Kitabı oku: «Round the Wonderful World», sayfa 19
We have only one stop on the way to Singapore, exactly midway between it and Penang, at Port Swettenham.
As we pass southward the Straits narrow and we can see the hills of Sumatra on one side, and sometimes funny little villages built on piles out over the water on the other. Pretty good sport to be able to drop a fishing-line out of one's front door, isn't it?
When the land gets very close on both sides we swing round suddenly, and behold! we are at Singapore, which, like Penang, is an island, and stands at the extreme south point of the long peninsula. It guards this useful passage where all the traffic between China and Japan on the one side comes to India on the other, just as Aden guards the Red Sea and Gibraltar the Mediterranean. Great Britain manages somehow to pick up all the lucky bits, and it is not by design either, it just happens that way. I can tell how this one happened; it was because there chanced to be a Man out here – a Man with a capital letter!
We go ashore and get into rickshaws and start for the town, which is a long three miles off. We shan't have time to do more than look round. The road runs by the docks at Singapore, which are enormous and extend all along the coast up to the town. On the way we pass men of all nations. There are natives of India, companies of Sikhs, Madrassees like Ramaswamy, – who is well on his way back to his master now, – Cingalese, Tamils with frizzy heads, little Japanese ladies in rickshaws, plenty of Chinese, and many Malays. The Malays are yellow rather than brown; they have just that slight narrowing of the eyes which tells they are akin to the Chinese, and they are, as a rule, well-made neat men, wearing loose blue skirts, with orange or red sashes, and large hats; some of them have short white jackets which are the universal top garments out here, when there are any at all.
The town itself is astonishingly well built; electric trams run everywhere, and there are splendid public buildings. As we trot along in our rickshaws we enter a large square. Do you see the name up there? Raffles Square. Sir Stamford Raffles was the man who made Singapore. In his time, the first part of the nineteenth century, Great Britain was very anxious to give away everything she had in the East to the first person who asked for it, as she did not want to fight about it, and could not see what use it could be, for the idea of Imperialism and Empire had not been developed. The Dutch asked largely and always got what they asked for, whether they had a right to it or not; this enraged Raffles, who happened to be out here, and so he looked around and noticed that the island of Singapore was placed in a wonderful position for trade, that it commanded the Straits, and that no one as yet had made any claim on it. He settled down here and put up the British flag. It was years before his country finally decided to acknowledge him and not give his territory up to the Dutch, who immediately asked for it; but in the end they did, and now here stands Singapore, a mighty city with miles of docks, a colossal trade, and a teeming population. There is a statue to Sir Stamford Raffles, as it is right there should be. The Botanical Gardens are worth seeing, and we can get tiffin in one of the palatial hotels, and then we must go back to the ship.
The scene in the bay as we depart is most lovely; ships of every nation are at anchor there, and as we pass out slowly we see island after island all covered with that rich green growth which is the result of the constant rain and warmth. Blue and green and gold is the world, and the little brown boys play about their water-built villages, tumbling in and out of the water, and living in the warm sea as much as on land day by day. Shoals of them come round us in their catamarans and dive for money, catching the silver bit as it twinkles down through the water, even though they make their spring from many yards off. As we get farther out we feel the difference in temperature at once, for now we are heading north, and the night is cold and rough – it is like passing into another climate.
These are wonderful seas, and dearly should I like some day to bring you on a cruise in and about this group of great islands to the south, which is like nothing else in the world! There is Borneo, that gigantic island, twice as large as the British Isles, which belongs partly to the British and partly to the Dutch. The story of Sir Stamford Raffles is outdone by the story of the Rajah of Sarawak, which shows that even in our own times the blood of Drake and Cook runs in the veins of Englishmen.
