawaii. The inhabitants were thievish, and stole one “of Capt. Cook’s
boats. The captain naturally wished to get his own back again, and
concluded to steal their king, and then exchange a king for a boat,
which was doubtless all he was worth; but the course pursued was a
mistaken one. I do not believe in deceit. But the captain went
ashore and urged the king to visit his ship. The people suspected the
-captain’s motive, and urged the kmg not togo. The two parties began’
to quarrel. Capt. Cook insisted on taking the king, and the strife
became violent. The English discharged their muskets in response to
THROUGH COOK’S STRAST. 297
‘a shower of stones from the natives. Capt. Cook’s men escaped to
their boats, and as the captain also turned he was severely struck, and
fell into the water, his face downwards. Like tigers, the savages fell
upon him, trampling him down until dead. His body was terribly
mutilated, and only the bones could be found when his men afterwards
came ashore and by violence wrested the remains from the savages’
possession. In the blue sea he loved so fondly and sailed so persistently,
they laid away all that was left of the famous mariner. You will find
traces of him all over these Pacific seas.
“Tn New Zealand, down to the year 1836, the story of Capt. Cook’s
visit was preserved among the natives. They told Mr. Polack that
their fathers took the captain’s ship ‘at first for a gigantic bird, and
were struck with the beauty and size of its wings, as they supposed the
sails to be. But on seeing a smaller bird, unfledged, descending into
the water, and a number of parti-colored beings, apparently in human
shape, the bird was regarded as a houseful of divinities.’ They were
very much astonished. Then, too, the death of one of their number,
killed by a musket, and a great fighting man among them, was a deep
mystery. How could they obtain revenge on divinities that could kill
them at a distance ?
“Capt. Cook will long be sc enbered as a ceane navigator:
a.
suppose you boys have
ares
WIT)
seen an animal flying
from tree to tree, the
flymg phalanger, or,
generally called the
flying squirrel; it is
known as the flying
opossum also. It be-
longs to the marsu-
pial or pouch family,
LYRE-BIRD.
of which we have at
least one hundred and ten varieties in Australia. The flying squirrels
348 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
have a membrane of skin extending along the hind and fore legs, and it
4 FAMILIAR CREATURE.
keeps them up in the air
so that they can take long
leaps. There is our ‘laugh-
ing jackass,’ a bird that
makes a queer noise, and
is really the great kine-
fisher. They call it the
settler’s clock, for it cries
or brays at an early hour,
and at sunset.”
Ralph looked at Rick
and smiled, but the hero of
the kangaroo-hunt found
it convenient to be watching something overhead.
“Then there is the emu, a tall bird with long legs, and reminding you
of the ostrich; and there is the
black swan. The black swan
was thought by the ancients to
be an impossibility, but Australia
furnishes it. Then we have that
funny creature, which so puzzled
naturalists, the duck-billed ani-
mal, for it is an animal: the
platypus, it is sometimes called.
When it was first exhibited, it
was thought to be a manufac-
tured prodigy, but they might
have concluded that the animal
was none too queer for us. It is
THE BOWER-BIRD.
A QUEER COUNTRY. 349
often called the water-mole. It has a bill, as I said, but then, it is
not as with a bird, a part of the skel-
eton, for it is only attached to the skin
‘and muscles. It is a kind of cheat
that it hangs out. It can swim and
dive like a duck, or it can climb a
tree. It burrows under ground and
“sometimes for twenty or thirty feet,
the door being under water, and the
chamber for its nest is high up above
the water. A queer fellow and a cun-
ning one, too! Then we have a
big lizard down this way, the iguana.
I have shot ’em five feet long,
HAMMOCK-BIRD.
and in Queensland there are alligators. We have bats, a creature
familiar to you, parrots, eagles, magpies and so on. You ought to see
our lyre-bird — or lyre-
pheasant — and it is so-
called, because its tail-
feathers spread in the
form of a lyre. We have
plenty of snakes, and can
furnish any quantity of
insects. Our ants, we
think, are remarkable,
some being an inch long.
For an ant, the bull-ant
A BIG BIRD STALKING TOWARD HIM.
; is tremendous.
