Part 32

FRIDAY, APRIL 11.—We have spent this day in the open sea. Usually we are in sight of land, but if there has been any in sight today I have not seen it. There was a rain-storm this morning, but it soon passed away. This is our fifth day out, but the sea has been remarkably smooth; I have never seen it equally gracious, either on the Pacific or the Atlantic. We have not had enough motion to disturb the weakest stomach, and I shall always remember the Indian ocean with gratitude. The weather has been hot, but usually we can find enough breeze to be comfortable. A good many slept on deck last night, finding their cabins stuffy.... The leader of the band and orchestra is a waiter in the dining-room. I cannot understand why a man able to lead a very good orchestra with a violin, and a very good band with a cornet, is compelled to work as a waiter. The bass player in both organizations is our table steward, and he is very capable, although he cannot speak a word of English.... There are eight at our table. One was born in France, one in Alsace-Lorraine, one in Scotland, one in England, one in Wales, one in Spain, and two in America. One of the ladies traveled three years in India and two in Australia, with a circus owned by her husband, and did a riding act. She is now a widow, and conducts a riding-school in Johannesburg. One of the men is a Johannesburg electrical engineer, on his way to America to study late developments in the science. Another is Sammy Marks, a theatrical manager, who will shortly open a new theatre at Nairobi, British East Africa. This town is 350 miles inland from Mombasa, and on the way there he will pass by rail through as good a game country as there is in Africa. His wife looks and talks like an American girl, and, being accused of it by me, replied that she was glad of it. She was born in Paris, but has lived in Africa since she was a little girl. Still another man at our table is the Frenchman before referred to, one of the politest and oddest characters I have ever known. He is an automobile agent, and told me that on his present trip he sold eighty-five machines in Africa. He doesn’t like the Germans on the ship, and makes them all the trouble he possibly can. One day at dinner he ordered fish, and six different kinds of meat, which he nibbled at, and sent away. He always drinks two kinds of wine at dinner, and sometimes three. He keeps the waiter so busy that the others at the table complain of neglect. The food on the “Burgermeister” is surprisingly good and abundant.... I suppose there was never a chief steward on an ocean-going vessel who was not a mean man. He it is who must say “no” when passengers become unreasonable. When a woman complains to a retail grocer of one of his clerks, the grocer sides with the woman, but at heart he believes the clerk was right. It is the same way when a passenger complains to the captain of the chief steward: the captain is sympathetic, but believes the steward is right. Our chief steward is a big, good-natured man, and while we are all in league against him, we are disposed to like him. The captain is not only the youngest man I have ever seen in command of a ship, but the best-looking. The chief officer is not over thirty years old. All the members of the crew are young, and speak enough English to “get along” after a fashion with the English passengers. One woman ordered a cup of tea, and the waiter brought her two bottles of whisky, opened. Another woman ordered a plate of crackers, and the waiter brought her a whisky and soda. These are cases you hear of; I have had no trouble, and congratulate myself that I chose a German ship instead of an English one. There is a quiet gentility about the passengers I greatly admire. I heard before coming on board that there would be no English-speaking passengers. Nearly all of them speak English, and the bill of fare is printed in English, as well as in German. The African trip is not an advisable one, owing to the great distances, but anyone who makes it in spite of my advice to the contrary, should go home by the East Coast in a German boat.... There are a large number of young men on board, and all of them well-behaved. There are only two girls on board, and only ten women altogether. The orchestra plays every night, and there is usually dancing; the five dancing women receive a lot of attention.... The feeling between the English and Germans is more intense than I expected to find it. When an Englishman asked me what would be the attitude of the United States in case of war between Germany and England, I was amused, but since then a dozen have asked me the same question. They all seem to think the United States should assist the English. On one of the ships of the German East Africa line, a few weeks ago, there was an incident which might have precipitated the long-talked of war between Germany and England. Among the passengers were several Englishmen; one of them with a title. On this line it is a habit among the women to drink coffee after dinner in the smoking-room. The Englishmen did