Part 34

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

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

SATURDAY, APRIL 19.—Today we are off Samoliland, the most worthless part of Africa. It is controlled by the Italians, and is about as savage as it ever was. There is one seaport in Samoliland, but steamers rarely touch there, as it has no business.... The weather, which we expected to be very hot in this part of the world, remains cool. You often miss it when you expect misfortune.... There is a young Canadian on board named Goult. It was at first reported that he was an American, and he does look like one, as all Canadians do. He and his wife have been on a hunting trip into the interior of Africa. They had an outfit consisting of one hundred and fifty native men, who packed their supplies and tents. The natives carried their own food, which consisted of several thousand pounds of corn-meal; in addition to this, they had meat when game was killed. The hunt lasted nearly four months, and very few of the men deserted. When a native porter deserts, he loses all pay coming to him; besides, he is liable to arrest and imprisonment. Mr. Goult had a professional guide and hunter with him, who organized and managed his outfit. They killed four lions, but no elephants, although other game was fairly plentiful. Mr. Goult says game animals in this section are infested with a tick which renders them disgusting at times. Mrs. Goult told me this evening that she suffered no hardship; that roughing it in Canada is very much rougher.... The band on the “Burgermeister” is a very good one; much better than is usually found on ships, and the leader has excellent taste in choosing his selections. And this man is a waiter in the dining-room, and young and good-looking.... The “Burgermeister” is a slow ship, and makes about fifteen miles an hour: only half as much as some of the big liners on the Atlantic. The Atlantic is the dandy of oceans: no other has equally fine ships. But on the fast ships of the Atlantic there is a vibration from the engines that is disagreeable. The slow ships are much more comfortable than the fast ones. And the Atlantic is also the bully of oceans; a voyage without rough weather is rare. If the Atlantic were as smooth as the Indian ocean from Beira to Aden, people would hear less of seasickness.... The captain is taking home with him a baby deer that certainly does not weigh a pound and a half. It is not as big as a rabbit, as it belongs to a family of deer noted for diminutive size. The captain amused the passengers this evening by feeding his baby with a bottle. First the captain smelt of the bottle, to see that the milk was not sour. The baby has been ill, and the ship doctor has been attending to it.... By-the-way, the doctor has been behaving very well since his sweetheart left the boat at Tanga. The women expected him to be gay, but he has been very quiet and thoughtful, and the men are proud of him.... There is nothing lazier or duller than a voyage in quiet seas. At one time this afternoon, every passenger on my side of the deck was asleep.

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

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