“We have not been satisfied, though, with what Australia can furnish,
and that alone, for we have been introducing foreign favorites — pigs,
SROs ALL ABOARD LOR SUNRISE LANDS.
deer, sheep, horses, cattle, thrushes, larks, and let me not forget the
sparrows. There, I almost forgot —”
Here Mr. Bright arose, and going to a book-shelf took down a
volume.
“T came pretty near forgetting some birds I wanted to show you
pictures of. We have about seven hundred kinds of birds in this
country, and I ought to tell you of one or two more.. There is the
bower-bird. The spotted variety build on the ground. Twigs are used,
outside, but within long grasses are so placed that their tops almost
touch. Then they ornament the ‘bower’ with bits of glass, shells and
other objects, sometimes using pebbles they have carried a great way.
There is the hammock-bird, its nest swinging from the twigs like a
hammock.”
Rick went to bed, his head full of birds, birds, birds. What wonder
that in a dream he saw a big bird stalking toward him! He was glad
to have a tall grass-blade, behind which he coula retreat. And even
then the winged creature threw a big eye rouna the corner and made
his hair stand on end,as she looked him out of countenance.
THROUGH THE WILDS OF AUSTRALIA,
TRADING WITH THE ABORIGINES.
CHAPTER XL.
THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA.
ARK! What is he saying?” asked Rick.
“That man talking to Uncle Nat?”
“Yes.” ,
“‘He’s telling about selling goods to the natives.”
“You see, cap’n,” said the man, “we traders can sell considerabie
to the aborigines, and I rather like the fun. We drive into their
country and peddle clothing, groceries or nicknacks out of our
teams.” . :
“Can’t I go, uncle?” asked Rick eagerly.
“ G) where?”
353
354 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
“Go to see the bore —bore—”
“‘ Aborigines,” said the elder brother.
“No, no; we must be going home. It is past Christmas now,”
replied Uncle Nat.
Yes, Christmas was over.
“ A year ago,” said Uncle Nat to the ae “T was in old England,
and we had snow enough for a good time snow-ballmg. I saw love-
making and snow-balling going on at the same time in a park. But
Christmas here! Has any one an iceberg they can rent to me for
a cool retreat?”
All the world over, whether the Christmas-star shines on fields
of green grass or fields of white snow; on waters that run warm
and sparkling to the sea, or rivers held fast in frosty chains, it is still
Christmas, —the blessed birthday of the Saviour. The Antelope Guild
passed a happy festival in Mclbourne, and soon after the Antelope
began a race over the waves to Hong Kong. Life on board ship
was all the more agreeable for the late interruption, and.it was pleas-
ant for Ralph and Rick to see once more each day the doctor, Misses
Wayland and Percy, Jack Bobstay and Siah. The Antelope Guild, too,
resumed its meetings, and at the first one the doctor was the lecturer.
“We only have a shght idea of Australia, by seeing it as it is
on the sea-board., What was farther back, embraced within its vast
coast-lines, was a mystery. and to some extent is a mystery still, but
daring explorers have been tempted into searching the interior, and
something has been ascertained about it Some explorers were success-
ful, and others failed. Pitiful cases of ill-suceess were those of
Leichhardt, who has not been heard from, and of Wills and Burke,
dvicg of starvation in the wilderness. Stuart succeeded in traversing
the country, and in his footsteps stretches the long telegraph wire,
binding also together the north and south coast of Australia, and
CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND. 355
THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA. 387
links the country to the outside world. To the east of the telegraph
wire is the larger part of that which is settled country. There are
fertile lands sweeping far away toward the east, but toward the
west is, ‘a great lone land,’ as described by an explorer — ‘a wilderness
interspersed with salt marshes and lakes, barren hills and spinifex
deserts.’ Across the lower part of this wild, unknown land, EHyre, ©
afterwards famous as a governor of Jamaica, resolved to make a
journey.