something that was considered offensive by the German women, and, the captain hearing of it, he promptly called the Englishmen to account. The Englishmen were furious; particularly the one with a title. He said the women had no business in the smoking-room; that he had done nothing offensive, and would not be corrected by anyone, captain or no captain. The captain also had a temper, and he replied that if a titled Englishman didn’t know the ordinary rules of politeness, he would teach him. The two men glared at each other a few moments, and the incident was closed, but it might easily have resulted in serious trouble; if the captain had put Sir Thomas in irons, an international complication might have arisen speedily. The Germans have hasty tempers, and are slow to apologize; the same thing may be said of the English, and both have a very good opinion of their fighting ability; with Germany rather in the lead in conceit, since the Boer war.... This morning the band played a selection which closed with “God Save the King.” Two Englishmen who sat near me, arose to their feet, and stood until the hymn was finished. Yesterday the band played “The Watch on the Rhine,” but the Germans paid no attention to it; they did not even applaud. Last night the band played “The American Patrol,” closing with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but the two Americans on board paid the air no special attention.... A printed notice was placed on the bulletin board this afternoon, stating that Law mass will be celebrated in the ladies’ parlor next Sunday, at 10:30 A. M. There was great curiosity to know the meaning of Law mass. Being a printer, and accustomed to the mistakes of printers, I was able to solve the riddle: the printer should have set up the word “low” instead of “law.” The mystery was nothing more than a typographical error.... There is a bride and groom on board, and the fact that one or the other is sulking most of the time has attracted a good deal of attention.... One passenger has attracted everyone’s admiration because he is a fine walker. Most people walk in a very awkward manner, but this man, a Portuguese count, walks with so much grace as to attract compliments.... At 9 o’clock tonight we came to Zanzibar, and were at once surrounded by the usual crowd of screaming boatmen. Near us was anchored the steamer for Bombay, and the Hindu deck passengers packed up and departed. I shall miss them every morning when I look out of my window; they came to know me, I was so close a neighbor. The Hindu juggler was my favorite: he had a far-away look that would have become a mystic. The big negro Mohammedan who took so much pride in his prayers also stood high in my estimation, as he was a very dignified and quiet man. I went down to the gang-plank, and said good-by to these two as they disembarked carrying their pans and pots, and boxes and bundles.... Some of the passengers went ashore, but I remained and listened to the band concert, and watched the unusual scene of activity about the ship. The men engaged in unloading are mainly Mohammedan negroes, and they make more noise and do less work than any other workmen I know anything about. They not only scream all the time, but keep up a sort of song. At intervals they all quit the work on which they are engaged and clap their hands in unison.

SATURDAY, APRIL 12.—Zanzibar is unusual in many ways, but not as unusual as I expected it to be. I measured several of its streets this morning, and found them nine feet wide. These were mainly residence streets; the principal business streets are a little wider, and automobiles run in them. I met a gentleman named Hay in Zanzibar, an official of the cable company, and called at his home several times. He lives in the queerest house I have ever seen. It fronts on the sea, and was built and occupied many years by an Arab gentleman. The house is enormous in size, and some of its rooms must be thirty or forty feet square; it amused me immensely to see a dining-table, set for two, in the centre of the enormous dining-room; Mr. Hay has no children, and he and his wife are the sole occupants of the big house, except that four native servants slip about as quietly as mice. In the centre of the house is an enormous court, open to the sunlight, and when I visited the place we used to run across this, to avoid sunstroke. The bath-room of the house is another large room, with a depression and drain in the cement floor; every floor in the house is of cement and the walls of rough stucco plastered outside and inside. The water for bathing is carried to the Hay home by negro women, and for this service they receive three shillings a month, or seventy-two cents. The women carry the water on their heads, in Standard Oil tins, and have the best figures in the world, because of their habit of carrying loads on their heads. In the Hay house, as in all the other homes in Zanzibar, there is a roof garden, where the dwellers go when the nights are excessively hot. The Hay servants receive $1.25 a month, and board themselves. Mr. Hay told