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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7237-8.txt b/7237-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1a90c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/7237-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4556 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Roving East and Roving West, by E. V. Lucas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Roving East and Roving West + +Author: E. V. Lucas + + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7237] +This file was first posted on March 30, 2003 +Last Updated: May 12, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROVING EAST AND ROVING WEST *** + + + + +Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + +ROVING EAST + +AND + +ROVING WEST + + + +BY + + + +E. V. LUCAS + + +TO + +E. L. L. + +MY HOST AT RAISINA + + + +[Illustration: TWO MEN ADMIRING FUJI FROM A WINDOW From Hokusai's "A +Hundred Views of Fuji"] + + + +"Yes, Sir, there are two objects of curiosity, e.g., the Christian world +and the Mahometan world."--DR. JOHNSON. + +"Motion recollected in tranquillity."--WORDSWORTH (_very nearly_). + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INDIA + + NOISELESS FEET + THE SAHIB + THE PASSING SHOW + INDIA'S BIRDS + THE TOWERS OF SILENCE + THE GARLANDS + DELHI + A DAY'S HAWKING + NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI + THE DIVERS + THE ROPE TRICK + AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI + LUCKNOW + A TIGER + THE SACRED CITY + CALCUTTA + ROSE AYLMER + JOB AND JOE + EXIT + + + JAPAN + + INTRODUCTORY + THE LITTLE LAND + THE RICE FIELDS + SURFACE MATERIALISM + FIRST GLIMPSE OF FUJI + TWO FUNERALS + THE LITTLE GEISHA + MANNERS + THE PLAY + MYANOSHITA + FUJI + + + AMERICA + + DEMOCRACY AT HOME + SAN FRANCISCO + ROADS GOOD AND BAD + UNIVERSITIES, LOVE AND PRONUNCIATION + FIRST SIGNS OF PROHIBITION + R. L. S. + STORIES AND HUMORISTS + THE CARS + CHICAGO + THE MOVIES + THE AMERICAN FACE + PROHIBITION AGAIN + THE BALL GAME + SKY SCRAPERS + A PLEA FOR THE AQUARIUM + ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES + SKY-SIGNS AND CONEY ISLAND + THE PRESS + TREASURES OF ART + MOUNT VERNON + VERS LIBRE + DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE + BOSTON + PHILADELPHIA + GENERAL REFLECTIONS + + + INDEX + + + + +INDIA + +NOISELESS FEET + + +Although India is a land of walkers, there is no sound of footfalls. +Most of the feet are bare and all are silent: dark strangers overtake +one like ghosts. + +Both in the cities and the country some one is always walking. There are +carts and motorcars, and on the roads about Delhi a curious service of +camel omnibuses, but most of the people walk, and they walk ever. In the +bazaars they walk in their thousands; on the long, dusty roads, miles +from anywhere, there are always a few, approaching or receding. + +It is odd that the only occasion on which Indians break from their walk +into a run or a trot is when they are bearers at a funeral, or have +an unusually heavy head-load, or carry a piano. Why there is so much +piano-carrying in Calcutta I cannot say, but the streets (as I feel now) +have no commoner spectacle than six or eight merry, half-naked fellows, +trotting along, laughing and jesting under their burden, all with an +odd, swinging movement of the arms. + +One of one's earliest impressions of the Indians is that their hands are +inadequate. They suggest no power. + +Not only is there always some one walking, but there is always some one +resting. They repose at full length wherever the need for sleep takes +them; or they sit with pointed knees. Coming from England one is struck +by so much inertness; for though the English labourer can be lazy enough +he usually rests on his feet, leaning against walls: if he is a land +labourer, leaning with his back to the support; if he follows the sea, +leaning on his stomach. + +It was interesting to pass on from India and its prostrate philosophers +with their infinite capacity for taking naps, to Japan, where there +seems to be neither time nor space for idlers. Whereas in India one +has continually to turn aside in order not to step upon a sleeping +figure--the footpath being a favourite dormitory--in Japan no one is +ever doing nothing, and no one appears to be weary or poor. + +India, save for a few native politicians and agitators, strikes one as a +land destitute of ambition. In the cities there are infrequent signs of +progress; in the country none. The peasants support life on as little as +they can, they rest as much as possible and their carts and implements +are prehistoric. They may believe in their gods, but fatalism is their +true religion. How little they can be affected by civilisation I learned +from a tiny settlement of bush-dwellers not twenty miles from Bombay, +close to that beautiful lake which has been transformed into a +reservoir, where bows and arrows are still the only weapons and rats are +a staple food. And in an hour's time, in a car, one could be telephoning +one's friends or watching a cinema! + + + + +THE SAHIB + + +I did not have to wait to reach India for that great and exciting moment +when one is first called "Sahib." I was addressed as "Sahib," to my +mingled pride and confusion, at Marseilles, by an attendant on the +steamer which I joined there. Later I grew accustomed to it, although +never, I hope, blasé; but to the end my bearer fascinated me by alluding +to me as Master--not directly, but obliquely: impersonally, as though +it were some other person that I knew, who was always with me, an _alter +ego_ who could not answer for himself: "Would Master like this or that?" +"At what time did Master wish to be called?" + +And then the beautiful "Salaam"! + +I was sorry for the English doomed to become so used to Eastern +deference that they cease to be thrilled. + + + + +THE PASSING SHOW + + +It is difficult for a stranger to India, especially when paying only a +brief visit, to lose the impression that he is at an exhibition--in a +section of a World's Fair. How long it takes for this delusion to wear +off I cannot say. All I can say is that seven weeks are not enough. +And never does one feel it more than in the bazaar, where movement is +incessant and humanity is so packed and costumes are so diverse, and +where the suggestion of the exhibition is of course heightened by the +merchants and the stalls. What one misses is any vantage point--anything +resembling a chair at the Café de la Paix in Paris, for instance--where +one may sit at ease and watch the wonderful changing spectacle going +past. There are in Indian cities no such places. To observe the life of +the bazaar closely and be unobserved is almost impossible. + +It would be extraordinarily interesting to sit there, beside some +well-informed Anglo-Indian or Indo-Anglian, and learn all the minutić of +caste and be told who and what everybody was: what the different ochre +marks signified on the Hindu foreheads; what this man did for a living, +and that; and so forth. Even without such an informant I was never tired +of drifting about the native quarters in whatever city I found myself +and watching the curiously leisurely and detached commercial methods +of the dealers--the money lenders reclining on their couches; the pearl +merchants with their palms full of the little desirable jewels; the +silversmiths hammering; the tailors cross-legged; the whole Arabian +Nights pageant. All the shops seem to be overstaffed, unless an element +of detached inquisitiveness is essential to business in the East. No +transaction is complete without a few watchful spectators, usually +youths, who apparently are employed by the establishment for the sole +purpose of exhibiting curiosity. + +I picked up a few odds and ends of information, by degrees, but only the +more obvious: such as that the slight shaving of the Mohammedan's upper +lip is to remove any impediment to the utterance of the name of Allah; +that the red-dyed beards are a record that their wearers have made the +pilgrimage to Mecca; that the respirator often worn by the Jains is to +prevent the death of even a fly in inhalation. I was shown a Jain woman +carefully emptying a piece of wood with holes in it into the road, each +hole containing a louse which had crawled there during the night but +must not be killed. The Jains adore every living creature; the Hindus +chiefly the cow. As for this divinity, she drifts about the cities as +though they were built for her, and one sees the passers-by touching +her, hoping for sanctity or a blessing. A certain sex inequality is, +however, only too noticeable, and particularly in and about Bombay, +where the bullock cart is so common--the bullock receiving little but +blows and execration from his drivers. + +The sacred pigeon is also happy in Bombay, being fed copiously all day +long; and I visited there a Hindu sanctuary, called the Pingheripole, +for every kind of animal--a Home of Rest or Asylum--where even pariah +dogs are fed and protected. + +I was told early of certain things one must not do: such as saluting +with the left hand, which is the dishonourable one of the pair, and +refraining carefully, when in a temple or mosque, from touching anything +at all, because for an unbeliever to touch is to desecrate. I was told +also that a Mohammedan grave always gives one the points of the compass, +because the body is buried north and south with the head at the north, +turned towards Mecca. The Hindus have no graves. + +In India the Occidental, especially if coming from France as I did, +is struck by the absence of any out-of-door communion between men and +women. In the street men are with men, women with women. Most women +lower their eyes as a man approaches, although when the woman is a +Mohammedan and young one is often conscious of a bright black glance +through the veil. There is no public fondling, nothing like the familiar +demonstrations of affection that we are accustomed to in Paris and +London (more so during the War and since) and in New York. Nothing so +offends and surprises the Indian as this want of restraint and shame +on our part, and in Japan I learned that the Japanese share the Indian +view. + +It seemed to me that the chewing of the betel-nut is more prevalent in +Bombay than elsewhere. One sees it all over India; everywhere are moving +jaws with red juice trickling; but in Bombay there are more vendors of +the rolled-up leaves and more crimson splashes on pavement and wall. It +is an unpleasant habit, but there is no doubt that teeth are ultimately +the whiter for it. Even though I was instructed in the art of betel-nut +chewing by an Indian gentleman of world-wide fame in the cricket field, +from whom I would willingly learn anything, I could not endure the +experience. + +Most nations, I suppose, look upon the dances of other nations with a +certain perplexity. Such glimpses, for example, as I had in America +of the movement known as the Shimmie Shake filled me with alarm, while +Orientals have been known to display boredom at the Russian Ballet. +Personally I adore the Russian Ballet, but I found the Nautch very +fatiguing. It is at once too long and too monotonous, but I dare +say that if one could follow the words of the accompanying songs, or +cantillations, the result might be more entertaining. That would not, +however, improve the actual dancing, in which I was disappointed. In +Japan, on the other hand, I succumbed completely to the odd, hypnotic +mechanism of the Geisha, the accompaniments to which are more varied, +or more acceptable to my ear, than the Indian music. But I shall +always remember the sounds of the distant, approaching or receding, +snake-charmers' piping, heard through the heat, as it so often is on +Sundays in Calcutta. To my inward ear that is India's typical melody; +and it has relationship to the Punch and Judy allurement of our +childhood. + +It was in Bombay that I saw my first fakir, and in Harrison Road, +Calcutta, my last. There had been so long a series in between that I was +able to confirm my first impression. I can now, therefore, generalise +safely when saying that all these strange creatures resemble a blend of +Tolstoi and Mr. Bernard Shaw. Imagine such a hybrid, naked save for a +loin cloth, and smeared all over with dust, and you have a holy man +in the East. The Harrison Road fakir, who passed on his way along the +crowded pavement unconcerned and practically unobserved, was white with +ashes and was beating a piece of iron as a wayward child might be doing. +He was followed by a boy, but no effort was made to collect alms. It is +true philosophy to be prepared to live in such a state of simplicity. +Most of the problems of life would dissolve and vanish if one could +reduce one's needs to the frugality of a fakir. I have thought often of +him since I returned, in London, to all the arrears of work and duty and +the liabilities that accumulate during a long holiday; but never more so +than when confronted by a Peace-time tailor's bill. + + + + +INDIA'S BIRDS + + +One of the first peculiarities of Bombay that I noticed and never lost +sight of was the kites. The city by day is never without these spies, +these sentries. From dawn to dusk the great unresting birds are sailing +over it, silent and vigilant. Whenever you look up, there they are, +criss-crossing in the sky, swooping and swerving and watching. After a +while one begins to be nervous: it is disquieting to be so continually +under inspection. Now and then they quarrel and even fight: now and then +one will descend with a rush and rise carrying a rat or other delicacy +in its claws; but these interruptions of the pattern are only momentary. +For the rest of the time they swirl and circle and never cease to watch. +Bombay also has its predatory crows, who are so bold that it is unsafe +to leave any bright article on the veranda table. Spectacles, for +example, set up a longing in their hearts which they make no effort +to control. But these birds are everywhere. At a wayside station just +outside Calcutta, in the early morning, the passengers all had tea, and +when it was finished and the trays were laid on the platform, I +watched the crows, who were perfectly aware of this custom and had been +approaching nearer and nearer as we drank, dart swiftly to the sugar +basins and carry off the lumps that remained. The crow, however, is, +comparatively speaking, a human being; the kite is something alien and a +cause of fear, and the traveller in India never loses him. His eye is as +coldly attentive to Calcutta as to Bombay. + +It is, of course, the indigenous birds of a country that emphasise its +foreignness far more than its people. People can travel. Turbaned heads +are, for example, not unknown in England; but to have green parrots with +long tails flitting among the trees, as they used to flit in my host's +garden in Bombay, is to be in India beyond question. At Raisina we had +mynahs and the babblers, or "Seven Sisters," in great profusion, and +also the King Crow with his imposing tail; while the little striped +squirrels were everywhere. These merry restless little rodents do more +than run and scamper and leap: they seem to be positively lifted into +space by their tails. Their stripes (as every one knows) came directly +from the hand of God, recording for ever how, on the day of creation, He +stroked them by way of approval. + +No Indian bird gave me so much pleasure to watch as the speckled +kingfishers, which I saw at their best on the Jumna at Okhla. They poise +in the air above the water with their long bills pointed downwards at a +right-angle to their fluttering bodies, searching the depths for their +prey; and then they drop with the quickness of thought into the stream. +The other kingfisher--coloured like ours but bigger--who waits on +an overhanging branch, I saw too, but the evolutions of the hovering +variety were more absorbing. + +When one is travelling by road, the birds that most attract the notice +are the peacocks and the giant cranes; while wherever there are cattle +in any numbers there are the white paddy birds, feeding on their +backs--the birds from which the osprey plumes are obtained. One sees, +too, many kinds of eagle and hawk. In fact, the ornithologist can never +be dull in this country. + +Wild animals I had few opportunities to observe, although a mongoose +at Raisina gave me a very amusing ten minutes. At Raisina, also, the +jackals came close to the house at night; and on an early morning ride +in a motorcar to Agra we passed a wolf, and a little later were most +impudently raced and outdistanced by a blackbuck, who, instead of +bolting into security at the sight or sound of man, ran, or rather, +advanced--for his progress is mysterious and magical--beside us for some +forty yards and then,--with a laugh, put on extra speed (we were doing +perhaps thirty miles an hour) and disappeared ahead. All about Muttra +we dispersed monkeys up the trees and into the bushes as we approached. +Next to the parrots it is the monkeys that most convince the traveller +that he is in a strange tropical land. And the flying foxes. Nothing +is more strange than a tree full of these creatures sleeping pendant by +day, or their silent swift black movements by night. + +I saw no snakes wild, but in the Bacteriological Laboratory at Parel +in Bombay, which Lt.-Col. Glen Liston controls with so much zeal and +resourcefulness, I was shown the process by which the antidotes to snake +poisoning are prepared, for dispersion through the country. A cobra or +black snake is released from his cage and fixed by the attendant with +a stick pressed on his neck a little below the head. The snake is then +firmly and safely held just above this point between the finger and +thumb, and a tumbler, with a piece of flannel round its edge, is +proffered to it to bite. As the snake bites, a clear yellow fluid, like +strained honey in colour and thickness, flows into the glass from the +poison fangs. This poison is later injected in small doses into the +veins of horses kept carefully for the purpose, and then, in due course, +the blood of the horses is tapped in order to make the anti-toxin. +Wonderful are the ways of science! The Laboratory is also the +headquarters of the Government's constant campaign against malaria and +guinea worm, typhoid and cholera, and, in a smaller degree, hydrophobia. +But nothing, I should guess, would ever get sanitary sense into India, +except in almost negligible patches. + + + + +THE TOWERS OF SILENCE + + +The Parsees have made Bombay their own, more surely even than the +Scotch possess Calcutta. Numerically very weak, they are long-headed and +far-sighted beyond any Indian and are better qualified to traffick +and to control. All the cotton mills are theirs, and theirs the finest +houses in the most beautiful sites. When that conflict begins between +the Hindus and the Mohammedans which will render India a waste and a +shambles, it is the Parsees who will occupy the high places--until a +more powerful conqueror arrives. + +Bombay has no more curious sight than the Towers of Silence, the Parsee +cemetery; and one of the first questions that one is asked is if one +has visited them. But when the time came for me to ascend those sinister +steps on Malabar Hill I need hardly say that my companion was a many +years' resident of Bombay who, although he had long intended to go +there, had hitherto neglected his opportunities. Throughout my travels I +was, it is pleasant to think, in this way the cause of more sightseeing +in others than they might ever have suffered. To give but one other +instance typical of many--I saw Faneuil Hall in Boston in the company +of a Bostonian some thirty years of age, whose office was within a few +yards of this historic and very interesting building, and whose business +is more intimately associated with culture than any other, but who had +never before crossed the threshold. + +The Towers of Silence, which are situated in a very beautiful park, with +little temples among the trees and flowers, consist of five circular +buildings, a model of one of which is displayed to visitors. Inside the +tower is an iron grating on which the naked corpses are laid, and no +sooner are they there than the awaiting vultures descend and consume +the flesh. I saw these grisly birds sitting expectantly in rows on the +coping of the towers, and the sight was almost too gruesome. Such is +their voracity that the body is a skeleton in an hour or so. The Parsees +choose this method of dissolution because since they worship fire they +must not ask it to demean itself with the dead; and both earth and water +they hold also too sacred to use for burial. Hence this strange and--at +the first blush--repellant compromise. The sight of the cemetery that +awaits us in England is rarely cheering, but if to that cemetery were +attached a regiment of cruel and hideous birds of prey we should shudder +indeed. Whether the Parsees shudder I cannot say, but they give no sign +of it. They build their palaces in full view of these terrible Towers, +pass, on their way to dinner parties, luxuriously in Rolls-Royces beside +the trees where the vultures roost, and generally behave themselves as +if this were the best possible of worlds and the only one. And I think +they are wise. + +Oriental apathy, or, at any rate, unruffled receptiveness, may carry its +owner very far, and yet if these vultures cause no misgivings, no chills +at the heart, I shall be surprised. As for those olive-skinned Parsee +girls, with the long oval faces and the lustrous eyes--how must it +strike them? + +It was not till I went to the caves of Elephanta that I saw vultures +in their marvellous flight. It is here that they breed, and the sky was +full of them at an incredible distance up, resting on their great +wings against the wind, circling and deploying. At this height they are +magnificent. But seen at close quarters they are horrible, revolting. On +a day's hunting which I shall describe later I was in at the death of +a gond, or swamp-deer, at about noon, and we returned for the carcase +about three hours later, only to find it surrounded by some hundreds of +these birds tearing at it in a kind of frenzy of gluttony. They were not +in the least disconcerted by our approach, and not until the bearers had +taken sticks to them would they leave. The heavy half-gorged flapping of +a vulture's wings as it settles itself to a new aspect of its repast is +the most disgusting sight I have seen. + +To revert to the Towers of Silence, one is brought very near to death +everywhere in the East. We have our funeral corteges at home, with +sufficient frequency, but they do not emphasize the thought of the +necessary end of all things as do the swathed corpses that one meets so +often being carried through the streets, on their way to this or that +burning place. In Bombay I met several every day, with their bearers and +followers all in white, and all moving with the curious trot that seems +to be reserved for such obsequies. There were always, also, during my +stay, new supplies of fire-wood outside the great Hindu burning ground +in Queen's Road; and yet no epidemic was raging; the city was normal +save for a strike of mill-hands. It is true that I met wedding parties +almost equally often; but in India a wedding party is not, as with us, a +suggestion of new life to replace the dead, for the brides so often are +infants. + +One of the differences between the poor of London and the poor of India +may be noticed here. In the East-End a funeral is considered to be +a failure unless its cost is out of all proportion to the survivors' +means, while a wedding is a matter of a few shillings; whereas in India +a funeral is a simple ceremony, to be hurried over, while the wedding +festivities last for weeks and often plunge the family into debts from +which they never recover. + + + + +THE GARLANDS + + +The selective processes of the memory are very curious. It has been +decreed that one of my most vivid recollections of Bombay should be that +of the embarrassment and half-amused self-consciousness of an American +business man on the platform of the railway station for Delhi. Having +completed his negotiatory visit he was being speeded on his way by +the native staff of the firm, who had hung him with garlands like a +sacrificial bull. In the Crawford Market I had watched the florists at +work tearing the blossoms from a kind of frangipani known as the Temple +Flower, in order to string them tightly into chains; and now and again +in the streets one came upon people wearing them; but to find a +shrewd and portly commercial American thus bedecked was a shock. As it +happened, he was to share my compartment, and on entering, just before +the train started, he apologised very heartily for importing so much +heavy perfume into the atmosphere, but begged to be excused because +it was the custom of the country and he didn't like to hurt anyone's +feelings. He then stood at the door, waving farewells, and directly the +line took a bend flung the wreaths out of the window. I was glad of his +company, for in addition to these floral offerings his Bombay associates +had provided him with a barrel of the best oranges that ever were +grown--sufficient for a battalion--and these we consumed at brief +intervals all the way to Delhi. + + + + +DELHI + + +"If you can be in India only so short a time as seven weeks," said an +artist friend of mine--and among his pictures is a sombre representation +of the big sacred bull that grazes under the walls of Delhi Fort--"why +not stay in Delhi all the while? You will then learn far more of India +than by rushing about." I think he was right, although it was not +feasible to accept the advice. For Delhi has so much; it has, first and +foremost, the Fort; it has the Jama Masjid, that immense mosque where +on Fridays at one o'clock may be seen Mohammedans of every age wearing +every hue, thousands worshipping as one; it has the ancient capitals +scattered about the country around it; it has signs and memories of +the Mutiny; it has delectable English residences; and it has the Chadni +Chauk, the long main street with all its curious buildings and +crowds and countless tributary alleys, every one of which is the East +crystallised, every one of which has its white walls, its decorative +doorways, its loiterers, its beggars, its artificers, and its defiance +of the bogey, Progress. + +Another thing: in January, Delhi, before the sun is high and after he +has sunk, is cool and bracing. + +But, most of all, Delhi is interesting because it was the very centre +of the Mogul dominance, and when one has become immersed in the story +of the great rulers, from Babar to Aurungzebe, one thinks of most other +history as insipid. Of Babar, who reigned from 1526 to 1530, I saw no +trace in India; but his son Humayun (1530-1556) built Indrapat, which is +just outside the walls of Delhi, and he lies close by in the beautiful +mausoleum that bears his name. Humayun's son, Akbar (1556-1605), +preferred Agra to Delhi; nor was Jahangir (1605-1627), who succeeded +Akbar, a great builder hereabout; but with Shah Jahan (1627-1658), +Jahangir's son, came the present Delhi's golden age. He it was who built +the Jama Masjid, the great mosque set commandingly on a mound and gained +by magnificent flights of steps. To the traveller approaching the city +from any direction the two graceful minarets of the mosque stand for +Delhi. It was Shah Jahan, price of Mogul builders, who decreed also the +palace in the Fort, to say nothing (at the moment) of the Taj Mahal at +Agra; while two of his daughters, Jahanara, and Roshanara, that naughty +Begam, enriched Delhi too, the little pavilion in the Gardens that +bear Roshanara's name being a gem. Wandering among these architectural +delights, now empty and under alien protection, it is difficult to +believe that their period was as recent as Cromwell and Milton. But in +India the sense of chronology vanishes. + +After Shah Jahan came his crafty son, Aurungzebe, who succeeded in +keeping his empire together until 1707, and with him the grandeur of the +Grand Moguls waned and after him ceased to be, although not until the +Mutiny was their rule extinguished. As I have just said, in India the +sense of chronology vanishes, or goes astray, and it is with a start +that one is confronted, in the Museum in Delhi Fort, by a photograph of +the last Mogul! + +In Bombay, during my wakeful moments in the hottest part of the day, +I had passed the time and imbibed instruction by reading the three +delightful books of the late E. H. Aitken, who called himself +"Eha"--"Behind the Bungalow," "The Tribes on My Frontier" and "A +Naturalist on the Prowl." No more amusing and kindly studies of the +fauna, flora and human inhabitants of a country can have ever been +written than these; and I can suggest, to the domestically curious mind, +no better preparation for a visit to India. But at Raisina, when the +cool evenings set in and it was pleasant to get near the wood fire, I +took to history and revelled in the story of the Moguls as told by many +authorities, but most entertainingly perhaps by Tavernier, the French +adventurer who took service under Aurungzebe. If any one wants to know +what Delhi was like in the seventeenth century during Aurungzebe's long +reign, and how the daily life in the Palace went, and would learn +more of the power and autocracy and splendour and cruelty of the Grand +Moguls, let him get Tavernier's record. If once I began to quote from it +I should never stop; and therefore I pass on, merely remarking that +when you have finished the travels of M. Tavernier, the travels of M. +Bernier, another contemporary French observer, await you. And I hold you +to be envied. + +The Palace in the Fort is now but a fraction of what it was in the +time of Aurungzebe and his father, but enough remains to enable the +imaginative mind to reconstruct the past, especially if one has read +my two annalists. One of Bernier's most vivid passages describes the +Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of Public Audience, the building to which, after +leaving the modern military part of the Fort, one first comes, where the +Moguls sat in state during a durbar, and painted and gilded elephants, +richly draped, took part in the obeisances. Next comes the Hall of +Private Audiences, where the Peacock Throne once stood. It has now +vanished, but in its day it was one of the wonders of the world, the +tails of the two guardian peacocks being composed of precious stones and +the throne itself being of jewelled gold. It was for this that one of +Shah Jahan's poets wrote an inscription in which we find such lines as-- + + By the order of the Emperor the azure of Heaven + was exhausted on its decoration.... + + The world had become so short of gold on account of + its use in the throne that the purse of the Earth + was empty of treasure.... + + On a dark night, by the lustre of its rubies and pearls + it can lend stars to a hundred skies.... + +That was right enough, no doubt, but when our poet went on to say, + + As long as a trace remains of existence and space + Shah Jahan shall continue to sit on this throne, + +we feel that he was unwise. Such pronouncements can be tested. As it +happened, Shah Jahan was destined, very shortly after the poem was +written, to be removed into captivity by his son, and the rest of his +unhappy life was spent in a prison at Agra. On each end wall of the Hall +of Private Audience is the famous couplet,-- + + If there is a Paradise on the face of the earth, + It is this, Oh! it is this, Oh! it is this. + +I think of the garden and palace of Delhi Fort as the loveliest spot +in India. Not the most beautiful, not the most impressive; but the +loveliest. The Taj Mahal has a greater beauty; the ruined city of +Fatehpur-Sikri has a greater dignity; but for the perfection of domestic +regality in design and material and workmanship, this marble home and +mosque and accompanying garden and terrace could not be excelled. +After the Halls of Audience we come to the seraglio and accompanying +buildings, where everything is perfect and nothing is on the grand +scale. The Pearl Mosque could hardly be smaller; and it is as pure and +fresh as a lotus. There is a series of apartments all in white marble +(with inlayings of gold and the most delicately pierced marble gratings) +through which a stream of water used to run (and it ran again at the +Coronation Durbar in 1911, when the Royal Baths were again made to +"function") that must be one of the most magical of the works of man. +Every inch is charming and distinguished. All these rooms are built +along the high wall which in the time of Shah Jahan and his many lady +loves was washed by the Jumna. But to-day the river has receded and a +broad strip of grass intervenes. + + + + +A DAY'S HAWKING + + +One of my best Indian days was that on which Colonel Sir Umar Hayat +Khan took us out a-hawking. Sir Umar is himself something of a hawk--an +impressive figure in his great turban with long streamers, his keen +aquiline features and blackest of hair. All sport comes naturally to +him, whether hunting or shooting, pig-sticking, coursing or falconry; +and the Great War found him with a sportsman's eagerness to rush into +the fray, where he distinguished himself notably. + +We found this gallant chieftain in the midst of his retainers on the +further bank of the Jumna, at the end of the long bridge. Here the +plains begin--miles of fields of stubble, with here and there a tree +and here and there a pool or marsh, as far as eye can reach, an ancient +walled city in the near distance being almost the only excrescence. +Between the river and this city was our hunting ground. + +With the exception of Sir Umar, two of his friends and ourselves, the +company was on foot; and nothing more like the middle ages did I ever +see. The retainers were in every kind of costume, one having an old pink +coat and one a green; one leading a couple of greyhounds in case we put +up a hare; others carrying guns (for we were prepared for all); while +the chief falconer and his assistants had their hawks on their wrists, +and one odd old fellow was provided with a net, in which a captive live +hawk was to flutter and struggle to attract his hereditary foes, the +little birds, who, deeming him unable to hit back, were to swarm down to +deride and defy and be caught in the meshes. + +I may say at once that hawking, particularly in this form, does not give +me much pleasure. There is something magnificent in the flight of the +falcon when it is released and flung towards its prey, but the odds are +too heavy in its favour and the whimperings of the doomed quarry strike +a chill in the heart. We flew our hawks at duck and plovers, and missed +none. Often the first swoop failed, but the deadly implacable pursuer +was instantly ready to swoop again, and rarely was a third manoeuvre +necessary. Man, under the influence of the excitement of the chase, is +the same all the world over, and there was no difference between these +Indians moving swiftly to intervene between the hawk and its stricken +prey and an English boy running to retrieve his rabbit. Their animation +and triumph--even their shouts and cries--were alike. + +And so we crossed field after field on our gentle steeds--and no one +admires gentleness in a horse more than I--stopping only to watch +another tragedy of the air, or to look across the river to Delhi and see +the Fort under new conditions. All this country I had so often looked +down upon from those high massive walls, standing in one of the +lovely windows of Shah Jahan's earthly paradise; and now the scene was +reversed, and I began to take more delight in it than in the sport. But +at a pond to which we next came there was enacted a drama so absorbing +that everything else was forgotten, even the heat of the sun. + +Upon this pond were three wild-duck at which a falcon was instantly +flown. For a while, however, they kept their presence of mind and +refused to leave the water--diving beneath the surface at the moment +that the enemy was within a foot of them. On went the hawk, in its +terrible, cruel onset, and up came the ducks, all ready to repeat these +tactics when it turned and attacked again. But on one of the party (I +swear it was not I), in order to assist the hawk, firing his gun, two of +the ducks became panic-stricken and left the water, only of course to +be quickly destroyed. It was on the hawk's return journey to the pond +to make sure of the third duck that I saw for the first time in my +life--and I hope the last--the expression on the countenance of these +terrible birds in the execution of their duty: more than the mere +execution of duty, the determination to have no more nonsense, to put an +end to anything so monstrous as self-protection in others; for my horse +being directly in the way, he flew under its neck and for a moment I +thought that he was confusing me with the desired mallard. Nothing more +merciless or purposeful did I ever see. + +Then began a really heroic struggle on the part of the victim. He +timed his dives to perfection, and escaped so often that the spirit of +chivalry would have decreed a truce. But blood had been tasted, and, the +desire being for more, the guns were again discharged. Not even they, +however, could divert the duck from his intention of saving his life, +and he dived away from the shot, too. + +It was at this moment that assistance to the gallant little bird +arrived--not from man, who was past all decency, but from brother +feathers. Out of a clear sky suddenly appeared two tern, dazzling in +their whiteness, and these did all in their power to infuriate the hawk +and lure him from the water. They flew round him and over him; they +called him names; they said he was a bully and that all of us (which was +true) ought to be ashamed of ourselves; they daunted and challenged and +attacked. But the enemy was too strong for them. A fusillade drove them +off, and once again we were free to consider the case of the duck, who +was still swimming anxiously about, hoping against hope. More shots were +fired, one of the boys waded in with a stick, and the dogs were added +to the assault; and in the face of so determined a bombardment the poor +little creature at last flew up, to be struck down within a few seconds +by the insatiable avenger. + +That was the crowning event of the afternoon. Thereafter we had only +small successes, and some very pronounced failures when, as happened +several times, a bird flew for safety through a tree, and the hawk, +following, was held up amid the branches. One of the birds thus to +escape was a blue jay of brilliant beauty. We also got some hares. And +then we loitered back under the yellowing sky, and Sir Umar Hayat Khan +ceased suddenly to be a foe of fur and feathers and became a poet, +talking of sunsets in India and in England as though the appreciation of +tender beauty were his only delight. + + + + +NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI + + +There have been seven Delhis; and it required no little courage to +establish a new one--the Imperial capital--actually within sight of most +of them; but the courage was forthcoming. Originally the position was to +be to the north of the present city, where the Coronation Durbar spread +its canvas, but Raisina was found to be healthier, and it is there, some +five miles to the south-west, that the new palaces are rising from the +rock. Fatehpur-Sikri is the only city with which the New Delhi can +be compared; but not Akbar himself could devise it on a nobler scale. +Akbar's centralising gift and Napoleon's spacious views may be said to +combine here, the long avenues having kinship with the Champs Elysées, +and Government House and the Secretariat on the great rocky plateau at +Raisina corresponding to the palace on Fatehpur-Sikri's highest point. +The splendour and the imagination which designed the lay-out of Imperial +Delhi cannot be over-praised, and under the hands of Sir Edwin Lutyens +and Mr. Herbert Baker some wonderful buildings are coming to life. The +city, since it is several square miles in extent, cannot be finished for +some years, but it may be ready to be the seat of Government as soon as +1924. + +As I have said, the old Delhis are all about the new one. On the Grand +Trunk road out of Delhi proper, which goes to Muttra and Agra, you pass, +very quickly, on the left, the remains of Firozabad, the capital of +Firoz Shah in the later thirteenth century. Two or three miles further +on is Indrapat on its hill overlooking the Jumna, surrounded by lofty +walls. It is as modern as the sixteenth century, but is now in ruins. +At Indrapat reigned Humayun, the son of the mighty Babar (who on his +conquering way to Delhi had swum every river in advance of his army) +and the father of the mighty Akbar. I loitered long within Indrapat's +massive walls, which are now given up to a few attendants and an +occasional visitor, and like all the monuments around Delhi are most +carefully conserved under the Act for that purpose, which was not the +least of Lord Curzon's Viceregal achievements. Among the buildings which +still stand, rising from the turf, is Humayun's library. It was here +that he met his end--one tradition relating that he fell in the dark +on his way to fetch a book, and another that his purpose had been less +intellectually amatory. + +Another mile and we come, still just beside the Grand Trunk road, +to Humayun's Tomb, which stands in a vast garden where green parrots +continually chatter and pursue each other. There is something very +charming--a touch of the truest civilisation, if civilisation means +the art of living graciously--in the practice of the old Emperors and +rulers, of building their mausoleums during their lifetime and using +them, until their ultimate destiny was fulfilled, as pleasure resorts. +To this enchanting spot came Humayun and his ladies full of life, to +be insouciant and gay. Then, his hour striking, Humayun's happy retreat +became Humayun's Tomb. He died in 1556, when Queen Mary, in England, was +persecuting Protestants. The Tomb is in good repair and to the stranger +to the East who has not yet visited Agra and seen the Taj Mahal (which +has a similar ground plan), it is as beautiful as need be. Humayun's +cenotaph, in plain white marble, is in the very centre. Below, in the +vault immediately beneath it, are his remains. Other illustrious dust is +here, too; and some less illustrious, such as that of Humayun's barber, +which reposes beneath a dome of burning-blue tiles in a corner of the +garden. + +From the upper galleries of the Emperor's mausoleum the eye enjoys +various rich prospects--the valley of the Jumna pulsating in the heat, +the walls of the New Delhi at Raisina almost visibly growing, and, to +the north, Delhi itself, with the twin towers of the great mosque over +all. Down the Grand Trunk road, immediately below, are bullock wagons +and wayfarers, and here and there is a loaded camel. Across the road is +a curious little group of sacred buildings whither some of the wayfarers +no doubt are bent on a pilgrimage; for here is the shrine of the Saint +Nizam-ud-din Aulia, who worked miracles during his life and died during +the reign of our Edward II--in 1324. + +On visiting his shrine (which involved the usual assumption of overshoes +to prevent our infidel leather from contaminating the floor), we fell, +after evading countless beggars and would-be guides, into the hands of a +kindly old man who pressed handfuls of little white nuts upon us and who +remains in my memory as the only independent Mussulman priest in India, +for he refused a tip. In this respect nothing could be more widely +separated than his conduct and that of the three priests of the Jama +Masjid in Delhi, who, discovering us on the wall, just before the +Friday service began, held up the service for several minutes while they +explained their schedule of gratuities--beginning with ten rupees +for the High Priest--and this after we had already provided for the +attendant who had supplied the overshoes and had led us to the point of +vantage! I thought how amusing it would be if a visitor to an English +cathedral--where money usually has to pass, as it is--were surrounded by +the Dean, Archdeacon, Canons and Minor Canons, with outstretched hands, +and had to buy his way to a sight of the altar, according to the status +of each. The spectacle would be as odd to us, as it must be to the +French or Italians--and even perhaps Americans--to see a demand for an +entrance fee on the Canterbury portals. + +Were we to continue on the Grand Trunk road for a few miles, first +crossing a noble Mogul bridge, we should come to a little walled city, +Badapur, where a turning due west leads to another Delhi of the past, +Tughlakabad, and on to yet another, the remains of Lal Kot, where the +famous Minar soars to the sky. + +One of the most pleasing effects of the New Delhi is the series of +vistas which the lay-out provides. It has been so arranged that many of +the avenues radiating from the central rock on which Government House +and the Secretariat are being set are closed at their distant ends by +historic buildings. Standing on the temporary tower which marks this +centre one is able to see in a few moments all the ruined cities that I +have mentioned. The Kutb Minar is the most important landmark in the +far south, although the eye rests most lovingly on the red and white +comeliness of the tomb of Safdar Jang in the middle distance--which, +with Humayun's Tomb, makes a triangle with the new Government House. +Within that triangle are the Lodi tombs, marking yet another period +in the history of Delhi, the Lodis being the rulers who early in the +fifteenth century were defeated by Babar. + +The Kutb Minar enclosure, which is a large garden, where beautiful +masonry, flowers, trees and birds equally flourish, commemorates the +capture of Delhi by Muhammad bin Sam in 1193, the battle being directed +by his lieutenant, Kutb-ud-din. From that time until the Mutiny in 1857 +Delhi was under Mohammedan rule. One of the first acts of the conqueror +was to destroy the Hindu temple that stood here and erect the mosque +that now takes its place, and he then built the great tower known as the +Kutb Minar, or Tower of Victory, which ascends in diminishing red +and white storeys to a height of 235 feet, involving the inquisitive +view-finder in a climb of 379 steps. On the other side of the mosque +are the beginnings of a second tower, which, judging by the size of the +base, was to have risen to a still greater height, but it was abandoned +after 150 feet. Its purpose was to celebrate for ever the glory of the +Emperor Ala-ud-din (1296-1316). + +In front of the mosque is the Iron Pillar which has been the cause of so +much perplexity both to antiquaries and chemists, and meat and drink to +Sanscrit scholars. The pillar has an inscription commemorating an early +monarch named Chandra who conquered Bengal in the fifth century, and it +must have been brought to this spot for re-erection. But its refusal to +rust, and the purity of its constituents, are its special merits. To me +the mysteries of iron pillars are without interest, and what I chiefly +remember of this remarkable pleasaunce is the exquisite stone carvings +of the ruined cloisters and the green parrots that play among the trees. + + + + +THE DIVERS + + +As we were leaving the Kutb after a late afternoon visit, my host and +I were hailed excitedly by an elderly man whose speech was +incomprehensible, but whose gestures indicated plainly enough that there +was something important up the hill. The line of least resistance being +the natural one in India, we allowed him to guide us, and came after a +few minutes, among the ruins of the citadel of Lal Kot, to one of those +deep wells gained by long flights of steps whither the ladies of the +palaces used to resort in the hottest weather. Evening was drawing on +and the profundities of this cavern were forbiddingly gloomy; nor was +the scene rendered more alluring by the presence of three white-bearded +old men, almost stark naked and leaner than greyhounds, who shivered +and grimaced, and suggested nothing so much as fugitives from the +grave. They were, however, not only alive, but athletically so, being +professional divers who earned an exceedingly uncomfortable living by +dropping, feet first, from the highest point of the building into the +water eighty feet below. + +One of them indicating his willingness--more than willingness, +eagerness--to perform this manoeuvre for two rupees, we agreed, and +placing us on a step from which the best view could be had, he fled +along the gallery to the top of the shaft, and after certain preliminary +movements, to indicate how perilous was the adventure, and how chilly +the evening, and how more than worth two rupees it was, he committed +his body to the operations of the law of gravity. We saw it through the +apertures in the shaft on its downward way and then heard the splash as +it reached the distant water, while a crowd of pigeons who had retired +to roost among the masonry dashed out and away. The diver emerged from +the well and came running up the steps towards us, while his companion +scarecrows fled also to the top of the shaft and one after the other +dropped down, too; so that in a minute or so we were surrounded by three +old, dripping men, each demanding two rupees. Useless to protest that we +had desired but one of them to perform: they pursued us into the open, +and even clung to our knees, and of course we paid--afterwards to learn +that one rupee for the lot was a lavish guerdon. + +One meets with these divers continually, wherever there is a pool sacred +or otherwise; but some actually leap into the water and do not merely +drop. At the shrine of the Saint Nizam-ud-din, near Humayun's Tomb, I +found them--but there they were healthy-looking youths--and again at +Fatehpur-Sikri. But for this sporadic diving, the wrestling bouts which +are common everywhere, the Nautch and the jugglers, India seems to have +no pastimes. + + + + +THE ROPE TRICK + + +The returning traveller from India is besieged by questioners who want +to know all about the most famous of the jugglers' performances. In this +trick the magician flings a rope into the air, retaining one end in his +hand, and his boy climbs up it and disappears. I did not see it. + + + + +AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI + + +All the Indian cities that I saw seemed to cover an immense acreage, +partly because every modern house has its garden and compound. In a +country where land is cheap and servants are legion there need be no +congestion, and, so far, the Anglo-Indian knows little or nothing of the +embarrassments of dwellers in New York or London. To every one in India +falls naturally a little faithful company of assistants to oil the +wheels of life--groom, gardener, butler and so forth--and a spacious +dwelling-place to think of England in, and calculate the variable value +of the rupee, and wonder why the dickens So-and-so got his knighthood. +Agra seemed to me to be the most widespreading city of all; but very +likely it is not. In itself it is far from being the most interesting, +but it has one building of great beauty--the Pearl Mosque in the +Fort--and one building of such consummate beauty as to make it a place +of pilgrimage that no traveller would dare to avoid--the Taj Mahal. +Whether or not the Taj Mahal is the most enchanting work of architecture +in the world I leave it to more extensive travellers to say. To my eyes +it has an unearthly loveliness which I make no effort to pass on to +others. + +The Taj Mahal was built by that inspired friend of architecture, Shah +Jahan, as the tomb of the best beloved of his wives, Arjmand Banu, +called Mumtaz-i-Mahal or Pride of the Palace. There she lies, and +there lies her husband. I wonder how many of the travellers who stand +entranced before this mausoleum, in sunshine and at dusk or under the +moon, and who have not troubled about its history, realise that Giotto's +Tower in Florence is three centuries older, and St. Peter's in Rome +antedates it by a little, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London is only +twenty or thirty years younger. Yet so it is. In India one falls +naturally into the way of thinking of everything that is not of our own +time as being of immense age, if not prehistoric. + +Opinions differ as to the respective beauties of Agra Fort and Delhi +Fort, but in so far as the enclosures themselves are considered I give +my vote unhesitatingly to Delhi. Yet when one thinks also of what can +be seen from the ramparts, then the palm goes instantly to Agra, for its +view of the Taj Mahal. It is tragic, walking here, to think of the last +days of Shah Jahan, who brought into being both the marble palace +and the wonderful Moti-Masjid or marble mosque. For in 1658 his son, +Aurungzebe, deposed him and for the rest of his life he was imprisoned +in these walls. + +His grandfather, Akbar, the other great Agra builder, was made of +sterner stuff. All Shah Jahan's creations--the Taj, the marble mosque, +the palaces both here and at Delhi, even the great Jama Masjid at +Delhi,--have a certain sensuous quality. They are not exactly decadent, +but they suggest sweetness rather than strength. The Empire had been +won, and Shah Jahan could indulge in luxury and ease. But Akbar had had +to fight, and he remained to the end a man of action, and we see his +character reflected in his stronghold Fatehpur-Sikri, which one visits +from Agra and never forgets. If I were asked to say which place in India +most fascinated me and touched the imagination I think I should name +this dead city. + +Akbar, the son of Babar, is my hero among the Moguls, and this was +Akbar's chosen home, until scarcity of water forced him to abandon it +for Agra. Akbar, the noblest of the great line of Moguls whose splendour +ended in 1707 with the death of Aurungzebe, came to the throne in 1556, +only eight years before Shakespeare was born, and died in 1605, and +it is interesting to realise how recent were his times, the whole +suggestion of Fatehpur-Sikri being one of very remote antiquity. Yet +when it was being built so modern a masterpiece as _Hamlet_ was being +written and played. Those interested in the Great Moguls ought really +to visit Fatehpur-Sikri before Delhi or Agra, because Akbar was the +grandfather of Shah Jahan. But there can be no such chronological +wanderings in India. Have we not already seen Humayun's Tomb, outside +Delhi?