“In one place he came to an immense, swamp-like tract, its mud
covered with a thin coating of salt. They tried to get through it,
going six miles into this bog, but they came near sinking, and gave
up the effort. It was a terrible journey for man and horse. Once,
they had only three quarts of water to last six days, and part of
this evaporated, and part of it was spilled. A dew falling, Eyre
gathered up a little of the moisture on a sponge, and his black boys
took rags also and wiped up the dew. Hyre met with terrible ob-
stacles in the humanity that travelled with him, two proving to be
traitors, robbers and murderers, and he was finally left with a black
boy, his only companion in that terrible land. He pushed ahead,
though. His privations were great, but he persevered, reaching the
west coast. This indomitable spirit spent a year and more in this
effort. :
“In 1874, John Forrest started to lead a party across the wild, rough
interior. Leaving the western coast, for days and weeks they traversed
a fine, grassy country, but by and by they struck a dry, miserable
land, whose great production seemed to be spinifex, a coarse bush with
long, pointed leaves. The surface was frequently flat — one level mass
stretching faraway. Sand and rocks abounded. Water was the great
pressing want of the party. Sometimes they would find it in what
they termed ‘rock-holes,’ and then again these natural wells would be
358 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
empty. They dared not go back, for there was the same scarcity of
drink. < Spinifex everywhere,’ said Forrest; ‘a most fearful country.’
Tired, sore, their mouths parched, they found enough water in some
clay-holes to last about a night. Their rations needed replenishing.
What could they do in this emergency? At last the cheermg news |
came that water had been found five miles away, while red kangaroo,
one or two opossums, and other game, helped out their larder. So they
toiled on. A thousand miles from the settlements in West Australia,
KANGAROO AND BABY.
the prospect was no more cheering; still they pushed forward. They
had had occasional meetings with natives, one party being delighted to
find that two of Forrest’s men were black, and that their bodies also_
were marked, and that one had his nose bored! The explorers came
again to grassy country, and struck the river Marryatt. Their stock
ie
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA. 359
THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA, 361
of provisions was reduced to flour; but it was a sign that they were
gettimg near the end of their wearisome journey.
“Qne Sunday they looked up and saw a long, fine wire, stretching
away on poles. It was the telegraph! They swung their hats in the
air,and gave cheer after cheer! They followed the wire, and reached
a telegraph station, where they dined on roast beef and plum-pudding!
Forrest thinks he traversed an immense tract that never will be settled.
There are grassy patches, but too isolated for use. It is a wonder to
him that he got through at all, as a drought was drying up the country.
We comment by saying, We are not so sure about the correctness of
Forrest’s opinion concerning inner Australia. The gold veins of Australia
may ran up into the ‘lone land,’ and, if that be so, miners will hunt
thew out, and towns will be gathered there. We can but hope.”
CHAPTER XLI.
fm) one evening, “we shall see
e China.”
It was a beautiful ‘night. On
and on, across a sea of silver, sped
i! a)
Ae be
. vel
the Antelope. A glorious half-moon
tang in the sky. Did it mean fair
= fv. weather ?
' fi mb bic LW. Another day came. Would it
bring them to land?
“China! China, boys!” Uncle Nat sang out.
«Where ?” a
“ Away, away over there, Ralph. Come here and stand behind
this mizzen mast. Keep your eye a little to the right; don’t you
see a hump of blue away beyond the sea?”
“ As if a whale had stuck his back up there ?”
“'That’s the spot.”
“And that is China?”
“The Flowery Land, and nothing else, unless I am very muck
mistaken.”
“China! China!” shouted Ralph from the quarter-deck, and
362
CHINA AT LAST. 363
Rick, who was in the cabin below, came tumbling up and out, crying:
“ China! China!
Snapping crack-
ers!”
The boys stood
watching the little
hump of blue, as if
expecting every mo-
ment it might turn
into a Roman can-
dle or a rocket, and
out would burst pig-
tails and wooden
shoes and tea-
chests. But no such
explosion took
place. The little
hump was a fixt-
ure on the horizon,
gradually growing
larger and darker,
larger and darker,
and by and by there
was an unmistaka-
ble ridge of land
sloping up the west-
erm sky.
The breeze stiff-
ened, and the Antelope sped swiftly over the waters.
“We are bound for Hong Kong, Rick,” said Jack Bobstay a
ON AND ON, ACROSS A SEA OF STLVER.
.