me they were great thieves; most of the other white people I met in Africa spoke highly of the honesty of the blacks. The approach to the house is a crooked street nine feet wide, and the front door an elaborate affair of bronze. An Arab invests a great deal of his money in his front door, as river pilots are said to invest most of their money in watch chains. This queer, rambling house rents for $20 a month. While sitting on its veranda, looking out to sea, a warship lying only a few hundred yards away fired a salute of a dozen guns, and caused Adelaide to scream, as the guns were pointed directly at us.... Mr. Hay has lived on the edge of the east fifteen or twenty years, as an employee of the cable company, and says that in his bachelor days he never shaved or put on socks except when a ship was expected in the harbor. The arrival of a ship in these far-away places is a big event to the white residents, as they nearly always dine aboard, and hear gossip from home.... Zanzibar, the town, is not as large as I expected to find it. I don’t know how many blacks are scattered over Zanzibar island, which is 50 miles long and 25 broad, but the total white population amounts to less than one hundred and fifty. Of white women and girls, there are only fifteen; and all of them smoke cigarettes, one citizen told me. When I meet a woman over here who smokes cigarettes, I am usually told that her husband is coaxing her to quit the habit. While in Zanzibar, the subject of women smoking cigarettes came up, and several men said to me: “My sisters never smoke; they would as soon think of cutting their throats.” I have rarely known a woman cigarette-smoker who did not tell me that her husband objected. Nice women smoke, but they would be nicer if they didn’t. Cigarette-smoking in women seems to be associated more or less with drinking: I sat in a party one night, at one of our stopping-places, and one woman drank five highballs, in addition to smoking nearly a box of cigarettes.... There is one narrow, crooked street in Zanzibar which is occupied entirely by Hindus. The street is so narrow that a carriage cannot be driven through it, and the shops of the tradesmen are very small; a merchant may sit in the middle of his shop, and reach everything it contains. Many of the occupants of the street are jewelers, and manufacture very wonderful articles with very simple tools. Leading off the street referred to are other narrow streets, and there is nothing more curious in Cairo or Delhi. Prices are actually very high in Zanzibar, unless you haggle with the merchants. One woman who was asked $35 for a cat’s-eye, finally paid $5 for it; another was asked $7.50 for an opal, and got it for $1.25. A professional horse-trader might do well as a shopper in Zanzibar, but the ordinary traveler is robbed. In San Francisco are curio stores displaying eastern goods five times larger than any similar store in Zanzibar. And in San Francisco the one-price system prevails. There are still larger stores in New York for the sale of curious things of Japanese, Indian or Chinese manufacture, and the merchants are reliable, whereas if you attempt to buy anything in Zanzibar, you usually deal with a rogue.... I had an automobile ride in Zanzibar I shall always remember. We drove across the island, a distance of twenty-four miles, and were almost constantly passing through native villages. The natives of Zanzibar seem to be more prosperous than the other negroes we have seen, and they have adopted all the customs of the strange races they meet here. Everywhere we saw negro women hiding their faces behind veils, a custom learned from the Hindus. We also saw negro women with gold buttons in their noses, rings on their toes, and bracelets on their ankles; they had seen these customs practiced by other women, and adopted them, without any particular reason.... I believe I saw more cocoanut trees on Zanzibar island than I ever before saw anywhere; and everywhere the people were preparing copra, the dried meat of the cocoanut. Copra produces an oil used in soap-making, and is in brisk demand. Wherever we go here we get the disagreeable smell of copra; it reminds one of very rancid butter.... We also passed through many miles of clove trees. Ninety per cent of all the cloves produced in the world are raised on Zanzibar island, where conditions are just right. Cloves are widely used in the manufacture of perfumes; in nearly every perfume is a little of the oil of clove. The clove trees are eighteen to twenty-five feet high, and do not look unlike orange trees. The crop is gathered by native women and children, and finds its way to every portion of the world. The island of Zanzibar is not unlike the island of Ceylon, of which it reminded me. Rice is extensively grown, and the banana and mango flourish, as do mosquitoes, malaria, donkeys, goats, and the inclination to go naked all the year ’round. Returning from the automobile trip, we were late, and the driver, a Hindu, tore like mad through the streets of the native villages. We lit our lamps at a native