Hong-Kong is another island and also belongs to the British; it was given to them by treaty in 1841. As we sail in under the lee of the island by the narrow entrance to the bay between it and the mainland, we see what a splendid natural harbour this is. High above on the island rises what is called the Peak, and up and up and up it, in rows and terraces, are the houses of the people who live here. We can go up the Peak by a tram-line if we have time. The city is called Victoria, and is actually built on the rock or, rather, on terraces cut out of the face of it, one above the other. It is strange to find this little British colony isolated here on a bit of China, separated from the real China by half a mile of sea. As the steamer comes to rest on the mainland side at Kowloon Wharf we must take a ferry over to the city.
Once we are there we find a well-built town with wide roads, tree lined and very clean; there are many quite English-looking buildings of stone, and in the shops a strange mixture of wares, European and Eastern. Some of the shops are piled with the rich Eastern silk embroideries, ivory and lacquer work, carvings and fans, silver and metal work, paintings and furniture.
We have time to run up to the top by the tramway, and higher and higher as we go, houses still, houses all the way, and even at the very top there are some houses where the governor and other important people live in summer. It has been gloomy and cloudy all day, threatening rain, but just as we reach the summit the sun comes out in yellow glory, dropping to the West, and all the innumerable inlets and bays are turned to gold. The land between stands up in capes and cliffs and headlands, rather dim and misty, with the golden water flashing between.
We are off once more and up the coast to Shanghai, the last Chinese port we touch before going over to Japan.
Next morning we come up on deck to find a wet, clammy fog – we might be back in England again – how astonishing!
Now and again appearing out of the folds of swathing mist we see little islands and gaily painted fishing-boats, the owners of which seem bent on committing suicide. The boats sometimes are junks, with the square brown sails that we have by this time seen so often, or they are tiny little boats; whichever it is, they seem as if they deliberately tried to get under our bows, as you have seen village children run across in front of motor-cars. Again and again we feel the steamer sheer off a little to clear them, and sometimes she just succeeds in doing so. I expect the captain's temper is being pretty severely tried up there on the bridge. He stays there while the fog lasts, but when it clears a little in the evening he comes down for a hasty dinner.
Then we get at him and make fresh demands on his patience by questions. He seems to have a stock left, for he laughs good-humouredly when I speak of the native boats. "They do do it on purpose," he says; "they think it's good joss, as they say, – good luck that is, just to cross our bows. It means a never-ending look-out all along this coast, and nothing cures them. All the same they're some use when one gets fogged here, for you can generally tell where you are, to some extent, by the fishing-boats; they run in different colours and patterns at places along the coast, each part has its own special fashions in paint and rig."
He has hardly time to swallow his dinner before he is back on the bridge. It's a ticklish bit of navigation here.
We still thread our way close inshore through innumerable islands. One of them stands up stiff and straight, pointing like an obelisk to the sky. It is called the Finger Rock. We notice, too, very frequently, the white lighthouses, kept very clean. Then we go through a pass, two miles wide, called "Steep Island Pass," and are into the mouth of the Yangtsekiang River. Up this we go for a hundred miles before reaching Woosung, the Gravesend of Shanghai, which is still twelve or thirteen miles farther on. Then a turn and we are in sight of Shanghai with its factories and chimneys and great sheds called "godowns" with galvanised iron roofs. It is a disappointing place, but as we go farther on we see a public promenade and some clean, well-built stone houses. The Europeanised part of the city is, however, uninteresting, and we don't care to go into the native part by ourselves, so our chief amusement is watching the Chinese coolies loading and unloading the ship. Notice, they never push things on trollies, as our men do; they always carry everything slung on a bamboo. Even that great lump of iron, which must be part of some machinery, there it is, surrounded by a shouting horde of men, all slinging it up by their own little ropes, all giving a hand to carry the great mass along.
We have gathered very little of China in our short time at the ports, but we shall be able to get a better idea of Japan. Our first idea of it is when we stop at the island of Rokwren two days later and take on the pilot who is going to run us through the far-famed Inland Sea. At the same time two or three smart little Japanese doctors in European dress come on board to inquire into the health of passengers and crew, and give us a permit, for the Japs are most particular about not letting any foreign germs be landed on their shores, and at every port doctors come on board to make quite sure everyone is free from illness.