364 ALI. ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
little later, “and we shall drop anchor in harbor "fore the sun sets.”
“Have you been there?” .
“Oh, yes,” said Jack with an air. of indifference, as if going to
Hong Kong fifty or sixty times in a year even, was a matter of
very little consequence. “To go to Hong Kong is gettin’ to be rather
comr.on nowadays,” affirmed this world-renowned traveller.
ho would have supposed such an amount of cosmopolitan experi-
ence was under the roof of that battered old tarpaulin? Uncle Nat
now approached.
“Hong Kong is an island, and not so very big, either. It is nine
miles long and from two to six wide. You will see that parts are
pretty high —eighteen hundred feet, at least, above the sea, and the
city of Victoria is hilly, as you will notice. The harbor has quite
a pretty entrance, and we will have a sail among some islands.”
The Antelope was hailed by a Chinese pilot-boat or sampan; the
home of the pilot and all his family.
“Me sailee up to Victoriee,’ said the pilot to Uncle Nat, and
he winked his dark eyes in a rapid, funny, good-humored way.
Coming to its moorings, the chain-cable of. the Antelope went clanking
into the water, and there, after a long race from Australia, the
vessel rested as if in the bottom of a deep cup, the hills all about
it. The boys looked off and saw Victoria, a city that had a European
look, sloping up a hill-side, street rising above street, like a succession
of terraces. There were steamers at their wharves, while around
the Antelope lay many sailing vessels at. anchor.
“What a funny ship that is, Uncle Nat?” said Ralph.
“That is a Chinese junk. You see what a high poop or stern she
has, and how they have built up her forecastle.”
“ Are those eyes?” said Rick, catching a look at her bow.
“Yes; they carry two big eyes.” |
CHINA AT LAST. "365
«So that they can see?”
“JT suppose so.”
The junk’s two big eyes amused Rick exceedingly.
As the sun went down behind the hills of Hong Kong, it seemud as
A CHINESE JUNK.
if on their summits a huge bonfire had been started, whose embers were
then scattered in glorious confusion by the Chinese boys, the light play-
ing through and over the broken clouds. Then the fire seemed to
descend from the western sky, and flashed again from the windows of
_ the city, tier of light succeeding tier of light. When the boys went to
sleep that night, they could hardly realize that they were in the China
366 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
they had read so much about; the land where the men wore long hair,
and braided it like women; the Jand where women hobbled about on
feet so funnily shaped ; the
land of fireworks and
kites; the land of the
mighty wall, and the land
of Aladdin and his won-
derful lamp. Rick in his
dreams that night thought
he was a stout Chinese
youth blessed with a pig-
tail and stealing up to a
shrine where burned the
mystic lamp.
Es Ae) f “ And now, boys,” said
g <6 ACR
cE RRR
Uncle Nat, “I am going
A CHINESE RICK AND THE LAMP.
; to Victoria, and you can
go with me. We will leave the doctor here with: the ladies.”
Dr. Walton seemed willing to stay behind and keep the ladies com-
pany, especially Miss Lissa. So Ralph judged.
“All ready, boys?” shouted Uncle Nat. “We will take a
sampan.”
There were plenty of sampan-proprietors about the ship that were
willing to take the party ashore, and the voyage was soon over.
When the boys stepped on land, Uncle Nat told them that they were
in Victoria— the great business centre of Hong Kong.
“T hope, boys,” said Uncle Nat, “I shall find in his office a man
whom I want to see.”
But the man was not in his office.
“He is at his house,” said the clerk.
CHINA AT LAST. 367
“Then we must go to his house,’ declared Uncle Nat; “and, boys,
don’t you want to ride in a sedan-chair?”
The boys were ready for any novel sort of a vehicle—a sedan-chair,
an elephant’s back, a camel’s hump, a balloon, or the tail of a
comet.
“Here, Rick; here, Ralph ; a chair for each of you! Pop in, boys;
pop quick!”
“See those girls!” said Ralph.
“Can’t stop to look at females now; pop in,” cried Uncle Nat,
and in they popped.
They found that a sedan-chair was a kind of box sporting a top,
and in the box was a caned seat. This odd style of vehicle was
suspended from two long poles that rested on the shoulders of two
bare-legged Chinamen wearing immense hats.