village, and entered Zanzibar after nightfall. Riding through the narrow streets of this old town after night, in an automobile, was an experience I shall always remember, for Zanzibar reminds every visitor of the towns described in “The Arabian Nights.” It is a typical Arabian town, and there seems to be a mystery and a romance behind every door. The town was ruled for hundreds of years by a Sultan, until the English took charge. There is still a sultan, who receives a salary from the English government, but some day he will be deposed, and there will be no further pretense of a Sultan having anything to do with the government. The old palace of the Sultan—an ugly affair which looks like a boarding-house—is used for offices by the British. Near the palace is the harem, now deserted, since the present Sultan has but one wife. The Sultan who had trouble with the English was educated in England, and spent much of his time, and all of his revenues, in Paris. One day an English gunboat sailed into the harbor, and the captain told the gay Sultan that he had been ousted. The Sultan resented the high-handed proceeding, and sent word to the defenders of his dignity to sink the English gunboat and put the insolent captain in the dungeon. There was an old fort near the palace, on the walls of which were mounted a few rusty iron cannon. The defenders of the Sultan tried to fire these at the English gunboat, but they burst, one by one, and almost wiped out the Sultan’s defensive force. The captain of the English gunboat then began dropping shells into the palace, and, with one solid shot, sank the Sultan’s navy: a small vessel which carried four guns. The last remnants of this wreck were being removed from the harbor the day I was at Zanzibar.... Near the middle of the town is a place called “The Gardens.” It was formerly the bathing resort of the wives of the Sultan. The place is now used as a town hall, and I went there with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager, who wished to engage it for an attraction. He paid twelve shillings for the use of the hall. Dances are also held in the hall; the bathing-pool is covered with planks when the hall is rented. On other days, the bathing-pool, formerly the resort of the Sultan’s wives, is used by the school-boys, and scattered around the hall I saw a good many pieces of gymnastic apparatus.... Our summer weather is never as hot as the hot weather of Africa. Whenever we go ashore we carry a sunshade, and, with that protection, suffer more from heat than we ever suffer at home.... After our return from the automobile trip, Mr. and Mrs. Hay were our guests for dinner on the ship. They remained until nearly midnight, listening to the band concert, and “visiting.” Their boatman was anxious to go ashore, but Mr. Hay dared him to; there is a law here that a native boatman who takes a passenger out to a ship, must wait until the passenger is ready to return.... This afternoon we drank tea with an English official on the other side of the island. The official invited in several other Englishmen and their wives. The Englishmen were very polite, but I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life. I didn’t know when we started on the automobile ride that there was to be a function; it was arranged as an agreeable surprise by Mrs. Hay. I am sure the polite Englishmen enjoyed the parting as much as we did.... Dozens of native guides came on board last night and this morning, offering their services. Most of them had big names; one called himself George Washington, another Abraham Lincoln, another Oliver Cromwell, etc. But one quiet, modest negro said to the passengers:

“Me Poor Charley.”

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

SUNDAY, APRIL 13.—England and Germany are not far apart in East Africa. We left Zanzibar, which is in British territory, at 5 A. M. this morning. Four hours later we were in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of German East Africa. I shall remember this place particularly because the ship entered its harbor through an entrance which did not seem to be more than two hundred feet wide in one place, and because of the great number of Germans who came aboard, and remained all day, and nearly all night, drinking beer and singing songs. Most of our German visitors wore uniforms; Germany uses more uniforms than any other country in the world, population considered. We went ashore at 9 A. M., and found a very pretty modern town with the usual fifty blacks to one white. There is a hotel at this place which is considered a wonder, and a good many of the passengers went there for lunch or dinner.... All the time we were walking about, black ricksha boys followed us, and finally they proved a blessing when a rain came up; we entered the vehicles, and went to the hotel, where we found a lot of our passengers drinking beer on the verandas.... Cocoanut trees grow in great profusion here, and on one I counted fifty-four nuts. I have always had a notion that four or five nuts is a pretty good average for a cocoanut tree.