The next thing we know about Japan is her coal, for 1500 tons of it are brought on board, in little baskets, handed from one to another of long rows of men, women, and children, all working equally hard.
The narrow strait that leads into the Inland Sea is only a quarter of a mile wide, and after passing through it we steam along quietly amid the most beautiful scenery we have passed since leaving England. Everywhere are little islands, well cultivated, woody, and rocky. Rocks and hills and capes break up the vistas, and every time we turn a corner we see something better than before. The ship stops at Kobé, but, unluckily, you have got a touch of the sun and the doctor strictly forbids you to go on shore. Never mind, we'll soon be at Yokohama, which is far better.
By that time you are quite yourself again, and when the captain calls us up on deck you are eager to go. He points to a solid triangle of rock, sticking up out of the sea not very far distant, and as we look at it a flash of red flame spurts out into the air and something red-hot rolls swiftly down the scored sides. What does it remind you of? It is another Stromboli, of course!
"That," says the captain solemnly, "is the safety-valve of Japan. If it were blocked up there's no knowing what might happen." Then he swings round and points in another direction. Clear against the soft blue of the sky we see a sharp-pointed white cloud of a very curious shape, like an opened fan upside down. It seems quite detached from everything else, merely a curious snowy fan hanging in mid-air. "Why, it's Fujiyama, of course."
So it is! The famous Japanese mountain seen in thousands of the country's drawings and paintings; in fact, it has come to be a sort of national signboard. Now that we know where to look we see that the white fan part is merely the snow-cap running in large streaks downward, and that this rests upon a base as blue as the sky. Henceforward we shall see Fujiyama at many hours of the day – never a wide-spreading view but Fujiyama will be there, never a long road but Fujiyama at the end of it, never a flat plain without it. So odd is the great mountain, and so much character has it, that we feel inclined to nod good-night or good-morning to it when it greets us.
Then we enter the magnificent harbour of Yokohama with its hundreds of sampans, junks, tugs, ships, steamers, and every other craft. The smaller craft surround us clamorously, and looking down upon them we see that in almost every case there is a cat on board the junks, many of them tabby or tortoise-shell.
"'Cat good joss,' as the Chinamen would say," remarks a man standing near us, "specially three-coloured cats. They wouldn't give a fig for our lucky black ones without a white hair."
Hundreds of coolies are now clamouring for jobs all round. They are almost all dressed in blue, and those that wear upper garments have huge hieroglyphics of gay colours on their backs – these are the signs of their trades, or trades unions, as we might say, and each man wears his with pride.
So, with a fleet of attendant boats, gaily-dressed coolies, and complacent cats surrounding us, we come to our anchorage, say good-bye to the captain with great regret, and make our plunge into this new land.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE LAND OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE
We are standing in front of a mysterious gate which is yet not a gate. You must have seen pictures of Japan many a time, and in some of them there must have been one of these curious erections. Yet how can one describe it? The Greek letter Π is most like it. Imagine a giant Π with a second cross-bar below the top one. In Japan this is called a Torii. The one in front of us, rising like a great scaffolding far above our heads, is made of wood, but they are often of stone or metal too. They are always to be found before the entrance to a Shinto temple. There must have been some meaning in them once upon a time, but it is lost now, and they remain decorative but useless.
We have left our rickshaw and are climbing up a long, long flight of steps to a Shinto temple not far from Tokyo, the capital town of Japan. Very many of the Japs are Buddhists, but it is a strange sort of Buddhism, not pure like that of the Burmans, and is mixed up with another religion called Shinto, and many of the people are Shintoists altogether. This religion is vague and mystical, with much worship of spirits, especially the spirits of the elements – earth, air, fire, and water. Everyone who is dead becomes in some degree an object of worship, and the Jap thinks more of his parents and ancestors than his children – his dead ancestors especially being much venerated.