“When, boys, you want them to go faster, say ‘chop-chop!’ When
you want them to go slower, say ‘man-man!’ They will understand
you.” :
“ All right, uncle,” replied Rick.
In a few minutes Rick said mildly, “ Chop-chop.”
The bearers quickened their pace. Rick was as delighted as young
Phaeton when he drove the horses of the sun.
“ Chop-chop !”
They went faster.
“ Chop-chop !”
‘Once again they stepped more briskly.
“ Chop-chop !” »
Faster. —
“ Chop-chop !”
Faster yet.
*“‘ Halloo, there, Rick; say man-man!”
~
368 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
Tt was Uncle Nat bawling, but Rick no more heard him than the
hum of a fly a mile distant.
1?
“Chop-chop!” went Rick in unconscious response to the distant
fly-hum.
Faster.
“ Chop-chop ! ”
They were now turning a street corner, when, suddenly —was it an
elephant, a man-of-war, or a clap of thunder, that Rick’s bearers
had struck? They had abruptly come to a halt, and some others
in the opposite direction had concluded as suddenly to stop, and
there. was a good deal of Chinese jargon in the air. In the midst
‘of all this babel appeared a stout, red-faced old gentleman, bobbing
out of a sedan-chair and proclaiming in very vigorous and very in:
telligible English: “Somebody is a fool ! z
Added to this was the childish voice of Rick piping in high tones,
as he leaned forward: “I beg pardon, sir! My men didn’t know
you were in the way.”
“Your men,” replied the old gentleman ; “if a man had been inside
that concern of yours, this collision wouldn’t have happened.”
There now appeared on the scene Uncle Nat, who had been bawling
himself hoarse as he shouted “ man-man!” to Rick’s enterprising team.
“Rick, what are you up to? Oh, Mr. Wadham, is this you?” he
continued, addressing the old gentleman whose chair had been run
into. “We were going up to your house.”
“Well, sir, a few minutes ago I didn’t know as I should ever “see
home again. But who—who—” here the old gentleman rubbed
his eyes. “Bless me, who is this? Why, Capt. Stevens, how are
32
you? Come right up to my house;” and the old gentleman grabbing
Uncle Nat’s hand,-began to work it up and down as if a pune tends
and he were trying to fetch water.
i
A
ii
i
OUT-DOOR SCENES IN CHINA.
CHINA AT LAST. 371
“Thank you, Mr. Wadham. We shall be right glad to go. And
I hope you will excuse my nephew Rick. Rick, why didn’t you
stop when I called ‘man-man’ to you?”
“J didn’t hear you, uncle, and they seemed willing to go.”
“ Willing!” observed the old gentleman. ‘Those boobies are glad
enough to get a foreigner into a scrape.”
“T beg your pardon, sir,” said Rick courteously. “I did not see
you, sir.”
“Oh, let it go. Those boobies don’t know anything.”
Having relieved himself of his indignation in his opinion about
the Chinese, half-ashamed, also, of himself for making so much of
the matter, Mr. Wadham whispered to Uncle Nat: “Fact is, cap’n,
I tried that very same thing myself the first time I had a chance,
years ago.”
He now returned to
his chair, and the pro-
cession moved away to-
ward his house.
Rick having enjoyed the
sense of motion, now pre-
pared to exercise the sense
of seeing. He noticed
that the street was bor-
dered by quite good look-
ing buildings covered with
a gyrayish-brown cement.
On the door-step of one
house, he noticed a little
girl, to whom an old
citizen of the Flowery Land was giving — was it an orange or a lime?
372 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
The sedan-chairs were quite near one another, and Mr. Wadham
called out: “ We will go into the Public Garden, if you would like, for
I want you to see the view.”
And what a view down upon the harbor, dotted with shipping and
encircled by hills!
“Now we will go to my house. Chop-chop, every man of you!”
And away went the bearers.
Mr. Wadham’s house was built of stone, and around it swept broad
HONG KONG WOMAN.
verandas. In the gar-
den that enclosed ‘the
house, were odd, big-
leaved plants, clumps of
box, also, that had been
cut into the forms of
animals and plants, while
on the borders of the
grounds were rows of
bamboos. The house was
decorated with many Chi-
nese curiosities, while
comfortable, also, and at-
tractive with English fur-
niture.
“ There’s a Hong Kong
woman,” softly whispered
Mr. Wadham to Uncle
Nat, as they passed by the
opened door of a room.
“You know we have
a good many Chinese on the island. This is a friend of my wife’s.”
CHINA AT LAST. niisa3
The lady was seated near a little fancy table, holding a fan in
her hand.
Mr. and Mrs. Wadham were very hospitable, and insisted that Uncle
Nat and the boys should stop to dinner. At the table, the waiters
were all Chinese, and dressed in cool, white garments, and they
served up roast beef,
cooked in English style,
curried chicken, and va-
rious Chinese dishes. By.
the time the ice-cream
was brought, the boys
were ready to say that
they would like to live
in Hong Kong. The
Hong Kong woman was
shy of visitors, and they
did not see her again ;
but her little girl was
ready to entertain them.
She had acquired some
knowledge of the English,
and stood by a chair
and interested the com-
pany with her bright say-
ings, though the medium
of their expression was,
pigeon-English. But that,
A YOUNG CELESTIAL.
however, is the Chinaman’s deficient way of speaking our language.
CHAPTER XLII.
CANTON.
AS D what do you think of this,
boys?” asked Uncle Nat.
“Funny, Uncle Nat,” replied
Rick, with eyes wide open and
laughing.
They had taken a steamboat, and
were gliding up the Pearl river,
that leads to Canton. At last,
leaving the steamer, “for the sake
of variety,” as Uncle Nat said,
they chartered a sampan for the
rest of the journey. This boat was
a home for a family of five; a
man and his wife and three chil-
dren. Here, in their snug quarters,
roofed over with matting and bam-
boo, they lodged and lived. The
IMAGE OF CONFUCIUS. man, having a job on shore, was
absent, but the mother and two stout boys managed the craft.
“These folks live here all the time, Uncle Nat?” asked Ralph.
“Certainly, Ralph; and they tell me there are eighty thousand of the
Qanton people living in boats. In these floating homes they are born,
sive and die.”
374
CANTON. 375
Canton is a big city, uncle?”
“Yes, it is estimated to have a million of people.”
As they neared the city, the crowd of sampans, junks and steamers
- increased, and the boys were glad to escape with Uncle Nat from the
din and confusion on the river, and to charter sedan-chairs.
“Chop-chop!” shouted Uncle Nat, and off started the bearers. The
streets were long and narrow, and those they visited did not have a
width exceeding eight feet, and some were only four feet wide. The
houses were rather small, not containing more than two stories, as a rule.
On the first floor oftentimes was a shop, and the goods for sale would
be on exhibition and open to inspection. Once in a while they met an
officer riding a pony, but the sedan-chair was the favorite mode of
passenger-travel, and goods -were suspended from bamboo-poles that
rested on the shoulders of patient bearers. Sometimes a shade would
stretch between opposite houses in a narrow street, sheltering those
below.
«“ Boys, I want to show you a temple or two, if Ican make my bear-
ers understand just what we are after. We will go first to the temple
of the five hundred genii,” said Uncle Nat.
They were carried to it, and found it to be an immense structure
containing images of the five hundred genii reported to be devoted
servants of Buddha, while they lived.
“There’s Buddha’s image, boys,” called out Uncle Nat, “and it is
gilded. It makes you think of Japan.”
The boys were not very much charmed. Then they hunted up
a temple of Confucius.
« You remember, boys, you learned in Japan about Confucius. Here
is an image of him, which does not look very genial and agreeable,”
said Uncle Nat.
“Jf I had time, we would go to see the temple of the Five Genii.
376 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS. —
It is said that their names were Fire, Earth, Water, Wood and Metal;
and that these five worthies once came to the city riding on rams,
and a blessing very naturally came with them.”
“And you can’t see the rams, Uncle Nat, can you?” asked Rick.
IMAGE OF BUDDHA.
“Oh, yes, though they had changed to stone the last time I saw
them, and I guess they have not run away since. But there is <.
place I think we must go to.” .