When we reach the top of the steps we find ourselves suddenly in a blaze of loveliness. To the right, to the left, and all around are cherry trees, covered thickly with blossom which hangs in wreaths and rosettes and festoons as if moulded in snow. The time for the best of the blossom is a little past, and the ground at our feet is as white as the trees, indeed whiter; for just here and there the fairy display on the trees is slightly browned. The scent is very sweet, and hangs in the air like delicate perfume. In the time of blossom there are many outings and festivities in Japan; people make up parties to go to the orchards, and thoroughly enjoy their beauty. Come right underneath the trees and look up, we can see the thick, heavily laden branches against the soft rich blue of a cloudless sky, and in our ears is the hum of a myriad bees. It is as if the freshness of early spring and the richness of full summer were mingled together.
As we wander on over the scented ground we notice, a little way off, a rather pathetic-looking Japanese in the national costume, with a flat board or book in his hand. He is looking at us earnestly, and follows on at a respectful distance behind us.
Next we come upon a quaint little garden on the lines of what we should call a landscape garden in England, but it is all on a tiny scale, as if made for dolls to walk in. There is a pond as big as a tea-tray, walks the breadth of one's foot, wee trees, gnarled with age and twisted and fully grown, but no higher than your knee. It is all so delicate and dainty and tiny that we are afraid to walk in it for fear we should spoil it; we feel thoroughly big and clumsy as Gulliver must have felt among the Lilliputians, and we expect every minute to see the rightful owners, wee men and women the size of a man's fingers, rushing out from the little summer-house with the curved roof at the end, and crying shrilly to us to go away!
Treading carefully, a foot at a time, along the miniature paths, we pass through this and go on toward the temple which now appears amid a grove of deep dark pines. The steps are worn and hollowed, and on each side of them is an astonishing red figure of a man-monster in a very ferocious attitude, like that of the lions rampant seen on crests. These figures are a dark hot red and are dotted all over with white dabs; as we draw nearer to them we see that these dabs are doubled up bits of white paper sticking irregularly here and there without any arrangement. We cannot imagine what they are for, but as we stare we hear a foot crunch the gravel gently, and the little Jap with the board creeps up and salaams deeply, making at the same time a curious hissing noise as if he sucked in his breath. He must be very nervous.
"If the honourable sirs will allow this humble servant to explain," he begins in fluent and perfect English.
We are only too glad of his help, and not to be outdone in politeness we simultaneously raise our hats to him. He then tells us that all these paper pellets are prayers or wishes. People write down what they want on them and then moisten them in their mouths and spit them out against the images; if the paper sticks it shows the wish will be granted, if it falls to the ground then fate is against it. It is not a very beautiful custom, but perhaps not quite so bad as betel-nut chewing!
Then the Jap coughs nervously, and with an overwhelming apology for daring to presume so far, explains that we ought to remove our "honourable shoes" before entering the temple. Of course we do it at once, though English shoes are not meant to take off and on at every turn, and while we struggle with our laces he knocks on the woodwork of the temple, and the sliding doors slip back along grooves, showing a very aged priest who smiles and beckons us in; so we pass on, feeling all the while conscious of the mystery of a country so utterly unlike our own. Inside, the floor is covered with thick mats, so we do not miss our shoes, though we step cautiously at first. It is very dim, but gradually our eyes grow accustomed to the want of light and we see lacquered screens, and little recesses, and bronze lamps, and curious images. Though it is spotlessly clean, very different from the Hindu temple, there is a strong smell of incense or burnt flowers or something rather odd. Our friendly Jap has gone down on his knees and is bowing his forehead to the ground, but we are not expected to do that evidently.
Two weird figures in peaked caps, fastened under their chins by tapes, have drifted out silently from somewhere and follow us as the priest leads us round. There does not seem to be any one special shrine with a central figure for us to see; perhaps there is one, but it is not shown to foreigners. It is all vague and rather meaningless, and the carving and decoration are unsatisfying. After a while, as there does not seem to be anything more forthcoming, we drop a few coins into a bowl held out to us and prepare to go. Just as we reach the door another strange being in a peaked cap appears with tiny cups of clear amber-coloured tea on a tray, and holds them out to us. The little cups have no handles, and there is no milk in the tea, but on the tray are several rather nice-looking little cakes, only, unfortunately, they are all the colours of the rainbow – violet and green and scarlet. I utterly refuse to touch them, but the English-speaking Jap assures me they are "nice," so you, declaring that you are "jolly hungry," eat several and pronounce them "jolly good." We sip the tea, which tastes utterly different from that we have at home, and bowing all round again we put on our shoes and descend the steps. I'm sure if I lived here long I should be quite fit to take a position at court, my "honourable" manners would be so much improved. There is nothing brusque or rough or rude about these people, you couldn't imagine them scrambling or pushing to get in front of others even at a big show.