“What is this other place?” asked Ralph.
CANTON. 397
“Examination Hall; and we will see it.”
-“Chop-chop!” Off they all went. By and by Uncle Nat sang
out: “man-man,” pounding on the side of his chair. The procession
halted. Stepping out of the sedan-chairs, and passing through a
structure into a court, they saw lengthy rows of buildings, with low
roofs, and each building was cut up into little rooms.
“Those little cubby-holes,” said Uncle Nat, “make you think of
cells in a honey-comb, and you are quite likely to find a bee in each
cell at certain seasons. Candidates for office come here by the
thousand — men who have passed a previous examination and shown
merit in them—and into these little rooms they are locked, each man
by himself. He.is expected to remain there in seclusion for a while.
He is furnished with subjects on which he is expected to write essays
and their merits will decide whether the candidate is worthy of
advancement. Of the thousands examined not many will take’ the
prize, which is an honorary degree. This gives one the privilege of
going to Pekin, and there trying for another degree which, if he
receives it, entitles him to a high standing as a literary man, and also
gives him a chance to hold some position of trust under government.”
«What about those who don’t take those degrees?” asked Ralph.
“They give it up, I guess, some of them; but if they wish, they can
try it again in three years, and then keep on trying, if unsuccessful.
When an unsuccessful man perseveres in his examinations till he is
seventy, perseverance is rewarded, at least, for he receives a degree of
honor and some government office.”
“They don’t do it up as quick as people who want office in Amer-
ica?” said Ralph.
“No; at home the way has been for a man to carry round a piece
of paper asking for office till the paper was well-covered with big
names, and well-soiled ‘swith ink, and if he could have a ‘friend ‘at
a
378 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
court,’ to shove his petition and make a noise for him, he was likely
to get an office that would pay him for his trouble. But we are doing
a little better nowadays; we are beginning to make merit a con-
dition that must be met. There is any amount of room still for
improvement. Now we will look into some of the shops. Chop-chop !”
When the chairs halted again, Uncle Nat. suggested that they alight,
and make a visiting tour on foot.
“Here is a strange street, boys—the Street of the Dead. Here
are to be found things that the living are generally interested in,
and the Chinese think that the spirits of their departed friends will
still be interested in such articles. So they buy a pipe, or a fan, or
some otlier memento, and
pack these into the cof-
fins or tombs of the dead.”
“That is very funny,”
thought Rick. g
“A pipe is the last
thing I want to be
packed away with me,”
said Uncle Nat.
They rambled on, till
Ralph cried out: “Oh, see
that man making wmn-
brellas!”
The umbrella-maker was
busy at work, putting
A CHEAP UMBRELLA.
together a light bamboo-
frame, and then- neatly stretching over it a big cover of var-
nished paper.
“Sometimes they use oiled paper,” said Uncle Nat, “to cover the
frame. They have all
grades of materials for
umbrellas, poor and rich,
homely and elegant. It
makes me think of the
time when I saw you,
Rick, at Concord. You
were big enough to run
about the garden and
see things for yourself.
You came into the house
laughing, and wanted
us to go out and see
‘toadee under umbel.’
We went out, and sure
enough, there was a
toad under his umbrel-
la.
“‘ Among our English
ancestors,’ continued
Uncle Nat, “the um-
brella was little known
down as far as the
opening of the seven-
teenth century. In that
century it was used as
CANTON. fine 379
LORD OF THE TWENTY-FOUR UMBRELLAS,
a sun-shade. When Queen Anne was on the throne, ladies used the
umbrella as a protection against the rain, but only ladies, though.
The first man who spread an umbrella in the streets of London, was
Jonas Hanway, the philanthropist. He was a sickly man, and an um-
380 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE. LANDS.
rella was a friend in need. For some time, though, people poked fun at
the male user of an umbrella. Now you know they are very common
with the English-speaking people. If all the styles of umbrellas
in Concord alone, say, should take it into their wooden or ivory heads
to get up a procession and walk off, what a sight it would be!
“Tt is in the Hast, that the umbrella is used so much, and
there it may signify a good deal. In Siam, it is a sign of rank,
and it may indicate also degrees of rank. A nobleman can carry
an umbrella with a single top, but the king may have a series of
such roofs- above his head. When we get to Burmah, the king has
a name derived from the umbrella: Lord of the Twenty-four Umbrellas.”
“That would be a two-dozen decker, wouldn’t it, Uncle Nat?”
asked Ralph, while Rick thought if the king would stand from under,
his umbrella would be a nice thing to fire snow-balls at, and a sure
pop every time!
ats
\
N
LL
Le
—e
Ly
py *
_,, HHYE
oo wi Ws
al
LTT
At
Ae STAINS
a
CHINESE GIRLS.
CHAPTER XLIII.
OLD FRIENDS AGAIN.
ICK was lost in Hong Kong. One day
when ashore with Uncle Nat, the latter
said: “Hold on here a moment,’ and
bobbed into an English merchant’s office.
“Aye, aye, Uncle Nat,” said Rick obe-
diently. Ca
But Rick strayed off, “ just a little,’ as he
said, watching a boy with a kite, then a sedan-
chair, and then something else, till at last,
entangled in a crowd, he lost all idea of the
way back to Uncle Nat.
“Oh dear!” he groaned ; “I guess I'll take
this street,’ and taking it, he left behind
him the stores, and reached the neighborhood
of the private residences. He was moving
along aimlessly and disconsolately, fancying
that somehow he might find Mr. Wadham’s
residence, perhaps, when he neared a house
JOE PIG-TAIL. surrounded with an ample garden.
“J will ask that Chinaman gardener in there if he knows where
Mr. Wadham lives, and if he doesn’t know perhaps that girl near him
: 382 :
OLD FRIENDS AGAIN. 383
ean tell; but girls don’t know much,” thought Rick; “she wears a
pretty hat, though.”
Rick shouted, “Can you tell me where—”
The Chinaman turned and faced Rick.
“ Why, why Joe Pigtail, that you?” exclaimed Rick, bounding furi-
ously into the garden. The wearer of the pretty hat turned also
toward Rick, and at the sight of her sweet face Rick’s heart seemed
to bound more violently than his legs even.
It was Amy Clarendon! The old acquaintances advanced toward Rick.
“Me gladdee see you,” said Joe, bowing.
“And J am very glad to see you,” was the encouraging welcome
from the young fairy. (
“Tsn’t this nice? Do you live here?” inquired Rick.
“Yes, this is my father’s, and Chung Kang is our gardener,” said
Amy.
Here Joe Pigtail bowed.
“All the folks are away,” said Amy, “and you must stop to din-
ner, Rick. 9.
What a dinner that was! Rick was thinking he had reached
fairy-land, and, finishing a glass of ice-cream, was about to attack
another, when he heard a voice in the entry —a voice generally musi-
eal enough, but now it sounded like a dragon’s:
»“ Hie“is here, then? I have been hunting for him, and some one.
saw him come here. Well, please say that his uncle is at the door,
imd is in a great hurry to. get to the ship.”
‘No help for it,” thought Rick. “TI must go.”
Uncle Nat was glad to see Amy and Chung Kang again, and urged
‘them to visit the ship. The visit was made, and then came Rick’s
second sorrowful parting from the Clarendons’ gardener.
Rick was thinking about the future. “Uncle Nat says the Antelope
ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.
is going to India and through the Suez canal to Egypt, and
then home; and what then? I know what— if I only
had Aladdin’s lamp they tell about! I would turn
our barn—if mother would give it to me— into a
palace, and Amy should live in it with me. And
then, what if Uncle Nat and the doctor should
fancy those nice ladies that are our passen-
gers, and marry them! Perhaps we might
all live in Concord and Aunt Fennel
adopt Jack Bobstay as her son, and
Bumble-bee cook for us, and Siah
be our coachman! Wouldn’t that
be just splendid ?”
Two days after, the Antel-
ope erected her fair white
antlers, and was bounding
away for the next port.
Rick went to sleep
that night, and
dreamed again of
the palace he
could create
if only the wonderful iamp were his. Alas! do our dreams often
come true ?
THE END.
ye. \ NAY)
CORN ANORS
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\
AK