A voice behind us says timidly, "Will the honourable sirs be pleased to employ this humble servant as interpreter?"
We stop and look at him. It is not a bad idea. We have felt already this morning, even in coming straight from our very Western hotel here, how helpless we are in this land where the chair-men do not speak a word of English, and where even the street names are in Chinese characters. This little man is quite unassuming, he would certainly be no trouble and might be very useful. When we stop he deprecatingly opens his flat book and shows us drawings in freehand of scrolls and animals that he has made. He explains that he tries to get a living by offering such designs to the shops, but that he would like better to be interpreter to us, as he wishes to perfect his English. The terms he asks are absurdly moderate. Yes, we will have him.
We engage him then and there, and he enters our service at once; there is no need for delay, for he is apparently not encumbered with anything beyond his drawing-book. He brightens up wonderfully when we say "yes." Poor little chap, I expect he is half starved. In most countries it would be rash indeed to engage a man at sight without any sort of written "character," but there is a simplicity and honesty about this one which gives us confidence in him. I am sure he would never cheat us deliberately, anyway, I am quite ready to risk it.
We tell him that what we want is to see something of Tokyo to-day, and then to go off into the country and try to get a glimpse of the real Japanese life, un-Europeanised, in some small village where we could stay at a little country inn for a day or two. He enters into the scheme at once and says that he will have the plans all ready to suggest to us this evening. Meantime he takes command, and after seeing us into our waiting rickshaws, calls up another for himself, gives the three men directions, and off we go.
As we run back to the town we notice the houses standing by themselves in the suburbs, quite good, large houses, some of them, surrounded by their own gardens, shut in by high walls so that only the sloping red-tiled roofs, curved up at the end, are visible. Some of these are two storeys high, but when we get into the town we see at first only rows and rows of one-storey houses. There are frequent earthquakes in Japan, and to build many-storeyed blocks would mean frightful disaster and loss of life. As it is, the people can rush quickly out of their little homes into the streets at the first signs of a shaking.
What do you notice about the streets that strikes you most particularly? To me it is the colouring – blue. You remember that in Burma there was practically no blue; the people wore red and pink and magenta and orange, but they seemed one and all to avoid blue. I used to think it was because they knew that blue would not suit their sallow, yellowish complexions; but the Japanese are just as yellow, in fact more so, for the Burmese yellow is a kind of coffee colour, and theirs real saffron, and yet the Japs are very fond of blue. The coolies and work-men all dress in it, with those astonishing signs on their backs that we noticed first at Yokohama, and the shops have blue banners hanging out beside them. These are for their names – they are signboards, in fact. Instead of running across horizontally, as our writing does, the Japanese writing – which is the same as the Chinese, though the spoken language is different – runs vertically. A Jap does many things exactly the opposite way from what we do. He begins to read a book from what we should consider the end, backwards, and instead of going along, he goes up and down a line; and the long thin strips, with those mysterious cabalistic signs on them, are the shopkeepers' names and businesses. The shops are all open to the street, without glass, in this quarter; they are just what we should call stalls; most of them seem to be greengrocers' or fruiterers'. And in the first there are always prominently in front huge vegetables like gigantic radishes or elongated turnips; the people eat them largely, though to a European both the flavour and the smell are nasty. In the fish shops the funniest things to be seen are great black devil-fish, or octopuses, with their lumpy round bodies and black tentacles stretching out on all sides. They are loathsome to look at, but the Japs are not the only people who use them for food; in parts of Italy the peasants eat them as a staple dish whenever they can catch them.
There are no pavements here, and the streets are very muddy after last night's heavy rain, but it doesn't seem to matter a bit to the numerous inhabitants. All those who can afford it go in rickshaws, which pass us every minute, and the others wear clogs which lift them high out of the dirt. These clogs are called geta, and they are the funniest footwear to be found anywhere. You would find it more difficult to get about on them than on roller-skates, but the Japs are so much used to them that they trip along morning, noon, and night in them without being the least tired. They are simply little stools of wood, one flat piece being supported by two smaller ones at the toe and heel, and they are held on by straps across the foot. Men, women, and children are thus raised inches out of the mud, and patter about, ting-tang, ting-tang, all day long. Some of the women have coarse white stockings made with a separate stall for the big toe, on the model of a baby's glove, so that the geta strap can go through.
We have now got into the middle of the town where the more populous streets are. You ought to notice how the colours of the clothes differ for the different ages of the people: the grandmothers and grandfathers wear dark purples and sombre hues; the middle-aged people have soft colouring, grey greens and palish shades; and the children are very gay, in every imaginable colour and often all mixed together. The girls have all a broad sash called an obi, humped up in a funny way behind their bodies; in the children this becomes a great bow like the wings of a butterfly. The people are small, and were it not for the clogs they would look smaller still; their country is not little, for Japan is larger than the United Kingdom, but the people are rarely tall, and they are slenderly built, with small bones, so that being among them makes an ordinary fair-sized Englishman feel clumsy and long-limbed. Now we are in the main street of all. Here comes a tram filled with Japanese, all smiling and chattering and looking happy; they take life with a smile. The houses here are larger than those we have passed, and some are just European buildings of stone, and the shop-windows are filled with glass, and show as fine a display as in the best London shops. There are many entirely for the sale of Western things, and others for the things of the country – the beautiful embroideries and silks, and silver-work and lacquer-work and carving, which you know so well by sight at home, for it is sent over in large quantities now, and anyone can buy it in London as cheaply as here.
As we near our hotel we tell the interpreter, whose "honourable name" we have learned is Yosoji, – everything belonging to other people is "honourable" here, – that we would like to see the palace where the Emperor lives; so he gives an order to the rickshaw man, and we set out once more.
On the way we see many open spaces and pass through a park, but when we get to the palace we find that no one is allowed to go in, and we can only drive round by the walls and moat. The Mikado, or Emperor, is worshipped by most of his people; he is in the position of a god, and it is no mere expression of speech to say that every schoolboy would be proud and glad to die for him. There is no country in the world whose people are more passionately devoted to their fatherland than the Japs. The idea of prominent Japanese going about in foreign countries trying to belittle their own, or undermine her power in the countries she has won by the sword, is unthinkable.
Later in the afternoon, coming out again from our hotel, we find Yosoji waiting for us, and we tell him we want to walk about on foot to look at some of the shops. He protests, and we can see he thinks us almost out of our minds to suggest going on foot. He pleads earnestly that rickshaws are very cheap. We have to explain that it is not the money we are thinking of, but that we really prefer to go on foot. He doesn't believe it – he can't, because no Japanese would prefer to go on foot when he could ride. So we take no further notice of him and just walk away, leaving him to follow humbly and despairingly. We have not taken many steps when a whole flight of rickshaw men swoop across the road and are on our heels, crying out, "Rickshaw, rickshaw, shaw, shaw, r'sha," like our old friends the pests of Egypt. We pretend not to hear, and walk on with what dignity we can, but they follow persistently, almost trampling on our heels, and reiterating their cries all the time. They can only imagine we must be deaf and blind. The crowd grows greater, the street is getting blocked. We pass a Japanese policeman in a stiff and badly made uniform, and are seized with sudden hope that he will send the offenders flying, but he does nothing of the sort; he fumbles in his pocket, brings out a little text-book Of English, and laboriously reads out, "Please secure me a good rickshaw," and looks at us triumphantly as if he had solved the difficulty!