--and Humayun was Akbar's father. + + They say the leopard and the jackal keep + The courts where Akbar gloried.... +--this adaptation of FitzGerald's lines ran through my mind as we passed +from room to room and tower to tower of Fatehpur-Sikri. There is nothing +to compare with it, except perhaps Pompeii. And in that comparison one +realises how impossible it is at a hazard to date an Indian ruin, for, +as I have said, Fatehpur-Sikri is from the days of Elizabeth, while +Pompeii was destroyed in the first century, and yet Pompeii in many ways +seems less ancient. + +The walls of Fatehpur-Sikri are seven miles round and the city rises to +the summits of two steep hills. It was on the higher one that Akbar set +his palace. Civilisation has run a railway through the lower levels; the +old high road still climbs the hill under the incredibly lofty walls of +the palace. The royal enclosure is divided into all the usual courtyards +and apartments, but they are on a grander scale. Also the architecture +is more mixed. Here is the swimming bath; here are the cool, dark rooms +for the ladies of the harem in the hottest days, with odd corners where +Akbar is said to have played hide-and-seek with them; here is the +hall where Akbar, who kept an open mind on religion, listened to, and +disputed with, dialecticians of varying creeds--himself seated in the +middle, and the doctrinaires in four pulpits around him; here is +the Mint; here is the house of the Turkish queen, with its elaborate +carvings and decorations; here is the girls' school, with a courtyard +laid out for human chess, the pieces being slave-girls; here is a noble +mosque; here is the vast court where the great father of his people +administered justice, or what approximated to it, and received homage. +Here are the spreading stables and riding school; here is even the tomb +of a favourite elephant. + +And here is the marble tomb of the Saint, the Shaikh Salim, whose +holiness brought it about that the Emperor became at last the father of +a son--none other than Jahangir. The shrine is visited even to this day +by childless wives, who tie shreds of their clothing to the lattice-work +of a marble window as an earnest of their maternal worthiness. It is +visited also by the devout for various purposes, among others by those +whose horses are sick and who nail votive horseshoes to the great gate. +According to tradition the mother of Jahangir was a Christian named +Miriam, and her house and garden may be seen, the house having the +traces of a fresco which by those who greatly wish it can be believed to +represent the Annunciation. Tradition, however, is probably wrong, and +the princess was from Jaipur and a true Mussulwoman. + +From every height--and particularly from the Panch Mahal's roof--one +sees immense prospects and realises what a landmark the stronghold of +Fatehpur-Sikri must have been to the dwellers in the plains; but no view +is the equal of that which bursts on the astonished eyes at the great +north gateway, where all Rajputana is at one's feet. I do not pretend to +any exhaustive knowledge of the gates of the world, but I cannot believe +that there can be others set as this Gate of Victory is in the walls of +a palace, at the head of myriad steps, on the very top of a commanding +rock and opening on to thousands of square miles of country. Having seen +the amazing landscape one descends the steps to the road, and looking +up is astonished and exalted by seeing the gate from below. Nothing +so grand has ever come into my ken. The Taj Mahal is unforgettingly +beautiful; but this glorious gate in the sky has more at once to +exercise and stimulate the imagination and reward the vision. + +On the gate are the words: "Isa (Jesus), on whom be peace, said: 'The +world is a bridge; pass over it, but build no house on it. The world +endures but an hour; spend it in devotion.'" + +Having seen Fatehpur-Sikri, where Akbar lived and did more than build +a house, it is a natural course to return to Agra by way of Sikandra, +where he was buried. Sikandra is like the Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb +in general disposition--the mausoleum itself being in the centre of a +garden. But it is informed by a more sombre spirit. The burial-place +of the mighty Emperor is in the very heart of the building, gained by a +sloping passage lit by an attendant with a torch. Here was Akbar laid, +while high above, on the topmost stage of the mausoleum, in the full +light, is his cenotoph of marble, with the ninety-nine names of Allah +inscribed upon it. Near the cenotaph is a marble pillar on which once +was set the Koh-i-noor diamond, chief of Akbar's treasures. To-day it is +part of the English regalia. + + + + +LUCKNOW + + +The Ridge at Delhi is a sufficiently moving reminder of the Indian +Mutiny; but it is at Lucknow that the most poignant phases are +re-enacted. At Delhi may be seen, preserved for ever, the famous +buildings which the British succeeded in keeping--Hindu Rao's house, +and the Observatory, and Flagstaff Tower, the holding of which gave them +victory; while in the walls of the Kashmir Gate our cannon balls are +still visibly imbedded. There is also the statue of John Nicholson in +the Kudsia Garden, and in the little Museum of the Fort are countless +souvenirs. + +But Lucknow was the centre of the tragedy, and the Residency is +preserved as a sacred spot. Not even the recent Great War left in its +track any more poignant souvenirs of fortitude and disaster than the +little burial ground here, around the ruins of the church, where those +who fell in the Mutiny and those who fought or suffered in the Mutiny +are lying. Long ago as it was--1857--there are still a few vacant lots +destined to be filled. Chief of the tombstones that bear the honoured +names is that of the heroic defender who kept upon the topmost roof the +banner of England flying. It has the simple and touching inscription: +"Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. May the Lord have +mercy on his soul!" + +In the Residency every step of the siege and relief can be followed. +I was there first on a serene evening after rain; and but for some +tropical trees it might have been an English scene. All that was lacking +was a thrush or blackbird's note; but the grass was as soft and green +as at home and the air as sweet. I shall long retain the memory of the +contrast between the incidents which give this enclosure its unique +place in history and the perfect calm brooding over all. And whenever +any one calls my attention to a Bougainvillaea I shall say, "Ah! But you +should see the Bougainvillaea in the Residency garden at Lucknow." + +Everywhere that I went in India I found this noble lavish shrub in full +flower, but never wearing such a purple as at Lucknow. The next best was +in the Fort at Delhi. It was not till I reached Calcutta that I caught +any glimpse of the famous scarlet goldmore tree in leaf; but I saw +enough to realise how splendid must be the effect of an avenue of them. +Bombay, however, was rich in hedges of poinsettia, and they serve as an +introduction to the goldmore's glory. + +Before leaving the Residency I should like to quote a passage from the +little brochure on the defence of Lucknow which Sir Harcourt Butler, the +Governor of the United Provinces, with characteristic thoughtfulness has +prepared for the use of his guests. "The visitor to the Residency," +he wrote, thinking evidently of a similar evening to that on which we +visited it, "who muses on the past and the future, may note that upon +the spot where the enemy's assault was hottest twin hospitals for +Europeans and Indians have been erected by Oudh's premier Taluqdar, +the Maharaja of Balrampur; and as the sun sets over the great city, +lingering awhile on the trim lawns and battered walls which link the +present with the past, a strong hope may come to him, like a distant +call to prayer, that old wounds may soon be healed, and old causes of +disunion may disappear, and that Englishmen and Indians, knit together +by loyalty to their beloved Sovereign, may be as brothers before the +altar of the Empire, bearing the Empire's burden, and sharing its +inestimable privileges, and, it may be, adding something not yet seen or +dreamt of to its world-wide and weather-beaten fame." + +I left Lucknow with regret, and would advise any European with time +to spare, and the desire to be at once civilised and warm, to think +seriously of spending a winter there instead of in the illusory sunshine +of the Riviera, or the comparative barbarity of Algiers. The journey is +longer, but the charm of the place would repay. + + + + +A TIGER + + +To have the opportunity of hunting a tiger--on an elephant too--which by +a stroke of luck fell to me, is to experience the un-English character +of India at its fullest. Almost everything else could be reproduced +elsewhere--the palaces, the bazaars, the caravans, the mosques and +temples with their worshippers--but not the jungle, the Himalayas, the +vast swamps through which our elephants waded up to the Plimsoll, the +almost too painful ecstasies of the pursuit of an eater of man. + +The master of the chase, who has many tigers to his name, was Sir +Harcourt Butler, whose hospitality is famous, so large and warm is it, +and so minute, and it was because he was not satisfied that the ordinary +diversions of the "Lucknow Week" were sufficient for his guests, that +he impulsively arranged a day's swamp-deer shooting on the borders +of Nepaul. The time was short, or of elephants there would have been +seventy or more; as it was, we were apologised to (there were only about +six of us) for the poverty of the supply, a mere five and twenty being +obtainable. But to these eyes, which had never seen more than six +elephants at once, and those in the captivity either of a zoo or a +circus, a row of five and twenty was astounding. They were waiting for +us on the plain, at a spot distant some score of miles by car, through +improvised roads, from the station, whither an all-night railway +journey had borne us. The name of the station, if I ever knew it, I have +forgotten: there was no room in my heated brain for such trifles; but I +have forgotten nothing else. + +It was after an hour and a half's drive in the cool and spicy early +morning air--between the fluttering rags on canes which told the drivers +how to steer--that we came suddenly in sight of some distant tents and +beside them an immense long dark inexplicable mass which through the +haze seemed now and then to move. As we drew nearer, this mass was +discerned to be a row of elephants assembled in line ready to salute the +Governor. The effect was more impressive and more Eastern than anything +I had seen. Grotesque too--for some had painted faces and gilded toes, +and not a few surveyed me with an expression in which the comic spirit +was too noticeable. Six or seven had howdahs, the rest blankets: those +with howdahs being for the party and its leader, Bam Bahadur, a noted +shikaree; and the others to carry provisions and bring back the spoil. +On the neck of each sat an impassive mahout. + +To one to whom the pen is mightier than the gun and whose half a +century's bag contains only a few rabbits, a hedgehog and a moorhen, +it is no inconsiderable ordeal to be handed a repeating rifle and some +dozens of cartridges and be told that that is your elephant--the big one +there, with the red ochre on its forehead. To be on an elephant in +the jungle without the responsibilities of a lethal weapon would be +sufficient thrill for one day: but to be expected also to deal out death +was too much. In the company of others, however, one can do anything; +and I gradually ascended to the top, not, as the accomplished hunters +did, by placing a foot on the trunk and being swung heavenwards, but +painfully, on a ladder; by my side being a very keen Indian youth, +the son of a minor chieftain, who spoke English perfectly and was to +instruct me in Nimrod's lore. + +And so the procession started, and for a while discomfort set acutely +in, for the movement of a howdah is short and jerky, and it takes some +time both to adjust oneself to it and to lose the feeling that the +elephant sooner or later--and probably sooner--must trip and fall. But +the glory of the morning, the urgency of our progress, the novelty and +sublimity of the means of transport, the strangeness of the scene, and +my companion's speculations on the day's promise, overcame any personal +want of ease and I forgot myself in the universal. Our destination was +a series of marshes some six miles away, where the gonds--or +swamp-deer--were usually found, and we were divided up, some elephants, +of which mine was one, taking the left wing, with instructions on +reaching a certain spot to wait there for the deer who would move off in +that direction; others taking the right wing; and others beating up the +middle. + +We began with a trial of nervous stamina--for a river far down in its +bed below us almost immediately occurred, and this had to be crossed. +I abandoned all hope as the elephant descended the bank almost, as it +seemed, perpendicularly, and plunged into the water with an enormous +splash. But after he had squeeged through, extricating himself with a +gigantic wrench, the ground was level for a long while, and there was +time to look around and recollect one's fatalism. Far ahead in a blue +mist were the Himalayas. All about were unending fields, with here +and there white cattle grazing. Cranes stretched their necks above the +grass; now and then a herd of blackbuck (which were below our hunting +ambitions) scampered away; the sky was full of wild-duck and other +water-fowl. + +Of the hunting of the gond I should have something to say had not a +diversion occurred which relegated that lively and elusive creature to +an obscure place in the background. We had finished the beat, and most +of us had emerged from the swamp to higher ground where an open space, +or maidan, corresponding to a drive in an English preserve, but on the +grand scale, divided it from the jungle--all our thoughts being set upon +lunch--when suddenly across this open space passed a blur of yellow and +black only a few yards from the nearest elephant. It was so unexpected +and so quick that even the trained eyes of my companion were uncertain. +"Did you see?" he asked me in a voice of hushed and wondering awe. +"Could that have been a tiger?" I could not say, but I understood his +excitement. For the tiger is the king of Indian carnivorae, the most +desired of all game. Hunters date their lives by them: such and such +a thing happened not on the anniversary of their wedding day; not when +their boy went to Balliol; not when they received the K.C.I.E.; but in +the year that they shot this or that man-eater. + +That a tiger had really chanced upon us we soon ascertained. Also that +it had been hit by the rifle on the first elephant and had disappeared +into the jungle, which consisted hereabouts of a grass some twenty feet +high, bleached by the sun. + +A Council of War followed, and we were led by Bam Bahadur on a +rounding-up manoeuvre. According to his judgment the tiger would remain +just inside the cover, and our duty was therefore to make a wide detour +and then advance in as solid a semicircle as possible upon him and force +him again into the open, where the hunter who had inflicted the first +wound was to remain stationed. Accordingly all the rest of us entered +the jungle in single file, our elephants treading down the grass with +their great irresistible feet or wrenching it away with their invincible +trunks. It was now that the shikaree was feeling the elephant shortage. +Had there been seventy-five instead of only twenty-five, he said, all +would be well: he could then form a cordon such as no tiger might +break through. For lack of these others, when the time came to turn and +advance upon our prey he caused fires to be lighted here and there +where the gaps were widest, so that we forged onwards not only to +the accompaniment of the shrill cries of the mahouts and the noise of +plunging and overwhelming elephants, but to the fierce roar and crackle +of burning stalks. + +And thus, after an hour in this bewildering tangle, with the universe +filled with sound and strangeness, and the scent of wood smoke mingling +with the heat of the air, and the lust of the chase in our veins, we +drew to the spot where the animal was guessed to be hiding, and knew +that the guess was true by the demeanour of the elephants. Real danger +had suddenly entered into the adventure; and they showed it. A wounded +tiger at bay can do desperate things, and some of the elephants now +refused to budge forward any more, or complied only with terrified +screams. Some of the unarmed mahouts were also reluctant, and shouted +their fears. But the shikaree was inexorable. There the tiger was, and +we must drive it out. + +Closer and closer we drew, until every elephant's flank was pressing +against its neighbour, the outside ones being each at the edge of +the open space; in the middle of which was the twenty-fifth with its +vigilant rider standing tense with his rifle to his shoulder. The noise +was now deafening. Every one was uttering something, either to scare +the tiger or to encourage the elephants or his neighbour or possibly +himself; while now and then from the depths of the grass ahead of us +came an outraged growl, with more than a suggestion of contempt in it +for such unsportsmanship as could array twenty-five elephants, half a +hundred men and a dozen rifles against one inoffensive wild beast. + +And then suddenly the grass waved, there was a rustle and rush and a +snarl of furious rage, and once again a blur of yellow and black crossed +the open space. Six or more reports rang out, and to my dying day I +shall remember, with mixed feelings, that one of these reports was the +result of pressure on a trigger applied by a finger belonging to me. +That the tiger was hit again--by other bullets than mine--was certain, +but instead of falling it disappeared into the jungle on the other side +of the maidan, and again we were destined to employ enclosing tactics. +It was now intensely hot, but nobody minded; and we were an hour and a +half late for lunch, but nobody minded: the chase was all! The phrase +"out for blood" had taken on its literal primitive meaning. + +The second rounding-up was less simple than the first, because the tiger +had more choice of hiding places; but again our shikaree displayed his +wonderful intuition, and in about an hour we had ringed the creature +in. That this was to be the end was evident from the electrical +purposefulness which animated the old hands. The experienced shots were +carefully disposed, and my own peace of mind was not increased by the +warning "If the tiger leaps on your elephant, don't shoot"--the point +being that novices can be very wild with their rifles under such +conditions. As the question "What shall I do instead?" was lost in the +tumult, the latter stages of this momentous drama were seen by these +eyes less steadily and less whole than I could have wished. But I saw +the tiger spring, growling, at an elephant removed some four yards from +mine, and I saw it driven back by a shot from one of the native hunters. +And then when, after another period of anxious expectancy, it emerged +again from the undergrowth, and sprang towards our host, I saw him put +two bullets into it almost instantaneously; and the beautiful obstinate +creature fell, never to rise again. + + + + +THE SACRED CITY + + +The devout Hindu knows in Benares the height of ecstasy: but, if I am +typical, the European experiences there both discomfort and inquietude. +Nowhere else in India did I feel so foreign, so alien. To be of cool +Christian traditions and an Occidental, an inquisitive sightseer among +these fervent pilgrims intent upon their pious duties and rapt +in exaltation and unthinking inflexible belief, was in itself +disconcerting, almost to the point of shame; while the pilgrims were so +remarkably of a different world, a different era, that one felt lost. + +This, however, is not all. India is never too sanitary, except where the +English are in their own strongholds, but Benares--at any rate the parts +which the tourist must visit--is least scrupulous in such matters. The +canonization of the cow must needs carry a penalty with it, and Benares +might be described as a sanctified byre without any labouring Hercules +in prospect. Godliness it may have, but cleanliness is very distant. The +streets, too, seem to be narrower and more congested than those in any +other city; so that it is often embarrassingly difficult to treat the +approaching ruminants with the respect due to them. Fortunately they +are seldom anything but mild and unaggressive. Part perplexed, part +inquisitive, and part contemptuous, they are met everywhere, while +in one of the temples in which the unbeliever may (to his great +contentment) do no more than stand at the entrance, they are frankly +worshipped. In another temple monkeys are revered too, careering about +the walls and courtyards and being fed by the curious and the devout. + +Holiness is not only the peculiar characteristic of Benares: it is also +its staple industry. In the streets there is a shrine at every few feet, +while the shops where little lingams are for sale must be numbered by +hundreds. + +The chief glory of Benares is, however, the Ganges, on one side of which +is the teeming sweltering city with its palaces and temples heaped high +for two or three miles, and bathers swarming at the river's edge; while +the other bank is flat and bare. A watering-place front on the ocean's +shore does not end more suddenly and completely. There is nothing that +I have seen with which to compare the north bank of the Ganges, with the +morning sun on its many-coloured façades and towers, but Venice. As one +is rowed slowly down the river it is of Venice that one instinctively +thinks. As in Venice, the palaces are of various colours, pink and red +and yellow and blue, and the sun has crumbled their façades in the +same way. But there is this difference--that over the Benares roofs the +monkeys scamper. + +Gradually Venice is forgotten as the novel interest of the scene +captures one's whole attention. At each of the ghauts (a landing place +or steps) variegated masses of pilgrims--no matter how early the hour, +and to see them rightly one ought to start quite by six--are making +their ablutions and deriving holiness from the yellow tide. You saw them +yesterday trudging wearily through the streets, the sacred city at last +reached; and here they are in their thousands, brown and glistening. +They are of every age: quite old white-bearded men and withered women, +meticulously serious in their ritual, and then boys and girls deriving +also a little fun from their immersion. Here and there the bathing ghaut +is diversified by a burning ghaut, and one may catch a glimpse of the +extremities of the corpse twisting among the faggots. Here and there is +a boat or raft in which a priest is seated under his umbrella, fishing +for souls as men in punts on the Thames fish for roach. And over all +is the pitiless sun, hot even now, before breakfast, but soon to be +unbearable. + +I was not sorry when the voyage ended and we returned to the Maharajah's +Guest House for a little repose and refreshment, before visiting the +early Buddhist stronghold at Sarnath, the "Deer Park," where the Master +first preached his doctrine and whither his five attendants sought +a haven after they had forsaken him. Drifting about its ruins and +contemplating the glorious capital of the famous Asoka column--all that +has been preserved--I found myself murmuring the couplet,-- + + With a friendly Buddhist priest I seek respite from + the strife + And manifold anomalies which go to make up life-- + +but the odds are that even the early Buddhists were not immune. + + + + +CALCUTTA + + +Calcutta and Bombay are strangely different--so different that they can +only be contrasted. Bombay, first and foremost, has the sea, and I can +think of nothing more lovely than the sunsets that one watches from the +lawn of the Yacht Club or from the promenade on Warder Road. Calcutta +has no sea--nothing but a very difficult tidal river. Calcutta, again, +has no Malabar Hill. But then Bombay has no open space to compare +with the Maidan; and for all its crowded bazaars it has no street so +diversified and interesting as Harrison Road. It has no Chinatown. Its +climate is enervating where that of Calcutta, if not bracing--and no +one could call it that--at any rate does not extract every particle of +vigour from the European system. + +But the special glory of Calcutta is the Maidan, that vast green space +which, unlike so many parks, spreads itself at the city's feet. One +does not have to seek it: there it is, with room for every one and a +race-course and a cricket-ground to boot. And if there is no magic in +the evening prospect such as the sea and its ships under the flaming +or mysterious enveiling sky can offer to the eye at Bombay, there is a +quality of golden richness in the twilight over Calcutta, as seen across +the Maidan, through its trees, that is unique. I rejoiced in it daily. +This twilight is very brief, but it is exquisite. + +It is easier in Calcutta to be suddenly transported to England than +in any other Indian city that I visited. There are, it is true, more +statues of Lord Curzon than we are accustomed to; but many of the homes +are quite English, save for the multitude of servants; Government House, +serene and spacious and patrician, is a replica of Kedlestone Hall in +Derbyshire: the business buildings within and without are structurally +English, and the familiar Scotch accent sounds everywhere; but the +illusion is most complete in St. John's Church, that very charming, +cool, white and comfortable sanctuary, in the manner of Wren, and in St. +Andrew's too. Secluded here, the world shut off, one might as well be +in some urban conventicle at home on a sunny August day, as in the +glamorous East. St. John's particularly I shall remember: its light, its +distinction, its surrounding verdancy. + + + + +ROSE AYLMER + + + Ah, what avails the sceptred race, + Ah, what the form divine! + What every virtue, every grace! + Rose Aylmer, all were thine! + + Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes + May weep, but never see, + A night of memories and sighs + I consecrate to thee. + +One curious task which I set myself in Calcutta was to find Rose +Aylmer's grave, for it was there that, in 1800, the mortal part of the +lady whom Landor immortalised was buried. But I tried in vain. I walked +for hours amid the sombre pyramidal tombs beneath which the Calcutta +English used to be laid, among them, in 1815, Thackeray's father, but I +found no trace of her whom I sought. I have seen many famous cemeteries, +all depressing, from Kensal Green to Genoa, from Rock Creek to +Montmartre, but none can approach in its forlorn melancholy the tract of +stained and crumbling sarcophagi packed so close as almost to touch each +other, in the burial ground off Rawdon Street and Park Street. Let no +one establish a monument of cement over me. Any material rather than +that! + + + + +JOB AND JOE + + +If I did not find Rose Aylmer's tomb, I found, in St. John's pleasant +God's Acre, the comely mausoleum of Job Charnock, and this delighted me, +because for how long has been ringing in my ears that line-- + + "The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown + girl's for you." + +which I met with so many years ago in "The Light That Failed," where the +Nilghai sings it to his own music! He got it, he said, from a tombstone, +in a distant land; and the tombstone is now incorporated with Job +Charnock's, the distant land being India; but the verses I have had to +collect elsewhere. I found them in Calcutta, in my host's library. + +Joe was Joseph, or Josiah, Townsend, a pilot of the Ganges, and +tradition has it that he and Job Charnock, who, as an officer of the +East India Company, founded Calcutta in 1690, saved a pretty young Hindu +widow from ascending her husband's funeral pyre and committing suttee. +Tradition states further that Job Charnock and his bride "lived lovingly +for many years and had several children," until in due time she was +buried in the mausoleum at St. John's, where her husband sacrificed a +cock on each anniversary of her death ever after. The story has been +examined and found to be improbable, but Charnock was a bold fellow who +might easily have started many legends; and the poem remains, and if +there is a livelier, I should like to know of it. I have been at the +agreeable pains of reconstructing the verses as they were probably +written, so that there are two more than the Nilghai sang. The whole is +a very curious haunting ballad, leaving us with the desire to know much +more of the lives of both men--Job Charnock the frontiersman, and Joseph +Townsend, "skilful and industrious, a kind father and a useful friend," +who could navigate not only the Ganges but the shifting Hooghli. Rarely +can so much mixed autobiography and romance have been packed into six +stanzas--and here too the adventurous East and West meet:-- + + I've shipped my cable, messmates, I'm dropping down + with the tide; + I have my sailing orders while ye at anchor ride, + And never, on fair June morning, have I put out to sea + With clearer conscience, or better hope, or heart more light and free. + + An Ashburnham! A Fairfax! Hark how the corslets ring! + Why are the blacksmiths out to-day, beating those men at the spring? + Ho, Willie, Hob and Cuddie!--bring out your boats amain, + There's a great red pool to swim them o'er, yonder in Deadman's Lane. + + Nay, do not cry, sweet Katie--only a month afloat + And then the ring and the parson, at Fairlight Church, my doat. + The flower-strewn path--the Press Gang! No, I shall never see + Her little grave where the daisies wave in the breeze on Fairlight Lee. + + "Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge! + Out with the hangers, messmates, but do not strike with the edge!" + Cries Charnock, "Scatter the faggots! Double that Brahmin in two! + The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown girl for you." + + Young Joe (you're nearing sixty), why is your hide so dark? + Katie had fair soft blue eyes--who blackened yours? Why, hark! + The morning gun! Ho, steady! The arquebuses to me; + I've sounded the Dutch High Admiral's heart as my lead doth sound the + sea. + + Sounding, sounding the Ganges--floating down with the tide, + Moor me close by Charnock, next to my nut-brown bride. + My blessing to Katie at Fairlight--Howell, my thanks to you-- + Steady!--We steer for Heaven through scud drifts cold and blue. + + + + +EXIT + + +I arrived in Bombay on the last day of 1919 and embarked at Calcutta for +Japan on the evening of February 17th, seven weeks later. But to embark +at Calcutta is not to leave it, for we merely dropped down the river a +short distance that night, and for the next day and a half we were in +the Hooghli, sounding all the way. It is a difficult river to emerge +from; nor do I recommend any one else to travel, as I did, on a boat +with a forward deck cargo of two or three hundred goats on the starboard +side and half as many monkeys on the port, with a small elephant +tethered between and a cage of leopards adjacent. These, the property +of an American dealer in wild animals, were intended for sale in the +States; all but one of the leopards, which, being lame, he had decided +to kill, to provide a "robe" for his wife. Nothing could be more +different than the careless aimless activities of the monkeys I had seen +among the trees between Agra and Delhi and scampering over the +parapets of Benares, all thieves and libertines with a charter, and +the restriction of these poor cowering mannikins, overcrowded in their +cages, with an abysmal sorrow in their eyes. Many died on the voyage, +and I think the Indian Government should look into the question of their +export very narrowly. + + + + +JAPAN + +INTRODUCTORY + + +I ought not to write about Japan at all, for I was there but three +short weeks, and rain or snow fell almost all the time, and I sailed +for America on the very day that the cherry blossom festivities began. +But--well, there is only one Fujiyama, and it is surpassingly beautiful +and satisfying--the perfect mountain--and I should feel contemptible if +I did not add my eulogy of it--my gratitude--to all the others. + +Since, then, I am to say something of Fuji, let the way be paved. + + + + +THE LITTLE LAND + + +One is immediately struck, on landing at Kobe--and continually after--by +the littleness of Japan. The little flimsy houses, the little flimsy +shops, the small men, the toylike women, the tiny children, as numerous +and like unto each other as the pebbles on the shore--these are +everywhere. But although small of stature the Japanese men are often +very powerfully built and many of them suggest great strength. They are +taking to games, too. While I was in the country baseball was a craze, +and boys were practising pitching and catching everywhere, even in the +streets of the cities. + +Littleness--with which is associated the most delicate detail and +elaborate finish--is the mark also of modern Japanese art. In the +curiosity shops whatever was massive or largely simple was Chinese. Even +the royal palaces at Kyoto are small, the rooms, exquisite as they are, +with perfect joinery and ancient paintings, being seldom more than a few +feet square, with very low ceilings. I went over two of these palaces, +falling into the hands, at each, of English-speaking officials whose +ciceronage was touched with a kind of rapture. At the Nijo, especially, +was my guide an enthusiast, becoming lyrical over the famous cartoons of +the "Wet Heron" and the "Sleeping Sparrows." + +In India I had grown accustomed to removing my shoes at the threshold +of mosques. There it was out of deference to Allah, but in Japan the +concession is demanded solely in the interests of floor polish, and you +take your shoes off not only in palaces and houses but in some of the +shops. It gave one an odd burglarious feeling to be creeping noiselessly +from room to room of the Nijo; but there was nothing to steal. The place +was empty, save for decoration. + +There is a certain amplitude in some of the larger Kyoto temples, with +their long galleries and massive gateways, but these only serve to +accentuate the littleness elsewhere. In the principal Kyoto temple I had +for guide a minute Japanese with the ecstatic passion for trifles +that seems to mark his race. A picture representing the miracle of the +"Fly-away Sparrows," as he called them, was the treasure on which he +concentrated, and next to that he drew my attention to the boards of the +gangway uniting two buildings, which, as one stepped on them, emitted a +sound that the Japanese believe to resemble the song of Philomela. To +me it brought no such memory, and the fact that this effect, common in +Japan, is technically known as "a nightingale squeak," perhaps supports +my insensitiveness. + +If old Japan is to be found anywhere it is in Kyoto--in spite of its +huge factory chimneys. In Tokio, complete European dress is common in +the streets, but in Kyoto it is the exception. Tokio also wears boots, +but Kyoto is noisy with pattens night and day. Not only are there +countless shops in Kyoto given up to porcelain, carvings, screens, +bronzes, old armour, and so forth, but no matter how trumpery the normal +stock in trade of the other shops, a number of them have a little glass +case--a shop within a shop, as it were--in which a few rare and ancient +articles of beauty are kept. A great deal of Japan is expressed in this +pretty custom. + + + + +THE RICE FIELDS + + +My first experience of Japanese scenery of any wildness was gained +while shooting the rapids of the Katsuragava, an exciting voyage among +boulders in a shallow and often very turbulent stream in a steep and +craggy valley a few miles from Kyoto. Previous to this expedition I +had seen, from the train, only the trim rice fields,--each a tiny +parallelogram with its irrigation channels as a boundary, so carefully +tended that there is not a weed in the whole country. Japan is cut up +into these absurd little squares, of which twenty and more would go into +an ordinary English field. Often the terminal posts are painted a bright +red; often a little row of family tombs is there too. The watermill is +a common object of the country. But birds are few and animals one sees +never. Indeed in all my three weeks I saw no four-footed animals, except +a dead rat, two pigs and one cat. I am excluding of course beasts of +draught--horses and bullocks--which are everywhere. Not a cow, not a +sheep, not a dog! but that there are cattle is proved by the proverbial +excellence of Kobe steaks, which I tested and can swear to. In all +my three weeks, both in cities and the country, I saw only one crying +child. Of children there were millions, mostly boys, but only one was +unhappy. + + + + +SURFACE MATERIALISM + + +In spite of Kyoto's eight hundred temples I could not get any but a +materialistic concept of its inhabitants; and elsewhere this impression +was emphasised. A stranger cannot, of course, know; he can but record +his feelings, without claiming any authority for them. But I am sure +I was never in a country where I perceived fewer indications of any +spiritual life. Every one is busy; every one seems to be happy or at any +rate not discontented; every one chatters and laughs and is, one feels, +a fatalist. Sufficient unto the day! After all, it is the women of a +nation that chiefly keep burning the sacred flame and pass it on; but in +Japan, I understand, the women are far too busy in pleasing the men +to have time for such duties; Japan is run by men for men. It is an +unwritten law that a woman must never be anything but gay in her lord's +presence, must never for a moment claim the privilege of peevishness. + +As an instance of the Japanese woman's indifference to fate and +readiness to oblige, I may say that we had on our ship two or three +hundred girls in charge of a duenna or so, who were bound for Honolulu +to be married to Japanese settlers there, to whom their photographs had +been forwarded. These girls are known as "Picture Brides." At Honolulu +their new proprietors awaited them, and I suppose identified and +appropriated them, although to the European eye one face differed no +whit from another. + +The Japanese have the practical qualities that consort with materialism. +They are quick to supply creature comforts; their hotels are +well-managed; their cooks are excellent; their sign-posts are numerous +and, I believe, very circumstantial; at the railway stations are lists +of the show places in the neighbourhood; the telephone is general. But +there are strange failings. The roads, for example, are often very bad, +although so many motor-cars exist. Even in Tokio the puddles and mud are +abominable. There is no fixed rule to force rickshaw men to carry bells. +There is no rule of the road at all, so that the driver of a vehicle +must be doubly alert, having to make up his mind not only as to what he +is going to do himself, but also what the approaching driver is probably +going to do. From time to time, I believe, a rule of the road has been +tried, but it has always broken down. + +The rickshaw bells are the more important, because the Japanese are not +observant. They may see Fuji and stand for hours worshipping a spray of +cherry blossom, but they do not see what is coming. Normally they look +down. + +The rickshaw is comfortable and speedy; but to be drawn about by a +fellow-creature is a humiliating experience and I never ceased to feel +too conspicuous and ashamed. I discovered also how easy it is to lose +one's temper with these men. I used to sit and wonder if there had ever +been a runaway, and I never hired a rickshaw without thinking of Mr. +Anstey's story of the talking horse. + + + + +FIRST GLIMPSE OF FUJI + + +I left Kyoto for Yokohama on Wednesday night, March 17, 1920, at eleven, +and Thursday, March 18, 1920, thus remains with me as a red-letter day, +for it was then, at about half-past seven in the morning, that, lifting +the blind of my sleeping compartment, I saw--almost within reach, as it +seemed, dazzlingly white under its snow against a clear blue sky, with +the sun flooding it with glory--Fujiyama. I was to see it again several +times--for I went to Myanoshita for that purpose--but never again so +startlingly and wonderfully as this. + +When I am asked to name in a word the most beautiful thing I saw on my +travels I mention Fujiyama instantly. There is nothing else to challenge +it. Perhaps had I seen Everest from Darjeeling I might have a different +story to tell; but I missed it. The Taj? Yes, the Taj is a divine +work of man; but it has not the serene lofty isolation of this sublime +mountain, rising from the plain alone and immense with almost perfect +symmetry. + +I was not to see Fujiyama again for a week or so, but in the meanwhile +I saw the Daibutsu, the giant figure of Buddha, at Kamakura, in all its +bland placidity. These were the only big things I found in Japan. + + + + +TWO FUNERALS + + +Yokohama is industrial and dirty everywhere but on the drive beside the +harbour, and on the Bluff, where the rich foreigners live. I visited one +house on this pleasant eminence and there was nothing in it to suggest +that it was in Japan any more than in, say, Cheltenham. The form was +English, the furniture was English, the pictures and books were English; +photographs of school and college cricket elevens gave it the final home +touch. Only in the garden were there exotic indications. The English +certainly have the knack of carrying their atmosphere with them. I had +noticed that often in India; but this Yokohama villa was the completest +exemplification. + +Wandering about the city I came one morning on a funeral procession that +ought to have pleased Henry Ward Beecher, who, on the only occasion on +which I heard him, when he was very old and I was very young, urged upon +his hearers the importance of bright colours and flowers instead of the +ordinary habiliments and accoutrements of woe. For when a soul is on its +way to paradise, he said, we should be glad. The Yokohama cortege was +headed by men bearing banners; then came girls all in white, riding in +rickshaws; then the gaudy hearse; then priests in rickshaws; and +finally the relations and friends. The effect conveyed was not one of +melancholy; but even if every one had been in black, impressiveness +would have been wanting, for no one can look dignified in a rickshaw. + +Compared, however, with a funeral which I saw in Hong-Kong, the Yokohama +ceremony was solemnity in essence. The Hong-Kong obsequies were those +of a tobacco-magnate's wife and the widower had determined to spare no +expense on their thoroughness. He had even offered, but without success, +to compensate the tramway company for a suspension of the service, the +result of his failure being that every few minutes the procession was +held up to permit the cars to go by; which meant that instead of taking +only two hours to pass any given point, it took three. The estimated +cost of the funeral was one hundred thousand dollars and all Hong-Kong +was there to see. + +To Chinese eyes it doubtless had a sombre religious character, but to us +it was merely a diverting spectacle of incredible prolongation. We were +not wholly to blame in missing its sanctity, for the participants, +who were more like mummers than mourners, had all been hired and were +enjoying the day off. For the most part they merely wore their fancy +dress and walked and talked or played instruments, but now and then +there was a dragon and a champion boxing it and these certainly earned +their money. At intervals came bearers with trays on which were comforts +for the next world or symbolical devices, while, to infinity both in +front and behind, banners and streamers and lanterns danced and jogged +above all. A miracle-show of the middle ages can have been not unlike +it. + + + + +THE LITTLE GEISHA + + +I left Japan, as I have said, just before the cherry-blossom festivities +began, but I was able to see a number of the dances--which never change +but are passed with exactitude, step for step, gesture for gesture and +expression for expression, from one geisha to another--as performed by +a child who was being educated for the profession. Although so young +she knew accurately upwards of sixty dances, and the pick of these she +executed for a few spectators, in a little fragile paper-walled house +outside Yokohama, while her adoring aunt played the wistful repetitive +accompaniments. + +The little creature--a mere watch-chain ornament--had a typical Japanese +face, half mask, half mischief, and a tiny high voice which now and then +broke into the dance. But dances, strictly speaking, they are not. +They are really posturing and the manoeuvres of a fan. To me they are +strangely fascinating, and, with the music, almost more so than our +Western ballets. But there is a difference between the ballet and the +geisha dances, and it is so wide that there is no true comparison; for +whereas the ballet stimulates and excites, these Japanese movements +hypnotise and lull. + + + + +MANNERS + + +The public manners of the Japanese are not good. In all my solitary +walks about Myanoshita I met with no single peasant who passed the time +of day, and in the streets of Tokio English people were being jostled +and stared at and treated without respect. It was a moment when +Americans were unpopular, and the theory was broached that for fear of +missing the chance to be rude to an American the Japanese became rude +to all outlanders indiscriminately. One indeed gathered the impression +that, except in Kyoto, which is a backwater, foreigners are no longer +wanted. "Japan for the Japanese" would seem to be the motto: one day, +not far distant, to be amended to "The World for Japan." I shall never +forget the humiliation I suffered in a stockbroker's office in Tokio, +into which, seeing the words "English spoken" over the door, I had +ventured in the hope of being directed to an address I was seeking. +Not a word of English did any one know, but the whole staff left its +typewriters and desks to come and laugh. I was always willing to remove +the gravity of Japanese children by my grotesque Occidentalism, but +I have a very real objection to being a butt for the ridicule of +grown-ups. Such an incident could not have occurred, I believe, anywhere +else. But it is not only the foreigners to whom the Japanese are rude: +they do nothing for their fellows either. The want of chivalry in trains +and trams was conspicuous. + +The ceremonial manners of the Japanese can, however, be more precise and +formal than any I ever witnessed. A wedding reception chanced to be in +progress in my Tokio hotel one afternoon, and through the open door I +had glimpses of Japanese gentlemen in frock coats bowing to Japanese +ladies and making perfect right angles as they did so. So elaborate +indeed were the courtesies that to Western eyes they bordered +dangerously on burlesque. + +The destination that I was seeking when I entered the stockbroker's +office was a certain book-store, and when I eventually found it I was +asked a question by a Japanese youth that still perplexes me. It was +in the English section, the principal volumes in which, as imported to +supply Japanese demands, were American, and all bore either upon +success in engineering and other professions and crafts, or on the rapid +acquirement of wealth. "How to double your income in a week"; "How +to get rich quickly"; "How to succeed in business"; and so forth; all +preaching, in fact, the new gospel which is doing Japan no good. +There were also, however, a certain number of novels, and one of the +customers, a boy who looked as though he were still at school, noting my +English appearance, brought a translation of Maupassant to me and asked +me what "soul" meant--"A Woman's Soul" being the new title. Now I defy +any one with no Japanese to make it clear to a Japanese boy with very +little English what a woman's soul is. + + + + +THE PLAY + + +At Tokio I was present for an hour or so at a performance in a national +theatre. It had been in progress for a long time when I entered and +would continue long after I left, for that is the Japanese custom. In +London people with too little to do are on occasion prepared to spend +the whole day outside theatres waiting for the doors to open. They will +then witness a two and a half hours' performance. But in Japan the +plays go on from eleven a.m. to eleven p.m. and the audience bring their +sustenance and tobacco with them. The seats are mats on the ground, and +the actors reach the stage by a passage through the auditorium as well +as from the wings. The scenery is very elementary, and there is always a +gate which has to be opened when the characters pass through and closed +after them, although it is isolated and has no contiguous wall or fence. + +None of our Western morbid desire for novelty, I am told, troubles the +Japanese play-goer, who is prepared to witness the same drama, usually +based on an historical event or national legend thoroughly familiar to +him, for ever and ever. It is as though the theatres in England were +given up exclusively to, say, Shakespeare's Henry IV, V and VI sequence. +On the occasion of my visit there was little of what we call acting, +but endless elocution. During the performance the attendants walk about, +with the persistence of constables during a London police-court hearing, +carrying refreshments and little charcoal stoves. The signal for the +next act is a deafening clicking noise made by one of the stage hands +on two sticks, which gradually rises to a shattering crescendo as the +curtain is drawn aside. It must be understood that the theatre that I am +describing was set apart for national drama. In others there are topical +farces and laughter is continuous; but I did not visit any. On board +ship, however, we had a series of performances of such pieces by the +Japanese cabin attendants and waiters, many of whom were professional +actors. The Japanese passengers enjoyed them immensely. + + + + +MYANOSHITA + + +A whole week of my too short stay was given to Myanoshita, whither I was +driven by the impossibility of retaining a room in either Yokohama or +Tokio, and where I stayed willingly on, out of delight in the place +itself. After being cooped up for so long on ships, and kept inactive +under the heat of India, it was like a new existence to take immense +walks among these mountains in the keen rarified air, even though there +was both rain and snow. Myanoshita stands some four thousand feet high +and is situated in a valley in which are many summer cottages and health +resorts. The heart of this Alpine settlement is the Fujiya Hotel, +where I was living, which is kept by an enterprising Americanised and +Europeanised Japanese proprietor and his very charming wife, Madame +Yamaguchi, whose father was the founder of the house, and, I believe, +the discoverer of the district, and who herself is famous as a +gracious hostess throughout Japan. No hotel so well or so thoughtfully +administered have I ever stayed in; nor was I ever in another where the +water for the bath gushes in from a natural hot spring. But hot springs +are numerous in this region, while there is a gorge which I visited, +some four miles distant, where boiling sulphur hisses and bubbles for +ever and aye. + +Many of the Myanoshita dishes were new to me and welcome. There is an +excellent salad called "Slow," and the bamboo, which is Japan's best +friend--serving the nation in scores of ways: as fences, as walls, +as water-pipes, as supports, as carrying-poles, as thatch, as +fishing-rods--here found its way into the salad bowl and was not +distasteful. The custom of drinking a glass of orange juice before +breakfast might well be adopted with us; but not the least of the +oddities of England which I realised as I moved about the earth is our +unwillingness to eat fruit. Japan also has a perfect mineral water, +"Tansan." + +When not making long expeditions to catch new glimpses of Fuji I roamed +about the hill-sides among the little villages, or leaned over crazy +bridges to watch the waterfalls beneath; for there is water everywhere, +tumbling down to the distant ocean, a wedge of which can be seen from +the hotel windows. This Japanese valley might be in Switzerland, save +for the absence of any but human life. Not a cow, not a goat. + +The labourers wear blue linen smocks, usually with some device upon +them, and they merge into the landscape as naturally as French or +Belgian peasants. These men, whether working on the soil or the roads, +or engaged in cutting bamboos or building houses, wear the large straw +hats that one sees in the old Japanese prints. Nothing has changed in +their dress. But the modernized Japanese, the dweller in the cities or +casual visitor to the country, pins his faith to the bowler. The bowler +is so much his favourite headgear that he wears it often with native +costume on his body. Perhaps it is to Japan that all the bowlers have +gone, now that London has taken to the soft Homburg. It was odd to meet +groups of these bizarre little men among the precipices: even stranger +perhaps were their little ladies, especially on Sunday, in the gayest +Japanese clothes, their faces plastered with rice powder and cigarettes +in their mouths. Too many of them are disfigured by gold teeth, which +are so common in Japan as to be almost the rule. An English resident +assured me that I must not assume that the Japanese teeth are therefore +unusually defective: often the gold is merely ostentation, a visible +sign that the owner of the auriferous mouth is both alive to American +progress and can afford it. + +Even in Myanoshita Fujiyama has to be sought for and climbed for, the +walls of rock that form the valley being so high and enclosing. But the +result is worth every effort. Immediately above the hotel is a hill from +whose summit the upper part of the enchanted mountain can be seen, and I +ascended tortuously to this point within an hour of my arrival. The next +day I walked to Lake Hakone (where the Emperor has a summer palace), +some eight miles away, in the hope of getting Fuji's white crest +reflected on its surface; but a veil of mist enshrouded all. And then +twice I went to the edge of the watershed at the head of the valley: +once struggling through the snow to the Otome Pass, on an immemorial +and nearly perpendicular bridle path, and once by the modern road to +the tunnel which, with characteristic address, the Japanese have bored +through the rock, thus reducing a very steep gradient. + +In the tunnel the icicles were hanging several feet long and as big as +masts, and the air was biting. But one emerged suddenly upon a prospect +the wonder of which probably cannot be excelled--a vast plain far below, +made up of verdure and villages and lakes, with distant surrounding +heights, and immediately in front, filling half the sky, Fuji himself. +It is from this point, and from the ancient Otome Pass, a mile or +so away on the same ridge, that the symmetry of the mountain is most +perfect; and here one can best appreciate the simplicity of it, the +quiet natural ease with which it rises above its neighbours. There was +more snow on the slopes than when I had seen it from the train a few +days before; and the sky again was without a cloud. I have never been so +conscious of majestic serenity, without any concomitant feeling of awe. +Fuji is both sublime and human. + +No other country has a symbol like this. When the Japanese think of +Japan they visualise Fuji: returning exiles crowd the decks for the +first glimpse of it; departing exiles with tears in their eyes watch +it disappear. There is not a shop window but has Fuji in some +representation; it is found in every house; its contours are engraved +on teaspoons, embossed on ash-trays. You cannot escape from its +counterfeits; but if you have seen it you do not mind. + +When on my way home I found myself in an American picture gallery, +either in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston or New York, I lingered longest +in the rooms where the coloured prints of the Japanese masters hang--and +America has very fine collections, particularly in Boston--and I stood +longest before those landscapes by Hokusai and Hiroshige in which Fuji +occurs. Hokusai in particular venerated the mountain, and in many of his +most beautiful pictures people are calling to each other to admire some +new and marvellous aspect of it. It was he who drew Fuji as seen through +the arch of a breaking wave! I was looking at the British Museum's +example of this daring print only a few days ago, and, doing so, living +my Myanoshita days again. + +There is much in Japan that is petty, much that is too material and not +a little that is disturbing; but Fuji is there too, dominating all, calm +and wise and lovely beyond description, and it would be Fuji that lured +me back. + + + + +AMERICA + +DEMOCRACY AT HOME + + +My first experience of democracy-in-being followed swiftly upon boarding +the steamboat for San Francisco, when "Show this man Number 231" was the +American steward's command to a cabin boy. I had no objection to being +called a man: far from it; but after years of being called a gentleman +it was startling. This happened at Yokohama; and when, in the Customs +House at San Francisco, a porter wheeling a truck broke through a queue +of us waiting to obtain our quittances, with the careless warning, "Out +of the way, fellers!" I knew that here was democracy indeed. + +I confess to liking it, although I was to be brought up with another +jolt when a notice-board on a grass-plot suddenly confronted me, bearing +the words:-- + +[Illustration: KEEP OFF. THIS MEANS YOU.] + +But I like it. I like the tradition which, once your name is written in +the hotel reception book, makes you instantly "Mr. Lucas" to every one +in the place. There is a friendliness about it: the hotel is more of +a home, or at any rate, less of a barrack, because of it. And yet this +universal camaraderie has some odd lapses into formality. The members of +clubs in America are far more ceremonious with each other than we are +in England. In English clubs the prefix "Mr." is a solecism, but in +American clubs I have watched quite old friends and associates whose +greetings have been marked almost by pomposity and certainly by ritual. +Yet Americans, I should say, are heartier than we; more happy to be with +each other; less critical and exacting. They certainly spend less time +in discussing each other's foibles. That may be because the dollar is so +much more an absorbing theme, but more likely it is because America is a +democracy, and the theory of democracy, as I understand it, is to assume +that every man is a good fellow until the reverse is proved. I should +not like to say that the theory of those of us who live under a monarchy +is the opposite, but it seemed to me that Americans are more ready than +we to be sociable and tolerant. + +Try as I might I could never be quick enough to get in first with that +delightful American greeting, "Pleased to meet you," or "Glad to +know you, Mr. Lucas." I pondered long on the best retort and at last +formulated this, but never dared to use it for fear that its genuineness +might be suspected: "I shall be sorry when we have to part." + + + + +SAN FRANCISCO + + +It was in San Francisco that I learned--and very quickly--that it is as +necessary to visit America in order to know what Americans are like +as it is to leave one's own country in order to know more about that. +Americans when abroad are less hearty, less revealing. They are either +suffering from a constraint or an over-assertiveness; and both moods may +be due to not being at home. In neither case are they so natural as +at home. I suppose that on soil not our own we all tend to be a little +over-anxious to proclaim our nationality, to maintain the distinction. +In our hats can perhaps be too firmly planted the invisible flag of our +country. + +Be this as it may, I very quickly discerned a difference between +Americans in America and in England. I found them simple where I had +thought of them as the reverse, and now, after meeting others in various +parts of the country, even in complex and composite New York, I should +say that simplicity is the keynote of the American character. It is in +his simplicity that the American differs most from the European. Such +simplicity is perfectly consistent with the impatience, the desire for +novelty, for brevity, of the American people. We think of them as +always wishing to reduce life to formulae, as unwilling to express any +surprise, and these tendencies may easily be considered as signs of a +tiring civilisation. But in reality they are signs of youth too. + + + + +ROADS GOOD AND BAD + + +San Francisco I shall chiefly recollect (apart from personal reasons) +for the sparkling freshness and vigour of the air; for the extent and +variety of Golden Gate Park, where I found a bust of Beethoven, but +no sign of Bret Harte; for the vast reading-room in the library at +Berkeley, a university which is so enchantingly situated, beneath such a +sun, and in sight of such a bay, that I marvel that any work can be +done there at all; and for the miles and miles of perfect tarmac roads +fringed with burning eschscholtzias and gentle purple irises. That was +in April. I found elsewhere in America no roads comparable with these. +Even around Washington their condition was such that to ride in a +motor-car was to experience all the alleged benefits of horseback, while +in the Adirondacks, anywhere off the noble Theodore Roosevelt Memorial +Highway, with its "T.R." blazonings along the route, one's liver +was bent and broken. While I was in America the movement to purchase +Roosevelt's house as a national possession was in full swing, but this +Memorial Highway strikes the imagination with more force. That was an +inspiration, and I hope that the road will never be allowed to fall into +disrepair. + + + + +UNIVERSITIES, LOVE AND PRONUNCIATION + + +Watching the young men and maidens crowding to a lecture in the Hearst +Amphitheatre at Berkeley, under that glorious Californian sky, I was +struck by the sensible, frank intimacy of them all, and envied them the +advantages that must be theirs over the English methods of segregation +at the same age, which, by creating shyness and destroying familiarity, +tends to retard if not destroy the natural understanding which ought to +subsist between them and if it did would often make life afterwards so +much simpler. + +I asked one of the professors to what extent marriages were made in +Berkeley, but he had no statistics. All he could say was that Cupid +was very little trouble to the authorities and that Mr. Hoover and Mrs. +Hoover first met each other as students at Stanford. And then I asked an +ex-member of one of the Sororities and she said that at college one +was a good deal in love and a good deal out of it. The romance rarely +persisted into later life. + +She pronounced romance with the accent on the first syllable, whereas +somewhere half-way across the Atlantic the accent passes to the second; +and why such illogical things should be is a mystery. The differences +can be very disconcerting, especially if one refuses to give way. I had +an experience to the point when talking with some one in Chicago and +wishing to answer carefully his question as to the conditions under +which the poor of our great cities live. These are, in my observation, +infinitely worse in England than in America. Indeed I hardly saw any +poor in America at all--not poverty as we understand it. But I could not +frame my reply because "squalor" (which we pronounce as though it rhymed +with "mollor") was the only fitting epithet and he had just used it +himself, pronouncing it in the American way--or at any rate in his +American way--with a long "a." So I turned the subject. + +Neither nation has any monopoly of reasonableness in pronunciation. The +American way of saying "advertisement" is more sensible than ours of +saying "adver´tisment," since we say "advertise" too. But then, although +the Americans say "inquire," just as we do, they illogically put the +stress on the first syllable when they talk about an "in´quiry." The +Tower of Babel is thus carried up one storey higher. The original idea +was merely to confuse languages; it cannot ever have been wished that +two friendly peoples should speak the same language differently. + +But I have wandered far from Berkeley and Stanford. I am not sure as to +my course of conduct if I had a daughter of seventeen, but I am quite +convinced that if I had a son of that age I should send him to an +American university for two or three years after his English school. He +should then become a citizen of the Anglo-Saxon world indeed. + + + + +FIRST SIGNS OF PROHIBITION + + +We had met Prohibition first at Honolulu, not a few of the passengers +receiving the shock of their lives on learning at the hotel that only +"soft drinks" were permitted. Our second reminder of the new regime came +as we entered American waters off the Golden Gate and the ship's bar was +formally closed. And then, in San Francisco, we found "dry" land indeed. +In this connection let me say that in the hotel I made acquaintance +with an official of great power who was new to me: the buttoned boy +who rejoices in the proud title of Bell Captain. He gave me a private +insight into his precocity (but that is not the word, for all boys in +America are men too), and into his influence, by offering to supply me +with forbidden fruit, in the shape of whisky, at the modest figure +of $25 a bottle. He did not, however, say dollars: like most of his +compatriots (and it is a favourite word with them) he said something +between "dollars" and "dallars." + +I had, a few days later, in Chicago, a similarly friendly offer from a +policeman of whom I had inquired the way. Recognizing an English accent, +he had instantly divined what my dearest wish must be. I then asked him +how prohibition was affecting the people on his beat. He said that a few +drunkards were less comfortable and a few wives more serene; but for the +most part he had seen no increase of happiness, and the extra money +that it provided was spent either on the movies, dress, or "other +foolishness." I did not allow him to refresh me. After a course of +American "tough" fiction, of which "Susan Lenox" remains most luridly in +the memory, I had a terror of all professional upholders of the law. + + + + +R.L.S. + + +Coming by chance upon the Robert Louis Stevenson memorial at San +Francisco, on the edge of Chinatown, I copied its inscription, and in +case any reader of these notes may have forgotten its trend I copy it +again here; for I do not suppose that its application was intended +to cease with the Californian city. It is counsel addressed to the +individual, but since nations are but individuals in quantity such +ideals cannot be repeated amiss: + +To be honest; to be kind; to earn a little; to spend a little less; to +make upon the whole a family happier for his presence; to renounce when +that shall be necessary and not to be embittered; to keep a few friends, +but these without capitulation; above all, on the same grim condition, +to keep friends with himself--here is a task for all that man has of +fortitude and delicacy. + +It is a far cry from San Francisco to Saranac, yet Stevenson is their +connecting chain, with the late Harry Widener's amazing collection +of Stevensoniana, in his memorial library at Harvard, as a link. The +Saranac cottage, which on the day of my visit was surrounded by the +sweetest lilac blooms that ever perfumed the air, is still a place of +pilgrimage, and one by one new articles of interest are being added to +the collection. It was pleasant indeed to find an English author thus +honoured. Later, in Central Park, New York, I was to find statues of +Shakespeare, Burns and Sir Walter Scott. + +It was, oddly enough, in the Adirondacks that I came upon my only +experience of simplified spelling in the land of its birth. It was in +that pleasant home from home, the Lake Placid Club, where one is adjured +to close the door "tyt" as one leaves a room; where one drinks "cofi"; +and where that most necessary and mysterious of the functionaries of +life, the physician, is able to watch his divinity dwindle and his +dignity disappear under the style "fizisn." + + + + +STORIES AND HUMOURISTS + + +I heard many stories in America, where every one is a raconteur, but +none was better than this, which my San Francisco host narrated, from +his own experience, as the most perfect example of an honest answer ever +given. When a boy, he said, he was much in the company of an old trapper +in the Californian mountains. During one of their expeditions together +he noticed that a camp meeting was to be held, and out of curiosity he +persuaded Reuben to attend it with him. Perched on a back seat, they +were watching the scene when an elderly Evangelical sister placed +herself beside the old hunter, laid her hand on his arm, and asked him +if he loved Jesus. He pondered for some moments and then replied thus: +"Waal, ma'am, I can't go so far as to say that I love Him. I can't go so +far as that. But, by gosh, I'll say this--I ain't got nothin' agin Him." + +The funniest spontaneous thing I heard said was the remark of a farmer +in the Adirondacks in reply to my question, Had they recovered up there, +from the recent war? "Yes," he said, they had; adding brightly, "Quite a +war, wasn't it?" + +In a manner of speaking all Americans are humourists. Just as all +French people are wits by reason of the epigrammatic structure of their +language, so are all Americans humourists by reason of the national +stores of picturesque slang and analogy to which they have access. I +think that this tendency to resort to a common stock instead of striving +after individual exactitude and colour is to be deplored. It discourages +thought where thought should be encouraged. Adults are, of course, +beyond redemption, but parents might at least do something about it with +their children. One of the cleverest American writers whom I met made no +effort whatever to get beyond these accepted phrases as he narrated +one racy incident after another. With the pen in his hand (or, more +probably, the typewriter under his fingers) his sense of epithet is +precise; but in his conversational stories men were as mad "as Sam +Hill," injuries hurt "like hell," and a knapsack was as heavy "as the +devil." We all laughed; but he should have had more of the artist's +pride. + +Three American professional humourists whom I had the good fortune to +meet and be with for some time were Irvin Cobb, Don Marquis, and Oliver +Herford, each authentic and each so different. Beneath Mr. Cobb's fun is +a mass of ripe experience and sagacity. However playful he may be on the +surface one is aware of an almost Johnsonian universality beneath. It +would not be extravagant to call his humour the bloom on the fruit of +the tree of knowledge (I am talking now only of the three as I found +them in conversation). Don Marquis, while equally serious (and all the +best humourists are serious at heart), has a more grotesque fancy and is +more of a reformer, or, at any rate, a rebel. His dissatisfaction with +hypocrisy provoked a scorn that Mr. Cobb is too elemental to entertain. +Some day perhaps Don Marquis will induce an editor to print the +exercises in unorthodoxy which he has been writing and which, in +extract, he repeated to us with such unction; but I doubt it. They are +too searching. But that so busy a man should turn aside from his work +to dabble in religious satire seemed to me a very interesting thing; +for nothing is so unprofitable--except to the honest soul of him who +conceives it. + +One of Don Marquis's more racy stories which I recollect is of a loafer +in a country town who had the habit of dropping into the store every +day at the time the free cheese was set on the counter, and buying very +little in return. When the time came for the privilege to be withdrawn +the loafer was outraged and aghast. Addressing the storekeeper (his +friend for years) he summed up his ungenerosity in these terms: "Your +soul, Henry," he said, "is so mean, that if there were a million souls +like it in the belly of a flea, they'd be so far apart they couldn't +hear each other holler." + +As for Oliver Herford, he is an elf, a sprite, a creature of fantasy, +who may be--and, I rejoice to say, is--in this world, but certainly is +not of it. This Oliver is in the line of Puck and Mercutio and Lamb and +Hood and other lovers and makers of nonsense, and it is we who ask for +"more." He had just brought out his irresponsible but very searching +exercise in cosmogony, "This Giddy Globe," dedicated to President +Wilson ("with all his faults he quotes me still") and this was the first +indigenous work I read on American soil. Oliver Herford is perhaps best +known by his "Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten," and there is a kitten also +in "This Giddy Globe": + + "Hurray!" cried the Kitten, "Hurray!" + As he merrily set the sails, + "I sail o'er the ocean to-day + To look at the Prince of Wales." +--this was when the Prince was making his triumphant visit to New York +in 1919-- + + "But, Kitten," I said dismayed, + "If you live through the angry gales + You know you will be afraid + To look at the Prince of Wales." + + Said the Kitten, "No such thing! + Why should he make me wince? + If a Cat may look at a King + A Kitten may look at a Prince!" + +This reminds me that the story goes that when the Prince expressed his +admiration for Fifth Avenue he was congratulated upon having "said +a mouthful." Beyond a mouthful, as an encomium of sagacity or +sensationalism in speech, there is but one advance and that is when one +says "an earful." + + + + +THE CARS + + +The journey from San Francisco to Chicago, once the fruit country is +passed, is drearily tedious, and I was never so tired of a train. The +spacious compartments that one travelled in on the Indian journeys, +where there are four arm-chairs and a bath-room, are a bad preparation +for the long narrow American cars packed with humanity, and for the +very inadequate washing-room, which is also the negro attendant's +bed-chamber: "Although," he explained to me, "when the car isn't full +I always sleep in Berth Number 1." If the night could be indefinitely +prolonged, these journeys would be more tolerable; but for the general +comfort the sleeping berths must be converted into seats at an early +hour. In addition to books, I had, as a means of beguilement, the +society of a returned exile from the Philippines, who told me the story +of his life, showed me the necklace he was taking home to his daughter's +wedding, and asked my advice as to the wisdom or unwisdom of marrying +again, the lady of his wavering choice having been at school with him in +New England and being now a widow in Nebraska with property of her own. +Besides being thus garrulous and open, he was the most helpful man I +ever met, acting as a nurse to the three or four restless children in +the car, and even producing from his bag a pair of scissors and a bottle +of gum with which to make dolls' paper clothes. Never in my life have +I called a stranger "Ed" on such short acquaintance; never have I been +called "Poppa" so often by the peevish progeny of others. + +It was on this train that I began to realise how much thirstier the +Americans are than we. The passengers were continually filling and +emptying the little cups that are stacked beside the fountains in the +corridors, and long before we reached Chicago the cups had all been +used. In England only children drink water at odd times and they not to +excess. But in America every one drinks water, and the water is there +for drinking, pure and cold and plentiful. It is beside the bed, in the +corners of offices, awaiting you at meals, jingling down the passages of +hotels, bubbling in the streets. In English restaurants, water bottles +are rarely supplied until asked for; in our hotel bedrooms they seldom +bear lifting to the light. As to whether the general health of +the Americans is superior or inferior to ours by reason of this +water-drinking custom, I have no information; but figures would be +interesting. + + + + +CHICAGO + + +In Chicago the weather was wet and cold, and it was not until after +I had left that I learned of the presence there of certain literary +collections which I may now perhaps never see. But I spent much time in +the Museum, where there is one of the finest Hobbemas in the world, and +where two such different creative artists as Claude Monet and Josiah +Wedgwood are especially honoured. But the chief discovery for me was +the sincere and masterly work in landscape of George Inness, my first +impression of whom was to be fortified when I passed on to Boston, and +reinforced in the Hearn collection in the Metropolitan Museum in New +York. + +It was in Chicago, in the Marshall Field Book Department--which is to +ordinary English bookshops like a liner to a houseboat--that I first +realised how intense is the interest which America takes in foreign +contemporary literature. In England the translation has a certain +vogue--Mrs. Garnett's supple and faithful renderings of Turgenev, +Tolstoi, Dostoievski, and Tchekov have, for example, a great +following--but we do not adventure much beyond the French and the +Russians; whereas I learn that English versions of hundreds of other +foreign books are eagerly bought in America. Such curiosity seems to +me to be very sensible. I was surprised also to find tables packed high +with the modern drama. In England the printed play is not to the general +taste. + +It was in Chicago that I found "window-shopping" at its most +enterprising. In San Francisco the costumiers' windows were thronged all +Sunday, but in Chicago they are brilliantly lighted till midnight, long +after closing hours, so that late passers-by may mark down desirable +things to buy on the morrow. + +The spirited equestrian statue of General John A. Logan, in a waste +space by Michigan Avenue, which I could see from my bedroom window, was +my first and by no means the least satisfying experience of American +sculpture on its native soil--to be face to face with St. Gaudens' +figure of "Grief" in Rock Creek Cemetery, at Washington, having long +been a desire. In time I came to see that beautiful conception, and +I saw also the fine Shaw monument in Boston, fine both in idea and in +execution; and the Sheridan, by the Plaza Hotel in New York; and the +Farragut in Madison Square; and the Pilgrim in Philadelphia--all the +work of the same firm, sensitive hand, a replica of whose Lincoln is now +to be seen at Westminster. + +The statue seems almost as natural a part of civic ornament in America +as it is in France, and is not in England; and the standard as a rule is +high. In particular I like the many horsemen--Anthony Wayne dominating +the landscape at Valley Forge; and George Washington again and again, +and not least in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia (where there is also a +bronze roughrider realistically set on a cliff--as though from Ambrose +Bierce's famous story--by Frederic Remington). American painters can +too often suggest predecessors, usually French, but the sculptors have +a strength and directness of their own, and it would not surprise me if +some of the best statues of the future came from their country. No one +would say that all American civic sculpture is good. There is a gigantic +bust of Washington Irving behind New York's Public Library which would +be better away; nor are the lions that guard that splendid institution +superabundantly leonine; but the traveller is more charmed than +depressed by the marble and bronze effigies that meet his eye--and +few witnesses have been able to say that of England. Among the more +remarkable public works I might name the symbolical figures on the +steps of the Boston Free Library, and the frieze in deep relief on the +Romanesque church on Park Avenue in New York, and I found something big +and impressive in the Barnard groups at Harrisburg. Many of the little +bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum--at the other extreme--are exquisite. + + + + +THE MOVIES + + +We have our cinema theatres in England in some abundance, but the cinema +is not yet in the blood here as in America. In America picture-palaces +are palaces indeed--with gold and marble, and mural decorations, built +to seat thousands--and every newspaper has its cinema page, where the +activities of the movie stars in their courses are chronicled every +morning. Moreover, America is the home of the industry; and rightly so, +for it has, I should say, been abundantly proved that Americans are +the only people who really understand both cinema acting and cinema +production. Italy, France and England make a few pictures, but their +efforts are half-hearted: not only because acting for the film is a +new and separate art, but because atmospheric conditions are better in +America than in Europe. + +It was in Chicago that I had my only opportunity of seeing cinema stars +in the flesh. The rain falling, as it seems to do there with no more +effort or fatigue to itself than in Manchester, I had, one afternoon, +to change my outdoor plans and take refuge at the matinee of a musical +comedy called "Sometime," with Frank Tinney in the leading part. Tinney, +I may say, during his engagement in London some years ago, became +so great a favourite that one performer has been flourishing on an +imitation of him ever since. The play had been in progress only for a +few minutes when Frank, in his capacity as a theatre doorkeeper, was +presented by his manager with a tip. A dialogue, which to the trained +ear was obviously more or less an improvisation, then followed: + +_Manager_: "What will you do with that dollar, Frank?" + +_Frank_: "I shall go to the movies. I always go to the movies when +there's a Norma Talmadge picture. Ask me why I always go to the movies +when there's a Norma Talmadge picture." + +_Manager_: "Why do you always go to the movies when there's a Norma +Talmadge picture, Frank?" + +_Frank_: "I go because, I go because she's my favourite actress. +(_Applause_.) Ask me why Norma Talmadge is my favourite actress." + +_Manager_: "Why is Norma Talmadge your favourite actress, Frank?" + +_Frank_: "Norma Talmadge is my favourite actress because she is always +saving her honour. I've seen her saving it seventeen times. (_To the +audience_) You like Norma Talmadge, don't you?" (_Applause from the +audience_.) + +_Frank_: "Then wouldn't you like to see her as she really is? (_To +a lady sitting with friends in a box_.) Stand up, Norma, and let the +audience see you." + +_Here a slim lady with a tense, eager, pale face and a mass of hair +stood up and bowed. Immense enthusiasm_. + +_Frank_: "That's Norma Talmadge. You do like saving your honour, don't +you, Norma? And now (_to the audience_) wouldn't you like to see Norma's +little sister, Constance? (_More applause_.) Stand up, Constance, and +let the audience see you." + +Here another slim lady bowed her acknowledgments and the play was +permitted to proceed. + +What America is going to do with the cinema remains to be seen, but +I, for one, deplore the modern tendency of novelists to be lured +by American money to write for it. If the cinema wants stories from +novelists let it take them from the printed books. One has but to +reflect upon what might have happened had the cinema been invented a +hundred years ago, to realise my disturbance of mind. With Mr. Lasky's +millions to tempt them Dickens would have written "David Copperfield" +and Thackeray "Vanity Fair," not for their publishers and as an +endowment to millions of grateful readers in perpetuity, but as plots +for the immediate necessity of the film, with a transitory life of a +few months in dark rooms. Of what new "David Copperfields" and "Vanity +Fairs" the cinema is to rob us we shall not know; but I hold that +the novelist who can write a living book is a traitor to his art and +conscience if he prefers the easy money of the film. Readers are to be +considered before the frequenters of Picture Palaces. His privilege +is to beguile and amuse and refresh through the ages: not to snatch +momentary triumphs and disappear. + +The evidence of the moment is more on the side of the pessimist than +the optimist. I found in America no trace of interest in such valuable +records as the Kearton pictures of African jungle life or the Ponting +records of the Arctic Zone. For the moment the whole energy of the +gigantic cinema industry seemed to be directed towards the filming +of human stories and the completest beguilement, without the faintest +infusion of instruction or idealism, of the many-headed mob. In short, +to provide "dope." Whether so much "dope" is desirable, is the question +to be answered. That poor human nature needs a certain amount, is beyond +doubt. But so much? And do we all need it, or at any rate deserve it? is +another question. Sometimes indeed I wonder whether those of us who have +our full share of senses ought to go to the cinema at all. It may be +that its true purpose is to be the dramatist of the deaf. + + + + +THE AMERICAN FACE + + +Perhaps it is one of the travellers' illusions (and we are very +susceptible to them), but I have the impression that American men are +more alike than the English are. It may be because there are fewer +idiosyncrasies in male attire, for in America every one wears the same +kind of hat; but I think not. In spite of the mixed origin of most +Americans, a national type of face has been evolved to which they seem +satisfied almost universally to pay allegiance. Again and again in the +streets I have been about to accost strangers to whom I felt sure I had +recently been introduced, discovering just in time that they were merely +doubles. In England I fancy there is more individuality in appearance. +If it is denied that American faces are more true to one type than ours, +I shall reopen the attack by affirming that American voices are beyond +question alike. My position in these two charges may be illustrated by +notices that I saw fixed to gates at the docks in San Francisco. On one +were the words "No Smoking"; on the other "Positively No Smoking." + +And what about the science of physiognomy? I have been wondering if +Lavater is to be trusted outside Europe. In China and Japan I was +continually perplexed, for I saw so many men who obviously were +successful--leaders and controllers--but who were without more than the +rudiments of a nose on which to support their glasses; and yet I have +been brought up to believe that without a nose of some dimensions it +was idle to hope for worldly eminence. Again, in America, is it possible +that all these massive chins and firm aquiline beaks are ruling the +roost and reaching whatever goal they set out for? I doubt it. + +The average American face is, I think, keener than ours and healthier. +One sees fewer ruined faces than in English cities, fewer men and women +who have lost self-respect and self-control. The American people as +a whole strike the observer as being more prosperous, more alert and +ambitious, than the English. Where I found mean streets they were always +in the occupation of aliens. + +To revert to the matter of clothes, the American does as little as +possible to make things easy for the conjectural observer. In England +one can base guesses of some accuracy on attire. In a railway carriage +one can hazard without any great risk of error the theory that this man +is in trade and that in a profession, that another is a stockbroker, and +a fourth a country squire. But America is full of surprises, due to the +uniformity of clothing and a certain carelessness which elevates comfort +to a ritual. The man you think of as a millionaire may be a drummer, the +drummer a millionaire. Again, in England people are known to a certain +extent by the hotels they stay at, the restaurants they eat at, and the +class in which they travel. Such superficial guides fail one in America. + + + + +PROHIBITION AGAIN + + +I can best indicate, without the mechanical assistance of dates, the +time of my sojourn in New York by saying that, during those few weeks, +Woodrow Wilson's successor was being sought, the possibility of the +repeal of the Prohibition Act was a matter of excited interest, +and "Babe" Ruth was the national hero. During this period I saw the +President sitting on the veranda of the White House; I had opportunities +of honouring Prohibition in the breach as well as in the observance; and +these eyes were everlastingly cheered and enriched by the spectacle of +the "Babe" (who is a baseball divinity) lifting a ball over the Polo +Ground pavilion into Manhattan Field. I hold, then, that I cannot be +said to have been unlucky or to have wasted my time. + +I found (this was in the spring of 1920) Prohibition the universal +topic: could it last, and should it last? In England we are accused of +talking always of the weather. In America, where there is no weather, +nothing but climate, that theme probably was never popular. Even if it +once were, however, it had given way to Prohibition. At every lunch or +dinner table at which I was present Prohibition was a topic. And how +could it be otherwise?--for if my host was a "dry" man, he had to begin +by apologising for having nothing cheering to offer, and if he possessed +a cellar it was impossible not to open the ball by congratulating him on +his luck and his generosity. Meanwhile the guests were comparing notes +as to the best substitutes for alcoholic beverages, exchanging recipes, +or describing their adventures with private stills. + +I visited a young couple in a charming little cottage in one of the +garden cities near New York, and found them equally divided in their +solicitude over a baby on the top floor and a huge jar in the basement +which needed constant skimming if the beer was to be worth drinking. + +One effect of Prohibition which I was hoping for, if not actually +expecting, failed to materialise. I had thought that the standard of +what are called T.B.M. (Tired Business Men) theatrical shows might be +higher if the tendency of alcohol to make audiences more tolerant (as +it undoubtedly can do in London) were no longer operative. But these +entertainments seemed, under teetotallers, no better. + + + + +THE BALL GAME + + +After seeing my first ball game or so I was inclined to suggest +improvements; but now that I have attended more I am disposed to think +that those in authority know more about it than I do, and that such +blemishes as it appears to have are probably inevitable. For one thing, +I thought that the outfield had too great an advantage. For another, not +unassociated with that objection, I thought that the home-run hit was +not sufficiently rewarded above the quite ordinary hit--"bunch-hit," is +it?--that brings in a man or men. In the English game of "Rounders," the +parent of baseball, a home-run hit either restores life to a man already +out or provides the batting side with a life in reserve. To put a +premium of this kind on so noble an achievement is surely not fantastic. +So I thought. And yet I see now that the game must not be lengthened, +or much of its character would go. It is its concentrated American fury +that is its greatest charm. If a three-day cricket match were so packed +with emotion we should all die of heart failure. + +I thought, too, that it is illogical that a ground stroke behind the +diamond should be a no-ball, and yet, should that ball be in the air +and caught, the striker should be out. I thought it an odd example of +lenience to allow the batsman as many strokes behind the catcher as he +chanced to make. But the more baseball I see the more it enchants me as +a spectacle, and these early questionings are forgotten. + +Baseball and cricket cannot be compared, because they are as different +as America and England; they can only be contrasted. Indeed, many of the +differences between the peoples are reflected in the games; for cricket +is leisurely and patient, whereas baseball is urgent and restless. +Cricket can prosper without excitement, while excitement is baseball's +life-blood, and so on: the catalogue could be indefinitely extended. +But, though a comparison is futile, it may be interesting to note some +of the divergences between the games. One of the chief is that baseball +requires no specially prepared ground, whereas cricket demands turf in +perfect order. Bad weather, again, is a more serious foe to the English +than to the American game, for if the turf is soaked we cannot go on, +and hence the number of drawn or unfinished matches in the course of a +season. A two hours' game, such as baseball is, can, however, always be +played off. + +In baseball the pitcher's ball must reach the batter before it touches +the ground; in cricket, if the ball did not touch the ground first and +reach the batsman on the bound, no one would ever be out at all, for the +other ball, the full-pitch as we call it, is, with a flat bat, too easy +to hit, for our bowlers swerve very rarely: it is the contact with the +ground which enables them to give the ball its extra spin or break. +Full-pitches are therefore very uncommon. In cricket a bowler who +delivered the ball with the action of a pitcher would be disqualified +for "throwing": it is one of the laws of cricket that the bowler's elbow +must not be bent. + +In cricket (I mean in the first-class variety of the game) the decisions +of the umpire are never questioned, either by players or public. + +In baseball there are but two strokes for the batter: either the +"swipe," or "slog," as we call it, where he uses all his might, or the +"bunt," usually a sacrificial effort; in cricket there are scores of +strokes, before the wicket, behind it, and at every angle to it. These +the cricketer is able to make because the bat is flat and wide, and he +holds it both vertically and at a slant, as occasion demands, and is +allowed, at his own risk, to run out to meet the ball. In the early days +of cricket, a hundred and fifty years ago, the bat was like a baseball +club, but curved, and the only strokes then were much what the only +baseball strokes are now--the full-strength hit and the stopping hit. So +long as the pitcher delivers the ball in the air it is probable that the +baseball club will remain as it is; but should the evolution of the game +allow the pitcher to make use of the ground, then the introduction of a +flattened club is probable. But let us not look ahead. All that we can +be sure of is that, since baseball is American, it will change. + +To resume the catalogue of contrast. In baseball the batsman must run +for every fair hit; in cricket he may choose which hits to run for. + +In baseball a man's desire is to hit the ball in the air beyond the +fielders; in cricket, though a man would like to do this, his side is +better served if he hits every ball along the ground. + +In baseball no man can have more than a very small number of hits in +a match; in cricket he can be batting for a whole day, and then again +before the match is over. There are instances of batsmen making over 400 +runs before being out. + +Another difference between the games is that in cricket we use a new +ball only at the beginning of a fresh inning (of which there cannot be +more than four in a match) and when each 200 runs have been scored; and +(this will astonish the American reader) when the ball is hit among the +people it is returned. I have seen such rapid voluntary surrenders at +baseball very seldom, and so much of a "fan" have I become that the +spectacle has always been accompanied in my breast by pain and contempt. +I had the gratification of receiving from the burly John McGraw an +autograph ball as a souvenir of a visit to the Polo Ground. I put it +in my pocket hurriedly, conscious of the risk I ran among a nation of +ball-stealers in possessing such a trophy; and I got away with it. But +I am sure that had it been a ball hit out of the ground by the mighty +"Babe" Ruth, which--recovering it by some supernatural means--he had +handed to me in public, I should not have emerged alive, or, if alive, +not in the ball's company. + +In cricket the wicket-keeper, who, like the baseball catcher, is +protected, although he has no mask, is the most difficult man to obtain, +because he has the hardest time and the least public approbation; in +baseball the catcher is a hero and every boy aspires to his mitt. + +In cricket no player makes more than three hundred pounds a season, +unless it is his turn for his one and only benefit, when he may make +a thousand pounds more. But most players do not reach such a level of +success that a benefit is their lot. But baseballers earn enormous sums. + +If a match could be arranged between eleven cricketers and eleven +baseballers, the cricketers to be allowed to bowl and the baseballers +to pitch, the cricketers to use their own bats and the baseballers their +own clubs, I fancy that the cricketers would win; for the difficulty of +hitting our bowling with a club would be greater than of hitting their +pitching with a bat. But their wonderful fielding and far more accurate +and swifter throwing than ours might just save them. Such throwing we +see only very rarely, for good throwing is no longer insisted upon in +cricket, much to the game's detriment. That old players should lose +their shoulders is natural--and, of course, our players remain in +first-class cricket for many years longer than ball champions--but there +is no excuse for the young men who have taken advantage of a growing +laxity in this matter. Chief of the few cricketers who throw with any of +the terrible precision of a baseball field is Hobbs. It must be borne +in mind, however, that cricket does not demand such constant throwing at +full speed as baseball does; for in cricket, as I have said, the +batsman may choose what hits he will run for, and if he chooses only the +perfectly safe ones the fieldsmen are never at high pressure. There is +also nothing in cricket quite to compare with base-stealing. + +When it comes to catching, the percentage of missed catches is far +higher at cricket than at baseball; but there are good reasons for this. +One is that in baseball a glove is worn; another that in baseball +all catches come to the fieldsmen with long or sufficient notice. The +fieldsmen are all, except the catcher, in front of the batsmen; there +is nothing to compare with the unexpected nimbleness that our point and +slips have to display. + +In the hypothetical contest that I have suggested, between baseballers +and cricketers, if the conditions were nominally equal and the +cricketers had to pitch like baseballers and the baseballers to use the +English bat, why then the baseballers would win handsomely. + +Baseball, I fancy, will not be acclimatised in England. We had our +chance when London was full of American soldiers and we did not take it. +But we were very grateful to them for playing the game in our midst, +for the authorities were so considerate as to let them play on Sundays +(which we are never allowed to do) and I was one of those who hoped +that this might be the thin end of the wedge and Sunday cricket also be +permitted. But no; when the war was over and the Americans left us, the +old Sabbatarianism reasserted itself. If, however, we ever exchanged +national games, and cricket were played in America and baseball in +England, it is the English spectator who would have the better of the +exchange. I am convinced that although we should quickly find baseball +diverting, nothing would ever persuade an American crowd to be otherwise +than bored by cricket. + + + + +SKYSCRAPERS + + +Perhaps if I had reached New York from the sea the skyscrapers would +have struck me more violently. But I had already seen a few in San +Francisco (and wondered at and admired the courage which could build so +high after the earthquake of 1906), and more in Chicago, all ugly; so +that when I came to New York and found that the latest architects were +not only building high, but imposing beauty on these mammoth structures, +surprise was mingled with delight. No matter how many more millions of +dollars are expended on that strange medley of ancient forms which go +to make up New York's new Cathedral, where Romanesque and Gothic seem +already to be ready for their divorce, the Woolworth Building will be +New York's true fane. Mr. Cass Gilbert, the designer of that graceful +immensity, not only gave commerce its most notable monument (to date), +but removed for ever the slur upon skyscrapers. The Woolworth Building +does not scrape the sky; it greets it, salutes it with a _beau geste_. +And I would say something similar of the Bush Building, with its +alabaster chapel in the air which becomes translucent at night; and +the Madison Square Tower (whose clock face, I noticed, has the amazing +diameter of three storeys); and the Burroughs Welcome Building on 41st +Street, with its lovely perpendicular lines; and that immense cube of +masonry on Park Avenue which bursts into flower, so to speak, at the top +in the shape of a very beautiful loggia. But even if these adornments +become, as I hope, the rule, one could not resent the ordinary +structural elephantiasis a moment after realising New York's physical +conditions. A growing city built on a narrow peninsula is unable to +expand laterally and must, therefore, soar. The problem was how to make +it soar with dignity, and the problem has been solved. + +In the old days when brown stone was the only builders' medium New York +must have been a drab city indeed; or so I gather from the few ancient +typical residences that remain. There are a few that are new, too, but +for the most part the modern house is of white stone. Gayest of all is, +I suppose, that vermilion-roofed florist's on Fifth Avenue. + +One has to ascend the Woolworth Building to appreciate at a blow with +what discretion the original settlers of New York made their choice. It +is interesting, too, to watch Broadway--which, for all I know, is the +longest street in the world--starting at one's feet on its lawless +journey to Albany: lawless because it is almost the only sinuous +thing in this city of parallelograms and has the effrontery to cross +diagonally both Fifth Avenue and Sixth. Before leaving the Woolworth +Building, I would say that there seemed to me something rather comically +paradoxical in being charged 50 cents for access to the top of a +structure which was erected to celebrate the triumph of a commercial +genius whose boast it was to have made his fortune out of articles sold +at a rate never higher than 10 cents. + +Having dallied sufficiently on the summit--there are a trifle of +fifty-eight floors, but an express lift makes nothing of them--I +continued the implacable career of the tripper by watching for a while +the deafening kerb market, which presented on that morning an odd +appearance, more like Yarmouth beach than a financial centre, for there +had been rain, and all the street operators were in sou'westers and +sea-boots. There can be spasms of similar excitement in London, in +the neighbourhood of Capel Court, but we have nothing that compares so +closely with this crowd as Tattersall's Ring at Epsom just before the +Derby. + + + + +A PLEA FOR THE AQUARIUM + + +It was a relief to resume my programme by entering that abode of the +dumb and detached--the aquarium in Battery Park. For the kerb uproar +"the uncommunicating muteness of fishes" was the only panacea. The Bronx +Zoo is not, I think, except in the matter of buffalo and deer paddocks, +so good as ours in London, but it has this shining advantage--it is +free. So also is the Aquarium in Battery Park, and it was pleasing to +see how crowded the place can be. In England all interest in living +fish, except as creatures to be coaxed towards hooks and occasionally +retained there, has vanished; on the site of old Westminster Aquarium +the Wesleyans now manage their finances and determine their circuits, +while the Brighton Aquarium, once famous all the world over, is a +variety hall with barely a fin to its name. + +After seeing the aquarium in Honolulu, which is like a pelagic rainbow +factory, and the aquarium in New York with all its strange and beautiful +denizens, I am a little ashamed of our English apathy. To maintain +picture galleries, where, however beautiful and chromatic, all is dead, +and be insensitive to the loveliness of fish, in hue, in shape and in +movement, is not quite pardonable. + + + + +ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES + + +In essentials America is American, but when it comes to inessentials, to +trimmings, her dependence on old England was noticeable again and again +as I walked about New York. The fashion which, at the moment, the print +shops were fostering was for our racing, hunting and coaching coloured +prints of a century ago, while in the gallery of the distinguished +little Grolier Club I found an exhibition of the work of Randolph +Caldecott and Kate Greenaway. In such old bookshops as I visited all +the emphasis was--just then--laid upon Keats and Lamb and Shelley, whose +first editions and presentation copies seem to be continually making the +westward journey. I had not been in New York twenty-four hours before +Keats' "Lamia," 1820--with an inscription from the author to Charles +Lamb--the very copy from which, I imagine, Lamb wrote his review, was in +my hands; but it would have been far beyond my means even if the pound +were not standing at 3.83. These "association" books, in which American +collectors take especial pleasure, can be very costly. At a sale soon +after I left New York, seven presentation copies of Dickens' books, +containing merely the author's signed inscription, realised 4870 +dollars. To continue, in Wanamaker's old curiosity department I found +little but English furniture and odds and ends, at prices which in their +own country would have been fantastically high. In the "Vanity Fair" +department, however (as I think it is called), the source was French. I +suppose that French influence must be at the back of all the costumiers +and jewellers of New York, but the shops themselves are far more +spacious than those in Paris and not less well-appointed. Tiffany's is +a palace; all it lacks is a name, but its splendid anonymity is, I take +it, a point of honour. + +It used to be said that good Americans when they died went to Paris. The +Parisian lure no doubt is still powerful; but every day I should guess +that more of Paris comes to America. The upper parts of New York have +boulevards and apartment houses very like the real thing, and I noticed +that the architecture of France exerts a special attraction for the +rich man decreeing himself a pleasure dome. There are millionaires' +residences in New York that might have been transplanted not only from +the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, but from Touraine itself; while when I +made my pilgrimage to Mr. Widener's, just outside Philadelphia, I found +Rembrandt's "Mill," and Manet's dead bull-fighter, and a Vermeer, and +a little meadow painted divinely by Corot, and El Greco's family group, +and Donatello's St. George, and one of the most lovely scenes that ever +was created by Turner's enchanted brush, all enshrined in a palace which +Louis Seize might have built. + +But America is even more French than this. Her women can be not less +_soignées_ than those of France, although they suggest a cooler blood +and less dependence on male society; her bread and coffee are better +than France's best. Moreover, when it comes to night and the Broadway +constellations challenge the darkness, New York leaves Paris far behind. +For every cabaret and supper resort that Paris can provide, New York has +three; and for every dancing floor in Paris, New York has thirty. Good +Americans, however, will still remain faithful to their old posthumous +love, if only for her wine. + +Apropos of American women, their position struck me as very different +from the position of women with us. English women are deferential to +their husbands; they are content to be relegated to the background on +all occasions when they are not wanted. They are dependent. They seldom +wear an air of triumph and rarely take the lead. But American women are +complacent and assured, they do most of the talking, make most of the +plans: if they are not seen, it is because they are in the background; +they are either active prominently elsewhere or are high on pedestals. +With each other they are mostly or often humorously direct, whereas with +men they seem to adopt an ironical or patronising attitude. American +women seem also to have a curious power of attracting to themselves +other women who admire them and foster their self-esteem. And, for all +that I know, these satellites have satellites too. Their federacy almost +amounts to a solid secret society; not so much against men, for men +must provide the sinews of war and other comforts, but for their own +satisfaction. Both sexes appear not to languish when alone. + + + + +SKY-SIGNS AND CONEY ISLAND + + +All visitors to New York speak of the exhilaration of its air, and I can +but repeat their testimony. After the first few days the idea of going +to bed became an absurdity. + +Among the peculiarly beautiful effects that America produces, sky signs +must be counted high. I had seen some when in San Francisco against the +deep Californian night, and they captivated the startled vision; but the +reckless profusion and movement of the Great White Way, as I turned out +of 42nd Street on my first evening in New York, came as something more +than a surprise: a revelation of wilful gaiety. We have normally nothing +in England to compare with it. Nor can we have even our Earl's Court +exhibition imitations of it so long as coal is so rare and costly. But +though we had the driving power for the electricity we could never get +such brilliance, for the clear American atmosphere is an essential ally. +In our humid airs all the diamond glints would be blurred. + +For the purest beauty of traceries of light against a blue background +one must go, however, not to Broadway, which is too bizarre, but to Luna +Park on Coney Island. Odd that it should be there, in that bewildering +medley of sound and restlessness, that an extreme of loveliness should +be found; but I maintain that it is so, that nothing more strangely and +voluptuously beautiful could be seen than all those minarets and domes, +with their lines and curves formed by myriad lamps, turning by contrast +the heavens into an ocean of velvet blue, mysterious and soft and +profound. + +Only periodically--when we have exhibitions at Earl's Court or at +Olympia--is there in England anything like Coney Island. At Blackpool in +August, and on Hampstead Heath on Bank Holidays, a corresponding spirit +of revelry is attempted, but it is not so natural, and is vitiated by +a self-conscious determination to be gay and by not a little vulgarity. +The revellers of Steeplechase Park seemed to me to be more genuine +even than the crowds that throng the Fęte de Neuilly; and a vast deal +happier. + +One very striking difference between Coney Island and the French fair +is the absence of children from New York's "safety-valve," as some one +described it to me. I saw hardly any. It is as though once again the +child's birthday gifts had been appropriated by its elders; but as +a matter of fact the Parks of Steeplechase and Luna were, I imagine, +designed deliberately for adults. Judging by the popularity of the +chutes and the whips, the switchbacks and the witching waves, eccentric +movement has a peculiar attraction for the American holiday-maker. As +some one put it, there is no better way, or at any rate no more thorough +way, of throwing young people together. Middle-aged people, too. But the +observer receives no impression of moral disorder. High spirits are +the rule, and impropriety is the exception. Even in the auditorium +at Steeplechase Park, where the _cognoscenti_ assemble to witness the +discomfiture of the uninitiated, there is nothing but harmless laughter +as the skirts fly up before the unsuspected blast. Such a performance in +England, were it permitted, would degenerate into ugliness; in France, +too, it would make the alien spectator uncomfortable. But the essential +public chastity of the Americans--I am not sure that I ought not here to +write civilisation of the Americans--emerges triumphant. + +It was at Coney Island that I came suddenly upon the Pig Slide and had a +new conception of what quadrupeds can do for man. + +The Pig Slide, which was in one of the less noisy quarters of Luna +Park, consisted of an enclosure in which stood a wooden building of two +storeys, some five yards wide and three high. On the upper storey was a +row of six or eight cages, in each of which dwelt a little live pig, +an infant of a few weeks. In the middle of the row, descending to the +ground, was an inclined board, with raised edges, such as is often +installed in swimming-baths to make diving automatic, and beneath each +cage was a hole a foot in diameter. The spectators and participants +crowded outside the enclosure, and the thing was to throw balls, which +were hired for the purpose, into the holes. Nothing could exceed the +alert and eager interest taken by the little pigs in the efforts of the +ball-throwers. They quivered on their little legs; they pressed their +little noses against the bars of the cages; their little eyes sparkled; +their tails (the only public corkscrews left in America) curled +and uncurled and curled again: and with reason, for whereas if you +missed--as was only too easy--nothing happened: if you threw accurately +the fun began, and the fun was also theirs. + +This is what occurred. First a bell rang and then a spring released the +door of the cage immediately over the hole which your ball had entered, +so that it swung open. The little pig within, after watching the +previous infirmity of your aim with dejection, if not contempt, had +pricked up his ears on the sound of the bell, and now smiled a gratified +smile, irresistible in infectiousness, and trotted out, and, with +the smile dissolving into an expression of absolute beatitude, slid +voluptuously down the plank: to be gathered in at the foot by an +attendant and returned to its cage all ready for another such adventure. + +It was for these moments and their concomitant changes of countenance +that you paid your money. To taste the triumph of good marksmanship +was only a fraction of your joy; the greater part of it consisted in +liberating a little prisoner and setting in motion so much ecstasy. + + + + +THE PRESS + + +America is a land of newspapers, and the newspapers are very largely +the same. To a certain extent many of them are exactly the same, for +the vastness of the country makes it possible to syndicalise various +features, so that you find Walt Mason's sagacious and merry and punctual +verse, printed to look like prose but never disappointing the ear, in +one of the journals that you buy wherever you are, in San Francisco, +Salt Lake City, Chicago or New York; and Mr. Montagu's topical rhymes +in another; and the daily adventures of Mutt and Jeff, who are national +heroes, in a third. Every day, for ever, do those and other regular +features occur in certain of the papers: which is partly why no American +ever seems to confine himself, as is our custom, to only one. + +Another and admirable feature of certain American papers is a column +edited by a man of letters, whose business it is to fill it every +day, either with the blossoms of his own intelligence or of outside +contributors, or a little of each: such a column as Don Marquis edits +for _The Sun_, called "The Sundial," and Franklin R. Adams for _The +Tribune_, called "The Conning Tower," and Christopher Morley for the New +York _Evening Post_, called "The Bowling Green." Perhaps the unsigned +"Way of the World" in our _Morning Post_ is the nearest London +correlative. + +These columns are managed with skill and catholicity, and they impart +an element of graciousness and fancy into what might otherwise be +too materialistic a budget. A journalist, like myself, is naturally +delighted to find editors and a vast public so true to their writing +friends. Very few English editors allow their subscribers the +opportunity of establishing such steady personal relations; and in +England, in consequence, the signed daily contribution from one literary +hand is very rare--to an American observer probably mysteriously so. The +daily cartoon is common with us; but in London, for example, I cannot +think of any similar literary feature that is signed in full. We have +C.E.B.'s regular verse in the _Evening News_ and "The Londoner's" daily +essay in the same paper, and various initials elsewhere; but, with us, +only the artists are allowed their names. Now, in America every name, +everywhere, is blazoned forth. + +Whatever bushel measures may be used for in the United States the +concealing of light is no part of their programme. + +Another feature of American daily journals comparatively unknown in +England is the so-called comic pictorial sequence. All the big papers +have from one to half a dozen of these sequences, each by a different +artist. Bud Fisher with "Mutt and Jeff" comes first in popularity, I +believe, and then there are his rivals and his imitators. Nothing more +inane than some of these series could be invented; and yet they persist +and could not, I am told, be dropped by any editor who thought first of +circulation. + +After the individual contributions have been subtracted, all the +newspapers are curiously alike. The same reporters might be on every +one; the same sub-editors; the same composers of head-lines. If we think +of Americans as too capable of cynical levity it is largely because of +these head-lines, which are always as epigrammatic as possible, always +light-hearted, often facetious, and often cruel. An unfortunate woman's +failure at suicide after killing her husband was thus touched off in one +of the journals while I was in New York: + +POOR SHOT AT HERSELF BUT SUCCEEDS IN LODGING BULLET IN SPOUSE. + +When it comes to the choice of news, one cannot believe that American +editors are the best friends of their country. I am holding no brief for +many English editors; I think that our papers can be common too, and can +be too ready to take things by the wrong handle; but I think that more +vulgarising of life is, at present, effected by American journalists +than by English. There are, however, many signs that we may catch up. + +Profusion is a characteristic of the American newspaper. There is too +much of everything. And when Sunday comes with its masses of reading +matter proper to the Day of Rest one is appalled. One thing is +certain--no American can find time to do justice both to his Sunday +paper and his Maker. It is principally on Sunday that one realises +that if Matthew Arnold's saying that every nation has the newspapers it +deserves is true, America must have been very naughty. How the Sunday +editions could be brought out while the paper-shortage was being +discussed everywhere, as it was during my visit, was a problem that +staggered me. But that the shortage was real I was assured, and +jokes upon it even got into the music halls: a sure indication of +its existence. "If the scarcity of paper gets more acute," I heard a +comedian say, "they'll soon have to make shoes of leather again." + +But it is not only the Sunday papers that are so immense. I used to hold +the _Saturday Evening Post_ in my hands, weighed down beneath its bulk, +and marvel that the nation that had time to read it could have time for +anything else. The matter is of the best, but what would the prudent, +wise and hard-working philosopher who founded it so many years +ago--Benjamin Franklin--say if he saw its lure deflecting millions of +readers from the real business of life? + +When we come to consider the American magazines--to which class the +_Saturday Evening Post_ almost belongs--and the English, there is no +comparison. The best American magazines are wonderful in their quality +and range, and we have nothing to set beside them. It is astonishing to +think how different, in the same country, daily and monthly journalism +can be. Omitting the monthly reviews, _Blackwood_ is, I take it, our +finest monthly miscellany; and all of _Blackwood_ could easily +and naturally be absorbed in one of the American magazines and be +illustrated into the bargain, and still leave room for much more. And +the whole would cost less! Why England is so poorly and pettily served +in the matter of monthly magazines is something of a mystery; but part +of the cause is the rivalry of the papers, and part the smallness of our +population. But I shall always hold that we deserve more good magazines +than we have now. + + + + +TREASURES OF ART + + +I was fortunate in being in New York when the Metropolitan Museum +celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its birth, for I was therefore +able to enjoy not only its normal treasures but such others as had +been borrowed for birthday presents, which means that I saw Mrs. H. E. +Huntington's Vermeer, as well as the supreme Marquand example of that +master; more than the regular wealth of Rembrandts, Manet's "Still +Life," Gauguin's "Women by the River," El Greco's "View of Toledo," +Franz Hals' big jovial Dutchman from Mr. Harry Goldman's walls, and +Bellini's "Bacchanale"--to say nothing of the lace in galleries 18 and +19, Mr. Morgan's bronze Eros from Pompeii, and the various cases of +porcelain from a score of collections. But without extra allurements I +should have been drawn again and again to this magnificent museum. + +Two of the principal metropolitan donors--Altman and Hearn--were the +owners of big dry goods stores, while Marquand, whose little Vermeer is +probably the loveliest thing in America, was also a merchant. In future +I shall look upon all the great emporium proprietors as worthy of +patronage, on the chance of their being also beneficent collectors of +works of art. This thought, this hope, is more likely to get me into a +certain Oxford Street establishment than all the rhetoric and special +pleading of Callisthenes. + +The Frick Gallery was not accessible; but I was privileged to roam at +will both in Mr. Morgan's library and in Mr. H. E. Huntington's, in each +of which I saw such a profusion of unique and unappraisable autographs +as I had not supposed existed in private hands. Rare books any one with +money can have, for they are mostly in duplicate; but autographs and +"association" books are unique, and America is the place for them. I had +known that it was necessary to cross the Atlantic in order to see the +originals of many of the pictures of which we in London have only the +photographs. I knew that the bulk of the Lamb correspondence was in +America, and at Mr. Morgan's I saw the author's draft of the essay +on "Roast Pig," and at Mr. Newton's, in Philadelphia, the original of +"Dream Children," an even more desirable possession; I knew that America +had provided an eager home for everything connected with Keats and +Shelley and Stevenson; but it was a surprise to find at Mr. Morgan's +so wide a range of MSS., extending from Milton to Du Maurier, and from +Bacon to "Dorian Gray"; while at Mr. Huntington's I had in my hands the +actual foolscap sheets on which Heine composed his "Florentine Nights." + +I ought, you say, to have known this before. Maybe. But that ignorance +in such matters is no monopoly of mine I can prove by remarking that +many an American collector with whom I have talked was unaware that +the library of Harvard University is the possessor of all the works +of reference--mostly annotated--which were used by Thomas Carlyle in +writing his "Cromwell" and his "Frederick the Great," and they were +bequeathed by him in his will to Harvard University because of his +esteem and regard for the American people, "particularly the more silent +part of them." + +My hours in these libraries, together with a glimpse of the Widener room +at Harvard and certain booksellers' shelves, gave me some idea of what +American collectors have done towards making the New World a treasury of +the Old, and I realised how more and more necessary it will be, in the +future, for all critics of art in whatever branch, and of literature in +whatever branch, and all students even of antiquity, if they intend to +be thorough, to visit America. This I had guessed at, but never before +had known. + +The English traveller lighting upon so many of the essentially English +riches as are conserved in American libraries, and particularly when he +has not a meagre share of national pride, cannot but pause to wonder how +it came about--and comes about--that so much that ought to be in its own +country has been permitted to stray. + +In England collectors and connoisseurs are by no means rare. What, then, +were they doing to let all these letters of Keats and Shelley, Burns and +Byron, Lamb and Johnson--to name for the moment nothing else--find +their resting-place in America? The dollar is very powerful, I know, +but should it have been as pre-eminently powerful as this? Need it have +defeated so much patriotism? + +Pictures come into a different category, for every artist painted more +than one picture. I have experienced no shade of resentment towards +their new owners in looking at the superb collections of old and new +foreign masters in the American public and private galleries; for so +long as there are enough examples of the masters to go round, every +nation should have a share. With MSS., however, it is different. +Facsimiles, such as the Boston Bibliographical Society's edition of +Lamb's letters, would serve for the rest of the world, and the originals +should be in their author's native land. But that is a counsel of +perfection. The only thing to do is to grin and bear it, and feel happy +that these unique possessions are preserved with such loving pride +and care. Any idea of retaliation on America on the part of England by +buying up the MSS. of the great American writers, such as Franklin and +Poe, Hawthorne and Emerson, Thoreau and Lowell, Holmes and Whitman, was +rendered futile by the discovery that Mr. Morgan possesses these too. I +had in his library all the Breakfast Table series in my hands, together +with a play by Poe not yet published. + + + + +MOUNT VERNON + + +Mention of the beautiful solicitude with which these treasures are +surrounded, suggests the reflection that the old country has something +to learn from the new in the matter of distinguished custodianship. We +have no place of national pilgrimage in England that is so perfect a +model as Washington's home at Mount Vernon. It is perhaps through lack +of a figure of the Washington type that we have nothing to compare with +it; for any parallel one must rather go to Fontainebleau; but +certain shrines are ours and none of them discloses quite such +pious thoroughness as this. When I think of the completeness of the +preservation and reconstruction of Mount Vernon, where, largely +through the piety of individuals, a thousand personal relics have been +reassembled, so that, save for the sightseers, this serene and simple +Virginian mansion is almost exactly as it was, I am filled with +admiration. For a young people largely in a hurry to find time to be so +proud and so reverent is a significant thing. + +Nor is this spirit of pious reverence confined to national memorials. +Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Massachusetts, although still only a +hostelry, compares not unfavourably with Dove Cottage at Grasmere and +Carlyle's house in Chelsea. The preservation is more minute. But to +return to Mount Vernon, the orderliness of the place is not its least +noticeable feature. There is no mingling of trade with sentiment, as +at Stratford-on-Avon, for example. Within the borders of the estate +everything is quiet. I have never seen Americans in church (not, I +hasten to add, because they abstain, but because I did), but I am sure +that they could not, even there, behave more as if the environment were +sacred. To watch the crowds at Mount Vernon, and to contemplate the +massive isolated grandeur of the Lincoln Memorial now being finished +at Washington, is to realise that America, for all its superficial +frivolity and cynicism, is capable of a very deep seriousness. + + + + +VERS LIBRE + + +It would have been pedantic, while in America, to have abstained from an +effort at _vers libre_. + + + + +REVOLT + + +I had been to the Metropolitan Museum looking at beautiful things and +rejoicing in them. + +And then I had to catch a train and go far into the country, to Paul +Smith's. + +And as the light lessened and the brooding hour set in I looked out of +the window and reconstructed some of the lovely things I had seen--the +sculptures and the paintings, the jewels and the porcelain: all the fine +flower of the arts through the ages. + +It seemed marvellous beyond understanding that such perfection could +exist, and I thought how wonderful it must be to be God and see His +creatures rising now and again to such heights. + +And then I came to a station where there was to be a very long wait, and +I went to an inn for a meal. + +It was a dirty neglected place, with a sullen unwashed man at the door, +who called raspingly to his wife within. + +And when she came she was a slattern, with dishevelled hair and a soiled +dress and apron, and she looked miserable and worn out. + +She prepared a meal which I could not eat, and when I went to pay for +it I found her sitting dejectedly in a chair looking with a kind of dumb +despair at the day's washing-up still to do. + +And as I walked up and down the road waiting for the car I thought of +this woman's earlier life when she was happy. + +I thought of her in her courtship, when her husband loved her and they +looked forward to marriage and he was tender and she was blithe. + +They probably went to Coney Island together and laughed with the rest. + +And it seemed iniquitous that such changes should come about and +that merry girls should grow into sluts and slovens, and ardent young +husbands should degenerate into unkempt bullies, and houses meant for +happiness should decay, and marriage promises all be forgotten. + +And I felt that if the world could not be better managed than that I +never wanted to see any of God's artistic darlings at the top of their +form again and the Metropolitan Museum could go hang. + + + + +DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE + + +I believe that few statements about America would so surprise English +people as that it has beautiful architecture. I was prepared to find +Boston and Cambridge old-fashioned and homelike--Oliver Wendell Holmes +had initiated me; I had a distinct notion of the cool spaciousness of +the White House and the imposing proportions of the Capitol and, of +course, I knew that one had but to see the skyscrapers of New York to +experience the traditional repulsion! But of the church of St. Thomas on +Fifth Avenue I had heard nothing, nor of Mr. Morgan's exquisite library, +nor of the Grand Central terminus, nor of the Lincoln Memorial at +Washington, nor of the bland charm of Mount Vernon. Nor had I expected +to find Fifth Avenue so dignified and cordial a thoroughfare. + +Even less was I prepared for such metal work and stone work as is to +be seen in some of the business houses--such as, for example, the new +Guaranty Trust offices, both on Broadway and in Fifth Avenue. Even the +elevators (for which we in England, in spite of our ancient lethargy, +have a one-syllable word) are often finished with charming taste. + +Least of all did I anticipate the maturity of America's buildings. Those +serene façades on Beacon Street overlooking Boston Common, where the +Autocrat used to walk (and I made an endeavour to follow his identical +footsteps, for he was my first real author)--they are as satisfying as +anything in Georgian London. And I shall long treasure the memory of the +warm red brick and easy proportions of the Boston City Hall and Faneuil +Hall, and Independence Hall at Philadelphia seen through a screen of +leaves. But in England (and these buildings were English once) we still +have many old red brick buildings; what we have not is anything to +correspond with the spacious friendly houses of wood which I saw in the +country all about Boston and at Cambridge--such houses as that which was +Lowell's home--each amid its own greenery. Nowhere, however, did I see a +more comely manor house of the old Colonial style than Anthony Wayne's, +near Daylesford, in Pennsylvania. In England only cottages are built of +wood, and I rather think that there are now by-laws against that. + +Not all the good country houses, big and little, are, however, old. +American architects in the past few years seem to have developed a very +attractive type of home, often only a cottage, and I saw a great number +of these on the slopes of the Hudson, all the new ones combining taste +with the suggestion of comfort. The conservation of trees wherever +possible is an admirable feature of modern suburban planning in America. +In England the new suburb too often has nothing but saplings. In +America, again, the houses, even the very small ones, are more often +detached than with us. + + + + +BOSTON + + +Once the lay-out of New York has been mastered--its avenues and numbered +cross streets--it is the most difficult city in the world in which to +lose one's way. But Boston is different. I found Boston hard to learn, +although it was a pleasant task to acquire knowledge, for I was led into +some of the quietest little Georgian streets I have ever been in, +steep though some of them were, and along one of the fairest of green +walks--that between the back of Beacon Street and the placid Charles. + +Against Boston I have a certain grudge, for I could find no one to +direct me to the place where the tea was thrown overboard. But that +it was subjected to this indignity we may be certain--partly from the +testimony of subsequent events not too soothing to English feelings, +and partly from the unpopularity which that honest herb still suffers +on American soil. Coffee, yes; coffee at all times; but no one will take +any but the most perfunctory interest in the preparation of tea. I found +the harbour; I traversed wharf after wharf; but found no visible record +of the most momentous act of jettison since Jonah. In the top room, +however, of Faneuil Hall, in the Honourable Artillery Company's +headquarters, the more salient incidents of the struggle which followed +are all depicted by enthusiastic, if not too talented, painters; and I +saw in the distance the monument on Bunker's Hill. + +My cicerone must be excused, for he was a Boston man, born and bred, +and I ought never to have put him to the humiliation of confessing his +natural ignorance. But the record is there, and legible enough. The +tablet (many kind correspondents have informed me since certain of +these notes appeared in the _Outlook_) is at 495 Atlantic Avenue, in the +water-front district, just a short walk from the South Station, and it +has the following inscription: + + * * * * * + +HERE FORMERLY STOOD + +GRIFFIN'S WHARF + +at which lay moored on Dec. 16, 1773, three British ships with cargoes +of tea. To defeat King George's trivial but tyrannical tax of three +pence a pound, about ninety citizens of Boston, partly disguised +as Indians, boarded the ships, threw the cargoes, three hundred and +forty-two chests in all, into the sea and made the world ring with the +patriotic exploit of the + +BOSTON TEA PARTY + + "No! ne'er was mingled such a draught + In palace, hall, or arbor, + As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed + That night in Boston Harbor." + + * * * * * + +Boston has a remarkable art gallery and museum, notable for its ancient +Chinese paintings, its collection of Japanese prints--one of the best +in the world, I believe--and a dazzling wall of water-colours by Mr. +Sargent. It was here that I saw my first Winslow Homers--two or three +rapid sketches of fishermen in full excitement--and was conquered by his +verve and actuality. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York I found him +again in oils and my admiration increased. Surely no one ever can have +painted the sea with more vividness, power and truth! We have no example +of his work in any public gallery in London; nor have we anything by +W. M. Chase, Arthur B. Davies, Swain Gifford, J. W. Alexander, George +Inness, or De Forest Brush. It is more than time for another American +Exhibition. As it is, the only modern American artists of whom there is +any general knowledge in England are Mr. Sargent, Mr. Epstein and Mr. +Pennell, and the late E. A. Abbey, G. H. Boughton, and Whistler. Other +Americans painting in our midst are Mr. Mark Fisher, R.A., Mr. J. J. +Shannon, R.A., Mr. J. McLure Hamilton, and Mr. G. Wetherbee. + +The Boston Gallery is the proud possessor of the rough and unfinished +but "speaking" likeness of George Washington by his predestined limner +Gilbert Stuart, and also a companion presentment of Washington's wife. +Looking upon this lady's countenance and watching a party of school +girls who were making the tour of the rooms, not uncomforted on their +arduous adventure by chocolate and other confections, it occurred to me +that if America increases her present love of eating sweets, due, I +am told, not a little to Prohibition, George Washington will gradually +disappear into the background and Martha Washington, who has already +given her name to a very popular brand of candy, will be venerated +instead, as the Sweet Mother of her Country. + +An American correspondent sends me the following poem in order to +explain to me the deviousness of Boston's principal thoroughfare. The +poet is Mr. Sam Walter Foss:-- + + One day through the primeval wood + A calf walked home, as good calves should; + + But made a trail all bent askew, + A crooked trail, as all calves do. + + Since then two hundred years have fled, + And, I infer, the calf is dead. + + But still he left behind his trail, + And thereby hangs my moral tale. + + The trail was taken up next day + By a lone dog that passed that way; + + And then a wise bell-wether sheep + Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep, + + And drew the flock behind him too, + As good bell-wethers always do. + + And from that day o'er hill and glade + Through those old woods a path was made, + + And many men wound in and out, + And dodged and turned and bent about, + + And uttered words of righteous wrath + Because 'twas such a crooked path; + + But still they followed--do not laugh-- + The first migrations of that calf, + + And through this winding wood-way stalked + Because he wabbled when he walked. + + The forest path became a lane + That bent and turned and turned again; + + This crooked lane became a road, + Where many a poor horse with his load + + Toiled on beneath the burning sun, + And travelled some three miles in one. + + And thus a century and a half + They trod the footsteps of that calf. + + The years passed on in swiftness fleet, + The road became a village street, + + And then before men were aware, + A city's crowded thoroughfare, + + And soon the central street was this + Of a renowned metropolis. + + And men two centuries and a half + Trod in the footsteps of that calf. + + Each day a hundred thousand rout + Followed the zigzag calf about; + + And o'er his crooked journey went + The traffic of a continent. + + A hundred thousand men were led + By one calf near three centuries dead. + + They followed still his crooked way + And lost one hundred years a day; + + For thus such reverence is lent + To well-established precedent. + + A moral lesson this might teach, + Were I ordained and called to preach. + + For men are prone to go it blind + Along the calf-paths of the mind, + + And work away from sun to sun + To do what other men have done. + + They follow in the beaten track, + And out and in and forth and back + + And still their devious course pursue, + To keep the paths that others do. + + But how the wise old wood-gods laugh + Who saw the first primeval calf! + + Ah, many things this tale might teach--But + I am not ordained to preach. + + + + +PHILADELPHIA + + +I was fortunate in the city over which William Penn, in giant effigy, +keeps watch and ward, in having as guide, philosopher and friend Mr. +A. Edward Newton, the Johnsonian, and the author of one of the best +examples of "amateur" literature that I know--"The Amenities of +Book-Collecting." Mr. Newton took me everywhere, even to the little +seventeenth-century Swedish church, which architecturally may be +described as the antipodes of Philadelphia's newer glory, the Curtis +Building, where editors are lodged like kings and can be attained to +(if at all) only through marble halls. We went to St. Peter's, where, +suddenly awaking during the sermon, one would think oneself to be in a +London city church, and to the Historical Museum, where I found among +the Quaker records many of my own ancestors and was bewildered amid +such a profusion of relics of Penn, Washington and Franklin. In the old +library were more traces of Franklin, including his famous electrical +appliance, again testifying to the white flame with which American +hero-worship can burn; and we found the sagacious Benjamin once more at +the Franklin Inn Club, where the simplicity of the eighteenth century +mingles with the humour and culture of the twentieth. We then drove +through several miles of Fairmount Park, stopping for a few minutes +in the hope of finding the late J. G. Johnson's Vermeer in the gallery +there; but for the moment it was in hiding, the walls being devoted to +his Italian pictures. + +Finally we drew up at the gates of that strange and imposing Corinthian +temple which might have been dislodged from its original site and hurled +to Philadelphia by the first Quaker, Poseidon--the Girard College. This +solemn fane we were permitted to enter only on convincing the porter +that we were not ministers of religion--an easy enough task for Mr. +Newton, who wears with grace the natural abandon of a Voltairean, but +a difficult one for me. Why Stephen Girard, the worthy "merchant and +mariner" who endowed this institution, was so suspicious of the cloth, +no matter what its cut, I do not know; no doubt he had his reasons; but +his prejudices are faithfully respected by his janitor, whose eye is +a very gimlet of suspicion. However, we got in and saw the +philanthropist's tomb and his household effects behind those massive +columns. + +That evening I spent in Mr. Newton's library among Blake and Lamb and +Johnson autographs and MSS., breaking the Tenth Commandment with a +recklessness that would have satisfied and delighted Stephen Girard's +gatekeeper; and the next day we were off to Valley Forge to see with +what imaginative thoughtfulness the Government has been transforming +Washington's camp into a national park and restoring the old landmarks. +It was a fine spring day and the woods were flecked with the white +and pink blossoms of the dogwood--a tree which in England is only an +inconspicuous hedgerow bush but here has both charm and importance +and some of the unexpectedness of a tropical growth. I wish we could +acclimatise it. + +The memorial chapel now in course of completion on one of the Valley +Forge eminences seemed to me a very admirable example not only of modern +Gothic but of votive piety. And such a wealth of American symbolism +cannot exist elsewhere. But in the severe little cottage where +Washington made his headquarters, down by the stream, with all his +frugal campaigning furniture and accessories in their old places, I felt +more emotion than in the odour of sanctity. The simple reality of it +conquered the stained glass. + + + + +GENERAL REFLECTIONS + + +Looking back on it all I realise that America never struck me as a new +country, although its inhabitants often seemed to be a new people. The +cities are more mature than the citizens. New York, Chicago, Boston, +Philadelphia, Washington--all have an air of permanence and age. The +buildings, even the most fantastic, suggest indigenousness, or at least +stability; nor would the presence of more ancient structures increase +this effect. To the eye of the ordinary Englishman accustomed to work in +what we call the City, in Fleet Street, in the Strand, in Piccadilly, or +in Oxford Street, New York would not appear to be a younger place than +London, and Boston might easily strike him as older. Nor is London more +than a little older, except in spots, such as the Tower and the Temple +and the Abbey, and that little Tudor row in Holborn, all separated by +vast tracts of modernity. Indeed, I would almost go farther and say that +London sets up an illusion of being newer even than New York by reason +of its more disturbing street traffic both in the roads and on the +footways, and the prevalence of the gaily coloured omnibuses which +thunder along so many thoroughfares in notable contrast with the +sedate and sober vehicles that serve Fifth Avenue and are hardly seen +elsewhere. + +Meanwhile an illusion of antiquity is set up by New York's habit of +commingling business houses and private residences, which surely belongs +to an older order of society. In London we have done away with such +a blend. Our nearest approach to Fifth Avenue is, I suppose, Regent +Street; but there are no mansions among the shops of Regent Street. Our +shops are there and our mansions are elsewhere, far away, in what we +call residential quarters--such as Park Lane, Queen's Gate, Mayfair, the +Bayswater Road, and Grosvenor Square. To turn out of Fifth Avenue into +the quiet streets where people live is to receive a distinct impression +of sedateness such as New York is never supposed to convey. One has the +same feeling in the other great American cities. + +But when it comes to their inhabitants there are to the English eye +fewer signs of maturity. I have never been able to get rid of the idea +that every one I have met in America, no matter how grave a senior, +instead of being really and self-consciously in the thick of life, +is only getting ready to begin. Perhaps this is due in part to the +pleasure--the excitement almost--which American business men--and all +Americans are business men--take in their work. They not merely do it, +but they enjoy doing it and they watch themselves doing it. They seem to +have a knack of withdrawing aside and observing themselves as from +the stalls, not without applause. In other words, they dramatise +continually. Now, one does not do this when one is old--it is a childish +game--and it is another proof that they are younger than we, who do not +enjoy our work, and indeed, most of us, are ashamed of it and want the +world to believe that we live like the lilies on private means. + +Similarly, many Americans seem, when they talk, to be two persons: one +the talker, and the other the listener charmed by the quality of his +discourse. There is nothing detrimental in such duplicity. Indeed, +I think I have a very real envy of it. But one of the defects of the +listening habit is perhaps to make them too rhetorical, too verbose. It +is odd that the nation that has given us so much epigrammatic slang and +the telegraph and the telephone and the typewriter should have so little +of what might be called intellectual short-hand. But so it is. Too many +Americans are remorseless when they are making themselves clear. + +Yet the passion for printed idiomatic sententiousness and arresting +trade-notices is visible all the time. You see it in the newspapers and +in the shops. I found a children's millinery shop in New York with +this laconic indication of its scope, in permanent letters, on the +plate-glass window: "Lids for Kids." A New York undertaker, I am told, +has affixed to all his hearses the too legible legend: "You may linger, +but I'll get you yet." + +When it comes to descriptive new words, coined rapidly to meet +occasions, we English are nowhere compared with the Americans. Could +there be anything better than the term "Nearbeer" to reveal at a blow +the character of a substitute for ale? I take off my hat, too, to +"crape-hanger," which leaves "kill-joy" far in the rear. But "optience" +for a cinema audience, which sees but does not hear, though ingenious, +is less admirable. + +Although I found the walls of business offices in New York and elsewhere +decorated with pithy counsel to callers, and discouragements to +irrelevance, such as "Come to the point but don't camp on it," "To hell +with yesterday," and so forth, I am very doubtful if with all these +suggestions of practical address and Napoleonic efficiency the American +business man is as quick and decisive as ours can be. There is more +autobiography talked in American offices than in English; more getting +ready to begin. + +I have, however, no envy of the American man's inability to loaf and +invite his soul, as his great democratic poet was able to do. I think +that this unfamiliarity with armchair life is a misfortune. That article +of furniture, we must suppose, is for older civilisations, where men +have either, after earning the right to recline, taken their ease +gracefully, or have inherited their fortune and are partial to idleness. +It consorts ill with those who are still either continually and +restlessly in pursuit of the dollar or are engaged in the occupation of +watching dollars automatically arrive. + +One of the things, I take it, for Americans to learn is how to transform +money into a friend. So many men who ought to be quietly rejoicing in +their riches seem still to be anxious and acquisitive; so many men who +have become suddenly wealthy seem to be allowing their gains to ruin +their happiness. For the nation's good nearly every one, I fancy, has +too much money. + +My experience is that England has almost everything to learn from +America in the matter of hotels. I consider American second and +third-class hotels to be better in many ways than our best. Every +American restaurant, of each grade, is better than the English +equivalent; the appointments are better, the food is served with more +distinction and often is better too. When it comes to coffee, there is +no comparison whatever: American coffee is the best in the world. Only +quite recently has the importance of the complete suite entered the +intelligence of the promoters of English hotels, and in myriads of these +establishments, called first class, there is still but one bathroom to +twenty rooms. Heating coils and hot and cold water in the rooms are even +more rare: so rare as to be mentioned in the advertisements. Telephones +in the rooms are rarer. In too many hotels in England there is still +no light at the head of the bed. But we have certain advantages. For +example, in English restaurants there is always something on the table +to eat at once--_hors d'oeuvres_ or bread and butter. In America there +is too often nothing ready but iced water--an ungenial overture to +any feast--and you must wait until your order has been taken. Other +travellers, even Americans, have agreed with me that it would be more +comfortable if the convention which decrees that the waiter shall bring +everything together could be overruled. Something "to go on with" is a +great ameliorative, especially when one is hungry and tired. + +In thus commending American hotels over English it is, however, only +right to admit that the American hotels are very much more expensive. + +While on the subject of eating, I would say that for all their notorious +freedoms Americans have a better sense of order than we. Their policemen +may carry their batons drawn, and even swing them with a certain +insolent defiance or even provocation, but New York goes on its way +with more precision and less disturbance than London, and every one +is smarter, more alert. The suggestion of a living wage for all is +constant. It is indeed on this sense of orderliness that the success +of certain of the American time-saving appliances is built. The Automat +restaurants, for example, where the customer gets all his requirements +himself, would never do in London. The idea is perfect; but it requires +the co-operation of the customer, and that is what we should fail to +provide. The spotless cleanliness and mechanical exactitude of these +places in New York would cease in London, and gradually they would +decline and then disappear. At heart, we in England dislike well-managed +places. Nor can I see New York's public distribution of hot water +adopted in London. Such little geysers as expel steam at intervals +through the roadway of Fifth Avenue will never, I fear, be found in +Regent Street or Piccadilly. Our communism is very patchy. + +There are some unexpected differences between America and England. It is +odd, for instance, to find a nation from whom we get most of our tobacco +and who have the reputation of even chewing cigars, with such strict +rules against smoking. In the Music Halls, which are, as a rule, better +than ours, smoking is permitted only in certain parts. Public decorum +again is, I should say, more noticeable in an American than an +English city, and yet both in San Francisco and New York I dined in +restaurants--not late--between 7 and 8--and not furtive hole-in-corner +places,--where girls belonging to the establishment, wearing almost +nothing at all, performed the latest dances, with extravagant and daring +variations of them, among the tables. In London this kind of thing is +unknown. In Paris it occurs only in the night cafés. It struck me as +astonishing--and probably not at all to the good--that it should be an +ordinary dinner accompaniment. + +I was asked while I was in America to set down some of the chief things +that I missed. I might easily have begun with walking-sticks, for until +I reached New York I seemed to be the only man in America who carried +one, although a San Francisco friend confessed to sometimes "wearing +a cane" on Sundays. I missed a Visitors' Book either at the British +Embassy in Washington or at the White House. After passing through +India, where one's first duty is to enter one's name in these volumes, +it seemed odd that the same machinery of civility should be lacking. I +missed any system of cleaning boots during the night, in the hotels; but +I soon became accustomed to this, and rather enjoyed visiting the "shine +parlours," in one of which was this crisp notice: "If you like our work, +tell your friends; if you don't like it, tell us." I missed gum-chewing. + +But it was on returning to England that I began really to take notice. +Then I found myself missing America's cleanliness, America's despatch, +its hotel efficiency, its lashings of cream, its ice on every hand. All +this at Liverpool! I missed later the petrol fountains all about the +roads, a few of which I had seen in India, at which the motorist can +replenish; but these surely will not be long in coming. I don't want +England to be Americanised; I don't want America to cease to be a +foreign country; but there are lessons each of us can learn. + +If I were an American, although I travelled abroad now and then (and +I hold that it is the duty of a man to see other lands but live in his +own) I should concentrate on America. It is the country of the future. I +am glad I have seen it and now know something--however slight--about +it at first hand. I made many friends there and amassed innumerable +delightful memories. But what is the use of eight weeks? I am ashamed +not to have gone there sooner, and humiliated by the brevity of my +stay. I have had the opportunity only to lift a thousand curtains, get +a glimpse of the entertainment on the other side and drop them again. I +should like to go there every other year and have time: time to make the +acquaintance of a naturalist and learn from him the names of birds and +trees and flowers; time to loiter in the byways; time to penetrate into +deeper strata where intimacies strike root and the real discoveries +are made; time to discern beneath the surface, so hard and assured, +something fey, something wistful, the sense of tears. + + + + +INDEX + + + Adirondacks, etc. + Agra and its Fort + Aitken, E. H., his three books + Akbar + America, its democracy + its humour + its slang + its trains + its women + its newspapers + its MSS. + its hotels + its maturity + American painters in England + Americans, at home and abroad + Americans, their clothes + their physiognomy + their disturbing wealth + Aquariums + Architecture in America + "Association" books + + Baker, Mr. Herbert + Bam Bahadur, that great hunter + Baseball and cricket + Beecher, Henry Ward + Benares + Berkeley University + Bernier on the Moguls + Betel-nut chewing + Birds in India + Blackbuck, the agile + Bombay--Towers of Silence + Boston + Butler, H.E., Sir Harcourt + + Calcutta--the piano-carriers + its snake charmers + and the Maidan + and its English buildings + its old cemetery + Charnock, Job + Chicago, its hospitable policeman + its pictures + Cinema, the + Cobb, Mr. Irvin + Comparisons between America and England + Coney Island + Cow-worship in India + Cricket and baseball + Curzon, Lord, his preservation of ancient buildings + + Dances in India and Japan + Delhi--the camel omnibuses + its architecture + and the Mutiny + Fort + Dickens, Charles, presentation copies + + "Eha," his three books + Elephanta, caves of + + Fakirs in India + Fatehpur-Sikri + Faneuil Hall, Boston + Fifth Avenue + Foss, Mr. Samuel W., his Boston poem + Franklin, Benjamin + Fujiyama + Funerals in India and England + + Ganges, the + Geisha dances + Gilbert, Mr. Cass + Girard, Stephen + Goschen, Lord, wounds the tiger + + Hakone, Lake + Hawking + Herford, Mr. Oliver + Hindus, the, and animals + Hokusai + Holmes, Oliver Wendell + Hong-Kong, funeral at + Honolulu + Hooghli, the + Hotels in America + Humayun's Tomb + Huntington, Mr. H. E. + + Jahan, Shah, his buildings + Jains, the, their preservation of life + Japan--its lack of idlers + and animal life + its women + its American reading + Japanese, their small stature + materialism + public manners + their gold teeth + Journalism in America + + Katsuragava rapids + Keats' _Lamia_, 1820 + Kesteven, Sir Charles, his library + Khan, Sir Umar Hayat + Kohinoor, the + Kutb Minar, the + Kyoto, its temples + + Lake Placid Club + Lamb, Mr. A. M., his distress at Honolulu + Charles, first editions + manuscripts + Landor, Walter Savage + Lavater abroad + Lincoln Memorial + Liston, Lt.-Col. Glen + Lucknow and the Mutiny + its delectability + Lutyens, Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., goes hawking + and Imperial Delhi + and the priests + and the divers + hunts the tiger + Marquis, Mr. Don + Moguls, the + Mohammedan customs + priests + Monkeys + Morgan, Mr. J. Pierpont + Mount Vernon + Mutiny, the + Myanoshita + + Nautch, the + Nawanagar, the Jam of + New or Imperial Delhi + New York, its skyscrapers + its buildings + its aquarium + its shops + its dances + its sky signs + its pictures + its MSS. + its maturity + Newspapers in America + Newton, Mr. A. Edward + + Otome Pass + + Painters, American, in England + Parsees, the + Peacock Throne, the + Philadelphia + Pictures in America + Prince of Wales in New York + Prohibition + Pronunciation in America + + Ranjitsinhji, Prince + Rickshaws + Roosevelt, Theodore, his Memorial Road + "Rose Aylmer" + Ruth, "Babe" + + San Francisco + Saranac + _Saturday Evening Post_, the + Scott, Mr. A. P., his house + Sculpture in America + Shaw, Mr. Bernard + Simplified spelling + Skyscrapers + Skysigns + Slang in America + Snake-poison antidotes + St. Gaudens, Augustus + Stevenson, Robert Louis + Swamp-deer hunting + Swan, Mr. Thomas, his despair at Honolulu + + Taj Mahal, the + Talmadge, Constance + Norma + Tavernier on the Moguls + Theatre, the, in Japan + Tiger hunt, a + Tinney, Frank + Tokio, its dress + its theatre + Tolstoi, Count Leo + Towers of Silence + Townsend, Joe, his ballad + + Valley Forge + Venice and Benares + Vers Libre + Vultures + + Washington + George + Martha + Wayne, Anthony + Wayside Inn, the + Wheeler, Mr. Charles Stetson, his story + Women in America + in Japan + Woolworth Building, the + + Yamaguchi, Madame + Yokohama + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Roving East and Roving West, by E. V. 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V. Lucas + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Roving East and Roving West, by E. V. Lucas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Roving East and Roving West + +Author: E. V. Lucas + + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7237] +This file was first posted on March 30, 2003 +Last Updated: May 12, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROVING EAST AND ROVING WEST *** + + + + +Text file produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + ROVING EAST <br />AND ROVING WEST + </h1> + <h2> + By E. V. Lucas + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + To <br /> <br /> E. L. L. <br /> <br /> My Host At Raisina + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div class="middle"> + <p> + {Illustration: TWO MEN ADMIRING FUJI FROM A WINDOW From Hokusai's "A + Hundred Views of Fuji"} (Illustrations not available in this file) + </p> + <br /> <br /> + <p> + "Yes, Sir, there are two objects of curiosity, e.g., the Christian world + and the Mahometan world."—DR. JOHNSON. + </p> + <br /> <br /> + <p> + "Motion recollected in tranquillity."—WORDSWORTH (<i>very nearly</i>). + </p> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>INDIA</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NOISELESS FEET </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE SAHIB </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE PASSING SHOW </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> INDIA'S BIRDS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE TOWERS OF SILENCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE GARLANDS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> DELHI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> A DAY'S HAWKING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE DIVERS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE ROPE TRICK </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> LUCKNOW </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> A TIGER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE SACRED CITY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> CALCUTTA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> ROSE AYLMER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> JOB AND JOE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> EXIT </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> <b>JAPAN</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> INTRODUCTORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> THE LITTLE LAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> THE RICE FIELDS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> SURFACE MATERIALISM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> FIRST GLIMPSE OF FUJI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> TWO FUNERALS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> THE LITTLE GEISHA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> MANNERS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> THE PLAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> MYANOSHITA </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> <b>AMERICA</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> DEMOCRACY AT HOME </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> SAN FRANCISCO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> ROADS GOOD AND BAD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> UNIVERSITIES, LOVE AND PRONUNCIATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> FIRST SIGNS OF PROHIBITION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> R.L.S. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> STORIES AND HUMOURISTS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> THE CARS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> CHICAGO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> THE MOVIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> THE AMERICAN FACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> PROHIBITION AGAIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> THE BALL GAME </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> SKYSCRAPERS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> A PLEA FOR THE AQUARIUM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> SKY-SIGNS AND CONEY ISLAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> THE PRESS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> TREASURES OF ART </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> MOUNT VERNON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> VERS LIBRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> REVOLT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> BOSTON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> PHILADELPHIA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0058"> GENERAL REFLECTIONS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0059"> INDEX </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INDIA + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NOISELESS FEET + </h2> + <p> + Although India is a land of walkers, there is no sound of footfalls. Most + of the feet are bare and all are silent: dark strangers overtake one like + ghosts. + </p> + <p> + Both in the cities and the country some one is always walking. There are + carts and motorcars, and on the roads about Delhi a curious service of + camel omnibuses, but most of the people walk, and they walk ever. In the + bazaars they walk in their thousands; on the long, dusty roads, miles from + anywhere, there are always a few, approaching or receding. + </p> + <p> + It is odd that the only occasion on which Indians break from their walk + into a run or a trot is when they are bearers at a funeral, or have an + unusually heavy head-load, or carry a piano. Why there is so much + piano-carrying in Calcutta I cannot say, but the streets (as I feel now) + have no commoner spectacle than six or eight merry, half-naked fellows, + trotting along, laughing and jesting under their burden, all with an odd, + swinging movement of the arms. + </p> + <p> + One of one's earliest impressions of the Indians is that their hands are + inadequate. They suggest no power. + </p> + <p> + Not only is there always some one walking, but there is always some one + resting. They repose at full length wherever the need for sleep takes + them; or they sit with pointed knees. Coming from England one is struck by + so much inertness; for though the English labourer can be lazy enough he + usually rests on his feet, leaning against walls: if he is a land + labourer, leaning with his back to the support; if he follows the sea, + leaning on his stomach. + </p> + <p> + It was interesting to pass on from India and its prostrate philosophers + with their infinite capacity for taking naps, to Japan, where there seems + to be neither time nor space for idlers. Whereas in India one has + continually to turn aside in order not to step upon a sleeping figure—the + footpath being a favourite dormitory—in Japan no one is ever doing + nothing, and no one appears to be weary or poor. + </p> + <p> + India, save for a few native politicians and agitators, strikes one as a + land destitute of ambition. In the cities there are infrequent signs of + progress; in the country none. The peasants support life on as little as + they can, they rest as much as possible and their carts and implements are + prehistoric. They may believe in their gods, but fatalism is their true + religion. How little they can be affected by civilisation I learned from a + tiny settlement of bush-dwellers not twenty miles from Bombay, close to + that beautiful lake which has been transformed into a reservoir, where + bows and arrows are still the only weapons and rats are a staple food. And + in an hour's time, in a car, one could be telephoning one's friends or + watching a cinema! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SAHIB + </h2> + <p> + I did not have to wait to reach India for that great and exciting moment + when one is first called "Sahib." I was addressed as "Sahib," to my + mingled pride and confusion, at Marseilles, by an attendant on the steamer + which I joined there. Later I grew accustomed to it, although never, I + hope, blasé; but to the end my bearer fascinated me by alluding to me as + Master—not directly, but obliquely: impersonally, as though it were + some other person that I knew, who was always with me, an <i>alter ego</i> + who could not answer for himself: "Would Master like this or that?" "At + what time did Master wish to be called?" + </p> + <p> + And then the beautiful "Salaam"! + </p> + <p> + I was sorry for the English doomed to become so used to Eastern deference + that they cease to be thrilled. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PASSING SHOW + </h2> + <p> + It is difficult for a stranger to India, especially when paying only a + brief visit, to lose the impression that he is at an exhibition—in a + section of a World's Fair. How long it takes for this delusion to wear off + I cannot say. All I can say is that seven weeks are not enough. And never + does one feel it more than in the bazaar, where movement is incessant and + humanity is so packed and costumes are so diverse, and where the + suggestion of the exhibition is of course heightened by the merchants and + the stalls. What one misses is any vantage point—anything resembling + a chair at the Café de la Paix in Paris, for instance—where one may + sit at ease and watch the wonderful changing spectacle going past. There + are in Indian cities no such places. To observe the life of the bazaar + closely and be unobserved is almost impossible. + </p> + <p> + It would be extraordinarily interesting to sit there, beside some + well-informed Anglo-Indian or Indo-Anglian, and learn all the minutić of + caste and be told who and what everybody was: what the different ochre + marks signified on the Hindu foreheads; what this man did for a living, + and that; and so forth. Even without such an informant I was never tired + of drifting about the native quarters in whatever city I found myself and + watching the curiously leisurely and detached commercial methods of the + dealers—the money lenders reclining on their couches; the pearl + merchants with their palms full of the little desirable jewels; the + silversmiths hammering; the tailors cross-legged; the whole Arabian Nights + pageant. All the shops seem to be overstaffed, unless an element of + detached inquisitiveness is essential to business in the East. No + transaction is complete without a few watchful spectators, usually youths, + who apparently are employed by the establishment for the sole purpose of + exhibiting curiosity. + </p> + <p> + I picked up a few odds and ends of information, by degrees, but only the + more obvious: such as that the slight shaving of the Mohammedan's upper + lip is to remove any impediment to the utterance of the name of Allah; + that the red-dyed beards are a record that their wearers have made the + pilgrimage to Mecca; that the respirator often worn by the Jains is to + prevent the death of even a fly in inhalation. I was shown a Jain woman + carefully emptying a piece of wood with holes in it into the road, each + hole containing a louse which had crawled there during the night but must + not be killed. The Jains adore every living creature; the Hindus chiefly + the cow. As for this divinity, she drifts about the cities as though they + were built for her, and one sees the passers-by touching her, hoping for + sanctity or a blessing. A certain sex inequality is, however, only too + noticeable, and particularly in and about Bombay, where the bullock cart + is so common—the bullock receiving little but blows and execration + from his drivers. + </p> + <p> + The sacred pigeon is also happy in Bombay, being fed copiously all day + long; and I visited there a Hindu sanctuary, called the Pingheripole, for + every kind of animal—a Home of Rest or Asylum—where even + pariah dogs are fed and protected. + </p> + <p> + I was told early of certain things one must not do: such as saluting with + the left hand, which is the dishonourable one of the pair, and refraining + carefully, when in a temple or mosque, from touching anything at all, + because for an unbeliever to touch is to desecrate. I was told also that a + Mohammedan grave always gives one the points of the compass, because the + body is buried north and south with the head at the north, turned towards + Mecca. The Hindus have no graves. + </p> + <p> + In India the Occidental, especially if coming from France as I did, is + struck by the absence of any out-of-door communion between men and women. + In the street men are with men, women with women. Most women lower their + eyes as a man approaches, although when the woman is a Mohammedan and + young one is often conscious of a bright black glance through the veil. + There is no public fondling, nothing like the familiar demonstrations of + affection that we are accustomed to in Paris and London (more so during + the War and since) and in New York. Nothing so offends and surprises the + Indian as this want of restraint and shame on our part, and in Japan I + learned that the Japanese share the Indian view. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me that the chewing of the betel-nut is more prevalent in + Bombay than elsewhere. One sees it all over India; everywhere are moving + jaws with red juice trickling; but in Bombay there are more vendors of the + rolled-up leaves and more crimson splashes on pavement and wall. It is an + unpleasant habit, but there is no doubt that teeth are ultimately the + whiter for it. Even though I was instructed in the art of betel-nut + chewing by an Indian gentleman of world-wide fame in the cricket field, + from whom I would willingly learn anything, I could not endure the + experience. + </p> + <p> + Most nations, I suppose, look upon the dances of other nations with a + certain perplexity. Such glimpses, for example, as I had in America of the + movement known as the Shimmie Shake filled me with alarm, while Orientals + have been known to display boredom at the Russian Ballet. Personally I + adore the Russian Ballet, but I found the Nautch very fatiguing. It is at + once too long and too monotonous, but I dare say that if one could follow + the words of the accompanying songs, or cantillations, the result might be + more entertaining. That would not, however, improve the actual dancing, in + which I was disappointed. In Japan, on the other hand, I succumbed + completely to the odd, hypnotic mechanism of the Geisha, the + accompaniments to which are more varied, or more acceptable to my ear, + than the Indian music. But I shall always remember the sounds of the + distant, approaching or receding, snake-charmers' piping, heard through + the heat, as it so often is on Sundays in Calcutta. To my inward ear that + is India's typical melody; and it has relationship to the Punch and Judy + allurement of our childhood. + </p> + <p> + It was in Bombay that I saw my first fakir, and in Harrison Road, + Calcutta, my last. There had been so long a series in between that I was + able to confirm my first impression. I can now, therefore, generalise + safely when saying that all these strange creatures resemble a blend of + Tolstoi and Mr. Bernard Shaw. Imagine such a hybrid, naked save for a loin + cloth, and smeared all over with dust, and you have a holy man in the + East. The Harrison Road fakir, who passed on his way along the crowded + pavement unconcerned and practically unobserved, was white with ashes and + was beating a piece of iron as a wayward child might be doing. He was + followed by a boy, but no effort was made to collect alms. It is true + philosophy to be prepared to live in such a state of simplicity. Most of + the problems of life would dissolve and vanish if one could reduce one's + needs to the frugality of a fakir. I have thought often of him since I + returned, in London, to all the arrears of work and duty and the + liabilities that accumulate during a long holiday; but never more so than + when confronted by a Peace-time tailor's bill. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INDIA'S BIRDS + </h2> + <p> + One of the first peculiarities of Bombay that I noticed and never lost + sight of was the kites. The city by day is never without these spies, + these sentries. From dawn to dusk the great unresting birds are sailing + over it, silent and vigilant. Whenever you look up, there they are, + criss-crossing in the sky, swooping and swerving and watching. After a + while one begins to be nervous: it is disquieting to be so continually + under inspection. Now and then they quarrel and even fight: now and then + one will descend with a rush and rise carrying a rat or other delicacy in + its claws; but these interruptions of the pattern are only momentary. For + the rest of the time they swirl and circle and never cease to watch. + Bombay also has its predatory crows, who are so bold that it is unsafe to + leave any bright article on the veranda table. Spectacles, for example, + set up a longing in their hearts which they make no effort to control. But + these birds are everywhere. At a wayside station just outside Calcutta, in + the early morning, the passengers all had tea, and when it was finished + and the trays were laid on the platform, I watched the crows, who were + perfectly aware of this custom and had been approaching nearer and nearer + as we drank, dart swiftly to the sugar basins and carry off the lumps that + remained. The crow, however, is, comparatively speaking, a human being; + the kite is something alien and a cause of fear, and the traveller in + India never loses him. His eye is as coldly attentive to Calcutta as to + Bombay. + </p> + <p> + It is, of course, the indigenous birds of a country that emphasise its + foreignness far more than its people. People can travel. Turbaned heads + are, for example, not unknown in England; but to have green parrots with + long tails flitting among the trees, as they used to flit in my host's + garden in Bombay, is to be in India beyond question. At Raisina we had + mynahs and the babblers, or "Seven Sisters," in great profusion, and also + the King Crow with his imposing tail; while the little striped squirrels + were everywhere. These merry restless little rodents do more than run and + scamper and leap: they seem to be positively lifted into space by their + tails. Their stripes (as every one knows) came directly from the hand of + God, recording for ever how, on the day of creation, He stroked them by + way of approval. + </p> + <p> + No Indian bird gave me so much pleasure to watch as the speckled + kingfishers, which I saw at their best on the Jumna at Okhla. They poise + in the air above the water with their long bills pointed downwards at a + right-angle to their fluttering bodies, searching the depths for their + prey; and then they drop with the quickness of thought into the stream. + The other kingfisher—coloured like ours but bigger—who waits + on an overhanging branch, I saw too, but the evolutions of the hovering + variety were more absorbing. + </p> + <p> + When one is travelling by road, the birds that most attract the notice are + the peacocks and the giant cranes; while wherever there are cattle in any + numbers there are the white paddy birds, feeding on their backs—the + birds from which the osprey plumes are obtained. One sees, too, many kinds + of eagle and hawk. In fact, the ornithologist can never be dull in this + country. + </p> + <p> + Wild animals I had few opportunities to observe, although a mongoose at + Raisina gave me a very amusing ten minutes. At Raisina, also, the jackals + came close to the house at night; and on an early morning ride in a + motorcar to Agra we passed a wolf, and a little later were most impudently + raced and outdistanced by a blackbuck, who, instead of bolting into + security at the sight or sound of man, ran, or rather, advanced—for + his progress is mysterious and magical—beside us for some forty + yards and then,—with a laugh, put on extra speed (we were doing + perhaps thirty miles an hour) and disappeared ahead. All about Muttra we + dispersed monkeys up the trees and into the bushes as we approached. Next + to the parrots it is the monkeys that most convince the traveller that he + is in a strange tropical land. And the flying foxes. Nothing is more + strange than a tree full of these creatures sleeping pendant by day, or + their silent swift black movements by night. + </p> + <p> + I saw no snakes wild, but in the Bacteriological Laboratory at Parel in + Bombay, which Lt.-Col. Glen Liston controls with so much zeal and + resourcefulness, I was shown the process by which the antidotes to snake + poisoning are prepared, for dispersion through the country. A cobra or + black snake is released from his cage and fixed by the attendant with a + stick pressed on his neck a little below the head. The snake is then + firmly and safely held just above this point between the finger and thumb, + and a tumbler, with a piece of flannel round its edge, is proffered to it + to bite. As the snake bites, a clear yellow fluid, like strained honey in + colour and thickness, flows into the glass from the poison fangs. This + poison is later injected in small doses into the veins of horses kept + carefully for the purpose, and then, in due course, the blood of the + horses is tapped in order to make the anti-toxin. Wonderful are the ways + of science! The Laboratory is also the headquarters of the Government's + constant campaign against malaria and guinea worm, typhoid and cholera, + and, in a smaller degree, hydrophobia. But nothing, I should guess, would + ever get sanitary sense into India, except in almost negligible patches. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE TOWERS OF SILENCE + </h2> + <p> + The Parsees have made Bombay their own, more surely even than the Scotch + possess Calcutta. Numerically very weak, they are long-headed and + far-sighted beyond any Indian and are better qualified to traffick and to + control. All the cotton mills are theirs, and theirs the finest houses in + the most beautiful sites. When that conflict begins between the Hindus and + the Mohammedans which will render India a waste and a shambles, it is the + Parsees who will occupy the high places—until a more powerful + conqueror arrives. + </p> + <p> + Bombay has no more curious sight than the Towers of Silence, the Parsee + cemetery; and one of the first questions that one is asked is if one has + visited them. But when the time came for me to ascend those sinister steps + on Malabar Hill I need hardly say that my companion was a many years' + resident of Bombay who, although he had long intended to go there, had + hitherto neglected his opportunities. Throughout my travels I was, it is + pleasant to think, in this way the cause of more sightseeing in others + than they might ever have suffered. To give but one other instance typical + of many—I saw Faneuil Hall in Boston in the company of a Bostonian + some thirty years of age, whose office was within a few yards of this + historic and very interesting building, and whose business is more + intimately associated with culture than any other, but who had never + before crossed the threshold. + </p> + <p> + The Towers of Silence, which are situated in a very beautiful park, with + little temples among the trees and flowers, consist of five circular + buildings, a model of one of which is displayed to visitors. Inside the + tower is an iron grating on which the naked corpses are laid, and no + sooner are they there than the awaiting vultures descend and consume the + flesh. I saw these grisly birds sitting expectantly in rows on the coping + of the towers, and the sight was almost too gruesome. Such is their + voracity that the body is a skeleton in an hour or so. The Parsees choose + this method of dissolution because since they worship fire they must not + ask it to demean itself with the dead; and both earth and water they hold + also too sacred to use for burial. Hence this strange and—at the + first blush—repellant compromise. The sight of the cemetery that + awaits us in England is rarely cheering, but if to that cemetery were + attached a regiment of cruel and hideous birds of prey we should shudder + indeed. Whether the Parsees shudder I cannot say, but they give no sign of + it. They build their palaces in full view of these terrible Towers, pass, + on their way to dinner parties, luxuriously in Rolls-Royces beside the + trees where the vultures roost, and generally behave themselves as if this + were the best possible of worlds and the only one. And I think they are + wise. + </p> + <p> + Oriental apathy, or, at any rate, unruffled receptiveness, may carry its + owner very far, and yet if these vultures cause no misgivings, no chills + at the heart, I shall be surprised. As for those olive-skinned Parsee + girls, with the long oval faces and the lustrous eyes—how must it + strike them? + </p> + <p> + It was not till I went to the caves of Elephanta that I saw vultures in + their marvellous flight. It is here that they breed, and the sky was full + of them at an incredible distance up, resting on their great wings against + the wind, circling and deploying. At this height they are magnificent. But + seen at close quarters they are horrible, revolting. On a day's hunting + which I shall describe later I was in at the death of a gond, or + swamp-deer, at about noon, and we returned for the carcase about three + hours later, only to find it surrounded by some hundreds of these birds + tearing at it in a kind of frenzy of gluttony. They were not in the least + disconcerted by our approach, and not until the bearers had taken sticks + to them would they leave. The heavy half-gorged flapping of a vulture's + wings as it settles itself to a new aspect of its repast is the most + disgusting sight I have seen. + </p> + <p> + To revert to the Towers of Silence, one is brought very near to death + everywhere in the East. We have our funeral corteges at home, with + sufficient frequency, but they do not emphasize the thought of the + necessary end of all things as do the swathed corpses that one meets so + often being carried through the streets, on their way to this or that + burning place. In Bombay I met several every day, with their bearers and + followers all in white, and all moving with the curious trot that seems to + be reserved for such obsequies. There were always, also, during my stay, + new supplies of fire-wood outside the great Hindu burning ground in + Queen's Road; and yet no epidemic was raging; the city was normal save for + a strike of mill-hands. It is true that I met wedding parties almost + equally often; but in India a wedding party is not, as with us, a + suggestion of new life to replace the dead, for the brides so often are + infants. + </p> + <p> + One of the differences between the poor of London and the poor of India + may be noticed here. In the East-End a funeral is considered to be a + failure unless its cost is out of all proportion to the survivors' means, + while a wedding is a matter of a few shillings; whereas in India a funeral + is a simple ceremony, to be hurried over, while the wedding festivities + last for weeks and often plunge the family into debts from which they + never recover. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE GARLANDS + </h2> + <p> + The selective processes of the memory are very curious. It has been + decreed that one of my most vivid recollections of Bombay should be that + of the embarrassment and half-amused self-consciousness of an American + business man on the platform of the railway station for Delhi. Having + completed his negotiatory visit he was being speeded on his way by the + native staff of the firm, who had hung him with garlands like a + sacrificial bull. In the Crawford Market I had watched the florists at + work tearing the blossoms from a kind of frangipani known as the Temple + Flower, in order to string them tightly into chains; and now and again in + the streets one came upon people wearing them; but to find a shrewd and + portly commercial American thus bedecked was a shock. As it happened, he + was to share my compartment, and on entering, just before the train + started, he apologised very heartily for importing so much heavy perfume + into the atmosphere, but begged to be excused because it was the custom of + the country and he didn't like to hurt anyone's feelings. He then stood at + the door, waving farewells, and directly the line took a bend flung the + wreaths out of the window. I was glad of his company, for in addition to + these floral offerings his Bombay associates had provided him with a + barrel of the best oranges that ever were grown—sufficient for a + battalion—and these we consumed at brief intervals all the way to + Delhi. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DELHI + </h2> + <p> + "If you can be in India only so short a time as seven weeks," said an + artist friend of mine—and among his pictures is a sombre + representation of the big sacred bull that grazes under the walls of Delhi + Fort—"why not stay in Delhi all the while? You will then learn far + more of India than by rushing about." I think he was right, although it + was not feasible to accept the advice. For Delhi has so much; it has, + first and foremost, the Fort; it has the Jama Masjid, that immense mosque + where on Fridays at one o'clock may be seen Mohammedans of every age + wearing every hue, thousands worshipping as one; it has the ancient + capitals scattered about the country around it; it has signs and memories + of the Mutiny; it has delectable English residences; and it has the Chadni + Chauk, the long main street with all its curious buildings and crowds and + countless tributary alleys, every one of which is the East crystallised, + every one of which has its white walls, its decorative doorways, its + loiterers, its beggars, its artificers, and its defiance of the bogey, + Progress. + </p> + <p> + Another thing: in January, Delhi, before the sun is high and after he has + sunk, is cool and bracing. + </p> + <p> + But, most of all, Delhi is interesting because it was the very centre of + the Mogul dominance, and when one has become immersed in the story of the + great rulers, from Babar to Aurungzebe, one thinks of most other history + as insipid. Of Babar, who reigned from 1526 to 1530, I saw no trace in + India; but his son Humayun (1530-1556) built Indrapat, which is just + outside the walls of Delhi, and he lies close by in the beautiful + mausoleum that bears his name. Humayun's son, Akbar (1556-1605), preferred + Agra to Delhi; nor was Jahangir (1605-1627), who succeeded Akbar, a great + builder hereabout; but with Shah Jahan (1627-1658), Jahangir's son, came + the present Delhi's golden age. He it was who built the Jama Masjid, the + great mosque set commandingly on a mound and gained by magnificent flights + of steps. To the traveller approaching the city from any direction the two + graceful minarets of the mosque stand for Delhi. It was Shah Jahan, price + of Mogul builders, who decreed also the palace in the Fort, to say nothing + (at the moment) of the Taj Mahal at Agra; while two of his daughters, + Jahanara, and Roshanara, that naughty Begam, enriched Delhi too, the + little pavilion in the Gardens that bear Roshanara's name being a gem. + Wandering among these architectural delights, now empty and under alien + protection, it is difficult to believe that their period was as recent as + Cromwell and Milton. But in India the sense of chronology vanishes. + </p> + <p> + After Shah Jahan came his crafty son, Aurungzebe, who succeeded in keeping + his empire together until 1707, and with him the grandeur of the Grand + Moguls waned and after him ceased to be, although not until the Mutiny was + their rule extinguished. As I have just said, in India the sense of + chronology vanishes, or goes astray, and it is with a start that one is + confronted, in the Museum in Delhi Fort, by a photograph of the last + Mogul! + </p> + <p> + In Bombay, during my wakeful moments in the hottest part of the day, I had + passed the time and imbibed instruction by reading the three delightful + books of the late E. H. Aitken, who called himself "Eha"—"Behind the + Bungalow," "The Tribes on My Frontier" and "A Naturalist on the Prowl." No + more amusing and kindly studies of the fauna, flora and human inhabitants + of a country can have ever been written than these; and I can suggest, to + the domestically curious mind, no better preparation for a visit to India. + But at Raisina, when the cool evenings set in and it was pleasant to get + near the wood fire, I took to history and revelled in the story of the + Moguls as told by many authorities, but most entertainingly perhaps by + Tavernier, the French adventurer who took service under Aurungzebe. If any + one wants to know what Delhi was like in the seventeenth century during + Aurungzebe's long reign, and how the daily life in the Palace went, and + would learn more of the power and autocracy and splendour and cruelty of + the Grand Moguls, let him get Tavernier's record. If once I began to quote + from it I should never stop; and therefore I pass on, merely remarking + that when you have finished the travels of M. Tavernier, the travels of M. + Bernier, another contemporary French observer, await you. And I hold you + to be envied. + </p> + <p> + The Palace in the Fort is now but a fraction of what it was in the time of + Aurungzebe and his father, but enough remains to enable the imaginative + mind to reconstruct the past, especially if one has read my two annalists. + One of Bernier's most vivid passages describes the Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of + Public Audience, the building to which, after leaving the modern military + part of the Fort, one first comes, where the Moguls sat in state during a + durbar, and painted and gilded elephants, richly draped, took part in the + obeisances. Next comes the Hall of Private Audiences, where the Peacock + Throne once stood. It has now vanished, but in its day it was one of the + wonders of the world, the tails of the two guardian peacocks being + composed of precious stones and the throne itself being of jewelled gold. + It was for this that one of Shah Jahan's poets wrote an inscription in + which we find such lines as— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + By the order of the Emperor the azure of Heaven + was exhausted on its decoration.... + + The world had become so short of gold on account of + its use in the throne that the purse of the Earth + was empty of treasure.... + + On a dark night, by the lustre of its rubies and pearls + it can lend stars to a hundred skies.... +</pre> + <p> + That was right enough, no doubt, but when our poet went on to say, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + As long as a trace remains of existence and space + Shah Jahan shall continue to sit on this throne, +</pre> + <p> + we feel that he was unwise. Such pronouncements can be tested. As it + happened, Shah Jahan was destined, very shortly after the poem was + written, to be removed into captivity by his son, and the rest of his + unhappy life was spent in a prison at Agra. On each end wall of the Hall + of Private Audience is the famous couplet,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + If there is a Paradise on the face of the earth, + It is this, Oh! it is this, Oh! it is this. +</pre> + <p> + I think of the garden and palace of Delhi Fort as the loveliest spot in + India. Not the most beautiful, not the most impressive; but the loveliest. + The Taj Mahal has a greater beauty; the ruined city of Fatehpur-Sikri has + a greater dignity; but for the perfection of domestic regality in design + and material and workmanship, this marble home and mosque and accompanying + garden and terrace could not be excelled. After the Halls of Audience we + come to the seraglio and accompanying buildings, where everything is + perfect and nothing is on the grand scale. The Pearl Mosque could hardly + be smaller; and it is as pure and fresh as a lotus. There is a series of + apartments all in white marble (with inlayings of gold and the most + delicately pierced marble gratings) through which a stream of water used + to run (and it ran again at the Coronation Durbar in 1911, when the Royal + Baths were again made to "function") that must be one of the most magical + of the works of man. Every inch is charming and distinguished. All these + rooms are built along the high wall which in the time of Shah Jahan and + his many lady loves was washed by the Jumna. But to-day the river has + receded and a broad strip of grass intervenes. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A DAY'S HAWKING + </h2> + <p> + One of my best Indian days was that on which Colonel Sir Umar Hayat Khan + took us out a-hawking. Sir Umar is himself something of a hawk—an + impressive figure in his great turban with long streamers, his keen + aquiline features and blackest of hair. All sport comes naturally to him, + whether hunting or shooting, pig-sticking, coursing or falconry; and the + Great War found him with a sportsman's eagerness to rush into the fray, + where he distinguished himself notably. + </p> + <p> + We found this gallant chieftain in the midst of his retainers on the + further bank of the Jumna, at the end of the long bridge. Here the plains + begin—miles of fields of stubble, with here and there a tree and + here and there a pool or marsh, as far as eye can reach, an ancient walled + city in the near distance being almost the only excrescence. Between the + river and this city was our hunting ground. + </p> + <p> + With the exception of Sir Umar, two of his friends and ourselves, the + company was on foot; and nothing more like the middle ages did I ever see. + The retainers were in every kind of costume, one having an old pink coat + and one a green; one leading a couple of greyhounds in case we put up a + hare; others carrying guns (for we were prepared for all); while the chief + falconer and his assistants had their hawks on their wrists, and one odd + old fellow was provided with a net, in which a captive live hawk was to + flutter and struggle to attract his hereditary foes, the little birds, + who, deeming him unable to hit back, were to swarm down to deride and defy + and be caught in the meshes. + </p> + <p> + I may say at once that hawking, particularly in this form, does not give + me much pleasure. There is something magnificent in the flight of the + falcon when it is released and flung towards its prey, but the odds are + too heavy in its favour and the whimperings of the doomed quarry strike a + chill in the heart. We flew our hawks at duck and plovers, and missed + none. Often the first swoop failed, but the deadly implacable pursuer was + instantly ready to swoop again, and rarely was a third manoeuvre + necessary. Man, under the influence of the excitement of the chase, is the + same all the world over, and there was no difference between these Indians + moving swiftly to intervene between the hawk and its stricken prey and an + English boy running to retrieve his rabbit. Their animation and triumph—even + their shouts and cries—were alike. + </p> + <p> + And so we crossed field after field on our gentle steeds—and no one + admires gentleness in a horse more than I—stopping only to watch + another tragedy of the air, or to look across the river to Delhi and see + the Fort under new conditions. All this country I had so often looked down + upon from those high massive walls, standing in one of the lovely windows + of Shah Jahan's earthly paradise; and now the scene was reversed, and I + began to take more delight in it than in the sport. But at a pond to which + we next came there was enacted a drama so absorbing that everything else + was forgotten, even the heat of the sun. + </p> + <p> + Upon this pond were three wild-duck at which a falcon was instantly flown. + For a while, however, they kept their presence of mind and refused to + leave the water—diving beneath the surface at the moment that the + enemy was within a foot of them. On went the hawk, in its terrible, cruel + onset, and up came the ducks, all ready to repeat these tactics when it + turned and attacked again. But on one of the party (I swear it was not I), + in order to assist the hawk, firing his gun, two of the ducks became + panic-stricken and left the water, only of course to be quickly destroyed. + It was on the hawk's return journey to the pond to make sure of the third + duck that I saw for the first time in my life—and I hope the last—the + expression on the countenance of these terrible birds in the execution of + their duty: more than the mere execution of duty, the determination to + have no more nonsense, to put an end to anything so monstrous as + self-protection in others; for my horse being directly in the way, he flew + under its neck and for a moment I thought that he was confusing me with + the desired mallard. Nothing more merciless or purposeful did I ever see. + </p> + <p> + Then began a really heroic struggle on the part of the victim. He timed + his dives to perfection, and escaped so often that the spirit of chivalry + would have decreed a truce. But blood had been tasted, and, the desire + being for more, the guns were again discharged. Not even they, however, + could divert the duck from his intention of saving his life, and he dived + away from the shot, too. + </p> + <p> + It was at this moment that assistance to the gallant little bird arrived—not + from man, who was past all decency, but from brother feathers. Out of a + clear sky suddenly appeared two tern, dazzling in their whiteness, and + these did all in their power to infuriate the hawk and lure him from the + water. They flew round him and over him; they called him names; they said + he was a bully and that all of us (which was true) ought to be ashamed of + ourselves; they daunted and challenged and attacked. But the enemy was too + strong for them. A fusillade drove them off, and once again we were free + to consider the case of the duck, who was still swimming anxiously about, + hoping against hope. More shots were fired, one of the boys waded in with + a stick, and the dogs were added to the assault; and in the face of so + determined a bombardment the poor little creature at last flew up, to be + struck down within a few seconds by the insatiable avenger. + </p> + <p> + That was the crowning event of the afternoon. Thereafter we had only small + successes, and some very pronounced failures when, as happened several + times, a bird flew for safety through a tree, and the hawk, following, was + held up amid the branches. One of the birds thus to escape was a blue jay + of brilliant beauty. We also got some hares. And then we loitered back + under the yellowing sky, and Sir Umar Hayat Khan ceased suddenly to be a + foe of fur and feathers and became a poet, talking of sunsets in India and + in England as though the appreciation of tender beauty were his only + delight. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI + </h2> + <p> + There have been seven Delhis; and it required no little courage to + establish a new one—the Imperial capital—actually within sight + of most of them; but the courage was forthcoming. Originally the position + was to be to the north of the present city, where the Coronation Durbar + spread its canvas, but Raisina was found to be healthier, and it is there, + some five miles to the south-west, that the new palaces are rising from + the rock. Fatehpur-Sikri is the only city with which the New Delhi can be + compared; but not Akbar himself could devise it on a nobler scale. Akbar's + centralising gift and Napoleon's spacious views may be said to combine + here, the long avenues having kinship with the Champs Elysées, and + Government House and the Secretariat on the great rocky plateau at Raisina + corresponding to the palace on Fatehpur-Sikri's highest point. The + splendour and the imagination which designed the lay-out of Imperial Delhi + cannot be over-praised, and under the hands of Sir Edwin Lutyens and Mr. + Herbert Baker some wonderful buildings are coming to life. The city, since + it is several square miles in extent, cannot be finished for some years, + but it may be ready to be the seat of Government as soon as 1924. + </p> + <p> + As I have said, the old Delhis are all about the new one. On the Grand + Trunk road out of Delhi proper, which goes to Muttra and Agra, you pass, + very quickly, on the left, the remains of Firozabad, the capital of Firoz + Shah in the later thirteenth century. Two or three miles further on is + Indrapat on its hill overlooking the Jumna, surrounded by lofty walls. It + is as modern as the sixteenth century, but is now in ruins. At Indrapat + reigned Humayun, the son of the mighty Babar (who on his conquering way to + Delhi had swum every river in advance of his army) and the father of the + mighty Akbar. I loitered long within Indrapat's massive walls, which are + now given up to a few attendants and an occasional visitor, and like all + the monuments around Delhi are most carefully conserved under the Act for + that purpose, which was not the least of Lord Curzon's Viceregal + achievements. Among the buildings which still stand, rising from the turf, + is Humayun's library. It was here that he met his end—one tradition + relating that he fell in the dark on his way to fetch a book, and another + that his purpose had been less intellectually amatory. + </p> + <p> + Another mile and we come, still just beside the Grand Trunk road, to + Humayun's Tomb, which stands in a vast garden where green parrots + continually chatter and pursue each other. There is something very + charming—a touch of the truest civilisation, if civilisation means + the art of living graciously—in the practice of the old Emperors and + rulers, of building their mausoleums during their lifetime and using them, + until their ultimate destiny was fulfilled, as pleasure resorts. To this + enchanting spot came Humayun and his ladies full of life, to be insouciant + and gay. Then, his hour striking, Humayun's happy retreat became Humayun's + Tomb. He died in 1556, when Queen Mary, in England, was persecuting + Protestants. The Tomb is in good repair and to the stranger to the East + who has not yet visited Agra and seen the Taj Mahal (which has a similar + ground plan), it is as beautiful as need be. Humayun's cenotaph, in plain + white marble, is in the very centre. Below, in the vault immediately + beneath it, are his remains. Other illustrious dust is here, too; and some + less illustrious, such as that of Humayun's barber, which reposes beneath + a dome of burning-blue tiles in a corner of the garden. + </p> + <p> + From the upper galleries of the Emperor's mausoleum the eye enjoys various + rich prospects—the valley of the Jumna pulsating in the heat, the + walls of the New Delhi at Raisina almost visibly growing, and, to the + north, Delhi itself, with the twin towers of the great mosque over all. + Down the Grand Trunk road, immediately below, are bullock wagons and + wayfarers, and here and there is a loaded camel. Across the road is a + curious little group of sacred buildings whither some of the wayfarers no + doubt are bent on a pilgrimage; for here is the shrine of the Saint + Nizam-ud-din Aulia, who worked miracles during his life and died during + the reign of our Edward II—in 1324. + </p> + <p> + On visiting his shrine (which involved the usual assumption of overshoes + to prevent our infidel leather from contaminating the floor), we fell, + after evading countless beggars and would-be guides, into the hands of a + kindly old man who pressed handfuls of little white nuts upon us and who + remains in my memory as the only independent Mussulman priest in India, + for he refused a tip. In this respect nothing could be more widely + separated than his conduct and that of the three priests of the Jama + Masjid in Delhi, who, discovering us on the wall, just before the Friday + service began, held up the service for several minutes while they + explained their schedule of gratuities—beginning with ten rupees for + the High Priest—and this after we had already provided for the + attendant who had supplied the overshoes and had led us to the point of + vantage! I thought how amusing it would be if a visitor to an English + cathedral—where money usually has to pass, as it is—were + surrounded by the Dean, Archdeacon, Canons and Minor Canons, with + outstretched hands, and had to buy his way to a sight of the altar, + according to the status of each. The spectacle would be as odd to us, as + it must be to the French or Italians—and even perhaps Americans—to + see a demand for an entrance fee on the Canterbury portals. + </p> + <p> + Were we to continue on the Grand Trunk road for a few miles, first + crossing a noble Mogul bridge, we should come to a little walled city, + Badapur, where a turning due west leads to another Delhi of the past, + Tughlakabad, and on to yet another, the remains of Lal Kot, where the + famous Minar soars to the sky. + </p> + <p> + One of the most pleasing effects of the New Delhi is the series of vistas + which the lay-out provides. It has been so arranged that many of the + avenues radiating from the central rock on which Government House and the + Secretariat are being set are closed at their distant ends by historic + buildings. Standing on the temporary tower which marks this centre one is + able to see in a few moments all the ruined cities that I have mentioned. + The Kutb Minar is the most important landmark in the far south, although + the eye rests most lovingly on the red and white comeliness of the tomb of + Safdar Jang in the middle distance—which, with Humayun's Tomb, makes + a triangle with the new Government House. Within that triangle are the + Lodi tombs, marking yet another period in the history of Delhi, the Lodis + being the rulers who early in the fifteenth century were defeated by + Babar. + </p> + <p> + The Kutb Minar enclosure, which is a large garden, where beautiful + masonry, flowers, trees and birds equally flourish, commemorates the + capture of Delhi by Muhammad bin Sam in 1193, the battle being directed by + his lieutenant, Kutb-ud-din. From that time until the Mutiny in 1857 Delhi + was under Mohammedan rule. One of the first acts of the conqueror was to + destroy the Hindu temple that stood here and erect the mosque that now + takes its place, and he then built the great tower known as the Kutb + Minar, or Tower of Victory, which ascends in diminishing red and white + storeys to a height of 235 feet, involving the inquisitive view-finder in + a climb of 379 steps. On the other side of the mosque are the beginnings + of a second tower, which, judging by the size of the base, was to have + risen to a still greater height, but it was abandoned after 150 feet. Its + purpose was to celebrate for ever the glory of the Emperor Ala-ud-din + (1296-1316). + </p> + <p> + In front of the mosque is the Iron Pillar which has been the cause of so + much perplexity both to antiquaries and chemists, and meat and drink to + Sanscrit scholars. The pillar has an inscription commemorating an early + monarch named Chandra who conquered Bengal in the fifth century, and it + must have been brought to this spot for re-erection. But its refusal to + rust, and the purity of its constituents, are its special merits. To me + the mysteries of iron pillars are without interest, and what I chiefly + remember of this remarkable pleasaunce is the exquisite stone carvings of + the ruined cloisters and the green parrots that play among the trees. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DIVERS + </h2> + <p> + As we were leaving the Kutb after a late afternoon visit, my host and I + were hailed excitedly by an elderly man whose speech was incomprehensible, + but whose gestures indicated plainly enough that there was something + important up the hill. The line of least resistance being the natural one + in India, we allowed him to guide us, and came after a few minutes, among + the ruins of the citadel of Lal Kot, to one of those deep wells gained by + long flights of steps whither the ladies of the palaces used to resort in + the hottest weather. Evening was drawing on and the profundities of this + cavern were forbiddingly gloomy; nor was the scene rendered more alluring + by the presence of three white-bearded old men, almost stark naked and + leaner than greyhounds, who shivered and grimaced, and suggested nothing + so much as fugitives from the grave. They were, however, not only alive, + but athletically so, being professional divers who earned an exceedingly + uncomfortable living by dropping, feet first, from the highest point of + the building into the water eighty feet below. + </p> + <p> + One of them indicating his willingness—more than willingness, + eagerness—to perform this manoeuvre for two rupees, we agreed, and + placing us on a step from which the best view could be had, he fled along + the gallery to the top of the shaft, and after certain preliminary + movements, to indicate how perilous was the adventure, and how chilly the + evening, and how more than worth two rupees it was, he committed his body + to the operations of the law of gravity. We saw it through the apertures + in the shaft on its downward way and then heard the splash as it reached + the distant water, while a crowd of pigeons who had retired to roost among + the masonry dashed out and away. The diver emerged from the well and came + running up the steps towards us, while his companion scarecrows fled also + to the top of the shaft and one after the other dropped down, too; so that + in a minute or so we were surrounded by three old, dripping men, each + demanding two rupees. Useless to protest that we had desired but one of + them to perform: they pursued us into the open, and even clung to our + knees, and of course we paid—afterwards to learn that one rupee for + the lot was a lavish guerdon. + </p> + <p> + One meets with these divers continually, wherever there is a pool sacred + or otherwise; but some actually leap into the water and do not merely + drop. At the shrine of the Saint Nizam-ud-din, near Humayun's Tomb, I + found them—but there they were healthy-looking youths—and + again at Fatehpur-Sikri. But for this sporadic diving, the wrestling bouts + which are common everywhere, the Nautch and the jugglers, India seems to + have no pastimes. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ROPE TRICK + </h2> + <p> + The returning traveller from India is besieged by questioners who want to + know all about the most famous of the jugglers' performances. In this + trick the magician flings a rope into the air, retaining one end in his + hand, and his boy climbs up it and disappears. I did not see it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI + </h2> + <p> + All the Indian cities that I saw seemed to cover an immense acreage, + partly because every modern house has its garden and compound. In a + country where land is cheap and servants are legion there need be no + congestion, and, so far, the Anglo-Indian knows little or nothing of the + embarrassments of dwellers in New York or London. To every one in India + falls naturally a little faithful company of assistants to oil the wheels + of life—groom, gardener, butler and so forth—and a spacious + dwelling-place to think of England in, and calculate the variable value of + the rupee, and wonder why the dickens So-and-so got his knighthood. Agra + seemed to me to be the most widespreading city of all; but very likely it + is not. In itself it is far from being the most interesting, but it has + one building of great beauty—the Pearl Mosque in the Fort—and + one building of such consummate beauty as to make it a place of pilgrimage + that no traveller would dare to avoid—the Taj Mahal. Whether or not + the Taj Mahal is the most enchanting work of architecture in the world I + leave it to more extensive travellers to say. To my eyes it has an + unearthly loveliness which I make no effort to pass on to others. + </p> + <p> + The Taj Mahal was built by that inspired friend of architecture, Shah + Jahan, as the tomb of the best beloved of his wives, Arjmand Banu, called + Mumtaz-i-Mahal or Pride of the Palace. There she lies, and there lies her + husband. I wonder how many of the travellers who stand entranced before + this mausoleum, in sunshine and at dusk or under the moon, and who have + not troubled about its history, realise that Giotto's Tower in Florence is + three centuries older, and St. Peter's in Rome antedates it by a little, + and St. Paul's Cathedral in London is only twenty or thirty years younger. + Yet so it is. In India one falls naturally into the way of thinking of + everything that is not of our own time as being of immense age, if not + prehistoric. + </p> + <p> + Opinions differ as to the respective beauties of Agra Fort and Delhi Fort, + but in so far as the enclosures themselves are considered I give my vote + unhesitatingly to Delhi. Yet when one thinks also of what can be seen from + the ramparts, then the palm goes instantly to Agra, for its view of the + Taj Mahal. It is tragic, walking here, to think of the last days of Shah + Jahan, who brought into being both the marble palace and the wonderful + Moti-Masjid or marble mosque. For in 1658 his son, Aurungzebe, deposed him + and for the rest of his life he was imprisoned in these walls. + </p> + <p> + His grandfather, Akbar, the other great Agra builder, was made of sterner + stuff. All Shah Jahan's creations—the Taj, the marble mosque, the + palaces both here and at Delhi, even the great Jama Masjid at Delhi,—have + a certain sensuous quality. They are not exactly decadent, but they + suggest sweetness rather than strength. The Empire had been won, and Shah + Jahan could indulge in luxury and ease. But Akbar had had to fight, and he + remained to the end a man of action, and we see his character reflected in + his stronghold Fatehpur-Sikri, which one visits from Agra and never + forgets. If I were asked to say which place in India most fascinated me + and touched the imagination I think I should name this dead city. + </p> + <p> + Akbar, the son of Babar, is my hero among the Moguls, and this was Akbar's + chosen home, until scarcity of water forced him to abandon it for Agra. + Akbar, the noblest of the great line of Moguls whose splendour ended in + 1707 with the death of Aurungzebe, came to the throne in 1556, only eight + years before Shakespeare was born, and died in 1605, and it is interesting + to realise how recent were his times, the whole suggestion of + Fatehpur-Sikri being one of very remote antiquity. Yet when it was being + built so modern a masterpiece as <i>Hamlet</i> was being written and + played. Those interested in the Great Moguls ought really to visit + Fatehpur-Sikri before Delhi or Agra, because Akbar was the grandfather of + Shah Jahan. But there can be no such chronological wanderings in India. + Have we not already seen Humayun's Tomb, outside Delhi?—and Humayun + was Akbar's father. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + They say the leopard and the jackal keep + The courts where Akbar gloried.... +—this adaptation of FitzGerald's lines ran through my mind as we passed +from room to room and tower to tower of Fatehpur-Sikri. There is nothing +to compare with it, except perhaps Pompeii. And in that comparison one +realises how impossible it is at a hazard to date an Indian ruin, for, +as I have said, Fatehpur-Sikri is from the days of Elizabeth, while +Pompeii was destroyed in the first century, and yet Pompeii in many ways +seems less ancient. +</pre> + <p> + The walls of Fatehpur-Sikri are seven miles round and the city rises to + the summits of two steep hills. It was on the higher one that Akbar set + his palace. Civilisation has run a railway through the lower levels; the + old high road still climbs the hill under the incredibly lofty walls of + the palace. The royal enclosure is divided into all the usual courtyards + and apartments, but they are on a grander scale. Also the architecture is + more mixed. Here is the swimming bath; here are the cool, dark rooms for + the ladies of the harem in the hottest days, with odd corners where Akbar + is said to have played hide-and-seek with them; here is the hall where + Akbar, who kept an open mind on religion, listened to, and disputed with, + dialecticians of varying creeds—himself seated in the middle, and + the doctrinaires in four pulpits around him; here is the Mint; here is the + house of the Turkish queen, with its elaborate carvings and decorations; + here is the girls' school, with a courtyard laid out for human chess, the + pieces being slave-girls; here is a noble mosque; here is the vast court + where the great father of his people administered justice, or what + approximated to it, and received homage. Here are the spreading stables + and riding school; here is even the tomb of a favourite elephant. + </p> + <p> + And here is the marble tomb of the Saint, the Shaikh Salim, whose holiness + brought it about that the Emperor became at last the father of a son—none + other than Jahangir. The shrine is visited even to this day by childless + wives, who tie shreds of their clothing to the lattice-work of a marble + window as an earnest of their maternal worthiness. It is visited also by + the devout for various purposes, among others by those whose horses are + sick and who nail votive horseshoes to the great gate. According to + tradition the mother of Jahangir was a Christian named Miriam, and her + house and garden may be seen, the house having the traces of a fresco + which by those who greatly wish it can be believed to represent the + Annunciation. Tradition, however, is probably wrong, and the princess was + from Jaipur and a true Mussulwoman. + </p> + <p> + From every height—and particularly from the Panch Mahal's roof—one + sees immense prospects and realises what a landmark the stronghold of + Fatehpur-Sikri must have been to the dwellers in the plains; but no view + is the equal of that which bursts on the astonished eyes at the great + north gateway, where all Rajputana is at one's feet. I do not pretend to + any exhaustive knowledge of the gates of the world, but I cannot believe + that there can be others set as this Gate of Victory is in the walls of a + palace, at the head of myriad steps, on the very top of a commanding rock + and opening on to thousands of square miles of country. Having seen the + amazing landscape one descends the steps to the road, and looking up is + astonished and exalted by seeing the gate from below. Nothing so grand has + ever come into my ken. The Taj Mahal is unforgettingly beautiful; but this + glorious gate in the sky has more at once to exercise and stimulate the + imagination and reward the vision. + </p> + <p> + On the gate are the words: "Isa (Jesus), on whom be peace, said: 'The + world is a bridge; pass over it, but build no house on it. The world + endures but an hour; spend it in devotion.'" + </p> + <p> + Having seen Fatehpur-Sikri, where Akbar lived and did more than build a + house, it is a natural course to return to Agra by way of Sikandra, where + he was buried. Sikandra is like the Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb in + general disposition—the mausoleum itself being in the centre of a + garden. But it is informed by a more sombre spirit. The burial-place of + the mighty Emperor is in the very heart of the building, gained by a + sloping passage lit by an attendant with a torch. Here was Akbar laid, + while high above, on the topmost stage of the mausoleum, in the full + light, is his cenotoph of marble, with the ninety-nine names of Allah + inscribed upon it. Near the cenotaph is a marble pillar on which once was + set the Koh-i-noor diamond, chief of Akbar's treasures. To-day it is part + of the English regalia. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LUCKNOW + </h2> + <p> + The Ridge at Delhi is a sufficiently moving reminder of the Indian Mutiny; + but it is at Lucknow that the most poignant phases are re-enacted. At + Delhi may be seen, preserved for ever, the famous buildings which the + British succeeded in keeping—Hindu Rao's house, and the Observatory, + and Flagstaff Tower, the holding of which gave them victory; while in the + walls of the Kashmir Gate our cannon balls are still visibly imbedded. + There is also the statue of John Nicholson in the Kudsia Garden, and in + the little Museum of the Fort are countless souvenirs. + </p> + <p> + But Lucknow was the centre of the tragedy, and the Residency is preserved + as a sacred spot. Not even the recent Great War left in its track any more + poignant souvenirs of fortitude and disaster than the little burial ground + here, around the ruins of the church, where those who fell in the Mutiny + and those who fought or suffered in the Mutiny are lying. Long ago as it + was—1857—there are still a few vacant lots destined to be + filled. Chief of the tombstones that bear the honoured names is that of + the heroic defender who kept upon the topmost roof the banner of England + flying. It has the simple and touching inscription: "Here lies Henry + Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. May the Lord have mercy on his soul!" + </p> + <p> + In the Residency every step of the siege and relief can be followed. I was + there first on a serene evening after rain; and but for some tropical + trees it might have been an English scene. All that was lacking was a + thrush or blackbird's note; but the grass was as soft and green as at home + and the air as sweet. I shall long retain the memory of the contrast + between the incidents which give this enclosure its unique place in + history and the perfect calm brooding over all. And whenever any one calls + my attention to a Bougainvillaea I shall say, "Ah! But you should see the + Bougainvillaea in the Residency garden at Lucknow." + </p> + <p> + Everywhere that I went in India I found this noble lavish shrub in full + flower, but never wearing such a purple as at Lucknow. The next best was + in the Fort at Delhi. It was not till I reached Calcutta that I caught any + glimpse of the famous scarlet goldmore tree in leaf; but I saw enough to + realise how splendid must be the effect of an avenue of them. Bombay, + however, was rich in hedges of poinsettia, and they serve as an + introduction to the goldmore's glory. + </p> + <p> + Before leaving the Residency I should like to quote a passage from the + little brochure on the defence of Lucknow which Sir Harcourt Butler, the + Governor of the United Provinces, with characteristic thoughtfulness has + prepared for the use of his guests. "The visitor to the Residency," he + wrote, thinking evidently of a similar evening to that on which we visited + it, "who muses on the past and the future, may note that upon the spot + where the enemy's assault was hottest twin hospitals for Europeans and + Indians have been erected by Oudh's premier Taluqdar, the Maharaja of + Balrampur; and as the sun sets over the great city, lingering awhile on + the trim lawns and battered walls which link the present with the past, a + strong hope may come to him, like a distant call to prayer, that old + wounds may soon be healed, and old causes of disunion may disappear, and + that Englishmen and Indians, knit together by loyalty to their beloved + Sovereign, may be as brothers before the altar of the Empire, bearing the + Empire's burden, and sharing its inestimable privileges, and, it may be, + adding something not yet seen or dreamt of to its world-wide and + weather-beaten fame." + </p> + <p> + I left Lucknow with regret, and would advise any European with time to + spare, and the desire to be at once civilised and warm, to think seriously + of spending a winter there instead of in the illusory sunshine of the + Riviera, or the comparative barbarity of Algiers. The journey is longer, + but the charm of the place would repay. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A TIGER + </h2> + <p> + To have the opportunity of hunting a tiger—on an elephant too—which + by a stroke of luck fell to me, is to experience the un-English character + of India at its fullest. Almost everything else could be reproduced + elsewhere—the palaces, the bazaars, the caravans, the mosques and + temples with their worshippers—but not the jungle, the Himalayas, + the vast swamps through which our elephants waded up to the Plimsoll, the + almost too painful ecstasies of the pursuit of an eater of man. + </p> + <p> + The master of the chase, who has many tigers to his name, was Sir Harcourt + Butler, whose hospitality is famous, so large and warm is it, and so + minute, and it was because he was not satisfied that the ordinary + diversions of the "Lucknow Week" were sufficient for his guests, that he + impulsively arranged a day's swamp-deer shooting on the borders of Nepaul. + The time was short, or of elephants there would have been seventy or more; + as it was, we were apologised to (there were only about six of us) for the + poverty of the supply, a mere five and twenty being obtainable. But to + these eyes, which had never seen more than six elephants at once, and + those in the captivity either of a zoo or a circus, a row of five and + twenty was astounding. They were waiting for us on the plain, at a spot + distant some score of miles by car, through improvised roads, from the + station, whither an all-night railway journey had borne us. The name of + the station, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten: there was no room in my + heated brain for such trifles; but I have forgotten nothing else. + </p> + <p> + It was after an hour and a half's drive in the cool and spicy early + morning air—between the fluttering rags on canes which told the + drivers how to steer—that we came suddenly in sight of some distant + tents and beside them an immense long dark inexplicable mass which through + the haze seemed now and then to move. As we drew nearer, this mass was + discerned to be a row of elephants assembled in line ready to salute the + Governor. The effect was more impressive and more Eastern than anything I + had seen. Grotesque too—for some had painted faces and gilded toes, + and not a few surveyed me with an expression in which the comic spirit was + too noticeable. Six or seven had howdahs, the rest blankets: those with + howdahs being for the party and its leader, Bam Bahadur, a noted shikaree; + and the others to carry provisions and bring back the spoil. On the neck + of each sat an impassive mahout. + </p> + <p> + To one to whom the pen is mightier than the gun and whose half a century's + bag contains only a few rabbits, a hedgehog and a moorhen, it is no + inconsiderable ordeal to be handed a repeating rifle and some dozens of + cartridges and be told that that is your elephant—the big one there, + with the red ochre on its forehead. To be on an elephant in the jungle + without the responsibilities of a lethal weapon would be sufficient thrill + for one day: but to be expected also to deal out death was too much. In + the company of others, however, one can do anything; and I gradually + ascended to the top, not, as the accomplished hunters did, by placing a + foot on the trunk and being swung heavenwards, but painfully, on a ladder; + by my side being a very keen Indian youth, the son of a minor chieftain, + who spoke English perfectly and was to instruct me in Nimrod's lore. + </p> + <p> + And so the procession started, and for a while discomfort set acutely in, + for the movement of a howdah is short and jerky, and it takes some time + both to adjust oneself to it and to lose the feeling that the elephant + sooner or later—and probably sooner—must trip and fall. But + the glory of the morning, the urgency of our progress, the novelty and + sublimity of the means of transport, the strangeness of the scene, and my + companion's speculations on the day's promise, overcame any personal want + of ease and I forgot myself in the universal. Our destination was a series + of marshes some six miles away, where the gonds—or swamp-deer—were + usually found, and we were divided up, some elephants, of which mine was + one, taking the left wing, with instructions on reaching a certain spot to + wait there for the deer who would move off in that direction; others + taking the right wing; and others beating up the middle. + </p> + <p> + We began with a trial of nervous stamina—for a river far down in its + bed below us almost immediately occurred, and this had to be crossed. I + abandoned all hope as the elephant descended the bank almost, as it + seemed, perpendicularly, and plunged into the water with an enormous + splash. But after he had squeeged through, extricating himself with a + gigantic wrench, the ground was level for a long while, and there was time + to look around and recollect one's fatalism. Far ahead in a blue mist were + the Himalayas. All about were unending fields, with here and there white + cattle grazing. Cranes stretched their necks above the grass; now and then + a herd of blackbuck (which were below our hunting ambitions) scampered + away; the sky was full of wild-duck and other water-fowl. + </p> + <p> + Of the hunting of the gond I should have something to say had not a + diversion occurred which relegated that lively and elusive creature to an + obscure place in the background. We had finished the beat, and most of us + had emerged from the swamp to higher ground where an open space, or + maidan, corresponding to a drive in an English preserve, but on the grand + scale, divided it from the jungle—all our thoughts being set upon + lunch—when suddenly across this open space passed a blur of yellow + and black only a few yards from the nearest elephant. It was so unexpected + and so quick that even the trained eyes of my companion were uncertain. + "Did you see?" he asked me in a voice of hushed and wondering awe. "Could + that have been a tiger?" I could not say, but I understood his excitement. + For the tiger is the king of Indian carnivorae, the most desired of all + game. Hunters date their lives by them: such and such a thing happened not + on the anniversary of their wedding day; not when their boy went to + Balliol; not when they received the K.C.I.E.; but in the year that they + shot this or that man-eater. + </p> + <p> + That a tiger had really chanced upon us we soon ascertained. Also that it + had been hit by the rifle on the first elephant and had disappeared into + the jungle, which consisted hereabouts of a grass some twenty feet high, + bleached by the sun. + </p> + <p> + A Council of War followed, and we were led by Bam Bahadur on a rounding-up + manoeuvre. According to his judgment the tiger would remain just inside + the cover, and our duty was therefore to make a wide detour and then + advance in as solid a semicircle as possible upon him and force him again + into the open, where the hunter who had inflicted the first wound was to + remain stationed. Accordingly all the rest of us entered the jungle in + single file, our elephants treading down the grass with their great + irresistible feet or wrenching it away with their invincible trunks. It + was now that the shikaree was feeling the elephant shortage. Had there + been seventy-five instead of only twenty-five, he said, all would be well: + he could then form a cordon such as no tiger might break through. For lack + of these others, when the time came to turn and advance upon our prey he + caused fires to be lighted here and there where the gaps were widest, so + that we forged onwards not only to the accompaniment of the shrill cries + of the mahouts and the noise of plunging and overwhelming elephants, but + to the fierce roar and crackle of burning stalks. + </p> + <p> + And thus, after an hour in this bewildering tangle, with the universe + filled with sound and strangeness, and the scent of wood smoke mingling + with the heat of the air, and the lust of the chase in our veins, we drew + to the spot where the animal was guessed to be hiding, and knew that the + guess was true by the demeanour of the elephants. Real danger had suddenly + entered into the adventure; and they showed it. A wounded tiger at bay can + do desperate things, and some of the elephants now refused to budge + forward any more, or complied only with terrified screams. Some of the + unarmed mahouts were also reluctant, and shouted their fears. But the + shikaree was inexorable. There the tiger was, and we must drive it out. + </p> + <p> + Closer and closer we drew, until every elephant's flank was pressing + against its neighbour, the outside ones being each at the edge of the open + space; in the middle of which was the twenty-fifth with its vigilant rider + standing tense with his rifle to his shoulder. The noise was now + deafening. Every one was uttering something, either to scare the tiger or + to encourage the elephants or his neighbour or possibly himself; while now + and then from the depths of the grass ahead of us came an outraged growl, + with more than a suggestion of contempt in it for such unsportsmanship as + could array twenty-five elephants, half a hundred men and a dozen rifles + against one inoffensive wild beast. + </p> + <p> + And then suddenly the grass waved, there was a rustle and rush and a snarl + of furious rage, and once again a blur of yellow and black crossed the + open space. Six or more reports rang out, and to my dying day I shall + remember, with mixed feelings, that one of these reports was the result of + pressure on a trigger applied by a finger belonging to me. That the tiger + was hit again—by other bullets than mine—was certain, but + instead of falling it disappeared into the jungle on the other side of the + maidan, and again we were destined to employ enclosing tactics. It was now + intensely hot, but nobody minded; and we were an hour and a half late for + lunch, but nobody minded: the chase was all! The phrase "out for blood" + had taken on its literal primitive meaning. + </p> + <p> + The second rounding-up was less simple than the first, because the tiger + had more choice of hiding places; but again our shikaree displayed his + wonderful intuition, and in about an hour we had ringed the creature in. + That this was to be the end was evident from the electrical purposefulness + which animated the old hands. The experienced shots were carefully + disposed, and my own peace of mind was not increased by the warning "If + the tiger leaps on your elephant, don't shoot"—the point being that + novices can be very wild with their rifles under such conditions. As the + question "What shall I do instead?" was lost in the tumult, the latter + stages of this momentous drama were seen by these eyes less steadily and + less whole than I could have wished. But I saw the tiger spring, growling, + at an elephant removed some four yards from mine, and I saw it driven back + by a shot from one of the native hunters. And then when, after another + period of anxious expectancy, it emerged again from the undergrowth, and + sprang towards our host, I saw him put two bullets into it almost + instantaneously; and the beautiful obstinate creature fell, never to rise + again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SACRED CITY + </h2> + <p> + The devout Hindu knows in Benares the height of ecstasy: but, if I am + typical, the European experiences there both discomfort and inquietude. + Nowhere else in India did I feel so foreign, so alien. To be of cool + Christian traditions and an Occidental, an inquisitive sightseer among + these fervent pilgrims intent upon their pious duties and rapt in + exaltation and unthinking inflexible belief, was in itself disconcerting, + almost to the point of shame; while the pilgrims were so remarkably of a + different world, a different era, that one felt lost. + </p> + <p> + This, however, is not all. India is never too sanitary, except where the + English are in their own strongholds, but Benares—at any rate the + parts which the tourist must visit—is least scrupulous in such + matters. The canonization of the cow must needs carry a penalty with it, + and Benares might be described as a sanctified byre without any labouring + Hercules in prospect. Godliness it may have, but cleanliness is very + distant. The streets, too, seem to be narrower and more congested than + those in any other city; so that it is often embarrassingly difficult to + treat the approaching ruminants with the respect due to them. Fortunately + they are seldom anything but mild and unaggressive. Part perplexed, part + inquisitive, and part contemptuous, they are met everywhere, while in one + of the temples in which the unbeliever may (to his great contentment) do + no more than stand at the entrance, they are frankly worshipped. In + another temple monkeys are revered too, careering about the walls and + courtyards and being fed by the curious and the devout. + </p> + <p> + Holiness is not only the peculiar characteristic of Benares: it is also + its staple industry. In the streets there is a shrine at every few feet, + while the shops where little lingams are for sale must be numbered by + hundreds. + </p> + <p> + The chief glory of Benares is, however, the Ganges, on one side of which + is the teeming sweltering city with its palaces and temples heaped high + for two or three miles, and bathers swarming at the river's edge; while + the other bank is flat and bare. A watering-place front on the ocean's + shore does not end more suddenly and completely. There is nothing that I + have seen with which to compare the north bank of the Ganges, with the + morning sun on its many-coloured façades and towers, but Venice. As one is + rowed slowly down the river it is of Venice that one instinctively thinks. + As in Venice, the palaces are of various colours, pink and red and yellow + and blue, and the sun has crumbled their façades in the same way. But + there is this difference—that over the Benares roofs the monkeys + scamper. + </p> + <p> + Gradually Venice is forgotten as the novel interest of the scene captures + one's whole attention. At each of the ghauts (a landing place or steps) + variegated masses of pilgrims—no matter how early the hour, and to + see them rightly one ought to start quite by six—are making their + ablutions and deriving holiness from the yellow tide. You saw them + yesterday trudging wearily through the streets, the sacred city at last + reached; and here they are in their thousands, brown and glistening. They + are of every age: quite old white-bearded men and withered women, + meticulously serious in their ritual, and then boys and girls deriving + also a little fun from their immersion. Here and there the bathing ghaut + is diversified by a burning ghaut, and one may catch a glimpse of the + extremities of the corpse twisting among the faggots. Here and there is a + boat or raft in which a priest is seated under his umbrella, fishing for + souls as men in punts on the Thames fish for roach. And over all is the + pitiless sun, hot even now, before breakfast, but soon to be unbearable. + </p> + <p> + I was not sorry when the voyage ended and we returned to the Maharajah's + Guest House for a little repose and refreshment, before visiting the early + Buddhist stronghold at Sarnath, the "Deer Park," where the Master first + preached his doctrine and whither his five attendants sought a haven after + they had forsaken him. Drifting about its ruins and contemplating the + glorious capital of the famous Asoka column—all that has been + preserved—I found myself murmuring the couplet,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + With a friendly Buddhist priest I seek respite from + the strife + And manifold anomalies which go to make up life— +</pre> + <p> + but the odds are that even the early Buddhists were not immune. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CALCUTTA + </h2> + <p> + Calcutta and Bombay are strangely different—so different that they + can only be contrasted. Bombay, first and foremost, has the sea, and I can + think of nothing more lovely than the sunsets that one watches from the + lawn of the Yacht Club or from the promenade on Warder Road. Calcutta has + no sea—nothing but a very difficult tidal river. Calcutta, again, + has no Malabar Hill. But then Bombay has no open space to compare with the + Maidan; and for all its crowded bazaars it has no street so diversified + and interesting as Harrison Road. It has no Chinatown. Its climate is + enervating where that of Calcutta, if not bracing—and no one could + call it that—at any rate does not extract every particle of vigour + from the European system. + </p> + <p> + But the special glory of Calcutta is the Maidan, that vast green space + which, unlike so many parks, spreads itself at the city's feet. One does + not have to seek it: there it is, with room for every one and a + race-course and a cricket-ground to boot. And if there is no magic in the + evening prospect such as the sea and its ships under the flaming or + mysterious enveiling sky can offer to the eye at Bombay, there is a + quality of golden richness in the twilight over Calcutta, as seen across + the Maidan, through its trees, that is unique. I rejoiced in it daily. + This twilight is very brief, but it is exquisite. + </p> + <p> + It is easier in Calcutta to be suddenly transported to England than in any + other Indian city that I visited. There are, it is true, more statues of + Lord Curzon than we are accustomed to; but many of the homes are quite + English, save for the multitude of servants; Government House, serene and + spacious and patrician, is a replica of Kedlestone Hall in Derbyshire: the + business buildings within and without are structurally English, and the + familiar Scotch accent sounds everywhere; but the illusion is most + complete in St. John's Church, that very charming, cool, white and + comfortable sanctuary, in the manner of Wren, and in St. Andrew's too. + Secluded here, the world shut off, one might as well be in some urban + conventicle at home on a sunny August day, as in the glamorous East. St. + John's particularly I shall remember: its light, its distinction, its + surrounding verdancy. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ROSE AYLMER + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Ah, what avails the sceptred race, + Ah, what the form divine! + What every virtue, every grace! + Rose Aylmer, all were thine! + + Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes + May weep, but never see, + A night of memories and sighs + I consecrate to thee. +</pre> + <p> + One curious task which I set myself in Calcutta was to find Rose Aylmer's + grave, for it was there that, in 1800, the mortal part of the lady whom + Landor immortalised was buried. But I tried in vain. I walked for hours + amid the sombre pyramidal tombs beneath which the Calcutta English used to + be laid, among them, in 1815, Thackeray's father, but I found no trace of + her whom I sought. I have seen many famous cemeteries, all depressing, + from Kensal Green to Genoa, from Rock Creek to Montmartre, but none can + approach in its forlorn melancholy the tract of stained and crumbling + sarcophagi packed so close as almost to touch each other, in the burial + ground off Rawdon Street and Park Street. Let no one establish a monument + of cement over me. Any material rather than that! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + JOB AND JOE + </h2> + <p> + If I did not find Rose Aylmer's tomb, I found, in St. John's pleasant + God's Acre, the comely mausoleum of Job Charnock, and this delighted me, + because for how long has been ringing in my ears that line— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown + girl's for you." +</pre> + <p> + which I met with so many years ago in "The Light That Failed," where the + Nilghai sings it to his own music! He got it, he said, from a tombstone, + in a distant land; and the tombstone is now incorporated with Job + Charnock's, the distant land being India; but the verses I have had to + collect elsewhere. I found them in Calcutta, in my host's library. + </p> + <p> + Joe was Joseph, or Josiah, Townsend, a pilot of the Ganges, and tradition + has it that he and Job Charnock, who, as an officer of the East India + Company, founded Calcutta in 1690, saved a pretty young Hindu widow from + ascending her husband's funeral pyre and committing suttee. Tradition + states further that Job Charnock and his bride "lived lovingly for many + years and had several children," until in due time she was buried in the + mausoleum at St. John's, where her husband sacrificed a cock on each + anniversary of her death ever after. The story has been examined and found + to be improbable, but Charnock was a bold fellow who might easily have + started many legends; and the poem remains, and if there is a livelier, I + should like to know of it. I have been at the agreeable pains of + reconstructing the verses as they were probably written, so that there are + two more than the Nilghai sang. The whole is a very curious haunting + ballad, leaving us with the desire to know much more of the lives of both + men—Job Charnock the frontiersman, and Joseph Townsend, "skilful and + industrious, a kind father and a useful friend," who could navigate not + only the Ganges but the shifting Hooghli. Rarely can so much mixed + autobiography and romance have been packed into six stanzas—and here + too the adventurous East and West meet:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I've shipped my cable, messmates, I'm dropping down + with the tide; + I have my sailing orders while ye at anchor ride, + And never, on fair June morning, have I put out to sea + With clearer conscience, or better hope, or heart more light and free. + + An Ashburnham! A Fairfax! Hark how the corslets ring! + Why are the blacksmiths out to-day, beating those men at the spring? + Ho, Willie, Hob and Cuddie!—bring out your boats amain, + There's a great red pool to swim them o'er, yonder in Deadman's Lane. + + Nay, do not cry, sweet Katie—only a month afloat + And then the ring and the parson, at Fairlight Church, my doat. + The flower-strewn path—the Press Gang! No, I shall never see + Her little grave where the daisies wave in the breeze on Fairlight Lee. + + "Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge! + Out with the hangers, messmates, but do not strike with the edge!" + Cries Charnock, "Scatter the faggots! Double that Brahmin in two! + The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown girl for you." + + Young Joe (you're nearing sixty), why is your hide so dark? + Katie had fair soft blue eyes—who blackened yours? Why, hark! + The morning gun! Ho, steady! The arquebuses to me; + I've sounded the Dutch High Admiral's heart as my lead doth sound the + sea. + + Sounding, sounding the Ganges—floating down with the tide, + Moor me close by Charnock, next to my nut-brown bride. + My blessing to Katie at Fairlight—Howell, my thanks to you— + Steady!—We steer for Heaven through scud drifts cold and blue. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EXIT + </h2> + <p> + I arrived in Bombay on the last day of 1919 and embarked at Calcutta for + Japan on the evening of February 17th, seven weeks later. But to embark at + Calcutta is not to leave it, for we merely dropped down the river a short + distance that night, and for the next day and a half we were in the + Hooghli, sounding all the way. It is a difficult river to emerge from; nor + do I recommend any one else to travel, as I did, on a boat with a forward + deck cargo of two or three hundred goats on the starboard side and half as + many monkeys on the port, with a small elephant tethered between and a + cage of leopards adjacent. These, the property of an American dealer in + wild animals, were intended for sale in the States; all but one of the + leopards, which, being lame, he had decided to kill, to provide a "robe" + for his wife. Nothing could be more different than the careless aimless + activities of the monkeys I had seen among the trees between Agra and + Delhi and scampering over the parapets of Benares, all thieves and + libertines with a charter, and the restriction of these poor cowering + mannikins, overcrowded in their cages, with an abysmal sorrow in their + eyes. Many died on the voyage, and I think the Indian Government should + look into the question of their export very narrowly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + JAPAN + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INTRODUCTORY + </h2> + <p> + I ought not to write about Japan at all, for I was there but three short + weeks, and rain or snow fell almost all the time, and I sailed for America + on the very day that the cherry blossom festivities began. But—well, + there is only one Fujiyama, and it is surpassingly beautiful and + satisfying—the perfect mountain—and I should feel contemptible + if I did not add my eulogy of it—my gratitude—to all the + others. + </p> + <p> + Since, then, I am to say something of Fuji, let the way be paved. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LITTLE LAND + </h2> + <p> + One is immediately struck, on landing at Kobe—and continually after—by + the littleness of Japan. The little flimsy houses, the little flimsy + shops, the small men, the toylike women, the tiny children, as numerous + and like unto each other as the pebbles on the shore—these are + everywhere. But although small of stature the Japanese men are often very + powerfully built and many of them suggest great strength. They are taking + to games, too. While I was in the country baseball was a craze, and boys + were practising pitching and catching everywhere, even in the streets of + the cities. + </p> + <p> + Littleness—with which is associated the most delicate detail and + elaborate finish—is the mark also of modern Japanese art. In the + curiosity shops whatever was massive or largely simple was Chinese. Even + the royal palaces at Kyoto are small, the rooms, exquisite as they are, + with perfect joinery and ancient paintings, being seldom more than a few + feet square, with very low ceilings. I went over two of these palaces, + falling into the hands, at each, of English-speaking officials whose + ciceronage was touched with a kind of rapture. At the Nijo, especially, + was my guide an enthusiast, becoming lyrical over the famous cartoons of + the "Wet Heron" and the "Sleeping Sparrows." + </p> + <p> + In India I had grown accustomed to removing my shoes at the threshold of + mosques. There it was out of deference to Allah, but in Japan the + concession is demanded solely in the interests of floor polish, and you + take your shoes off not only in palaces and houses but in some of the + shops. It gave one an odd burglarious feeling to be creeping noiselessly + from room to room of the Nijo; but there was nothing to steal. The place + was empty, save for decoration. + </p> + <p> + There is a certain amplitude in some of the larger Kyoto temples, with + their long galleries and massive gateways, but these only serve to + accentuate the littleness elsewhere. In the principal Kyoto temple I had + for guide a minute Japanese with the ecstatic passion for trifles that + seems to mark his race. A picture representing the miracle of the + "Fly-away Sparrows," as he called them, was the treasure on which he + concentrated, and next to that he drew my attention to the boards of the + gangway uniting two buildings, which, as one stepped on them, emitted a + sound that the Japanese believe to resemble the song of Philomela. To me + it brought no such memory, and the fact that this effect, common in Japan, + is technically known as "a nightingale squeak," perhaps supports my + insensitiveness. + </p> + <p> + If old Japan is to be found anywhere it is in Kyoto—in spite of its + huge factory chimneys. In Tokio, complete European dress is common in the + streets, but in Kyoto it is the exception. Tokio also wears boots, but + Kyoto is noisy with pattens night and day. Not only are there countless + shops in Kyoto given up to porcelain, carvings, screens, bronzes, old + armour, and so forth, but no matter how trumpery the normal stock in trade + of the other shops, a number of them have a little glass case—a shop + within a shop, as it were—in which a few rare and ancient articles + of beauty are kept. A great deal of Japan is expressed in this pretty + custom. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE RICE FIELDS + </h2> + <p> + My first experience of Japanese scenery of any wildness was gained while + shooting the rapids of the Katsuragava, an exciting voyage among boulders + in a shallow and often very turbulent stream in a steep and craggy valley + a few miles from Kyoto. Previous to this expedition I had seen, from the + train, only the trim rice fields,—each a tiny parallelogram with its + irrigation channels as a boundary, so carefully tended that there is not a + weed in the whole country. Japan is cut up into these absurd little + squares, of which twenty and more would go into an ordinary English field. + Often the terminal posts are painted a bright red; often a little row of + family tombs is there too. The watermill is a common object of the + country. But birds are few and animals one sees never. Indeed in all my + three weeks I saw no four-footed animals, except a dead rat, two pigs and + one cat. I am excluding of course beasts of draught—horses and + bullocks—which are everywhere. Not a cow, not a sheep, not a dog! + but that there are cattle is proved by the proverbial excellence of Kobe + steaks, which I tested and can swear to. In all my three weeks, both in + cities and the country, I saw only one crying child. Of children there + were millions, mostly boys, but only one was unhappy. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SURFACE MATERIALISM + </h2> + <p> + In spite of Kyoto's eight hundred temples I could not get any but a + materialistic concept of its inhabitants; and elsewhere this impression + was emphasised. A stranger cannot, of course, know; he can but record his + feelings, without claiming any authority for them. But I am sure I was + never in a country where I perceived fewer indications of any spiritual + life. Every one is busy; every one seems to be happy or at any rate not + discontented; every one chatters and laughs and is, one feels, a fatalist. + Sufficient unto the day! After all, it is the women of a nation that + chiefly keep burning the sacred flame and pass it on; but in Japan, I + understand, the women are far too busy in pleasing the men to have time + for such duties; Japan is run by men for men. It is an unwritten law that + a woman must never be anything but gay in her lord's presence, must never + for a moment claim the privilege of peevishness. + </p> + <p> + As an instance of the Japanese woman's indifference to fate and readiness + to oblige, I may say that we had on our ship two or three hundred girls in + charge of a duenna or so, who were bound for Honolulu to be married to + Japanese settlers there, to whom their photographs had been forwarded. + These girls are known as "Picture Brides." At Honolulu their new + proprietors awaited them, and I suppose identified and appropriated them, + although to the European eye one face differed no whit from another. + </p> + <p> + The Japanese have the practical qualities that consort with materialism. + They are quick to supply creature comforts; their hotels are well-managed; + their cooks are excellent; their sign-posts are numerous and, I believe, + very circumstantial; at the railway stations are lists of the show places + in the neighbourhood; the telephone is general. But there are strange + failings. The roads, for example, are often very bad, although so many + motor-cars exist. Even in Tokio the puddles and mud are abominable. There + is no fixed rule to force rickshaw men to carry bells. There is no rule of + the road at all, so that the driver of a vehicle must be doubly alert, + having to make up his mind not only as to what he is going to do himself, + but also what the approaching driver is probably going to do. From time to + time, I believe, a rule of the road has been tried, but it has always + broken down. + </p> + <p> + The rickshaw bells are the more important, because the Japanese are not + observant. They may see Fuji and stand for hours worshipping a spray of + cherry blossom, but they do not see what is coming. Normally they look + down. + </p> + <p> + The rickshaw is comfortable and speedy; but to be drawn about by a + fellow-creature is a humiliating experience and I never ceased to feel too + conspicuous and ashamed. I discovered also how easy it is to lose one's + temper with these men. I used to sit and wonder if there had ever been a + runaway, and I never hired a rickshaw without thinking of Mr. Anstey's + story of the talking horse. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FIRST GLIMPSE OF FUJI + </h2> + <p> + I left Kyoto for Yokohama on Wednesday night, March 17, 1920, at eleven, + and Thursday, March 18, 1920, thus remains with me as a red-letter day, + for it was then, at about half-past seven in the morning, that, lifting + the blind of my sleeping compartment, I saw—almost within reach, as + it seemed, dazzlingly white under its snow against a clear blue sky, with + the sun flooding it with glory—Fujiyama. I was to see it again + several times—for I went to Myanoshita for that purpose—but + never again so startlingly and wonderfully as this. + </p> + <p> + When I am asked to name in a word the most beautiful thing I saw on my + travels I mention Fujiyama instantly. There is nothing else to challenge + it. Perhaps had I seen Everest from Darjeeling I might have a different + story to tell; but I missed it. The Taj? Yes, the Taj is a divine work of + man; but it has not the serene lofty isolation of this sublime mountain, + rising from the plain alone and immense with almost perfect symmetry. + </p> + <p> + I was not to see Fujiyama again for a week or so, but in the meanwhile I + saw the Daibutsu, the giant figure of Buddha, at Kamakura, in all its + bland placidity. These were the only big things I found in Japan. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TWO FUNERALS + </h2> + <p> + Yokohama is industrial and dirty everywhere but on the drive beside the + harbour, and on the Bluff, where the rich foreigners live. I visited one + house on this pleasant eminence and there was nothing in it to suggest + that it was in Japan any more than in, say, Cheltenham. The form was + English, the furniture was English, the pictures and books were English; + photographs of school and college cricket elevens gave it the final home + touch. Only in the garden were there exotic indications. The English + certainly have the knack of carrying their atmosphere with them. I had + noticed that often in India; but this Yokohama villa was the completest + exemplification. + </p> + <p> + Wandering about the city I came one morning on a funeral procession that + ought to have pleased Henry Ward Beecher, who, on the only occasion on + which I heard him, when he was very old and I was very young, urged upon + his hearers the importance of bright colours and flowers instead of the + ordinary habiliments and accoutrements of woe. For when a soul is on its + way to paradise, he said, we should be glad. The Yokohama cortege was + headed by men bearing banners; then came girls all in white, riding in + rickshaws; then the gaudy hearse; then priests in rickshaws; and finally + the relations and friends. The effect conveyed was not one of melancholy; + but even if every one had been in black, impressiveness would have been + wanting, for no one can look dignified in a rickshaw. + </p> + <p> + Compared, however, with a funeral which I saw in Hong-Kong, the Yokohama + ceremony was solemnity in essence. The Hong-Kong obsequies were those of a + tobacco-magnate's wife and the widower had determined to spare no expense + on their thoroughness. He had even offered, but without success, to + compensate the tramway company for a suspension of the service, the result + of his failure being that every few minutes the procession was held up to + permit the cars to go by; which meant that instead of taking only two + hours to pass any given point, it took three. The estimated cost of the + funeral was one hundred thousand dollars and all Hong-Kong was there to + see. + </p> + <p> + To Chinese eyes it doubtless had a sombre religious character, but to us + it was merely a diverting spectacle of incredible prolongation. We were + not wholly to blame in missing its sanctity, for the participants, who + were more like mummers than mourners, had all been hired and were enjoying + the day off. For the most part they merely wore their fancy dress and + walked and talked or played instruments, but now and then there was a + dragon and a champion boxing it and these certainly earned their money. At + intervals came bearers with trays on which were comforts for the next + world or symbolical devices, while, to infinity both in front and behind, + banners and streamers and lanterns danced and jogged above all. A + miracle-show of the middle ages can have been not unlike it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LITTLE GEISHA + </h2> + <p> + I left Japan, as I have said, just before the cherry-blossom festivities + began, but I was able to see a number of the dances—which never + change but are passed with exactitude, step for step, gesture for gesture + and expression for expression, from one geisha to another—as + performed by a child who was being educated for the profession. Although + so young she knew accurately upwards of sixty dances, and the pick of + these she executed for a few spectators, in a little fragile paper-walled + house outside Yokohama, while her adoring aunt played the wistful + repetitive accompaniments. + </p> + <p> + The little creature—a mere watch-chain ornament—had a typical + Japanese face, half mask, half mischief, and a tiny high voice which now + and then broke into the dance. But dances, strictly speaking, they are + not. They are really posturing and the manoeuvres of a fan. To me they are + strangely fascinating, and, with the music, almost more so than our + Western ballets. But there is a difference between the ballet and the + geisha dances, and it is so wide that there is no true comparison; for + whereas the ballet stimulates and excites, these Japanese movements + hypnotise and lull. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MANNERS + </h2> + <p> + The public manners of the Japanese are not good. In all my solitary walks + about Myanoshita I met with no single peasant who passed the time of day, + and in the streets of Tokio English people were being jostled and stared + at and treated without respect. It was a moment when Americans were + unpopular, and the theory was broached that for fear of missing the chance + to be rude to an American the Japanese became rude to all outlanders + indiscriminately. One indeed gathered the impression that, except in + Kyoto, which is a backwater, foreigners are no longer wanted. "Japan for + the Japanese" would seem to be the motto: one day, not far distant, to be + amended to "The World for Japan." I shall never forget the humiliation I + suffered in a stockbroker's office in Tokio, into which, seeing the words + "English spoken" over the door, I had ventured in the hope of being + directed to an address I was seeking. Not a word of English did any one + know, but the whole staff left its typewriters and desks to come and + laugh. I was always willing to remove the gravity of Japanese children by + my grotesque Occidentalism, but I have a very real objection to being a + butt for the ridicule of grown-ups. Such an incident could not have + occurred, I believe, anywhere else. But it is not only the foreigners to + whom the Japanese are rude: they do nothing for their fellows either. The + want of chivalry in trains and trams was conspicuous. + </p> + <p> + The ceremonial manners of the Japanese can, however, be more precise and + formal than any I ever witnessed. A wedding reception chanced to be in + progress in my Tokio hotel one afternoon, and through the open door I had + glimpses of Japanese gentlemen in frock coats bowing to Japanese ladies + and making perfect right angles as they did so. So elaborate indeed were + the courtesies that to Western eyes they bordered dangerously on + burlesque. + </p> + <p> + The destination that I was seeking when I entered the stockbroker's office + was a certain book-store, and when I eventually found it I was asked a + question by a Japanese youth that still perplexes me. It was in the + English section, the principal volumes in which, as imported to supply + Japanese demands, were American, and all bore either upon success in + engineering and other professions and crafts, or on the rapid acquirement + of wealth. "How to double your income in a week"; "How to get rich + quickly"; "How to succeed in business"; and so forth; all preaching, in + fact, the new gospel which is doing Japan no good. There were also, + however, a certain number of novels, and one of the customers, a boy who + looked as though he were still at school, noting my English appearance, + brought a translation of Maupassant to me and asked me what "soul" meant—"A + Woman's Soul" being the new title. Now I defy any one with no Japanese to + make it clear to a Japanese boy with very little English what a woman's + soul is. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PLAY + </h2> + <p> + At Tokio I was present for an hour or so at a performance in a national + theatre. It had been in progress for a long time when I entered and would + continue long after I left, for that is the Japanese custom. In London + people with too little to do are on occasion prepared to spend the whole + day outside theatres waiting for the doors to open. They will then witness + a two and a half hours' performance. But in Japan the plays go on from + eleven a.m. to eleven p.m. and the audience bring their sustenance and + tobacco with them. The seats are mats on the ground, and the actors reach + the stage by a passage through the auditorium as well as from the wings. + The scenery is very elementary, and there is always a gate which has to be + opened when the characters pass through and closed after them, although it + is isolated and has no contiguous wall or fence. + </p> + <p> + None of our Western morbid desire for novelty, I am told, troubles the + Japanese play-goer, who is prepared to witness the same drama, usually + based on an historical event or national legend thoroughly familiar to + him, for ever and ever. It is as though the theatres in England were given + up exclusively to, say, Shakespeare's Henry IV, V and VI sequence. On the + occasion of my visit there was little of what we call acting, but endless + elocution. During the performance the attendants walk about, with the + persistence of constables during a London police-court hearing, carrying + refreshments and little charcoal stoves. The signal for the next act is a + deafening clicking noise made by one of the stage hands on two sticks, + which gradually rises to a shattering crescendo as the curtain is drawn + aside. It must be understood that the theatre that I am describing was set + apart for national drama. In others there are topical farces and laughter + is continuous; but I did not visit any. On board ship, however, we had a + series of performances of such pieces by the Japanese cabin attendants and + waiters, many of whom were professional actors. The Japanese passengers + enjoyed them immensely. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MYANOSHITA + </h2> + <p> + A whole week of my too short stay was given to Myanoshita, whither I was + driven by the impossibility of retaining a room in either Yokohama or + Tokio, and where I stayed willingly on, out of delight in the place + itself. After being cooped up for so long on ships, and kept inactive + under the heat of India, it was like a new existence to take immense walks + among these mountains in the keen rarified air, even though there was both + rain and snow. Myanoshita stands some four thousand feet high and is + situated in a valley in which are many summer cottages and health resorts. + The heart of this Alpine settlement is the Fujiya Hotel, where I was + living, which is kept by an enterprising Americanised and Europeanised + Japanese proprietor and his very charming wife, Madame Yamaguchi, whose + father was the founder of the house, and, I believe, the discoverer of the + district, and who herself is famous as a gracious hostess throughout + Japan. No hotel so well or so thoughtfully administered have I ever stayed + in; nor was I ever in another where the water for the bath gushes in from + a natural hot spring. But hot springs are numerous in this region, while + there is a gorge which I visited, some four miles distant, where boiling + sulphur hisses and bubbles for ever and aye. + </p> + <p> + Many of the Myanoshita dishes were new to me and welcome. There is an + excellent salad called "Slow," and the bamboo, which is Japan's best + friend—serving the nation in scores of ways: as fences, as walls, as + water-pipes, as supports, as carrying-poles, as thatch, as fishing-rods—here + found its way into the salad bowl and was not distasteful. The custom of + drinking a glass of orange juice before breakfast might well be adopted + with us; but not the least of the oddities of England which I realised as + I moved about the earth is our unwillingness to eat fruit. Japan also has + a perfect mineral water, "Tansan." + </p> + <p> + When not making long expeditions to catch new glimpses of Fuji I roamed + about the hill-sides among the little villages, or leaned over crazy + bridges to watch the waterfalls beneath; for there is water everywhere, + tumbling down to the distant ocean, a wedge of which can be seen from the + hotel windows. This Japanese valley might be in Switzerland, save for the + absence of any but human life. Not a cow, not a goat. + </p> + <p> + The labourers wear blue linen smocks, usually with some device upon them, + and they merge into the landscape as naturally as French or Belgian + peasants. These men, whether working on the soil or the roads, or engaged + in cutting bamboos or building houses, wear the large straw hats that one + sees in the old Japanese prints. Nothing has changed in their dress. But + the modernized Japanese, the dweller in the cities or casual visitor to + the country, pins his faith to the bowler. The bowler is so much his + favourite headgear that he wears it often with native costume on his body. + Perhaps it is to Japan that all the bowlers have gone, now that London has + taken to the soft Homburg. It was odd to meet groups of these bizarre + little men among the precipices: even stranger perhaps were their little + ladies, especially on Sunday, in the gayest Japanese clothes, their faces + plastered with rice powder and cigarettes in their mouths. Too many of + them are disfigured by gold teeth, which are so common in Japan as to be + almost the rule. An English resident assured me that I must not assume + that the Japanese teeth are therefore unusually defective: often the gold + is merely ostentation, a visible sign that the owner of the auriferous + mouth is both alive to American progress and can afford it. + </p> + <p> + Even in Myanoshita Fujiyama has to be sought for and climbed for, the + walls of rock that form the valley being so high and enclosing. But the + result is worth every effort. Immediately above the hotel is a hill from + whose summit the upper part of the enchanted mountain can be seen, and I + ascended tortuously to this point within an hour of my arrival. The next + day I walked to Lake Hakone (where the Emperor has a summer palace), some + eight miles away, in the hope of getting Fuji's white crest reflected on + its surface; but a veil of mist enshrouded all. And then twice I went to + the edge of the watershed at the head of the valley: once struggling + through the snow to the Otome Pass, on an immemorial and nearly + perpendicular bridle path, and once by the modern road to the tunnel + which, with characteristic address, the Japanese have bored through the + rock, thus reducing a very steep gradient. + </p> + <p> + In the tunnel the icicles were hanging several feet long and as big as + masts, and the air was biting. But one emerged suddenly upon a prospect + the wonder of which probably cannot be excelled—a vast plain far + below, made up of verdure and villages and lakes, with distant surrounding + heights, and immediately in front, filling half the sky, Fuji himself. It + is from this point, and from the ancient Otome Pass, a mile or so away on + the same ridge, that the symmetry of the mountain is most perfect; and + here one can best appreciate the simplicity of it, the quiet natural ease + with which it rises above its neighbours. There was more snow on the + slopes than when I had seen it from the train a few days before; and the + sky again was without a cloud. I have never been so conscious of majestic + serenity, without any concomitant feeling of awe. Fuji is both sublime and + human. + </p> + <p> + No other country has a symbol like this. When the Japanese think of Japan + they visualise Fuji: returning exiles crowd the decks for the first + glimpse of it; departing exiles with tears in their eyes watch it + disappear. There is not a shop window but has Fuji in some representation; + it is found in every house; its contours are engraved on teaspoons, + embossed on ash-trays. You cannot escape from its counterfeits; but if you + have seen it you do not mind. + </p> + <p> + When on my way home I found myself in an American picture gallery, either + in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston or New York, I lingered longest in the + rooms where the coloured prints of the Japanese masters hang—and + America has very fine collections, particularly in Boston—and I + stood longest before those landscapes by Hokusai and Hiroshige in which + Fuji occurs. Hokusai in particular venerated the mountain, and in many of + his most beautiful pictures people are calling to each other to admire + some new and marvellous aspect of it. It was he who drew Fuji as seen + through the arch of a breaking wave! I was looking at the British Museum's + example of this daring print only a few days ago, and, doing so, living my + Myanoshita days again. + </p> + <p> + There is much in Japan that is petty, much that is too material and not a + little that is disturbing; but Fuji is there too, dominating all, calm and + wise and lovely beyond description, and it would be Fuji that lured me + back. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AMERICA + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DEMOCRACY AT HOME + </h2> + <p> + My first experience of democracy-in-being followed swiftly upon boarding + the steamboat for San Francisco, when "Show this man Number 231" was the + American steward's command to a cabin boy. I had no objection to being + called a man: far from it; but after years of being called a gentleman it + was startling. This happened at Yokohama; and when, in the Customs House + at San Francisco, a porter wheeling a truck broke through a queue of us + waiting to obtain our quittances, with the careless warning, "Out of the + way, fellers!" I knew that here was democracy indeed. + </p> + <p> + I confess to liking it, although I was to be brought up with another jolt + when a notice-board on a grass-plot suddenly confronted me, bearing the + words:— + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: KEEP OFF. THIS MEANS YOU.} + </p> + <p> + But I like it. I like the tradition which, once your name is written in + the hotel reception book, makes you instantly "Mr. Lucas" to every one in + the place. There is a friendliness about it: the hotel is more of a home, + or at any rate, less of a barrack, because of it. And yet this universal + camaraderie has some odd lapses into formality. The members of clubs in + America are far more ceremonious with each other than we are in England. + In English clubs the prefix "Mr." is a solecism, but in American clubs I + have watched quite old friends and associates whose greetings have been + marked almost by pomposity and certainly by ritual. Yet Americans, I + should say, are heartier than we; more happy to be with each other; less + critical and exacting. They certainly spend less time in discussing each + other's foibles. That may be because the dollar is so much more an + absorbing theme, but more likely it is because America is a democracy, and + the theory of democracy, as I understand it, is to assume that every man + is a good fellow until the reverse is proved. I should not like to say + that the theory of those of us who live under a monarchy is the opposite, + but it seemed to me that Americans are more ready than we to be sociable + and tolerant. + </p> + <p> + Try as I might I could never be quick enough to get in first with that + delightful American greeting, "Pleased to meet you," or "Glad to know you, + Mr. Lucas." I pondered long on the best retort and at last formulated + this, but never dared to use it for fear that its genuineness might be + suspected: "I shall be sorry when we have to part." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SAN FRANCISCO + </h2> + <p> + It was in San Francisco that I learned—and very quickly—that + it is as necessary to visit America in order to know what Americans are + like as it is to leave one's own country in order to know more about that. + Americans when abroad are less hearty, less revealing. They are either + suffering from a constraint or an over-assertiveness; and both moods may + be due to not being at home. In neither case are they so natural as at + home. I suppose that on soil not our own we all tend to be a little + over-anxious to proclaim our nationality, to maintain the distinction. In + our hats can perhaps be too firmly planted the invisible flag of our + country. + </p> + <p> + Be this as it may, I very quickly discerned a difference between Americans + in America and in England. I found them simple where I had thought of them + as the reverse, and now, after meeting others in various parts of the + country, even in complex and composite New York, I should say that + simplicity is the keynote of the American character. It is in his + simplicity that the American differs most from the European. Such + simplicity is perfectly consistent with the impatience, the desire for + novelty, for brevity, of the American people. We think of them as always + wishing to reduce life to formulae, as unwilling to express any surprise, + and these tendencies may easily be considered as signs of a tiring + civilisation. But in reality they are signs of youth too. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ROADS GOOD AND BAD + </h2> + <p> + San Francisco I shall chiefly recollect (apart from personal reasons) for + the sparkling freshness and vigour of the air; for the extent and variety + of Golden Gate Park, where I found a bust of Beethoven, but no sign of + Bret Harte; for the vast reading-room in the library at Berkeley, a + university which is so enchantingly situated, beneath such a sun, and in + sight of such a bay, that I marvel that any work can be done there at all; + and for the miles and miles of perfect tarmac roads fringed with burning + eschscholtzias and gentle purple irises. That was in April. I found + elsewhere in America no roads comparable with these. Even around + Washington their condition was such that to ride in a motor-car was to + experience all the alleged benefits of horseback, while in the + Adirondacks, anywhere off the noble Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Highway, + with its "T.R." blazonings along the route, one's liver was bent and + broken. While I was in America the movement to purchase Roosevelt's house + as a national possession was in full swing, but this Memorial Highway + strikes the imagination with more force. That was an inspiration, and I + hope that the road will never be allowed to fall into disrepair. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + UNIVERSITIES, LOVE AND PRONUNCIATION + </h2> + <p> + Watching the young men and maidens crowding to a lecture in the Hearst + Amphitheatre at Berkeley, under that glorious Californian sky, I was + struck by the sensible, frank intimacy of them all, and envied them the + advantages that must be theirs over the English methods of segregation at + the same age, which, by creating shyness and destroying familiarity, tends + to retard if not destroy the natural understanding which ought to subsist + between them and if it did would often make life afterwards so much + simpler. + </p> + <p> + I asked one of the professors to what extent marriages were made in + Berkeley, but he had no statistics. All he could say was that Cupid was + very little trouble to the authorities and that Mr. Hoover and Mrs. Hoover + first met each other as students at Stanford. And then I asked an + ex-member of one of the Sororities and she said that at college one was a + good deal in love and a good deal out of it. The romance rarely persisted + into later life. + </p> + <p> + She pronounced romance with the accent on the first syllable, whereas + somewhere half-way across the Atlantic the accent passes to the second; + and why such illogical things should be is a mystery. The differences can + be very disconcerting, especially if one refuses to give way. I had an + experience to the point when talking with some one in Chicago and wishing + to answer carefully his question as to the conditions under which the poor + of our great cities live. These are, in my observation, infinitely worse + in England than in America. Indeed I hardly saw any poor in America at all—not + poverty as we understand it. But I could not frame my reply because + "squalor" (which we pronounce as though it rhymed with "mollor") was the + only fitting epithet and he had just used it himself, pronouncing it in + the American way—or at any rate in his American way—with a + long "a." So I turned the subject. + </p> + <p> + Neither nation has any monopoly of reasonableness in pronunciation. The + American way of saying "advertisement" is more sensible than ours of + saying "adver´tisment," since we say "advertise" too. But then, although + the Americans say "inquire," just as we do, they illogically put the + stress on the first syllable when they talk about an "in´quiry." The Tower + of Babel is thus carried up one storey higher. The original idea was + merely to confuse languages; it cannot ever have been wished that two + friendly peoples should speak the same language differently. + </p> + <p> + But I have wandered far from Berkeley and Stanford. I am not sure as to my + course of conduct if I had a daughter of seventeen, but I am quite + convinced that if I had a son of that age I should send him to an American + university for two or three years after his English school. He should then + become a citizen of the Anglo-Saxon world indeed. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FIRST SIGNS OF PROHIBITION + </h2> + <p> + We had met Prohibition first at Honolulu, not a few of the passengers + receiving the shock of their lives on learning at the hotel that only + "soft drinks" were permitted. Our second reminder of the new regime came + as we entered American waters off the Golden Gate and the ship's bar was + formally closed. And then, in San Francisco, we found "dry" land indeed. + In this connection let me say that in the hotel I made acquaintance with + an official of great power who was new to me: the buttoned boy who + rejoices in the proud title of Bell Captain. He gave me a private insight + into his precocity (but that is not the word, for all boys in America are + men too), and into his influence, by offering to supply me with forbidden + fruit, in the shape of whisky, at the modest figure of $25 a bottle. He + did not, however, say dollars: like most of his compatriots (and it is a + favourite word with them) he said something between "dollars" and + "dallars." + </p> + <p> + I had, a few days later, in Chicago, a similarly friendly offer from a + policeman of whom I had inquired the way. Recognizing an English accent, + he had instantly divined what my dearest wish must be. I then asked him + how prohibition was affecting the people on his beat. He said that a few + drunkards were less comfortable and a few wives more serene; but for the + most part he had seen no increase of happiness, and the extra money that + it provided was spent either on the movies, dress, or "other foolishness." + I did not allow him to refresh me. After a course of American "tough" + fiction, of which "Susan Lenox" remains most luridly in the memory, I had + a terror of all professional upholders of the law. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + R.L.S. + </h2> + <p> + Coming by chance upon the Robert Louis Stevenson memorial at San + Francisco, on the edge of Chinatown, I copied its inscription, and in case + any reader of these notes may have forgotten its trend I copy it again + here; for I do not suppose that its application was intended to cease with + the Californian city. It is counsel addressed to the individual, but since + nations are but individuals in quantity such ideals cannot be repeated + amiss: + </p> + <p> + To be honest; to be kind; to earn a little; to spend a little less; to + make upon the whole a family happier for his presence; to renounce when + that shall be necessary and not to be embittered; to keep a few friends, + but these without capitulation; above all, on the same grim condition, to + keep friends with himself—here is a task for all that man has of + fortitude and delicacy. + </p> + <p> + It is a far cry from San Francisco to Saranac, yet Stevenson is their + connecting chain, with the late Harry Widener's amazing collection of + Stevensoniana, in his memorial library at Harvard, as a link. The Saranac + cottage, which on the day of my visit was surrounded by the sweetest lilac + blooms that ever perfumed the air, is still a place of pilgrimage, and one + by one new articles of interest are being added to the collection. It was + pleasant indeed to find an English author thus honoured. Later, in Central + Park, New York, I was to find statues of Shakespeare, Burns and Sir Walter + Scott. + </p> + <p> + It was, oddly enough, in the Adirondacks that I came upon my only + experience of simplified spelling in the land of its birth. It was in that + pleasant home from home, the Lake Placid Club, where one is adjured to + close the door "tyt" as one leaves a room; where one drinks "cofi"; and + where that most necessary and mysterious of the functionaries of life, the + physician, is able to watch his divinity dwindle and his dignity disappear + under the style "fizisn." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + STORIES AND HUMOURISTS + </h2> + <p> + I heard many stories in America, where every one is a raconteur, but none + was better than this, which my San Francisco host narrated, from his own + experience, as the most perfect example of an honest answer ever given. + When a boy, he said, he was much in the company of an old trapper in the + Californian mountains. During one of their expeditions together he noticed + that a camp meeting was to be held, and out of curiosity he persuaded + Reuben to attend it with him. Perched on a back seat, they were watching + the scene when an elderly Evangelical sister placed herself beside the old + hunter, laid her hand on his arm, and asked him if he loved Jesus. He + pondered for some moments and then replied thus: "Waal, ma'am, I can't go + so far as to say that I love Him. I can't go so far as that. But, by gosh, + I'll say this—I ain't got nothin' agin Him." + </p> + <p> + The funniest spontaneous thing I heard said was the remark of a farmer in + the Adirondacks in reply to my question, Had they recovered up there, from + the recent war? "Yes," he said, they had; adding brightly, "Quite a war, + wasn't it?" + </p> + <p> + In a manner of speaking all Americans are humourists. Just as all French + people are wits by reason of the epigrammatic structure of their language, + so are all Americans humourists by reason of the national stores of + picturesque slang and analogy to which they have access. I think that this + tendency to resort to a common stock instead of striving after individual + exactitude and colour is to be deplored. It discourages thought where + thought should be encouraged. Adults are, of course, beyond redemption, + but parents might at least do something about it with their children. One + of the cleverest American writers whom I met made no effort whatever to + get beyond these accepted phrases as he narrated one racy incident after + another. With the pen in his hand (or, more probably, the typewriter under + his fingers) his sense of epithet is precise; but in his conversational + stories men were as mad "as Sam Hill," injuries hurt "like hell," and a + knapsack was as heavy "as the devil." We all laughed; but he should have + had more of the artist's pride. + </p> + <p> + Three American professional humourists whom I had the good fortune to meet + and be with for some time were Irvin Cobb, Don Marquis, and Oliver + Herford, each authentic and each so different. Beneath Mr. Cobb's fun is a + mass of ripe experience and sagacity. However playful he may be on the + surface one is aware of an almost Johnsonian universality beneath. It + would not be extravagant to call his humour the bloom on the fruit of the + tree of knowledge (I am talking now only of the three as I found them in + conversation). Don Marquis, while equally serious (and all the best + humourists are serious at heart), has a more grotesque fancy and is more + of a reformer, or, at any rate, a rebel. His dissatisfaction with + hypocrisy provoked a scorn that Mr. Cobb is too elemental to entertain. + Some day perhaps Don Marquis will induce an editor to print the exercises + in unorthodoxy which he has been writing and which, in extract, he + repeated to us with such unction; but I doubt it. They are too searching. + But that so busy a man should turn aside from his work to dabble in + religious satire seemed to me a very interesting thing; for nothing is so + unprofitable—except to the honest soul of him who conceives it. + </p> + <p> + One of Don Marquis's more racy stories which I recollect is of a loafer in + a country town who had the habit of dropping into the store every day at + the time the free cheese was set on the counter, and buying very little in + return. When the time came for the privilege to be withdrawn the loafer + was outraged and aghast. Addressing the storekeeper (his friend for years) + he summed up his ungenerosity in these terms: "Your soul, Henry," he said, + "is so mean, that if there were a million souls like it in the belly of a + flea, they'd be so far apart they couldn't hear each other holler." + </p> + <p> + As for Oliver Herford, he is an elf, a sprite, a creature of fantasy, who + may be—and, I rejoice to say, is—in this world, but certainly + is not of it. This Oliver is in the line of Puck and Mercutio and Lamb and + Hood and other lovers and makers of nonsense, and it is we who ask for + "more." He had just brought out his irresponsible but very searching + exercise in cosmogony, "This Giddy Globe," dedicated to President Wilson + ("with all his faults he quotes me still") and this was the first + indigenous work I read on American soil. Oliver Herford is perhaps best + known by his "Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten," and there is a kitten also in + "This Giddy Globe": + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Hurray!" cried the Kitten, "Hurray!" + As he merrily set the sails, + "I sail o'er the ocean to-day + To look at the Prince of Wales." +—this was when the Prince was making his triumphant visit to New York +in 1919— + + "But, Kitten," I said dismayed, + "If you live through the angry gales + You know you will be afraid + To look at the Prince of Wales." + + Said the Kitten, "No such thing! + Why should he make me wince? + If a Cat may look at a King + A Kitten may look at a Prince!" +</pre> + <p> + This reminds me that the story goes that when the Prince expressed his + admiration for Fifth Avenue he was congratulated upon having "said a + mouthful." Beyond a mouthful, as an encomium of sagacity or sensationalism + in speech, there is but one advance and that is when one says "an earful." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CARS + </h2> + <p> + The journey from San Francisco to Chicago, once the fruit country is + passed, is drearily tedious, and I was never so tired of a train. The + spacious compartments that one travelled in on the Indian journeys, where + there are four arm-chairs and a bath-room, are a bad preparation for the + long narrow American cars packed with humanity, and for the very + inadequate washing-room, which is also the negro attendant's bed-chamber: + "Although," he explained to me, "when the car isn't full I always sleep in + Berth Number 1." If the night could be indefinitely prolonged, these + journeys would be more tolerable; but for the general comfort the sleeping + berths must be converted into seats at an early hour. In addition to + books, I had, as a means of beguilement, the society of a returned exile + from the Philippines, who told me the story of his life, showed me the + necklace he was taking home to his daughter's wedding, and asked my advice + as to the wisdom or unwisdom of marrying again, the lady of his wavering + choice having been at school with him in New England and being now a widow + in Nebraska with property of her own. Besides being thus garrulous and + open, he was the most helpful man I ever met, acting as a nurse to the + three or four restless children in the car, and even producing from his + bag a pair of scissors and a bottle of gum with which to make dolls' paper + clothes. Never in my life have I called a stranger "Ed" on such short + acquaintance; never have I been called "Poppa" so often by the peevish + progeny of others. + </p> + <p> + It was on this train that I began to realise how much thirstier the + Americans are than we. The passengers were continually filling and + emptying the little cups that are stacked beside the fountains in the + corridors, and long before we reached Chicago the cups had all been used. + In England only children drink water at odd times and they not to excess. + But in America every one drinks water, and the water is there for + drinking, pure and cold and plentiful. It is beside the bed, in the + corners of offices, awaiting you at meals, jingling down the passages of + hotels, bubbling in the streets. In English restaurants, water bottles are + rarely supplied until asked for; in our hotel bedrooms they seldom bear + lifting to the light. As to whether the general health of the Americans is + superior or inferior to ours by reason of this water-drinking custom, I + have no information; but figures would be interesting. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHICAGO + </h2> + <p> + In Chicago the weather was wet and cold, and it was not until after I had + left that I learned of the presence there of certain literary collections + which I may now perhaps never see. But I spent much time in the Museum, + where there is one of the finest Hobbemas in the world, and where two such + different creative artists as Claude Monet and Josiah Wedgwood are + especially honoured. But the chief discovery for me was the sincere and + masterly work in landscape of George Inness, my first impression of whom + was to be fortified when I passed on to Boston, and reinforced in the + Hearn collection in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. + </p> + <p> + It was in Chicago, in the Marshall Field Book Department—which is to + ordinary English bookshops like a liner to a houseboat—that I first + realised how intense is the interest which America takes in foreign + contemporary literature. In England the translation has a certain vogue—Mrs. + Garnett's supple and faithful renderings of Turgenev, Tolstoi, + Dostoievski, and Tchekov have, for example, a great following—but we + do not adventure much beyond the French and the Russians; whereas I learn + that English versions of hundreds of other foreign books are eagerly + bought in America. Such curiosity seems to me to be very sensible. I was + surprised also to find tables packed high with the modern drama. In + England the printed play is not to the general taste. + </p> + <p> + It was in Chicago that I found "window-shopping" at its most enterprising. + In San Francisco the costumiers' windows were thronged all Sunday, but in + Chicago they are brilliantly lighted till midnight, long after closing + hours, so that late passers-by may mark down desirable things to buy on + the morrow. + </p> + <p> + The spirited equestrian statue of General John A. Logan, in a waste space + by Michigan Avenue, which I could see from my bedroom window, was my first + and by no means the least satisfying experience of American sculpture on + its native soil—to be face to face with St. Gaudens' figure of + "Grief" in Rock Creek Cemetery, at Washington, having long been a desire. + In time I came to see that beautiful conception, and I saw also the fine + Shaw monument in Boston, fine both in idea and in execution; and the + Sheridan, by the Plaza Hotel in New York; and the Farragut in Madison + Square; and the Pilgrim in Philadelphia—all the work of the same + firm, sensitive hand, a replica of whose Lincoln is now to be seen at + Westminster. + </p> + <p> + The statue seems almost as natural a part of civic ornament in America as + it is in France, and is not in England; and the standard as a rule is + high. In particular I like the many horsemen—Anthony Wayne + dominating the landscape at Valley Forge; and George Washington again and + again, and not least in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia (where there is + also a bronze roughrider realistically set on a cliff—as though from + Ambrose Bierce's famous story—by Frederic Remington). American + painters can too often suggest predecessors, usually French, but the + sculptors have a strength and directness of their own, and it would not + surprise me if some of the best statues of the future came from their + country. No one would say that all American civic sculpture is good. There + is a gigantic bust of Washington Irving behind New York's Public Library + which would be better away; nor are the lions that guard that splendid + institution superabundantly leonine; but the traveller is more charmed + than depressed by the marble and bronze effigies that meet his eye—and + few witnesses have been able to say that of England. Among the more + remarkable public works I might name the symbolical figures on the steps + of the Boston Free Library, and the frieze in deep relief on the + Romanesque church on Park Avenue in New York, and I found something big + and impressive in the Barnard groups at Harrisburg. Many of the little + bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum—at the other extreme—are + exquisite. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE MOVIES + </h2> + <p> + We have our cinema theatres in England in some abundance, but the cinema + is not yet in the blood here as in America. In America picture-palaces are + palaces indeed—with gold and marble, and mural decorations, built to + seat thousands—and every newspaper has its cinema page, where the + activities of the movie stars in their courses are chronicled every + morning. Moreover, America is the home of the industry; and rightly so, + for it has, I should say, been abundantly proved that Americans are the + only people who really understand both cinema acting and cinema + production. Italy, France and England make a few pictures, but their + efforts are half-hearted: not only because acting for the film is a new + and separate art, but because atmospheric conditions are better in America + than in Europe. + </p> + <p> + It was in Chicago that I had my only opportunity of seeing cinema stars in + the flesh. The rain falling, as it seems to do there with no more effort or + fatigue to itself than in Manchester, I had, one afternoon, to change my + outdoor plans and take refuge at the matinee of a musical comedy called + "Sometime," with Frank Tinney in the leading part. Tinney, I may say, + during his engagement in London some years ago, became so great a + favourite that one performer has been flourishing on an imitation of him + ever since. The play had been in progress only for a few minutes when + Frank, in his capacity as a theatre doorkeeper, was presented by his + manager with a tip. A dialogue, which to the trained ear was obviously + more or less an improvisation, then followed: + </p> + <p> + <i>Manager</i>: "What will you do with that dollar, Frank?" + </p> + <p> + <i>Frank</i>: "I shall go to the movies. I always go to the movies when + there's a Norma Talmadge picture. Ask me why I always go to the movies + when there's a Norma Talmadge picture." + </p> + <p> + <i>Manager</i>: "Why do you always go to the movies when there's a Norma + Talmadge picture, Frank?" + </p> + <p> + <i>Frank</i>: "I go because, I go because she's my favourite actress. (<i>Applause</i>.) + Ask me why Norma Talmadge is my favourite actress." + </p> + <p> + <i>Manager</i>: "Why is Norma Talmadge your favourite actress, Frank?" + </p> + <p> + <i>Frank</i>: "Norma Talmadge is my favourite actress because she is + always saving her honour. I've seen her saving it seventeen times. (<i>To + the audience</i>) You like Norma Talmadge, don't you?" (<i>Applause from + the audience</i>.) + </p> + <p> + <i>Frank</i>: "Then wouldn't you like to see her as she really is? (<i>To + a lady sitting with friends in a box</i>.) Stand up, Norma, and let the + audience see you." + </p> + <p> + <i>Here a slim lady with a tense, eager, pale face and a mass of hair + stood up and bowed. Immense enthusiasm</i>. + </p> + <p> + <i>Frank</i>: "That's Norma Talmadge. You do like saving your honour, + don't you, Norma? And now (<i>to the audience</i>) wouldn't you like to + see Norma's little sister, Constance? (<i>More applause</i>.) Stand up, + Constance, and let the audience see you." + </p> + <p> + Here another slim lady bowed her acknowledgments and the play was + permitted to proceed. + </p> + <p> + What America is going to do with the cinema remains to be seen, but I, for + one, deplore the modern tendency of novelists to be lured by American + money to write for it. If the cinema wants stories from novelists let it + take them from the printed books. One has but to reflect upon what might + have happened had the cinema been invented a hundred years ago, to realise + my disturbance of mind. With Mr. Lasky's millions to tempt them Dickens + would have written "David Copperfield" and Thackeray "Vanity Fair," not + for their publishers and as an endowment to millions of grateful readers + in perpetuity, but as plots for the immediate necessity of the film, with + a transitory life of a few months in dark rooms. Of what new "David + Copperfields" and "Vanity Fairs" the cinema is to rob us we shall not + know; but I hold that the novelist who can write a living book is a + traitor to his art and conscience if he prefers the easy money of the + film. Readers are to be considered before the frequenters of Picture + Palaces. His privilege is to beguile and amuse and refresh through the + ages: not to snatch momentary triumphs and disappear. + </p> + <p> + The evidence of the moment is more on the side of the pessimist than the + optimist. I found in America no trace of interest in such valuable records + as the Kearton pictures of African jungle life or the Ponting records of + the Arctic Zone. For the moment the whole energy of the gigantic cinema + industry seemed to be directed towards the filming of human stories and + the completest beguilement, without the faintest infusion of instruction + or idealism, of the many-headed mob. In short, to provide "dope." Whether + so much "dope" is desirable, is the question to be answered. That poor + human nature needs a certain amount, is beyond doubt. But so much? And do + we all need it, or at any rate deserve it? is another question. Sometimes + indeed I wonder whether those of us who have our full share of senses + ought to go to the cinema at all. It may be that its true purpose is to be + the dramatist of the deaf. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE AMERICAN FACE + </h2> + <p> + Perhaps it is one of the travellers' illusions (and we are very + susceptible to them), but I have the impression that American men are more + alike than the English are. It may be because there are fewer + idiosyncrasies in male attire, for in America every one wears the same + kind of hat; but I think not. In spite of the mixed origin of most + Americans, a national type of face has been evolved to which they seem + satisfied almost universally to pay allegiance. Again and again in the + streets I have been about to accost strangers to whom I felt sure I had + recently been introduced, discovering just in time that they were merely + doubles. In England I fancy there is more individuality in appearance. If + it is denied that American faces are more true to one type than ours, I + shall reopen the attack by affirming that American voices are beyond + question alike. My position in these two charges may be illustrated by + notices that I saw fixed to gates at the docks in San Francisco. On one + were the words "No Smoking"; on the other "Positively No Smoking." + </p> + <p> + And what about the science of physiognomy? I have been wondering if + Lavater is to be trusted outside Europe. In China and Japan I was + continually perplexed, for I saw so many men who obviously were successful—leaders + and controllers—but who were without more than the rudiments of a + nose on which to support their glasses; and yet I have been brought up to + believe that without a nose of some dimensions it was idle to hope for + worldly eminence. Again, in America, is it possible that all these massive + chins and firm aquiline beaks are ruling the roost and reaching whatever + goal they set out for? I doubt it. + </p> + <p> + The average American face is, I think, keener than ours and healthier. One + sees fewer ruined faces than in English cities, fewer men and women who + have lost self-respect and self-control. The American people as a whole + strike the observer as being more prosperous, more alert and ambitious, + than the English. Where I found mean streets they were always in the + occupation of aliens. + </p> + <p> + To revert to the matter of clothes, the American does as little as + possible to make things easy for the conjectural observer. In England one + can base guesses of some accuracy on attire. In a railway carriage one can + hazard without any great risk of error the theory that this man is in + trade and that in a profession, that another is a stockbroker, and a + fourth a country squire. But America is full of surprises, due to the + uniformity of clothing and a certain carelessness which elevates comfort + to a ritual. The man you think of as a millionaire may be a drummer, the + drummer a millionaire. Again, in England people are known to a certain + extent by the hotels they stay at, the restaurants they eat at, and the + class in which they travel. Such superficial guides fail one in America. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PROHIBITION AGAIN + </h2> + <p> + I can best indicate, without the mechanical assistance of dates, the time + of my sojourn in New York by saying that, during those few weeks, Woodrow + Wilson's successor was being sought, the possibility of the repeal of the + Prohibition Act was a matter of excited interest, and "Babe" Ruth was the + national hero. During this period I saw the President sitting on the + veranda of the White House; I had opportunities of honouring Prohibition + in the breach as well as in the observance; and these eyes were + everlastingly cheered and enriched by the spectacle of the "Babe" (who is + a baseball divinity) lifting a ball over the Polo Ground pavilion into + Manhattan Field. I hold, then, that I cannot be said to have been unlucky + or to have wasted my time. + </p> + <p> + I found (this was in the spring of 1920) Prohibition the universal topic: + could it last, and should it last? In England we are accused of talking + always of the weather. In America, where there is no weather, nothing but + climate, that theme probably was never popular. Even if it once were, + however, it had given way to Prohibition. At every lunch or dinner table + at which I was present Prohibition was a topic. And how could it be + otherwise?—for if my host was a "dry" man, he had to begin by + apologising for having nothing cheering to offer, and if he possessed a + cellar it was impossible not to open the ball by congratulating him on his + luck and his generosity. Meanwhile the guests were comparing notes as to + the best substitutes for alcoholic beverages, exchanging recipes, or + describing their adventures with private stills. + </p> + <p> + I visited a young couple in a charming little cottage in one of the garden + cities near New York, and found them equally divided in their solicitude + over a baby on the top floor and a huge jar in the basement which needed + constant skimming if the beer was to be worth drinking. + </p> + <p> + One effect of Prohibition which I was hoping for, if not actually + expecting, failed to materialise. I had thought that the standard of what + are called T.B.M. (Tired Business Men) theatrical shows might be higher if + the tendency of alcohol to make audiences more tolerant (as it undoubtedly + can do in London) were no longer operative. But these entertainments + seemed, under teetotallers, no better. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BALL GAME + </h2> + <p> + After seeing my first ball game or so I was inclined to suggest + improvements; but now that I have attended more I am disposed to think + that those in authority know more about it than I do, and that such + blemishes as it appears to have are probably inevitable. For one thing, I + thought that the outfield had too great an advantage. For another, not + unassociated with that objection, I thought that the home-run hit was not + sufficiently rewarded above the quite ordinary hit—"bunch-hit," is + it?—that brings in a man or men. In the English game of "Rounders," + the parent of baseball, a home-run hit either restores life to a man + already out or provides the batting side with a life in reserve. To put a + premium of this kind on so noble an achievement is surely not fantastic. + So I thought. And yet I see now that the game must not be lengthened, or + much of its character would go. It is its concentrated American fury that + is its greatest charm. If a three-day cricket match were so packed with + emotion we should all die of heart failure. + </p> + <p> + I thought, too, that it is illogical that a ground stroke behind the + diamond should be a no-ball, and yet, should that ball be in the air and + caught, the striker should be out. I thought it an odd example of lenience + to allow the batsman as many strokes behind the catcher as he chanced to + make. But the more baseball I see the more it enchants me as a spectacle, + and these early questionings are forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Baseball and cricket cannot be compared, because they are as different as + America and England; they can only be contrasted. Indeed, many of the + differences between the peoples are reflected in the games; for cricket is + leisurely and patient, whereas baseball is urgent and restless. Cricket + can prosper without excitement, while excitement is baseball's life-blood, + and so on: the catalogue could be indefinitely extended. But, though a + comparison is futile, it may be interesting to note some of the + divergences between the games. One of the chief is that baseball requires + no specially prepared ground, whereas cricket demands turf in perfect + order. Bad weather, again, is a more serious foe to the English than to + the American game, for if the turf is soaked we cannot go on, and hence + the number of drawn or unfinished matches in the course of a season. A two + hours' game, such as baseball is, can, however, always be played off. + </p> + <p> + In baseball the pitcher's ball must reach the batter before it touches the + ground; in cricket, if the ball did not touch the ground first and reach + the batsman on the bound, no one would ever be out at all, for the other + ball, the full-pitch as we call it, is, with a flat bat, too easy to hit, + for our bowlers swerve very rarely: it is the contact with the ground + which enables them to give the ball its extra spin or break. Full-pitches + are therefore very uncommon. In cricket a bowler who delivered the ball + with the action of a pitcher would be disqualified for "throwing": it is + one of the laws of cricket that the bowler's elbow must not be bent. + </p> + <p> + In cricket (I mean in the first-class variety of the game) the decisions + of the umpire are never questioned, either by players or public. + </p> + <p> + In baseball there are but two strokes for the batter: either the "swipe," + or "slog," as we call it, where he uses all his might, or the "bunt," + usually a sacrificial effort; in cricket there are scores of strokes, + before the wicket, behind it, and at every angle to it. These the + cricketer is able to make because the bat is flat and wide, and he holds + it both vertically and at a slant, as occasion demands, and is allowed, at + his own risk, to run out to meet the ball. In the early days of cricket, a + hundred and fifty years ago, the bat was like a baseball club, but curved, + and the only strokes then were much what the only baseball strokes are now—the + full-strength hit and the stopping hit. So long as the pitcher delivers + the ball in the air it is probable that the baseball club will remain as + it is; but should the evolution of the game allow the pitcher to make use + of the ground, then the introduction of a flattened club is probable. But + let us not look ahead. All that we can be sure of is that, since baseball + is American, it will change. + </p> + <p> + To resume the catalogue of contrast. In baseball the batsman must run for + every fair hit; in cricket he may choose which hits to run for. + </p> + <p> + In baseball a man's desire is to hit the ball in the air beyond the + fielders; in cricket, though a man would like to do this, his side is + better served if he hits every ball along the ground. + </p> + <p> + In baseball no man can have more than a very small number of hits in a + match; in cricket he can be batting for a whole day, and then again before + the match is over. There are instances of batsmen making over 400 runs + before being out. + </p> + <p> + Another difference between the games is that in cricket we use a new ball + only at the beginning of a fresh inning (of which there cannot be more + than four in a match) and when each 200 runs have been scored; and (this + will astonish the American reader) when the ball is hit among the people + it is returned. I have seen such rapid voluntary surrenders at baseball + very seldom, and so much of a "fan" have I become that the spectacle has + always been accompanied in my breast by pain and contempt. I had the + gratification of receiving from the burly John McGraw an autograph ball as + a souvenir of a visit to the Polo Ground. I put it in my pocket hurriedly, + conscious of the risk I ran among a nation of ball-stealers in possessing + such a trophy; and I got away with it. But I am sure that had it been a + ball hit out of the ground by the mighty "Babe" Ruth, which—recovering + it by some supernatural means—he had handed to me in public, I + should not have emerged alive, or, if alive, not in the ball's company. + </p> + <p> + In cricket the wicket-keeper, who, like the baseball catcher, is + protected, although he has no mask, is the most difficult man to obtain, + because he has the hardest time and the least public approbation; in + baseball the catcher is a hero and every boy aspires to his mitt. + </p> + <p> + In cricket no player makes more than three hundred pounds a season, unless + it is his turn for his one and only benefit, when he may make a thousand + pounds more. But most players do not reach such a level of success that a + benefit is their lot. But baseballers earn enormous sums. + </p> + <p> + If a match could be arranged between eleven cricketers and eleven + baseballers, the cricketers to be allowed to bowl and the baseballers to + pitch, the cricketers to use their own bats and the baseballers their own + clubs, I fancy that the cricketers would win; for the difficulty of + hitting our bowling with a club would be greater than of hitting their + pitching with a bat. But their wonderful fielding and far more accurate + and swifter throwing than ours might just save them. Such throwing we see + only very rarely, for good throwing is no longer insisted upon in cricket, + much to the game's detriment. That old players should lose their shoulders + is natural—and, of course, our players remain in first-class cricket + for many years longer than ball champions—but there is no excuse for + the young men who have taken advantage of a growing laxity in this matter. + Chief of the few cricketers who throw with any of the terrible precision + of a baseball field is Hobbs. It must be borne in mind, however, that + cricket does not demand such constant throwing at full speed as baseball + does; for in cricket, as I have said, the batsman may choose what hits he + will run for, and if he chooses only the perfectly safe ones the fieldsmen + are never at high pressure. There is also nothing in cricket quite to + compare with base-stealing. + </p> + <p> + When it comes to catching, the percentage of missed catches is far higher + at cricket than at baseball; but there are good reasons for this. One is + that in baseball a glove is worn; another that in baseball all catches + come to the fieldsmen with long or sufficient notice. The fieldsmen are + all, except the catcher, in front of the batsmen; there is nothing to + compare with the unexpected nimbleness that our point and slips have to + display. + </p> + <p> + In the hypothetical contest that I have suggested, between baseballers and + cricketers, if the conditions were nominally equal and the cricketers had + to pitch like baseballers and the baseballers to use the English bat, why + then the baseballers would win handsomely. + </p> + <p> + Baseball, I fancy, will not be acclimatised in England. We had our chance + when London was full of American soldiers and we did not take it. But we + were very grateful to them for playing the game in our midst, for the + authorities were so considerate as to let them play on Sundays (which we + are never allowed to do) and I was one of those who hoped that this might + be the thin end of the wedge and Sunday cricket also be permitted. But no; + when the war was over and the Americans left us, the old Sabbatarianism + reasserted itself. If, however, we ever exchanged national games, and + cricket were played in America and baseball in England, it is the English + spectator who would have the better of the exchange. I am convinced that + although we should quickly find baseball diverting, nothing would ever + persuade an American crowd to be otherwise than bored by cricket. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SKYSCRAPERS + </h2> + <p> + Perhaps if I had reached New York from the sea the skyscrapers would have + struck me more violently. But I had already seen a few in San Francisco + (and wondered at and admired the courage which could build so high after + the earthquake of 1906), and more in Chicago, all ugly; so that when I + came to New York and found that the latest architects were not only + building high, but imposing beauty on these mammoth structures, surprise + was mingled with delight. No matter how many more millions of dollars are + expended on that strange medley of ancient forms which go to make up New + York's new Cathedral, where Romanesque and Gothic seem already to be ready + for their divorce, the Woolworth Building will be New York's true fane. + Mr. Cass Gilbert, the designer of that graceful immensity, not only gave + commerce its most notable monument (to date), but removed for ever the + slur upon skyscrapers. The Woolworth Building does not scrape the sky; it + greets it, salutes it with a <i>beau geste</i>. And I would say something + similar of the Bush Building, with its alabaster chapel in the air which + becomes translucent at night; and the Madison Square Tower (whose clock + face, I noticed, has the amazing diameter of three storeys); and the + Burroughs Welcome Building on 41st Street, with its lovely perpendicular + lines; and that immense cube of masonry on Park Avenue which bursts into + flower, so to speak, at the top in the shape of a very beautiful loggia. + But even if these adornments become, as I hope, the rule, one could not + resent the ordinary structural elephantiasis a moment after realising New + York's physical conditions. A growing city built on a narrow peninsula is + unable to expand laterally and must, therefore, soar. The problem was how + to make it soar with dignity, and the problem has been solved. + </p> + <p> + In the old days when brown stone was the only builders' medium New York + must have been a drab city indeed; or so I gather from the few ancient + typical residences that remain. There are a few that are new, too, but for + the most part the modern house is of white stone. Gayest of all is, I + suppose, that vermilion-roofed florist's on Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + One has to ascend the Woolworth Building to appreciate at a blow with what + discretion the original settlers of New York made their choice. It is + interesting, too, to watch Broadway—which, for all I know, is the + longest street in the world—starting at one's feet on its lawless + journey to Albany: lawless because it is almost the only sinuous thing in + this city of parallelograms and has the effrontery to cross diagonally + both Fifth Avenue and Sixth. Before leaving the Woolworth Building, I + would say that there seemed to me something rather comically paradoxical + in being charged 50 cents for access to the top of a structure which was + erected to celebrate the triumph of a commercial genius whose boast it was + to have made his fortune out of articles sold at a rate never higher than + 10 cents. + </p> + <p> + Having dallied sufficiently on the summit—there are a trifle of + fifty-eight floors, but an express lift makes nothing of them—I + continued the implacable career of the tripper by watching for a while the + deafening kerb market, which presented on that morning an odd appearance, + more like Yarmouth beach than a financial centre, for there had been rain, + and all the street operators were in sou'westers and sea-boots. There can + be spasms of similar excitement in London, in the neighbourhood of Capel + Court, but we have nothing that compares so closely with this crowd as + Tattersall's Ring at Epsom just before the Derby. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A PLEA FOR THE AQUARIUM + </h2> + <p> + It was a relief to resume my programme by entering that abode of the dumb + and detached—the aquarium in Battery Park. For the kerb uproar "the + uncommunicating muteness of fishes" was the only panacea. The Bronx Zoo is + not, I think, except in the matter of buffalo and deer paddocks, so good + as ours in London, but it has this shining advantage—it is free. So + also is the Aquarium in Battery Park, and it was pleasing to see how + crowded the place can be. In England all interest in living fish, except + as creatures to be coaxed towards hooks and occasionally retained there, + has vanished; on the site of old Westminster Aquarium the Wesleyans now + manage their finances and determine their circuits, while the Brighton + Aquarium, once famous all the world over, is a variety hall with barely a + fin to its name. + </p> + <p> + After seeing the aquarium in Honolulu, which is like a pelagic rainbow + factory, and the aquarium in New York with all its strange and beautiful + denizens, I am a little ashamed of our English apathy. To maintain picture + galleries, where, however beautiful and chromatic, all is dead, and be + insensitive to the loveliness of fish, in hue, in shape and in movement, + is not quite pardonable. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES + </h2> + <p> + In essentials America is American, but when it comes to inessentials, to + trimmings, her dependence on old England was noticeable again and again as + I walked about New York. The fashion which, at the moment, the print shops + were fostering was for our racing, hunting and coaching coloured prints of + a century ago, while in the gallery of the distinguished little Grolier + Club I found an exhibition of the work of Randolph Caldecott and Kate + Greenaway. In such old bookshops as I visited all the emphasis was—just + then—laid upon Keats and Lamb and Shelley, whose first editions and + presentation copies seem to be continually making the westward journey. I + had not been in New York twenty-four hours before Keats' "Lamia," 1820—with + an inscription from the author to Charles Lamb—the very copy from + which, I imagine, Lamb wrote his review, was in my hands; but it would + have been far beyond my means even if the pound were not standing at 3.83. + These "association" books, in which American collectors take especial + pleasure, can be very costly. At a sale soon after I left New York, seven + presentation copies of Dickens' books, containing merely the author's + signed inscription, realised 4870 dollars. To continue, in Wanamaker's old + curiosity department I found little but English furniture and odds and + ends, at prices which in their own country would have been fantastically + high. In the "Vanity Fair" department, however (as I think it is called), + the source was French. I suppose that French influence must be at the back + of all the costumiers and jewellers of New York, but the shops themselves + are far more spacious than those in Paris and not less well-appointed. + Tiffany's is a palace; all it lacks is a name, but its splendid anonymity + is, I take it, a point of honour. + </p> + <p> + It used to be said that good Americans when they died went to Paris. The + Parisian lure no doubt is still powerful; but every day I should guess + that more of Paris comes to America. The upper parts of New York have + boulevards and apartment houses very like the real thing, and I noticed + that the architecture of France exerts a special attraction for the rich + man decreeing himself a pleasure dome. There are millionaires' residences + in New York that might have been transplanted not only from the Avenue du + Bois de Boulogne, but from Touraine itself; while when I made my + pilgrimage to Mr. Widener's, just outside Philadelphia, I found + Rembrandt's "Mill," and Manet's dead bull-fighter, and a Vermeer, and a + little meadow painted divinely by Corot, and El Greco's family group, and + Donatello's St. George, and one of the most lovely scenes that ever was + created by Turner's enchanted brush, all enshrined in a palace which Louis + Seize might have built. + </p> + <p> + But America is even more French than this. Her women can be not less <i>soignées</i> + than those of France, although they suggest a cooler blood and less + dependence on male society; her bread and coffee are better than France's + best. Moreover, when it comes to night and the Broadway constellations + challenge the darkness, New York leaves Paris far behind. For every + cabaret and supper resort that Paris can provide, New York has three; and + for every dancing floor in Paris, New York has thirty. Good Americans, + however, will still remain faithful to their old posthumous love, if only + for her wine. + </p> + <p> + Apropos of American women, their position struck me as very different from + the position of women with us. English women are deferential to their + husbands; they are content to be relegated to the background on all + occasions when they are not wanted. They are dependent. They seldom wear + an air of triumph and rarely take the lead. But American women are + complacent and assured, they do most of the talking, make most of the + plans: if they are not seen, it is because they are in the background; + they are either active prominently elsewhere or are high on pedestals. + With each other they are mostly or often humorously direct, whereas with + men they seem to adopt an ironical or patronising attitude. American women + seem also to have a curious power of attracting to themselves other women + who admire them and foster their self-esteem. And, for all that I know, + these satellites have satellites too. Their federacy almost amounts to a + solid secret society; not so much against men, for men must provide the + sinews of war and other comforts, but for their own satisfaction. Both + sexes appear not to languish when alone. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SKY-SIGNS AND CONEY ISLAND + </h2> + <p> + All visitors to New York speak of the exhilaration of its air, and I can + but repeat their testimony. After the first few days the idea of going to + bed became an absurdity. + </p> + <p> + Among the peculiarly beautiful effects that America produces, sky signs + must be counted high. I had seen some when in San Francisco against the + deep Californian night, and they captivated the startled vision; but the + reckless profusion and movement of the Great White Way, as I turned out of + 42nd Street on my first evening in New York, came as something more than a + surprise: a revelation of wilful gaiety. We have normally nothing in + England to compare with it. Nor can we have even our Earl's Court + exhibition imitations of it so long as coal is so rare and costly. But + though we had the driving power for the electricity we could never get + such brilliance, for the clear American atmosphere is an essential ally. + In our humid airs all the diamond glints would be blurred. + </p> + <p> + For the purest beauty of traceries of light against a blue background one + must go, however, not to Broadway, which is too bizarre, but to Luna Park + on Coney Island. Odd that it should be there, in that bewildering medley + of sound and restlessness, that an extreme of loveliness should be found; + but I maintain that it is so, that nothing more strangely and voluptuously + beautiful could be seen than all those minarets and domes, with their + lines and curves formed by myriad lamps, turning by contrast the heavens + into an ocean of velvet blue, mysterious and soft and profound. + </p> + <p> + Only periodically—when we have exhibitions at Earl's Court or at + Olympia—is there in England anything like Coney Island. At Blackpool + in August, and on Hampstead Heath on Bank Holidays, a corresponding spirit + of revelry is attempted, but it is not so natural, and is vitiated by a + self-conscious determination to be gay and by not a little vulgarity. The + revellers of Steeplechase Park seemed to me to be more genuine even than + the crowds that throng the Fęte de Neuilly; and a vast deal happier. + </p> + <p> + One very striking difference between Coney Island and the French fair is + the absence of children from New York's "safety-valve," as some one + described it to me. I saw hardly any. It is as though once again the + child's birthday gifts had been appropriated by its elders; but as a + matter of fact the Parks of Steeplechase and Luna were, I imagine, + designed deliberately for adults. Judging by the popularity of the chutes + and the whips, the switchbacks and the witching waves, eccentric movement + has a peculiar attraction for the American holiday-maker. As some one put + it, there is no better way, or at any rate no more thorough way, of + throwing young people together. Middle-aged people, too. But the observer + receives no impression of moral disorder. High spirits are the rule, and + impropriety is the exception. Even in the auditorium at Steeplechase Park, + where the <i>cognoscenti</i> assemble to witness the discomfiture of the + uninitiated, there is nothing but harmless laughter as the skirts fly up + before the unsuspected blast. Such a performance in England, were it + permitted, would degenerate into ugliness; in France, too, it would make + the alien spectator uncomfortable. But the essential public chastity of + the Americans—I am not sure that I ought not here to write + civilisation of the Americans—emerges triumphant. + </p> + <p> + It was at Coney Island that I came suddenly upon the Pig Slide and had a + new conception of what quadrupeds can do for man. + </p> + <p> + The Pig Slide, which was in one of the less noisy quarters of Luna Park, + consisted of an enclosure in which stood a wooden building of two storeys, + some five yards wide and three high. On the upper storey was a row of six + or eight cages, in each of which dwelt a little live pig, an infant of a + few weeks. In the middle of the row, descending to the ground, was an + inclined board, with raised edges, such as is often installed in + swimming-baths to make diving automatic, and beneath each cage was a hole + a foot in diameter. The spectators and participants crowded outside the + enclosure, and the thing was to throw balls, which were hired for the + purpose, into the holes. Nothing could exceed the alert and eager interest + taken by the little pigs in the efforts of the ball-throwers. They + quivered on their little legs; they pressed their little noses against the + bars of the cages; their little eyes sparkled; their tails (the only + public corkscrews left in America) curled and uncurled and curled again: + and with reason, for whereas if you missed—as was only too easy—nothing + happened: if you threw accurately the fun began, and the fun was also + theirs. + </p> + <p> + This is what occurred. First a bell rang and then a spring released the + door of the cage immediately over the hole which your ball had entered, so + that it swung open. The little pig within, after watching the previous + infirmity of your aim with dejection, if not contempt, had pricked up his + ears on the sound of the bell, and now smiled a gratified smile, + irresistible in infectiousness, and trotted out, and, with the smile + dissolving into an expression of absolute beatitude, slid voluptuously + down the plank: to be gathered in at the foot by an attendant and returned + to its cage all ready for another such adventure. + </p> + <p> + It was for these moments and their concomitant changes of countenance that + you paid your money. To taste the triumph of good marksmanship was only a + fraction of your joy; the greater part of it consisted in liberating a + little prisoner and setting in motion so much ecstasy. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PRESS + </h2> + <p> + America is a land of newspapers, and the newspapers are very largely the + same. To a certain extent many of them are exactly the same, for the + vastness of the country makes it possible to syndicalise various features, + so that you find Walt Mason's sagacious and merry and punctual verse, + printed to look like prose but never disappointing the ear, in one of the + journals that you buy wherever you are, in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, + Chicago or New York; and Mr. Montagu's topical rhymes in another; and the + daily adventures of Mutt and Jeff, who are national heroes, in a third. + Every day, for ever, do those and other regular features occur in certain + of the papers: which is partly why no American ever seems to confine + himself, as is our custom, to only one. + </p> + <p> + Another and admirable feature of certain American papers is a column + edited by a man of letters, whose business it is to fill it every day, + either with the blossoms of his own intelligence or of outside + contributors, or a little of each: such a column as Don Marquis edits for + <i>The Sun</i>, called "The Sundial," and Franklin R. Adams for <i>The + Tribune</i>, called "The Conning Tower," and Christopher Morley for the + New York <i>Evening Post</i>, called "The Bowling Green." Perhaps the + unsigned "Way of the World" in our <i>Morning Post</i> is the nearest + London correlative. + </p> + <p> + These columns are managed with skill and catholicity, and they impart an + element of graciousness and fancy into what might otherwise be too + materialistic a budget. A journalist, like myself, is naturally delighted + to find editors and a vast public so true to their writing friends. Very + few English editors allow their subscribers the opportunity of + establishing such steady personal relations; and in England, in + consequence, the signed daily contribution from one literary hand is very + rare—to an American observer probably mysteriously so. The daily + cartoon is common with us; but in London, for example, I cannot think of + any similar literary feature that is signed in full. We have C.E.B.'s + regular verse in the <i>Evening News</i> and "The Londoner's" daily essay + in the same paper, and various initials elsewhere; but, with us, only the + artists are allowed their names. Now, in America every name, everywhere, + is blazoned forth. + </p> + <p> + Whatever bushel measures may be used for in the United States the + concealing of light is no part of their programme. + </p> + <p> + Another feature of American daily journals comparatively unknown in + England is the so-called comic pictorial sequence. All the big papers have + from one to half a dozen of these sequences, each by a different artist. + Bud Fisher with "Mutt and Jeff" comes first in popularity, I believe, and + then there are his rivals and his imitators. Nothing more inane than some + of these series could be invented; and yet they persist and could not, I + am told, be dropped by any editor who thought first of circulation. + </p> + <p> + After the individual contributions have been subtracted, all the + newspapers are curiously alike. The same reporters might be on every one; + the same sub-editors; the same composers of head-lines. If we think of + Americans as too capable of cynical levity it is largely because of these + head-lines, which are always as epigrammatic as possible, always + light-hearted, often facetious, and often cruel. An unfortunate woman's + failure at suicide after killing her husband was thus touched off in one + of the journals while I was in New York: + </p> + <h3> + POOR SHOT AT HERSELF BUT SUCCEEDS IN LODGING BULLET IN SPOUSE. + </h3> + <p> + When it comes to the choice of news, one cannot believe that American + editors are the best friends of their country. I am holding no brief for + many English editors; I think that our papers can be common too, and can + be too ready to take things by the wrong handle; but I think that more + vulgarising of life is, at present, effected by American journalists than + by English. There are, however, many signs that we may catch up. + </p> + <p> + Profusion is a characteristic of the American newspaper. There is too much + of everything. And when Sunday comes with its masses of reading matter + proper to the Day of Rest one is appalled. One thing is certain—no + American can find time to do justice both to his Sunday paper and his + Maker. It is principally on Sunday that one realises that if Matthew + Arnold's saying that every nation has the newspapers it deserves is true, + America must have been very naughty. How the Sunday editions could be + brought out while the paper-shortage was being discussed everywhere, as it + was during my visit, was a problem that staggered me. But that the + shortage was real I was assured, and jokes upon it even got into the music + halls: a sure indication of its existence. "If the scarcity of paper gets + more acute," I heard a comedian say, "they'll soon have to make shoes of + leather again." + </p> + <p> + But it is not only the Sunday papers that are so immense. I used to hold + the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> in my hands, weighed down beneath its + bulk, and marvel that the nation that had time to read it could have time + for anything else. The matter is of the best, but what would the prudent, + wise and hard-working philosopher who founded it so many years ago—Benjamin + Franklin—say if he saw its lure deflecting millions of readers from + the real business of life? + </p> + <p> + When we come to consider the American magazines—to which class the + <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> almost belongs—and the English, there + is no comparison. The best American magazines are wonderful in their + quality and range, and we have nothing to set beside them. It is + astonishing to think how different, in the same country, daily and monthly + journalism can be. Omitting the monthly reviews, <i>Blackwood</i> is, I + take it, our finest monthly miscellany; and all of <i>Blackwood</i> could + easily and naturally be absorbed in one of the American magazines and be + illustrated into the bargain, and still leave room for much more. And the + whole would cost less! Why England is so poorly and pettily served in the + matter of monthly magazines is something of a mystery; but part of the + cause is the rivalry of the papers, and part the smallness of our + population. But I shall always hold that we deserve more good magazines + than we have now. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TREASURES OF ART + </h2> + <p> + I was fortunate in being in New York when the Metropolitan Museum + celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its birth, for I was therefore able + to enjoy not only its normal treasures but such others as had been + borrowed for birthday presents, which means that I saw Mrs. H. E. + Huntington's Vermeer, as well as the supreme Marquand example of that + master; more than the regular wealth of Rembrandts, Manet's "Still Life," + Gauguin's "Women by the River," El Greco's "View of Toledo," Franz Hals' + big jovial Dutchman from Mr. Harry Goldman's walls, and Bellini's + "Bacchanale"—to say nothing of the lace in galleries 18 and 19, Mr. + Morgan's bronze Eros from Pompeii, and the various cases of porcelain from + a score of collections. But without extra allurements I should have been + drawn again and again to this magnificent museum. + </p> + <p> + Two of the principal metropolitan donors—Altman and Hearn—were + the owners of big dry goods stores, while Marquand, whose little Vermeer + is probably the loveliest thing in America, was also a merchant. In future + I shall look upon all the great emporium proprietors as worthy of + patronage, on the chance of their being also beneficent collectors of + works of art. This thought, this hope, is more likely to get me into a + certain Oxford Street establishment than all the rhetoric and special + pleading of Callisthenes. + </p> + <p> + The Frick Gallery was not accessible; but I was privileged to roam at will + both in Mr. Morgan's library and in Mr. H. E. Huntington's, in each of + which I saw such a profusion of unique and unappraisable autographs as I + had not supposed existed in private hands. Rare books any one with money + can have, for they are mostly in duplicate; but autographs and + "association" books are unique, and America is the place for them. I had + known that it was necessary to cross the Atlantic in order to see the + originals of many of the pictures of which we in London have only the + photographs. I knew that the bulk of the Lamb correspondence was in + America, and at Mr. Morgan's I saw the author's draft of the essay on + "Roast Pig," and at Mr. Newton's, in Philadelphia, the original of "Dream + Children," an even more desirable possession; I knew that America had + provided an eager home for everything connected with Keats and Shelley and + Stevenson; but it was a surprise to find at Mr. Morgan's so wide a range + of MSS., extending from Milton to Du Maurier, and from Bacon to "Dorian + Gray"; while at Mr. Huntington's I had in my hands the actual foolscap + sheets on which Heine composed his "Florentine Nights." + </p> + <p> + I ought, you say, to have known this before. Maybe. But that ignorance in + such matters is no monopoly of mine I can prove by remarking that many an + American collector with whom I have talked was unaware that the library of + Harvard University is the possessor of all the works of reference—mostly + annotated—which were used by Thomas Carlyle in writing his + "Cromwell" and his "Frederick the Great," and they were bequeathed by him + in his will to Harvard University because of his esteem and regard for the + American people, "particularly the more silent part of them." + </p> + <p> + My hours in these libraries, together with a glimpse of the Widener room + at Harvard and certain booksellers' shelves, gave me some idea of what + American collectors have done towards making the New World a treasury of + the Old, and I realised how more and more necessary it will be, in the + future, for all critics of art in whatever branch, and of literature in + whatever branch, and all students even of antiquity, if they intend to be + thorough, to visit America. This I had guessed at, but never before had + known. + </p> + <p> + The English traveller lighting upon so many of the essentially English + riches as are conserved in American libraries, and particularly when he + has not a meagre share of national pride, cannot but pause to wonder how + it came about—and comes about—that so much that ought to be in + its own country has been permitted to stray. + </p> + <p> + In England collectors and connoisseurs are by no means rare. What, then, + were they doing to let all these letters of Keats and Shelley, Burns and + Byron, Lamb and Johnson—to name for the moment nothing else—find + their resting-place in America? The dollar is very powerful, I know, but + should it have been as pre-eminently powerful as this? Need it have + defeated so much patriotism? + </p> + <p> + Pictures come into a different category, for every artist painted more + than one picture. I have experienced no shade of resentment towards their + new owners in looking at the superb collections of old and new foreign + masters in the American public and private galleries; for so long as there + are enough examples of the masters to go round, every nation should have a + share. With MSS., however, it is different. Facsimiles, such as the Boston + Bibliographical Society's edition of Lamb's letters, would serve for the + rest of the world, and the originals should be in their author's native + land. But that is a counsel of perfection. The only thing to do is to grin + and bear it, and feel happy that these unique possessions are preserved + with such loving pride and care. Any idea of retaliation on America on the + part of England by buying up the MSS. of the great American writers, such + as Franklin and Poe, Hawthorne and Emerson, Thoreau and Lowell, Holmes and + Whitman, was rendered futile by the discovery that Mr. Morgan possesses + these too. I had in his library all the Breakfast Table series in my + hands, together with a play by Poe not yet published. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MOUNT VERNON + </h2> + <p> + Mention of the beautiful solicitude with which these treasures are + surrounded, suggests the reflection that the old country has something to + learn from the new in the matter of distinguished custodianship. We have + no place of national pilgrimage in England that is so perfect a model as + Washington's home at Mount Vernon. It is perhaps through lack of a figure + of the Washington type that we have nothing to compare with it; for any + parallel one must rather go to Fontainebleau; but certain shrines are ours + and none of them discloses quite such pious thoroughness as this. When I + think of the completeness of the preservation and reconstruction of Mount + Vernon, where, largely through the piety of individuals, a thousand + personal relics have been reassembled, so that, save for the sightseers, + this serene and simple Virginian mansion is almost exactly as it was, I am + filled with admiration. For a young people largely in a hurry to find time + to be so proud and so reverent is a significant thing. + </p> + <p> + Nor is this spirit of pious reverence confined to national memorials. + Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Massachusetts, although still only a hostelry, + compares not unfavourably with Dove Cottage at Grasmere and Carlyle's + house in Chelsea. The preservation is more minute. But to return to Mount + Vernon, the orderliness of the place is not its least noticeable feature. + There is no mingling of trade with sentiment, as at Stratford-on-Avon, for + example. Within the borders of the estate everything is quiet. I have + never seen Americans in church (not, I hasten to add, because they + abstain, but because I did), but I am sure that they could not, even + there, behave more as if the environment were sacred. To watch the crowds + at Mount Vernon, and to contemplate the massive isolated grandeur of the + Lincoln Memorial now being finished at Washington, is to realise that + America, for all its superficial frivolity and cynicism, is capable of a + very deep seriousness. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VERS LIBRE + </h2> + <p> + It would have been pedantic, while in America, to have abstained from an + effort at <i>vers libre</i>. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + REVOLT + </h2> + <p> + I had been to the Metropolitan Museum looking at beautiful things and + rejoicing in them. + </p> + <p> + And then I had to catch a train and go far into the country, to Paul + Smith's. + </p> + <p> + And as the light lessened and the brooding hour set in I looked out of the + window and reconstructed some of the lovely things I had seen—the + sculptures and the paintings, the jewels and the porcelain: all the fine + flower of the arts through the ages. + </p> + <p> + It seemed marvellous beyond understanding that such perfection could + exist, and I thought how wonderful it must be to be God and see His + creatures rising now and again to such heights. + </p> + <p> + And then I came to a station where there was to be a very long wait, and I + went to an inn for a meal. + </p> + <p> + It was a dirty neglected place, with a sullen unwashed man at the door, + who called raspingly to his wife within. + </p> + <p> + And when she came she was a slattern, with dishevelled hair and a soiled + dress and apron, and she looked miserable and worn out. + </p> + <p> + She prepared a meal which I could not eat, and when I went to pay for it I + found her sitting dejectedly in a chair looking with a kind of dumb + despair at the day's washing-up still to do. + </p> + <p> + And as I walked up and down the road waiting for the car I thought of this + woman's earlier life when she was happy. + </p> + <p> + I thought of her in her courtship, when her husband loved her and they + looked forward to marriage and he was tender and she was blithe. + </p> + <p> + They probably went to Coney Island together and laughed with the rest. + </p> + <p> + And it seemed iniquitous that such changes should come about and that + merry girls should grow into sluts and slovens, and ardent young husbands + should degenerate into unkempt bullies, and houses meant for happiness + should decay, and marriage promises all be forgotten. + </p> + <p> + And I felt that if the world could not be better managed than that I never + wanted to see any of God's artistic darlings at the top of their form + again and the Metropolitan Museum could go hang. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE + </h2> + <p> + I believe that few statements about America would so surprise English + people as that it has beautiful architecture. I was prepared to find + Boston and Cambridge old-fashioned and homelike—Oliver Wendell + Holmes had initiated me; I had a distinct notion of the cool spaciousness + of the White House and the imposing proportions of the Capitol and, of + course, I knew that one had but to see the skyscrapers of New York to + experience the traditional repulsion! But of the church of St. Thomas on + Fifth Avenue I had heard nothing, nor of Mr. Morgan's exquisite library, + nor of the Grand Central terminus, nor of the Lincoln Memorial at + Washington, nor of the bland charm of Mount Vernon. Nor had I expected to + find Fifth Avenue so dignified and cordial a thoroughfare. + </p> + <p> + Even less was I prepared for such metal work and stone work as is to be + seen in some of the business houses—such as, for example, the new + Guaranty Trust offices, both on Broadway and in Fifth Avenue. Even the + elevators (for which we in England, in spite of our ancient lethargy, have + a one-syllable word) are often finished with charming taste. + </p> + <p> + Least of all did I anticipate the maturity of America's buildings. Those + serene façades on Beacon Street overlooking Boston Common, where the + Autocrat used to walk (and I made an endeavour to follow his identical + footsteps, for he was my first real author)—they are as satisfying + as anything in Georgian London. And I shall long treasure the memory of + the warm red brick and easy proportions of the Boston City Hall and + Faneuil Hall, and Independence Hall at Philadelphia seen through a screen + of leaves. But in England (and these buildings were English once) we still + have many old red brick buildings; what we have not is anything to + correspond with the spacious friendly houses of wood which I saw in the + country all about Boston and at Cambridge—such houses as that which + was Lowell's home—each amid its own greenery. Nowhere, however, did + I see a more comely manor house of the old Colonial style than Anthony + Wayne's, near Daylesford, in Pennsylvania. In England only cottages are + built of wood, and I rather think that there are now by-laws against that. + </p> + <p> + Not all the good country houses, big and little, are, however, old. + American architects in the past few years seem to have developed a very + attractive type of home, often only a cottage, and I saw a great number of + these on the slopes of the Hudson, all the new ones combining taste with + the suggestion of comfort. The conservation of trees wherever possible is + an admirable feature of modern suburban planning in America. In England + the new suburb too often has nothing but saplings. In America, again, the + houses, even the very small ones, are more often detached than with us. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOSTON + </h2> + <p> + Once the lay-out of New York has been mastered—its avenues and + numbered cross streets—it is the most difficult city in the world in + which to lose one's way. But Boston is different. I found Boston hard to + learn, although it was a pleasant task to acquire knowledge, for I was led + into some of the quietest little Georgian streets I have ever been in, + steep though some of them were, and along one of the fairest of green + walks—that between the back of Beacon Street and the placid Charles. + </p> + <p> + Against Boston I have a certain grudge, for I could find no one to direct + me to the place where the tea was thrown overboard. But that it was + subjected to this indignity we may be certain—partly from the + testimony of subsequent events not too soothing to English feelings, and + partly from the unpopularity which that honest herb still suffers on + American soil. Coffee, yes; coffee at all times; but no one will take any + but the most perfunctory interest in the preparation of tea. I found the + harbour; I traversed wharf after wharf; but found no visible record of the + most momentous act of jettison since Jonah. In the top room, however, of + Faneuil Hall, in the Honourable Artillery Company's headquarters, the more + salient incidents of the struggle which followed are all depicted by + enthusiastic, if not too talented, painters; and I saw in the distance the + monument on Bunker's Hill. + </p> + <p> + My cicerone must be excused, for he was a Boston man, born and bred, and I + ought never to have put him to the humiliation of confessing his natural + ignorance. But the record is there, and legible enough. The tablet (many + kind correspondents have informed me since certain of these notes appeared + in the <i>Outlook</i>) is at 495 Atlantic Avenue, in the water-front + district, just a short walk from the South Station, and it has the + following inscription: + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + HERE FORMERLY STOOD + </h3> + <h3> + GRIFFIN'S WHARF + </h3> + <p> + at which lay moored on Dec. 16, 1773, three British ships with cargoes of + tea. To defeat King George's trivial but tyrannical tax of three pence a + pound, about ninety citizens of Boston, partly disguised as Indians, + boarded the ships, threw the cargoes, three hundred and forty-two chests + in all, into the sea and made the world ring with the patriotic exploit of + the + </p> + <h3> + BOSTON TEA PARTY + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "No! ne'er was mingled such a draught + In palace, hall, or arbor, + As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed + That night in Boston Harbor." + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Boston has a remarkable art gallery and museum, notable for its ancient + Chinese paintings, its collection of Japanese prints—one of the best + in the world, I believe—and a dazzling wall of water-colours by Mr. + Sargent. It was here that I saw my first Winslow Homers—two or three + rapid sketches of fishermen in full excitement—and was conquered by + his verve and actuality. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York I found + him again in oils and my admiration increased. Surely no one ever can have + painted the sea with more vividness, power and truth! We have no example + of his work in any public gallery in London; nor have we anything by W. M. + Chase, Arthur B. Davies, Swain Gifford, J. W. Alexander, George Inness, or + De Forest Brush. It is more than time for another American Exhibition. As + it is, the only modern American artists of whom there is any general + knowledge in England are Mr. Sargent, Mr. Epstein and Mr. Pennell, and the + late E. A. Abbey, G. H. Boughton, and Whistler. Other Americans painting + in our midst are Mr. Mark Fisher, R.A., Mr. J. J. Shannon, R.A., Mr. J. + McLure Hamilton, and Mr. G. Wetherbee. + </p> + <p> + The Boston Gallery is the proud possessor of the rough and unfinished but + "speaking" likeness of George Washington by his predestined limner Gilbert + Stuart, and also a companion presentment of Washington's wife. Looking + upon this lady's countenance and watching a party of school girls who were + making the tour of the rooms, not uncomforted on their arduous adventure + by chocolate and other confections, it occurred to me that if America + increases her present love of eating sweets, due, I am told, not a little + to Prohibition, George Washington will gradually disappear into the + background and Martha Washington, who has already given her name to a very + popular brand of candy, will be venerated instead, as the Sweet Mother of + her Country. + </p> + <p> + An American correspondent sends me the following poem in order to explain + to me the deviousness of Boston's principal thoroughfare. The poet is Mr. + Sam Walter Foss:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + One day through the primeval wood + A calf walked home, as good calves should; + + But made a trail all bent askew, + A crooked trail, as all calves do. + + Since then two hundred years have fled, + And, I infer, the calf is dead. + + But still he left behind his trail, + And thereby hangs my moral tale. + + The trail was taken up next day + By a lone dog that passed that way; + + And then a wise bell-wether sheep + Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep, + + And drew the flock behind him too, + As good bell-wethers always do. + + And from that day o'er hill and glade + Through those old woods a path was made, + + And many men wound in and out, + And dodged and turned and bent about, + + And uttered words of righteous wrath + Because 'twas such a crooked path; + + But still they followed—do not laugh— + The first migrations of that calf, + + And through this winding wood-way stalked + Because he wabbled when he walked. + + The forest path became a lane + That bent and turned and turned again; + + This crooked lane became a road, + Where many a poor horse with his load + + Toiled on beneath the burning sun, + And travelled some three miles in one. + + And thus a century and a half + They trod the footsteps of that calf. + + The years passed on in swiftness fleet, + The road became a village street, + + And then before men were aware, + A city's crowded thoroughfare, + + And soon the central street was this + Of a renowned metropolis. + + And men two centuries and a half + Trod in the footsteps of that calf. + + Each day a hundred thousand rout + Followed the zigzag calf about; + + And o'er his crooked journey went + The traffic of a continent. + + A hundred thousand men were led + By one calf near three centuries dead. + + They followed still his crooked way + And lost one hundred years a day; + + For thus such reverence is lent + To well-established precedent. + + A moral lesson this might teach, + Were I ordained and called to preach. + + For men are prone to go it blind + Along the calf-paths of the mind, + + And work away from sun to sun + To do what other men have done. + + They follow in the beaten track, + And out and in and forth and back + + And still their devious course pursue, + To keep the paths that others do. + + But how the wise old wood-gods laugh + Who saw the first primeval calf! + + Ah, many things this tale might teach—But + I am not ordained to preach. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PHILADELPHIA + </h2> + <p> + I was fortunate in the city over which William Penn, in giant effigy, + keeps watch and ward, in having as guide, philosopher and friend Mr. A. + Edward Newton, the Johnsonian, and the author of one of the best examples + of "amateur" literature that I know—"The Amenities of + Book-Collecting." Mr. Newton took me everywhere, even to the little + seventeenth-century Swedish church, which architecturally may be described + as the antipodes of Philadelphia's newer glory, the Curtis Building, where + editors are lodged like kings and can be attained to (if at all) only + through marble halls. We went to St. Peter's, where, suddenly awaking + during the sermon, one would think oneself to be in a London city church, + and to the Historical Museum, where I found among the Quaker records many + of my own ancestors and was bewildered amid such a profusion of relics of + Penn, Washington and Franklin. In the old library were more traces of + Franklin, including his famous electrical appliance, again testifying to + the white flame with which American hero-worship can burn; and we found + the sagacious Benjamin once more at the Franklin Inn Club, where the + simplicity of the eighteenth century mingles with the humour and culture + of the twentieth. We then drove through several miles of Fairmount Park, + stopping for a few minutes in the hope of finding the late J. G. Johnson's + Vermeer in the gallery there; but for the moment it was in hiding, the + walls being devoted to his Italian pictures. + </p> + <p> + Finally we drew up at the gates of that strange and imposing Corinthian + temple which might have been dislodged from its original site and hurled + to Philadelphia by the first Quaker, Poseidon—the Girard College. + This solemn fane we were permitted to enter only on convincing the porter + that we were not ministers of religion—an easy enough task for Mr. + Newton, who wears with grace the natural abandon of a Voltairean, but a + difficult one for me. Why Stephen Girard, the worthy "merchant and + mariner" who endowed this institution, was so suspicious of the cloth, no + matter what its cut, I do not know; no doubt he had his reasons; but his + prejudices are faithfully respected by his janitor, whose eye is a very + gimlet of suspicion. However, we got in and saw the philanthropist's tomb + and his household effects behind those massive columns. + </p> + <p> + That evening I spent in Mr. Newton's library among Blake and Lamb and + Johnson autographs and MSS., breaking the Tenth Commandment with a + recklessness that would have satisfied and delighted Stephen Girard's + gatekeeper; and the next day we were off to Valley Forge to see with what + imaginative thoughtfulness the Government has been transforming + Washington's camp into a national park and restoring the old landmarks. It + was a fine spring day and the woods were flecked with the white and pink + blossoms of the dogwood—a tree which in England is only an + inconspicuous hedgerow bush but here has both charm and importance and + some of the unexpectedness of a tropical growth. I wish we could + acclimatise it. + </p> + <p> + The memorial chapel now in course of completion on one of the Valley Forge + eminences seemed to me a very admirable example not only of modern Gothic + but of votive piety. And such a wealth of American symbolism cannot exist + elsewhere. But in the severe little cottage where Washington made his + headquarters, down by the stream, with all his frugal campaigning + furniture and accessories in their old places, I felt more emotion than in + the odour of sanctity. The simple reality of it conquered the stained + glass. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GENERAL REFLECTIONS + </h2> + <p> + Looking back on it all I realise that America never struck me as a new + country, although its inhabitants often seemed to be a new people. The + cities are more mature than the citizens. New York, Chicago, Boston, + Philadelphia, Washington—all have an air of permanence and age. The + buildings, even the most fantastic, suggest indigenousness, or at least + stability; nor would the presence of more ancient structures increase this + effect. To the eye of the ordinary Englishman accustomed to work in what + we call the City, in Fleet Street, in the Strand, in Piccadilly, or in + Oxford Street, New York would not appear to be a younger place than + London, and Boston might easily strike him as older. Nor is London more + than a little older, except in spots, such as the Tower and the Temple and + the Abbey, and that little Tudor row in Holborn, all separated by vast + tracts of modernity. Indeed, I would almost go farther and say that London + sets up an illusion of being newer even than New York by reason of its + more disturbing street traffic both in the roads and on the footways, and + the prevalence of the gaily coloured omnibuses which thunder along so many + thoroughfares in notable contrast with the sedate and sober vehicles that + serve Fifth Avenue and are hardly seen elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile an illusion of antiquity is set up by New York's habit of + commingling business houses and private residences, which surely belongs + to an older order of society. In London we have done away with such a + blend. Our nearest approach to Fifth Avenue is, I suppose, Regent Street; + but there are no mansions among the shops of Regent Street. Our shops are + there and our mansions are elsewhere, far away, in what we call + residential quarters—such as Park Lane, Queen's Gate, Mayfair, the + Bayswater Road, and Grosvenor Square. To turn out of Fifth Avenue into the + quiet streets where people live is to receive a distinct impression of + sedateness such as New York is never supposed to convey. One has the same + feeling in the other great American cities. + </p> + <p> + But when it comes to their inhabitants there are to the English eye fewer + signs of maturity. I have never been able to get rid of the idea that + every one I have met in America, no matter how grave a senior, instead of + being really and self-consciously in the thick of life, is only getting + ready to begin. Perhaps this is due in part to the pleasure—the + excitement almost—which American business men—and all + Americans are business men—take in their work. They not merely do + it, but they enjoy doing it and they watch themselves doing it. They seem + to have a knack of withdrawing aside and observing themselves as from the + stalls, not without applause. In other words, they dramatise continually. + Now, one does not do this when one is old—it is a childish game—and + it is another proof that they are younger than we, who do not enjoy our + work, and indeed, most of us, are ashamed of it and want the world to + believe that we live like the lilies on private means. + </p> + <p> + Similarly, many Americans seem, when they talk, to be two persons: one the + talker, and the other the listener charmed by the quality of his + discourse. There is nothing detrimental in such duplicity. Indeed, I think + I have a very real envy of it. But one of the defects of the listening + habit is perhaps to make them too rhetorical, too verbose. It is odd that + the nation that has given us so much epigrammatic slang and the telegraph + and the telephone and the typewriter should have so little of what might + be called intellectual short-hand. But so it is. Too many Americans are + remorseless when they are making themselves clear. + </p> + <p> + Yet the passion for printed idiomatic sententiousness and arresting + trade-notices is visible all the time. You see it in the newspapers and in + the shops. I found a children's millinery shop in New York with this + laconic indication of its scope, in permanent letters, on the plate-glass + window: "Lids for Kids." A New York undertaker, I am told, has affixed to + all his hearses the too legible legend: "You may linger, but I'll get you + yet." + </p> + <p> + When it comes to descriptive new words, coined rapidly to meet occasions, + we English are nowhere compared with the Americans. Could there be + anything better than the term "Nearbeer" to reveal at a blow the character + of a substitute for ale? I take off my hat, too, to "crape-hanger," which + leaves "kill-joy" far in the rear. But "optience" for a cinema audience, + which sees but does not hear, though ingenious, is less admirable. + </p> + <p> + Although I found the walls of business offices in New York and elsewhere + decorated with pithy counsel to callers, and discouragements to + irrelevance, such as "Come to the point but don't camp on it," "To hell + with yesterday," and so forth, I am very doubtful if with all these + suggestions of practical address and Napoleonic efficiency the American + business man is as quick and decisive as ours can be. There is more + autobiography talked in American offices than in English; more getting + ready to begin. + </p> + <p> + I have, however, no envy of the American man's inability to loaf and + invite his soul, as his great democratic poet was able to do. I think that + this unfamiliarity with armchair life is a misfortune. That article of + furniture, we must suppose, is for older civilisations, where men have + either, after earning the right to recline, taken their ease gracefully, + or have inherited their fortune and are partial to idleness. It consorts + ill with those who are still either continually and restlessly in pursuit + of the dollar or are engaged in the occupation of watching dollars + automatically arrive. + </p> + <p> + One of the things, I take it, for Americans to learn is how to transform + money into a friend. So many men who ought to be quietly rejoicing in + their riches seem still to be anxious and acquisitive; so many men who + have become suddenly wealthy seem to be allowing their gains to ruin their + happiness. For the nation's good nearly every one, I fancy, has too much + money. + </p> + <p> + My experience is that England has almost everything to learn from America + in the matter of hotels. I consider American second and third-class hotels + to be better in many ways than our best. Every American restaurant, of + each grade, is better than the English equivalent; the appointments are + better, the food is served with more distinction and often is better too. + When it comes to coffee, there is no comparison whatever: American coffee + is the best in the world. Only quite recently has the importance of the + complete suite entered the intelligence of the promoters of English + hotels, and in myriads of these establishments, called first class, there + is still but one bathroom to twenty rooms. Heating coils and hot and cold + water in the rooms are even more rare: so rare as to be mentioned in the + advertisements. Telephones in the rooms are rarer. In too many hotels in + England there is still no light at the head of the bed. But we have + certain advantages. For example, in English restaurants there is always + something on the table to eat at once—<i>hors d'oeuvres</i> or bread + and butter. In America there is too often nothing ready but iced water—an + ungenial overture to any feast—and you must wait until your order + has been taken. Other travellers, even Americans, have agreed with me that + it would be more comfortable if the convention which decrees that the + waiter shall bring everything together could be overruled. Something "to + go on with" is a great ameliorative, especially when one is hungry and + tired. + </p> + <p> + In thus commending American hotels over English it is, however, only right + to admit that the American hotels are very much more expensive. + </p> + <p> + While on the subject of eating, I would say that for all their notorious + freedoms Americans have a better sense of order than we. Their policemen + may carry their batons drawn, and even swing them with a certain insolent + defiance or even provocation, but New York goes on its way with more + precision and less disturbance than London, and every one is smarter, more + alert. The suggestion of a living wage for all is constant. It is indeed + on this sense of orderliness that the success of certain of the American + time-saving appliances is built. The Automat restaurants, for example, + where the customer gets all his requirements himself, would never do in + London. The idea is perfect; but it requires the co-operation of the + customer, and that is what we should fail to provide. The spotless + cleanliness and mechanical exactitude of these places in New York would + cease in London, and gradually they would decline and then disappear. At + heart, we in England dislike well-managed places. Nor can I see New York's + public distribution of hot water adopted in London. Such little geysers as + expel steam at intervals through the roadway of Fifth Avenue will never, I + fear, be found in Regent Street or Piccadilly. Our communism is very + patchy. + </p> + <p> + There are some unexpected differences between America and England. It is + odd, for instance, to find a nation from whom we get most of our tobacco + and who have the reputation of even chewing cigars, with such strict rules + against smoking. In the Music Halls, which are, as a rule, better than + ours, smoking is permitted only in certain parts. Public decorum again is, + I should say, more noticeable in an American than an English city, and yet + both in San Francisco and New York I dined in restaurants—not late—between + 7 and 8—and not furtive hole-in-corner places,—where girls + belonging to the establishment, wearing almost nothing at all, performed + the latest dances, with extravagant and daring variations of them, among + the tables. In London this kind of thing is unknown. In Paris it occurs + only in the night cafés. It struck me as astonishing—and probably + not at all to the good—that it should be an ordinary dinner + accompaniment. + </p> + <p> + I was asked while I was in America to set down some of the chief things + that I missed. I might easily have begun with walking-sticks, for until I + reached New York I seemed to be the only man in America who carried one, + although a San Francisco friend confessed to sometimes "wearing a cane" on + Sundays. I missed a Visitors' Book either at the British Embassy in + Washington or at the White House. After passing through India, where one's + first duty is to enter one's name in these volumes, it seemed odd that the + same machinery of civility should be lacking. I missed any system of + cleaning boots during the night, in the hotels; but I soon became + accustomed to this, and rather enjoyed visiting the "shine parlours," in + one of which was this crisp notice: "If you like our work, tell your + friends; if you don't like it, tell us." I missed gum-chewing. + </p> + <p> + But it was on returning to England that I began really to take notice. + Then I found myself missing America's cleanliness, America's despatch, its + hotel efficiency, its lashings of cream, its ice on every hand. All this + at Liverpool! I missed later the petrol fountains all about the roads, a + few of which I had seen in India, at which the motorist can replenish; but + these surely will not be long in coming. I don't want England to be + Americanised; I don't want America to cease to be a foreign country; but + there are lessons each of us can learn. + </p> + <p> + If I were an American, although I travelled abroad now and then (and I + hold that it is the duty of a man to see other lands but live in his own) + I should concentrate on America. It is the country of the future. I am + glad I have seen it and now know something—however slight—about + it at first hand. I made many friends there and amassed innumerable + delightful memories. But what is the use of eight weeks? I am ashamed not + to have gone there sooner, and humiliated by the brevity of my stay. I + have had the opportunity only to lift a thousand curtains, get a glimpse + of the entertainment on the other side and drop them again. I should like + to go there every other year and have time: time to make the acquaintance + of a naturalist and learn from him the names of birds and trees and + flowers; time to loiter in the byways; time to penetrate into deeper + strata where intimacies strike root and the real discoveries are made; + time to discern beneath the surface, so hard and assured, something fey, + something wistful, the sense of tears. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INDEX + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Adirondacks, etc. + Agra and its Fort + Aitken, E. H., his three books + Akbar + America, its democracy + its humour + its slang + its trains + its women + its newspapers + its MSS. + its hotels + its maturity + American painters in England + Americans, at home and abroad + Americans, their clothes + their physiognomy + their disturbing wealth + Aquariums + Architecture in America + "Association" books + + Baker, Mr. Herbert + Bam Bahadur, that great hunter + Baseball and cricket + Beecher, Henry Ward + Benares + Berkeley University + Bernier on the Moguls + Betel-nut chewing + Birds in India + Blackbuck, the agile + Bombay—Towers of Silence + Boston + Butler, H.E., Sir Harcourt + + Calcutta—the piano-carriers + its snake charmers + and the Maidan + and its English buildings + its old cemetery + Charnock, Job + Chicago, its hospitable policeman + its pictures + Cinema, the + Cobb, Mr. Irvin + Comparisons between America and England + Coney Island + Cow-worship in India + Cricket and baseball + Curzon, Lord, his preservation of ancient buildings + + Dances in India and Japan + Delhi—the camel omnibuses + its architecture + and the Mutiny + Fort + Dickens, Charles, presentation copies + + "Eha," his three books + Elephanta, caves of + + Fakirs in India + Fatehpur-Sikri + Faneuil Hall, Boston + Fifth Avenue + Foss, Mr. Samuel W., his Boston poem + Franklin, Benjamin + Fujiyama + Funerals in India and England + + Ganges, the + Geisha dances + Gilbert, Mr. Cass + Girard, Stephen + Goschen, Lord, wounds the tiger + + Hakone, Lake + Hawking + Herford, Mr. Oliver + Hindus, the, and animals + Hokusai + Holmes, Oliver Wendell + Hong-Kong, funeral at + Honolulu + Hooghli, the + Hotels in America + Humayun's Tomb + Huntington, Mr. H. E. + + Jahan, Shah, his buildings + Jains, the, their preservation of life + Japan—its lack of idlers + and animal life + its women + its American reading + Japanese, their small stature + materialism + public manners + their gold teeth + Journalism in America + + Katsuragava rapids + Keats' <i>Lamia</i>, 1820 + Kesteven, Sir Charles, his library + Khan, Sir Umar Hayat + Kohinoor, the + Kutb Minar, the + Kyoto, its temples + + Lake Placid Club + Lamb, Mr. A. M., his distress at Honolulu + Charles, first editions + manuscripts + Landor, Walter Savage + Lavater abroad + Lincoln Memorial + Liston, Lt.-Col. Glen + Lucknow and the Mutiny + its delectability + Lutyens, Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., goes hawking + and Imperial Delhi + and the priests + and the divers + hunts the tiger + Marquis, Mr. Don + Moguls, the + Mohammedan customs + priests + Monkeys + Morgan, Mr. J. Pierpont + Mount Vernon + Mutiny, the + Myanoshita + + Nautch, the + Nawanagar, the Jam of + New or Imperial Delhi + New York, its skyscrapers + its buildings + its aquarium + its shops + its dances + its sky signs + its pictures + its MSS. + its maturity + Newspapers in America + Newton, Mr. A. Edward + + Otome Pass + + Painters, American, in England + Parsees, the + Peacock Throne, the + Philadelphia + Pictures in America + Prince of Wales in New York + Prohibition + Pronunciation in America + + Ranjitsinhji, Prince + Rickshaws + Roosevelt, Theodore, his Memorial Road + "Rose Aylmer" + Ruth, "Babe" + + San Francisco + Saranac + <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>, the + Scott, Mr. A. P., his house + Sculpture in America + Shaw, Mr. Bernard + Simplified spelling + Skyscrapers + Skysigns + Slang in America + Snake-poison antidotes + St. Gaudens, Augustus + Stevenson, Robert Louis + Swamp-deer hunting + Swan, Mr. Thomas, his despair at Honolulu + + Taj Mahal, the + Talmadge, Constance + Norma + Tavernier on the Moguls + Theatre, the, in Japan + Tiger hunt, a + Tinney, Frank + Tokio, its dress + its theatre + Tolstoi, Count Leo + Towers of Silence + Townsend, Joe, his ballad + + Valley Forge + Venice and Benares + Vers Libre + Vultures + + Washington + George + Martha + Wayne, Anthony + Wayside Inn, the + Wheeler, Mr. Charles Stetson, his story + Women in America + in Japan + Woolworth Building, the + + Yamaguchi, Madame + Yokohama +</pre> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Roving East and Roving West, by E. V. 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Lucas + + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7237] +This file was first posted on March 30, 2003 +Last Updated: May 12, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROVING EAST AND ROVING WEST *** + + + + +Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + +ROVING EAST + +AND + +ROVING WEST + + + +BY + + + +E. V. LUCAS + + +TO + +E. L. L. + +MY HOST AT RAISINA + + + +[Illustration: TWO MEN ADMIRING FUJI FROM A WINDOW From Hokusai's "A +Hundred Views of Fuji"] + + + +"Yes, Sir, there are two objects of curiosity, e.g., the Christian world +and the Mahometan world."--DR. JOHNSON. + +"Motion recollected in tranquillity."--WORDSWORTH (_very nearly_). + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INDIA + + NOISELESS FEET + THE SAHIB + THE PASSING SHOW + INDIA'S BIRDS + THE TOWERS OF SILENCE + THE GARLANDS + DELHI + A DAY'S HAWKING + NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI + THE DIVERS + THE ROPE TRICK + AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI + LUCKNOW + A TIGER + THE SACRED CITY + CALCUTTA + ROSE AYLMER + JOB AND JOE + EXIT + + + JAPAN + + INTRODUCTORY + THE LITTLE LAND + THE RICE FIELDS + SURFACE MATERIALISM + FIRST GLIMPSE OF FUJI + TWO FUNERALS + THE LITTLE GEISHA + MANNERS + THE PLAY + MYANOSHITA + FUJI + + + AMERICA + + DEMOCRACY AT HOME + SAN FRANCISCO + ROADS GOOD AND BAD + UNIVERSITIES, LOVE AND PRONUNCIATION + FIRST SIGNS OF PROHIBITION + R. L. S. + STORIES AND HUMORISTS + THE CARS + CHICAGO + THE MOVIES + THE AMERICAN FACE + PROHIBITION AGAIN + THE BALL GAME + SKY SCRAPERS + A PLEA FOR THE AQUARIUM + ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES + SKY-SIGNS AND CONEY ISLAND + THE PRESS + TREASURES OF ART + MOUNT VERNON + VERS LIBRE + DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE + BOSTON + PHILADELPHIA + GENERAL REFLECTIONS + + + INDEX + + + + +INDIA + +NOISELESS FEET + + +Although India is a land of walkers, there is no sound of footfalls. +Most of the feet are bare and all are silent: dark strangers overtake +one like ghosts. + +Both in the cities and the country some one is always walking. There are +carts and motorcars, and on the roads about Delhi a curious service of +camel omnibuses, but most of the people walk, and they walk ever. In the +bazaars they walk in their thousands; on the long, dusty roads, miles +from anywhere, there are always a few, approaching or receding. + +It is odd that the only occasion on which Indians break from their walk +into a run or a trot is when they are bearers at a funeral, or have +an unusually heavy head-load, or carry a piano. Why there is so much +piano-carrying in Calcutta I cannot say, but the streets (as I feel now) +have no commoner spectacle than six or eight merry, half-naked fellows, +trotting along, laughing and jesting under their burden, all with an +odd, swinging movement of the arms. + +One of one's earliest impressions of the Indians is that their hands are +inadequate. They suggest no power. + +Not only is there always some one walking, but there is always some one +resting. They repose at full length wherever the need for sleep takes +them; or they sit with pointed knees. Coming from England one is struck +by so much inertness; for though the English labourer can be lazy enough +he usually rests on his feet, leaning against walls: if he is a land +labourer, leaning with his back to the support; if he follows the sea, +leaning on his stomach. + +It was interesting to pass on from India and its prostrate philosophers +with their infinite capacity for taking naps, to Japan, where there +seems to be neither time nor space for idlers. Whereas in India one +has continually to turn aside in order not to step upon a sleeping +figure--the footpath being a favourite dormitory--in Japan no one is +ever doing nothing, and no one appears to be weary or poor. + +India, save for a few native politicians and agitators, strikes one as a +land destitute of ambition. In the cities there are infrequent signs of +progress; in the country none. The peasants support life on as little as +they can, they rest as much as possible and their carts and implements +are prehistoric. They may believe in their gods, but fatalism is their +true religion. How little they can be affected by civilisation I learned +from a tiny settlement of bush-dwellers not twenty miles from Bombay, +close to that beautiful lake which has been transformed into a +reservoir, where bows and arrows are still the only weapons and rats are +a staple food. And in an hour's time, in a car, one could be telephoning +one's friends or watching a cinema! + + + + +THE SAHIB + + +I did not have to wait to reach India for that great and exciting moment +when one is first called "Sahib." I was addressed as "Sahib," to my +mingled pride and confusion, at Marseilles, by an attendant on the +steamer which I joined there. Later I grew accustomed to it, although +never, I hope, blase; but to the end my bearer fascinated me by alluding +to me as Master--not directly, but obliquely: impersonally, as though +it were some other person that I knew, who was always with me, an _alter +ego_ who could not answer for himself: "Would Master like this or that?" +"At what time did Master wish to be called?" + +And then the beautiful "Salaam"! + +I was sorry for the English doomed to become so used to Eastern +deference that they cease to be thrilled. + + + + +THE PASSING SHOW + + +It is difficult for a stranger to India, especially when paying only a +brief visit, to lose the impression that he is at an exhibition--in a +section of a World's Fair. How long it takes for this delusion to wear +off I cannot say. All I can say is that seven weeks are not enough. +And never does one feel it more than in the bazaar, where movement is +incessant and humanity is so packed and costumes are so diverse, and +where the suggestion of the exhibition is of course heightened by the +merchants and the stalls. What one misses is any vantage point--anything +resembling a chair at the Cafe de la Paix in Paris, for instance--where +one may sit at ease and watch the wonderful changing spectacle going +past. There are in Indian cities no such places. To observe the life of +the bazaar closely and be unobserved is almost impossible. + +It would be extraordinarily interesting to sit there, beside some +well-informed Anglo-Indian or Indo-Anglian, and learn all the minutiae of +caste and be told who and what everybody was: what the different ochre +marks signified on the Hindu foreheads; what this man did for a living, +and that; and so forth. Even without such an informant I was never tired +of drifting about the native quarters in whatever city I found myself +and watching the curiously leisurely and detached commercial methods +of the dealers--the money lenders reclining on their couches; the pearl +merchants with their palms full of the little desirable jewels; the +silversmiths hammering; the tailors cross-legged; the whole Arabian +Nights pageant. All the shops seem to be overstaffed, unless an element +of detached inquisitiveness is essential to business in the East. No +transaction is complete without a few watchful spectators, usually +youths, who apparently are employed by the establishment for the sole +purpose of exhibiting curiosity. + +I picked up a few odds and ends of information, by degrees, but only the +more obvious: such as that the slight shaving of the Mohammedan's upper +lip is to remove any impediment to the utterance of the name of Allah; +that the red-dyed beards are a record that their wearers have made the +pilgrimage to Mecca; that the respirator often worn by the Jains is to +prevent the death of even a fly in inhalation. I was shown a Jain woman +carefully emptying a piece of wood with holes in it into the road, each +hole containing a louse which had crawled there during the night but +must not be killed. The Jains adore every living creature; the Hindus +chiefly the cow. As for this divinity, she drifts about the cities as +though they were built for her, and one sees the passers-by touching +her, hoping for sanctity or a blessing. A certain sex inequality is, +however, only too noticeable, and particularly in and about Bombay, +where the bullock cart is so common--the bullock receiving little but +blows and execration from his drivers. + +The sacred pigeon is also happy in Bombay, being fed copiously all day +long; and I visited there a Hindu sanctuary, called the Pingheripole, +for every kind of animal--a Home of Rest or Asylum--where even pariah +dogs are fed and protected. + +I was told early of certain things one must not do: such as saluting +with the left hand, which is the dishonourable one of the pair, and +refraining carefully, when in a temple or mosque, from touching anything +at all, because for an unbeliever to touch is to desecrate. I was told +also that a Mohammedan grave always gives one the points of the compass, +because the body is buried north and south with the head at the north, +turned towards Mecca. The Hindus have no graves. + +In India the Occidental, especially if coming from France as I did, +is struck by the absence of any out-of-door communion between men and +women. In the street men are with men, women with women. Most women +lower their eyes as a man approaches, although when the woman is a +Mohammedan and young one is often conscious of a bright black glance +through the veil. There is no public fondling, nothing like the familiar +demonstrations of affection that we are accustomed to in Paris and +London (more so during the War and since) and in New York. Nothing so +offends and surprises the Indian as this want of restraint and shame +on our part, and in Japan I learned that the Japanese share the Indian +view. + +It seemed to me that the chewing of the betel-nut is more prevalent in +Bombay than elsewhere. One sees it all over India; everywhere are moving +jaws with red juice trickling; but in Bombay there are more vendors of +the rolled-up leaves and more crimson splashes on pavement and wall. It +is an unpleasant habit, but there is no doubt that teeth are ultimately +the whiter for it. Even though I was instructed in the art of betel-nut +chewing by an Indian gentleman of world-wide fame in the cricket field, +from whom I would willingly learn anything, I could not endure the +experience. + +Most nations, I suppose, look upon the dances of other nations with a +certain perplexity. Such glimpses, for example, as I had in America +of the movement known as the Shimmie Shake filled me with alarm, while +Orientals have been known to display boredom at the Russian Ballet. +Personally I adore the Russian Ballet, but I found the Nautch very +fatiguing. It is at once too long and too monotonous, but I dare +say that if one could follow the words of the accompanying songs, or +cantillations, the result might be more entertaining. That would not, +however, improve the actual dancing, in which I was disappointed. In +Japan, on the other hand, I succumbed completely to the odd, hypnotic +mechanism of the Geisha, the accompaniments to which are more varied, +or more acceptable to my ear, than the Indian music. But I shall +always remember the sounds of the distant, approaching or receding, +snake-charmers' piping, heard through the heat, as it so often is on +Sundays in Calcutta. To my inward ear that is India's typical melody; +and it has relationship to the Punch and Judy allurement of our +childhood. + +It was in Bombay that I saw my first fakir, and in Harrison Road, +Calcutta, my last. There had been so long a series in between that I was +able to confirm my first impression. I can now, therefore, generalise +safely when saying that all these strange creatures resemble a blend of +Tolstoi and Mr. Bernard Shaw. Imagine such a hybrid, naked save for a +loin cloth, and smeared all over with dust, and you have a holy man +in the East. The Harrison Road fakir, who passed on his way along the +crowded pavement unconcerned and practically unobserved, was white with +ashes and was beating a piece of iron as a wayward child might be doing. +He was followed by a boy, but no effort was made to collect alms. It is +true philosophy to be prepared to live in such a state of simplicity. +Most of the problems of life would dissolve and vanish if one could +reduce one's needs to the frugality of a fakir. I have thought often of +him since I returned, in London, to all the arrears of work and duty and +the liabilities that accumulate during a long holiday; but never more so +than when confronted by a Peace-time tailor's bill. + + + + +INDIA'S BIRDS + + +One of the first peculiarities of Bombay that I noticed and never lost +sight of was the kites. The city by day is never without these spies, +these sentries. From dawn to dusk the great unresting birds are sailing +over it, silent and vigilant. Whenever you look up, there they are, +criss-crossing in the sky, swooping and swerving and watching. After a +while one begins to be nervous: it is disquieting to be so continually +under inspection. Now and then they quarrel and even fight: now and then +one will descend with a rush and rise carrying a rat or other delicacy +in its claws; but these interruptions of the pattern are only momentary. +For the rest of the time they swirl and circle and never cease to watch. +Bombay also has its predatory crows, who are so bold that it is unsafe +to leave any bright article on the veranda table. Spectacles, for +example, set up a longing in their hearts which they make no effort +to control. But these birds are everywhere. At a wayside station just +outside Calcutta, in the early morning, the passengers all had tea, and +when it was finished and the trays were laid on the platform, I +watched the crows, who were perfectly aware of this custom and had been +approaching nearer and nearer as we drank, dart swiftly to the sugar +basins and carry off the lumps that remained. The crow, however, is, +comparatively speaking, a human being; the kite is something alien and a +cause of fear, and the traveller in India never loses him. His eye is as +coldly attentive to Calcutta as to Bombay. + +It is, of course, the indigenous birds of a country that emphasise its +foreignness far more than its people. People can travel. Turbaned heads +are, for example, not unknown in England; but to have green parrots with +long tails flitting among the trees, as they used to flit in my host's +garden in Bombay, is to be in India beyond question. At Raisina we had +mynahs and the babblers, or "Seven Sisters," in great profusion, and +also the King Crow with his imposing tail; while the little striped +squirrels were everywhere. These merry restless little rodents do more +than run and scamper and leap: they seem to be positively lifted into +space by their tails. Their stripes (as every one knows) came directly +from the hand of God, recording for ever how, on the day of creation, He +stroked them by way of approval. + +No Indian bird gave me so much pleasure to watch as the speckled +kingfishers, which I saw at their best on the Jumna at Okhla. They poise +in the air above the water with their long bills pointed downwards at a +right-angle to their fluttering bodies, searching the depths for their +prey; and then they drop with the quickness of thought into the stream. +The other kingfisher--coloured like ours but bigger--who waits on +an overhanging branch, I saw too, but the evolutions of the hovering +variety were more absorbing. + +When one is travelling by road, the birds that most attract the notice +are the peacocks and the giant cranes; while wherever there are cattle +in any numbers there are the white paddy birds, feeding on their +backs--the birds from which the osprey plumes are obtained. One sees, +too, many kinds of eagle and hawk. In fact, the ornithologist can never +be dull in this country. + +Wild animals I had few opportunities to observe, although a mongoose +at Raisina gave me a very amusing ten minutes. At Raisina, also, the +jackals came close to the house at night; and on an early morning ride +in a motorcar to Agra we passed a wolf, and a little later were most +impudently raced and outdistanced by a blackbuck, who, instead of +bolting into security at the sight or sound of man, ran, or rather, +advanced--for his progress is mysterious and magical--beside us for some +forty yards and then,--with a laugh, put on extra speed (we were doing +perhaps thirty miles an hour) and disappeared ahead. All about Muttra +we dispersed monkeys up the trees and into the bushes as we approached. +Next to the parrots it is the monkeys that most convince the traveller +that he is in a strange tropical land. And the flying foxes. Nothing +is more strange than a tree full of these creatures sleeping pendant by +day, or their silent swift black movements by night. + +I saw no snakes wild, but in the Bacteriological Laboratory at Parel +in Bombay, which Lt.-Col. Glen Liston controls with so much zeal and +resourcefulness, I was shown the process by which the antidotes to snake +poisoning are prepared, for dispersion through the country. A cobra or +black snake is released from his cage and fixed by the attendant with +a stick pressed on his neck a little below the head. The snake is then +firmly and safely held just above this point between the finger and +thumb, and a tumbler, with a piece of flannel round its edge, is +proffered to it to bite. As the snake bites, a clear yellow fluid, like +strained honey in colour and thickness, flows into the glass from the +poison fangs. This poison is later injected in small doses into the +veins of horses kept carefully for the purpose, and then, in due course, +the blood of the horses is tapped in order to make the anti-toxin. +Wonderful are the ways of science! The Laboratory is also the +headquarters of the Government's constant campaign against malaria and +guinea worm, typhoid and cholera, and, in a smaller degree, hydrophobia. +But nothing, I should guess, would ever get sanitary sense into India, +except in almost negligible patches. + + + + +THE TOWERS OF SILENCE + + +The Parsees have made Bombay their own, more surely even than the +Scotch possess Calcutta. Numerically very weak, they are long-headed and +far-sighted beyond any Indian and are better qualified to traffick +and to control. All the cotton mills are theirs, and theirs the finest +houses in the most beautiful sites. When that conflict begins between +the Hindus and the Mohammedans which will render India a waste and a +shambles, it is the Parsees who will occupy the high places--until a +more powerful conqueror arrives. + +Bombay has no more curious sight than the Towers of Silence, the Parsee +cemetery; and one of the first questions that one is asked is if one +has visited them. But when the time came for me to ascend those sinister +steps on Malabar Hill I need hardly say that my companion was a many +years' resident of Bombay who, although he had long intended to go +there, had hitherto neglected his opportunities. Throughout my travels I +was, it is pleasant to think, in this way the cause of more sightseeing +in others than they might ever have suffered. To give but one other +instance typical of many--I saw Faneuil Hall in Boston in the company +of a Bostonian some thirty years of age, whose office was within a few +yards of this historic and very interesting building, and whose business +is more intimately associated with culture than any other, but who had +never before crossed the threshold. + +The Towers of Silence, which are situated in a very beautiful park, with +little temples among the trees and flowers, consist of five circular +buildings, a model of one of which is displayed to visitors. Inside the +tower is an iron grating on which the naked corpses are laid, and no +sooner are they there than the awaiting vultures descend and consume +the flesh. I saw these grisly birds sitting expectantly in rows on the +coping of the towers, and the sight was almost too gruesome. Such is +their voracity that the body is a skeleton in an hour or so. The Parsees +choose this method of dissolution because since they worship fire they +must not ask it to demean itself with the dead; and both earth and water +they hold also too sacred to use for burial. Hence this strange and--at +the first blush--repellant compromise. The sight of the cemetery that +awaits us in England is rarely cheering, but if to that cemetery were +attached a regiment of cruel and hideous birds of prey we should shudder +indeed. Whether the Parsees shudder I cannot say, but they give no sign +of it. They build their palaces in full view of these terrible Towers, +pass, on their way to dinner parties, luxuriously in Rolls-Royces beside +the trees where the vultures roost, and generally behave themselves as +if this were the best possible of worlds and the only one. And I think +they are wise. + +Oriental apathy, or, at any rate, unruffled receptiveness, may carry its +owner very far, and yet if these vultures cause no misgivings, no chills +at the heart, I shall be surprised. As for those olive-skinned Parsee +girls, with the long oval faces and the lustrous eyes--how must it +strike them? + +It was not till I went to the caves of Elephanta that I saw vultures +in their marvellous flight. It is here that they breed, and the sky was +full of them at an incredible distance up, resting on their great +wings against the wind, circling and deploying. At this height they are +magnificent. But seen at close quarters they are horrible, revolting. On +a day's hunting which I shall describe later I was in at the death of +a gond, or swamp-deer, at about noon, and we returned for the carcase +about three hours later, only to find it surrounded by some hundreds of +these birds tearing at it in a kind of frenzy of gluttony. They were not +in the least disconcerted by our approach, and not until the bearers had +taken sticks to them would they leave. The heavy half-gorged flapping of +a vulture's wings as it settles itself to a new aspect of its repast is +the most disgusting sight I have seen. + +To revert to the Towers of Silence, one is brought very near to death +everywhere in the East. We have our funeral corteges at home, with +sufficient frequency, but they do not emphasize the thought of the +necessary end of all things as do the swathed corpses that one meets so +often being carried through the streets, on their way to this or that +burning place. In Bombay I met several every day, with their bearers and +followers all in white, and all moving with the curious trot that seems +to be reserved for such obsequies. There were always, also, during my +stay, new supplies of fire-wood outside the great Hindu burning ground +in Queen's Road; and yet no epidemic was raging; the city was normal +save for a strike of mill-hands. It is true that I met wedding parties +almost equally often; but in India a wedding party is not, as with us, a +suggestion of new life to replace the dead, for the brides so often are +infants. + +One of the differences between the poor of London and the poor of India +may be noticed here. In the East-End a funeral is considered to be +a failure unless its cost is out of all proportion to the survivors' +means, while a wedding is a matter of a few shillings; whereas in India +a funeral is a simple ceremony, to be hurried over, while the wedding +festivities last for weeks and often plunge the family into debts from +which they never recover. + + + + +THE GARLANDS + + +The selective processes of the memory are very curious. It has been +decreed that one of my most vivid recollections of Bombay should be that +of the embarrassment and half-amused self-consciousness of an American +business man on the platform of the railway station for Delhi. Having +completed his negotiatory visit he was being speeded on his way by +the native staff of the firm, who had hung him with garlands like a +sacrificial bull. In the Crawford Market I had watched the florists at +work tearing the blossoms from a kind of frangipani known as the Temple +Flower, in order to string them tightly into chains; and now and again +in the streets one came upon people wearing them; but to find a +shrewd and portly commercial American thus bedecked was a shock. As it +happened, he was to share my compartment, and on entering, just before +the train started, he apologised very heartily for importing so much +heavy perfume into the atmosphere, but begged to be excused because +it was the custom of the country and he didn't like to hurt anyone's +feelings. He then stood at the door, waving farewells, and directly the +line took a bend flung the wreaths out of the window. I was glad of his +company, for in addition to these floral offerings his Bombay associates +had provided him with a barrel of the best oranges that ever were +grown--sufficient for a battalion--and these we consumed at brief +intervals all the way to Delhi. + + + + +DELHI + + +"If you can be in India only so short a time as seven weeks," said an +artist friend of mine--and among his pictures is a sombre representation +of the big sacred bull that grazes under the walls of Delhi Fort--"why +not stay in Delhi all the while? You will then learn far more of India +than by rushing about." I think he was right, although it was not +feasible to accept the advice. For Delhi has so much; it has, first and +foremost, the Fort; it has the Jama Masjid, that immense mosque where +on Fridays at one o'clock may be seen Mohammedans of every age wearing +every hue, thousands worshipping as one; it has the ancient capitals +scattered about the country around it; it has signs and memories of +the Mutiny; it has delectable English residences; and it has the Chadni +Chauk, the long main street with all its curious buildings and +crowds and countless tributary alleys, every one of which is the East +crystallised, every one of which has its white walls, its decorative +doorways, its loiterers, its beggars, its artificers, and its defiance +of the bogey, Progress. + +Another thing: in January, Delhi, before the sun is high and after he +has sunk, is cool and bracing. + +But, most of all, Delhi is interesting because it was the very centre +of the Mogul dominance, and when one has become immersed in the story +of the great rulers, from Babar to Aurungzebe, one thinks of most other +history as insipid. Of Babar, who reigned from 1526 to 1530, I saw no +trace in India; but his son Humayun (1530-1556) built Indrapat, which is +just outside the walls of Delhi, and he lies close by in the beautiful +mausoleum that bears his name. Humayun's son, Akbar (1556-1605), +preferred Agra to Delhi; nor was Jahangir (1605-1627), who succeeded +Akbar, a great builder hereabout; but with Shah Jahan (1627-1658), +Jahangir's son, came the present Delhi's golden age. He it was who built +the Jama Masjid, the great mosque set commandingly on a mound and gained +by magnificent flights of steps. To the traveller approaching the city +from any direction the two graceful minarets of the mosque stand for +Delhi. It was Shah Jahan, price of Mogul builders, who decreed also the +palace in the Fort, to say nothing (at the moment) of the Taj Mahal at +Agra; while two of his daughters, Jahanara, and Roshanara, that naughty +Begam, enriched Delhi too, the little pavilion in the Gardens that +bear Roshanara's name being a gem. Wandering among these architectural +delights, now empty and under alien protection, it is difficult to +believe that their period was as recent as Cromwell and Milton. But in +India the sense of chronology vanishes. + +After Shah Jahan came his crafty son, Aurungzebe, who succeeded in +keeping his empire together until 1707, and with him the grandeur of the +Grand Moguls waned and after him ceased to be, although not until the +Mutiny was their rule extinguished. As I have just said, in India the +sense of chronology vanishes, or goes astray, and it is with a start +that one is confronted, in the Museum in Delhi Fort, by a photograph of +the last Mogul! + +In Bombay, during my wakeful moments in the hottest part of the day, +I had passed the time and imbibed instruction by reading the three +delightful books of the late E. H. Aitken, who called himself +"Eha"--"Behind the Bungalow," "The Tribes on My Frontier" and "A +Naturalist on the Prowl." No more amusing and kindly studies of the +fauna, flora and human inhabitants of a country can have ever been +written than these; and I can suggest, to the domestically curious mind, +no better preparation for a visit to India. But at Raisina, when the +cool evenings set in and it was pleasant to get near the wood fire, I +took to history and revelled in the story of the Moguls as told by many +authorities, but most entertainingly perhaps by Tavernier, the French +adventurer who took service under Aurungzebe. If any one wants to know +what Delhi was like in the seventeenth century during Aurungzebe's long +reign, and how the daily life in the Palace went, and would learn +more of the power and autocracy and splendour and cruelty of the Grand +Moguls, let him get Tavernier's record. If once I began to quote from it +I should never stop; and therefore I pass on, merely remarking that +when you have finished the travels of M. Tavernier, the travels of M. +Bernier, another contemporary French observer, await you. And I hold you +to be envied. + +The Palace in the Fort is now but a fraction of what it was in the +time of Aurungzebe and his father, but enough remains to enable the +imaginative mind to reconstruct the past, especially if one has read +my two annalists. One of Bernier's most vivid passages describes the +Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of Public Audience, the building to which, after +leaving the modern military part of the Fort, one first comes, where the +Moguls sat in state during a durbar, and painted and gilded elephants, +richly draped, took part in the obeisances. Next comes the Hall of +Private Audiences, where the Peacock Throne once stood. It has now +vanished, but in its day it was one of the wonders of the world, the +tails of the two guardian peacocks being composed of precious stones and +the throne itself being of jewelled gold. It was for this that one of +Shah Jahan's poets wrote an inscription in which we find such lines as-- + + By the order of the Emperor the azure of Heaven + was exhausted on its decoration.... + + The world had become so short of gold on account of + its use in the throne that the purse of the Earth + was empty of treasure.... + + On a dark night, by the lustre of its rubies and pearls + it can lend stars to a hundred skies.... + +That was right enough, no doubt, but when our poet went on to say, + + As long as a trace remains of existence and space + Shah Jahan shall continue to sit on this throne, + +we feel that he was unwise. Such pronouncements can be tested. As it +happened, Shah Jahan was destined, very shortly after the poem was +written, to be removed into captivity by his son, and the rest of his +unhappy life was spent in a prison at Agra. On each end wall of the Hall +of Private Audience is the famous couplet,-- + + If there is a Paradise on the face of the earth, + It is this, Oh! it is this, Oh! it is this. + +I think of the garden and palace of Delhi Fort as the loveliest spot +in India. Not the most beautiful, not the most impressive; but the +loveliest. The Taj Mahal has a greater beauty; the ruined city of +Fatehpur-Sikri has a greater dignity; but for the perfection of domestic +regality in design and material and workmanship, this marble home and +mosque and accompanying garden and terrace could not be excelled. +After the Halls of Audience we come to the seraglio and accompanying +buildings, where everything is perfect and nothing is on the grand +scale. The Pearl Mosque could hardly be smaller; and it is as pure and +fresh as a lotus. There is a series of apartments all in white marble +(with inlayings of gold and the most delicately pierced marble gratings) +through which a stream of water used to run (and it ran again at the +Coronation Durbar in 1911, when the Royal Baths were again made to +"function") that must be one of the most magical of the works of man. +Every inch is charming and distinguished. All these rooms are built +along the high wall which in the time of Shah Jahan and his many lady +loves was washed by the Jumna. But to-day the river has receded and a +broad strip of grass intervenes. + + + + +A DAY'S HAWKING + + +One of my best Indian days was that on which Colonel Sir Umar Hayat +Khan took us out a-hawking. Sir Umar is himself something of a hawk--an +impressive figure in his great turban with long streamers, his keen +aquiline features and blackest of hair. All sport comes naturally to +him, whether hunting or shooting, pig-sticking, coursing or falconry; +and the Great War found him with a sportsman's eagerness to rush into +the fray, where he distinguished himself notably. + +We found this gallant chieftain in the midst of his retainers on the +further bank of the Jumna, at the end of the long bridge. Here the +plains begin--miles of fields of stubble, with here and there a tree +and here and there a pool or marsh, as far as eye can reach, an ancient +walled city in the near distance being almost the only excrescence. +Between the river and this city was our hunting ground. + +With the exception of Sir Umar, two of his friends and ourselves, the +company was on foot; and nothing more like the middle ages did I ever +see. The retainers were in every kind of costume, one having an old pink +coat and one a green; one leading a couple of greyhounds in case we put +up a hare; others carrying guns (for we were prepared for all); while +the chief falconer and his assistants had their hawks on their wrists, +and one odd old fellow was provided with a net, in which a captive live +hawk was to flutter and struggle to attract his hereditary foes, the +little birds, who, deeming him unable to hit back, were to swarm down to +deride and defy and be caught in the meshes. + +I may say at once that hawking, particularly in this form, does not give +me much pleasure. There is something magnificent in the flight of the +falcon when it is released and flung towards its prey, but the odds are +too heavy in its favour and the whimperings of the doomed quarry strike +a chill in the heart. We flew our hawks at duck and plovers, and missed +none. Often the first swoop failed, but the deadly implacable pursuer +was instantly ready to swoop again, and rarely was a third manoeuvre +necessary. Man, under the influence of the excitement of the chase, is +the same all the world over, and there was no difference between these +Indians moving swiftly to intervene between the hawk and its stricken +prey and an English boy running to retrieve his rabbit. Their animation +and triumph--even their shouts and cries--were alike. + +And so we crossed field after field on our gentle steeds--and no one +admires gentleness in a horse more than I--stopping only to watch +another tragedy of the air, or to look across the river to Delhi and see +the Fort under new conditions. All this country I had so often looked +down upon from those high massive walls, standing in one of the +lovely windows of Shah Jahan's earthly paradise; and now the scene was +reversed, and I began to take more delight in it than in the sport. But +at a pond to which we next came there was enacted a drama so absorbing +that everything else was forgotten, even the heat of the sun. + +Upon this pond were three wild-duck at which a falcon was instantly +flown. For a while, however, they kept their presence of mind and +refused to leave the water--diving beneath the surface at the moment +that the enemy was within a foot of them. On went the hawk, in its +terrible, cruel onset, and up came the ducks, all ready to repeat these +tactics when it turned and attacked again. But on one of the party (I +swear it was not I), in order to assist the hawk, firing his gun, two of +the ducks became panic-stricken and left the water, only of course to +be quickly destroyed. It was on the hawk's return journey to the pond +to make sure of the third duck that I saw for the first time in my +life--and I hope the last--the expression on the countenance of these +terrible birds in the execution of their duty: more than the mere +execution of duty, the determination to have no more nonsense, to put an +end to anything so monstrous as self-protection in others; for my horse +being directly in the way, he flew under its neck and for a moment I +thought that he was confusing me with the desired mallard. Nothing more +merciless or purposeful did I ever see. + +Then began a really heroic struggle on the part of the victim. He +timed his dives to perfection, and escaped so often that the spirit of +chivalry would have decreed a truce. But blood had been tasted, and, the +desire being for more, the guns were again discharged. Not even they, +however, could divert the duck from his intention of saving his life, +and he dived away from the shot, too. + +It was at this moment that assistance to the gallant little bird +arrived--not from man, who was past all decency, but from brother +feathers. Out of a clear sky suddenly appeared two tern, dazzling in +their whiteness, and these did all in their power to infuriate the hawk +and lure him from the water. They flew round him and over him; they +called him names; they said he was a bully and that all of us (which was +true) ought to be ashamed of ourselves; they daunted and challenged and +attacked. But the enemy was too strong for them. A fusillade drove them +off, and once again we were free to consider the case of the duck, who +was still swimming anxiously about, hoping against hope. More shots were +fired, one of the boys waded in with a stick, and the dogs were added +to the assault; and in the face of so determined a bombardment the poor +little creature at last flew up, to be struck down within a few seconds +by the insatiable avenger. + +That was the crowning event of the afternoon. Thereafter we had only +small successes, and some very pronounced failures when, as happened +several times, a bird flew for safety through a tree, and the hawk, +following, was held up amid the branches. One of the birds thus to +escape was a blue jay of brilliant beauty. We also got some hares. And +then we loitered back under the yellowing sky, and Sir Umar Hayat Khan +ceased suddenly to be a foe of fur and feathers and became a poet, +talking of sunsets in India and in England as though the appreciation of +tender beauty were his only delight. + + + + +NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI + + +There have been seven Delhis; and it required no little courage to +establish a new one--the Imperial capital--actually within sight of most +of them; but the courage was forthcoming. Originally the position was to +be to the north of the present city, where the Coronation Durbar spread +its canvas, but Raisina was found to be healthier, and it is there, some +five miles to the south-west, that the new palaces are rising from the +rock. Fatehpur-Sikri is the only city with which the New Delhi can +be compared; but not Akbar himself could devise it on a nobler scale. +Akbar's centralising gift and Napoleon's spacious views may be said to +combine here, the long avenues having kinship with the Champs Elysees, +and Government House and the Secretariat on the great rocky plateau at +Raisina corresponding to the palace on Fatehpur-Sikri's highest point. +The splendour and the imagination which designed the lay-out of Imperial +Delhi cannot be over-praised, and under the hands of Sir Edwin Lutyens +and Mr. Herbert Baker some wonderful buildings are coming to life. The +city, since it is several square miles in extent, cannot be finished for +some years, but it may be ready to be the seat of Government as soon as +1924. + +As I have said, the old Delhis are all about the new one. On the Grand +Trunk road out of Delhi proper, which goes to Muttra and Agra, you pass, +very quickly, on the left, the remains of Firozabad, the capital of +Firoz Shah in the later thirteenth century. Two or three miles further +on is Indrapat on its hill overlooking the Jumna, surrounded by lofty +walls. It is as modern as the sixteenth century, but is now in ruins. +At Indrapat reigned Humayun, the son of the mighty Babar (who on his +conquering way to Delhi had swum every river in advance of his army) +and the father of the mighty Akbar. I loitered long within Indrapat's +massive walls, which are now given up to a few attendants and an +occasional visitor, and like all the monuments around Delhi are most +carefully conserved under the Act for that purpose, which was not the +least of Lord Curzon's Viceregal achievements. Among the buildings which +still stand, rising from the turf, is Humayun's library. It was here +that he met his end--one tradition relating that he fell in the dark +on his way to fetch a book, and another that his purpose had been less +intellectually amatory. + +Another mile and we come, still just beside the Grand Trunk road, +to Humayun's Tomb, which stands in a vast garden where green parrots +continually chatter and pursue each other. There is something very +charming--a touch of the truest civilisation, if civilisation means +the art of living graciously--in the practice of the old Emperors and +rulers, of building their mausoleums during their lifetime and using +them, until their ultimate destiny was fulfilled, as pleasure resorts. +To this enchanting spot came Humayun and his ladies full of life, to +be insouciant and gay. Then, his hour striking, Humayun's happy retreat +became Humayun's Tomb. He died in 1556, when Queen Mary, in England, was +persecuting Protestants. The Tomb is in good repair and to the stranger +to the East who has not yet visited Agra and seen the Taj Mahal (which +has a similar ground plan), it is as beautiful as need be. Humayun's +cenotaph, in plain white marble, is in the very centre. Below, in the +vault immediately beneath it, are his remains. Other illustrious dust is +here, too; and some less illustrious, such as that of Humayun's barber, +which reposes beneath a dome of burning-blue tiles in a corner of the +garden. + +From the upper galleries of the Emperor's mausoleum the eye enjoys +various rich prospects--the valley of the Jumna pulsating in the heat, +the walls of the New Delhi at Raisina almost visibly growing, and, to +the north, Delhi itself, with the twin towers of the great mosque over +all. Down the Grand Trunk road, immediately below, are bullock wagons +and wayfarers, and here and there is a loaded camel. Across the road is +a curious little group of sacred buildings whither some of the wayfarers +no doubt are bent on a pilgrimage; for here is the shrine of the Saint +Nizam-ud-din Aulia, who worked miracles during his life and died during +the reign of our Edward II--in 1324. + +On visiting his shrine (which involved the usual assumption of overshoes +to prevent our infidel leather from contaminating the floor), we fell, +after evading countless beggars and would-be guides, into the hands of a +kindly old man who pressed handfuls of little white nuts upon us and who +remains in my memory as the only independent Mussulman priest in India, +for he refused a tip. In this respect nothing could be more widely +separated than his conduct and that of the three priests of the Jama +Masjid in Delhi, who, discovering us on the wall, just before the +Friday service began, held up the service for several minutes while they +explained their schedule of gratuities--beginning with ten rupees +for the High Priest--and this after we had already provided for the +attendant who had supplied the overshoes and had led us to the point of +vantage! I thought how amusing it would be if a visitor to an English +cathedral--where money usually has to pass, as it is--were surrounded by +the Dean, Archdeacon, Canons and Minor Canons, with outstretched hands, +and had to buy his way to a sight of the altar, according to the status +of each. The spectacle would be as odd to us, as it must be to the +French or Italians--and even perhaps Americans--to see a demand for an +entrance fee on the Canterbury portals. + +Were we to continue on the Grand Trunk road for a few miles, first +crossing a noble Mogul bridge, we should come to a little walled city, +Badapur, where a turning due west leads to another Delhi of the past, +Tughlakabad, and on to yet another, the remains of Lal Kot, where the +famous Minar soars to the sky. + +One of the most pleasing effects of the New Delhi is the series of +vistas which the lay-out provides. It has been so arranged that many of +the avenues radiating from the central rock on which Government House +and the Secretariat are being set are closed at their distant ends by +historic buildings. Standing on the temporary tower which marks this +centre one is able to see in a few moments all the ruined cities that I +have mentioned. The Kutb Minar is the most important landmark in the +far south, although the eye rests most lovingly on the red and white +comeliness of the tomb of Safdar Jang in the middle distance--which, +with Humayun's Tomb, makes a triangle with the new Government House. +Within that triangle are the Lodi tombs, marking yet another period +in the history of Delhi, the Lodis being the rulers who early in the +fifteenth century were defeated by Babar. + +The Kutb Minar enclosure, which is a large garden, where beautiful +masonry, flowers, trees and birds equally flourish, commemorates the +capture of Delhi by Muhammad bin Sam in 1193, the battle being directed +by his lieutenant, Kutb-ud-din. From that time until the Mutiny in 1857 +Delhi was under Mohammedan rule. One of the first acts of the conqueror +was to destroy the Hindu temple that stood here and erect the mosque +that now takes its place, and he then built the great tower known as the +Kutb Minar, or Tower of Victory, which ascends in diminishing red +and white storeys to a height of 235 feet, involving the inquisitive +view-finder in a climb of 379 steps. On the other side of the mosque +are the beginnings of a second tower, which, judging by the size of the +base, was to have risen to a still greater height, but it was abandoned +after 150 feet. Its purpose was to celebrate for ever the glory of the +Emperor Ala-ud-din (1296-1316). + +In front of the mosque is the Iron Pillar which has been the cause of so +much perplexity both to antiquaries and chemists, and meat and drink to +Sanscrit scholars. The pillar has an inscription commemorating an early +monarch named Chandra who conquered Bengal in the fifth century, and it +must have been brought to this spot for re-erection. But its refusal to +rust, and the purity of its constituents, are its special merits. To me +the mysteries of iron pillars are without interest, and what I chiefly +remember of this remarkable pleasaunce is the exquisite stone carvings +of the ruined cloisters and the green parrots that play among the trees. + + + + +THE DIVERS + + +As we were leaving the Kutb after a late afternoon visit, my host and +I were hailed excitedly by an elderly man whose speech was +incomprehensible, but whose gestures indicated plainly enough that there +was something important up the hill. The line of least resistance being +the natural one in India, we allowed him to guide us, and came after a +few minutes, among the ruins of the citadel of Lal Kot, to one of those +deep wells gained by long flights of steps whither the ladies of the +palaces used to resort in the hottest weather. Evening was drawing on +and the profundities of this cavern were forbiddingly gloomy; nor was +the scene rendered more alluring by the presence of three white-bearded +old men, almost stark naked and leaner than greyhounds, who shivered +and grimaced, and suggested nothing so much as fugitives from the +grave. They were, however, not only alive, but athletically so, being +professional divers who earned an exceedingly uncomfortable living by +dropping, feet first, from the highest point of the building into the +water eighty feet below. + +One of them indicating his willingness--more than willingness, +eagerness--to perform this manoeuvre for two rupees, we agreed, and +placing us on a step from which the best view could be had, he fled +along the gallery to the top of the shaft, and after certain preliminary +movements, to indicate how perilous was the adventure, and how chilly +the evening, and how more than worth two rupees it was, he committed +his body to the operations of the law of gravity. We saw it through the +apertures in the shaft on its downward way and then heard the splash as +it reached the distant water, while a crowd of pigeons who had retired +to roost among the masonry dashed out and away. The diver emerged from +the well and came running up the steps towards us, while his companion +scarecrows fled also to the top of the shaft and one after the other +dropped down, too; so that in a minute or so we were surrounded by three +old, dripping men, each demanding two rupees. Useless to protest that we +had desired but one of them to perform: they pursued us into the open, +and even clung to our knees, and of course we paid--afterwards to learn +that one rupee for the lot was a lavish guerdon. + +One meets with these divers continually, wherever there is a pool sacred +or otherwise; but some actually leap into the water and do not merely +drop. At the shrine of the Saint Nizam-ud-din, near Humayun's Tomb, I +found them--but there they were healthy-looking youths--and again at +Fatehpur-Sikri. But for this sporadic diving, the wrestling bouts which +are common everywhere, the Nautch and the jugglers, India seems to have +no pastimes. + + + + +THE ROPE TRICK + + +The returning traveller from India is besieged by questioners who want +to know all about the most famous of the jugglers' performances. In this +trick the magician flings a rope into the air, retaining one end in his +hand, and his boy climbs up it and disappears. I did not see it. + + + + +AGRA AND FATEHPUR-SIKRI + + +All the Indian cities that I saw seemed to cover an immense acreage, +partly because every modern house has its garden and compound. In a +country where land is cheap and servants are legion there need be no +congestion, and, so far, the Anglo-Indian knows little or nothing of the +embarrassments of dwellers in New York or London. To every one in India +falls naturally a little faithful company of assistants to oil the +wheels of life--groom, gardener, butler and so forth--and a spacious +dwelling-place to think of England in, and calculate the variable value +of the rupee, and wonder why the dickens So-and-so got his knighthood. +Agra seemed to me to be the most widespreading city of all; but very +likely it is not. In itself it is far from being the most interesting, +but it has one building of great beauty--the Pearl Mosque in the +Fort--and one building of such consummate beauty as to make it a place +of pilgrimage that no traveller would dare to avoid--the Taj Mahal. +Whether or not the Taj Mahal is the most enchanting work of architecture +in the world I leave it to more extensive travellers to say. To my eyes +it has an unearthly loveliness which I make no effort to pass on to +others. + +The Taj Mahal was built by that inspired friend of architecture, Shah +Jahan, as the tomb of the best beloved of his wives, Arjmand Banu, +called Mumtaz-i-Mahal or Pride of the Palace. There she lies, and +there lies her husband. I wonder how many of the travellers who stand +entranced before this mausoleum, in sunshine and at dusk or under the +moon, and who have not troubled about its history, realise that Giotto's +Tower in Florence is three centuries older, and St. Peter's in Rome +antedates it by a little, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London is only +twenty or thirty years younger. Yet so it is. In India one falls +naturally into the way of thinking of everything that is not of our own +time as being of immense age, if not prehistoric. + +Opinions differ as to the respective beauties of Agra Fort and Delhi +Fort, but in so far as the enclosures themselves are considered I give +my vote unhesitatingly to Delhi. Yet when one thinks also of what can +be seen from the ramparts, then the palm goes instantly to Agra, for its +view of the Taj Mahal. It is tragic, walking here, to think of the last +days of Shah Jahan, who brought into being both the marble palace +and the wonderful Moti-Masjid or marble mosque. For in 1658 his son, +Aurungzebe, deposed him and for the rest of his life he was imprisoned +in these walls. + +His grandfather, Akbar, the other great Agra builder, was made of +sterner stuff. All Shah Jahan's creations--the Taj, the marble mosque, +the palaces both here and at Delhi, even the great Jama Masjid at +Delhi,--have a certain sensuous quality. They are not exactly decadent, +but they suggest sweetness rather than strength. The Empire had been +won, and Shah Jahan could indulge in luxury and ease. But Akbar had had +to fight, and he remained to the end a man of action, and we see his +character reflected in his stronghold Fatehpur-Sikri, which one visits +from Agra and never forgets. If I were asked to say which place in India +most fascinated me and touched the imagination I think I should name +this dead city. + +Akbar, the son of Babar, is my hero among the Moguls, and this was +Akbar's chosen home, until scarcity of water forced him to abandon it +for Agra. Akbar, the noblest of the great line of Moguls whose splendour +ended in 1707 with the death of Aurungzebe, came to the throne in 1556, +only eight years before Shakespeare was born, and died in 1605, and +it is interesting to realise how recent were his times, the whole +suggestion of Fatehpur-Sikri being one of very remote antiquity. Yet +when it was being built so modern a masterpiece as _Hamlet_ was being +written and played. Those interested in the Great Moguls ought really +to visit Fatehpur-Sikri before Delhi or Agra, because Akbar was the +grandfather of Shah Jahan. But there can be no such chronological +wanderings in India. Have we not already seen Humayun's Tomb, outside +Delhi?--and Humayun was Akbar's father. + + They say the leopard and the jackal keep + The courts where Akbar gloried.... +--this adaptation of FitzGerald's lines ran through my mind as we passed +from room to room and tower to tower of Fatehpur-Sikri. There is nothing +to compare with it, except perhaps Pompeii. And in that comparison one +realises how impossible it is at a hazard to date an Indian ruin, for, +as I have said, Fatehpur-Sikri is from the days of Elizabeth, while +Pompeii was destroyed in the first century, and yet Pompeii in many ways +seems less ancient. + +The walls of Fatehpur-Sikri are seven miles round and the city rises to +the summits of two steep hills. It was on the higher one that Akbar set +his palace. Civilisation has run a railway through the lower levels; the +old high road still climbs the hill under the incredibly lofty walls of +the palace. The royal enclosure is divided into all the usual courtyards +and apartments, but they are on a grander scale. Also the architecture +is more mixed. Here is the swimming bath; here are the cool, dark rooms +for the ladies of the harem in the hottest days, with odd corners where +Akbar is said to have played hide-and-seek with them; here is the +hall where Akbar, who kept an open mind on religion, listened to, and +disputed with, dialecticians of varying creeds--himself seated in the +middle, and the doctrinaires in four pulpits around him; here is +the Mint; here is the house of the Turkish queen, with its elaborate +carvings and decorations; here is the girls' school, with a courtyard +laid out for human chess, the pieces being slave-girls; here is a noble +mosque; here is the vast court where the great father of his people +administered justice, or what approximated to it, and received homage. +Here are the spreading stables and riding school; here is even the tomb +of a favourite elephant. + +And here is the marble tomb of the Saint, the Shaikh Salim, whose +holiness brought it about that the Emperor became at last the father of +a son--none other than Jahangir. The shrine is visited even to this day +by childless wives, who tie shreds of their clothing to the lattice-work +of a marble window as an earnest of their maternal worthiness. It is +visited also by the devout for various purposes, among others by those +whose horses are sick and who nail votive horseshoes to the great gate. +According to tradition the mother of Jahangir was a Christian named +Miriam, and her house and garden may be seen, the house having the +traces of a fresco which by those who greatly wish it can be believed to +represent the Annunciation. Tradition, however, is probably wrong, and +the princess was from Jaipur and a true Mussulwoman. + +From every height--and particularly from the Panch Mahal's roof--one +sees immense prospects and realises what a landmark the stronghold of +Fatehpur-Sikri must have been to the dwellers in the plains; but no view +is the equal of that which bursts on the astonished eyes at the great +north gateway, where all Rajputana is at one's feet. I do not pretend to +any exhaustive knowledge of the gates of the world, but I cannot believe +that there can be others set as this Gate of Victory is in the walls of +a palace, at the head of myriad steps, on the very top of a commanding +rock and opening on to thousands of square miles of country. Having seen +the amazing landscape one descends the steps to the road, and looking +up is astonished and exalted by seeing the gate from below. Nothing +so grand has ever come into my ken. The Taj Mahal is unforgettingly +beautiful; but this glorious gate in the sky has more at once to +exercise and stimulate the imagination and reward the vision. + +On the gate are the words: "Isa (Jesus), on whom be peace, said: 'The +world is a bridge; pass over it, but build no house on it. The world +endures but an hour; spend it in devotion.'" + +Having seen Fatehpur-Sikri, where Akbar lived and did more than build +a house, it is a natural course to return to Agra by way of Sikandra, +where he was buried. Sikandra is like the Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb +in general disposition--the mausoleum itself being in the centre of a +garden. But it is informed by a more sombre spirit. The burial-place +of the mighty Emperor is in the very heart of the building, gained by a +sloping passage lit by an attendant with a torch. Here was Akbar laid, +while high above, on the topmost stage of the mausoleum, in the full +light, is his cenotoph of marble, with the ninety-nine names of Allah +inscribed upon it. Near the cenotaph is a marble pillar on which once +was set the Koh-i-noor diamond, chief of Akbar's treasures. To-day it is +part of the English regalia. + + + + +LUCKNOW + + +The Ridge at Delhi is a sufficiently moving reminder of the Indian +Mutiny; but it is at Lucknow that the most poignant phases are +re-enacted. At Delhi may be seen, preserved for ever, the famous +buildings which the British succeeded in keeping--Hindu Rao's house, +and the Observatory, and Flagstaff Tower, the holding of which gave them +victory; while in the walls of the Kashmir Gate our cannon balls are +still visibly imbedded. There is also the statue of John Nicholson in +the Kudsia Garden, and in the little Museum of the Fort are countless +souvenirs. + +But Lucknow was the centre of the tragedy, and the Residency is +preserved as a sacred spot. Not even the recent Great War left in its +track any more poignant souvenirs of fortitude and disaster than the +little burial ground here, around the ruins of the church, where those +who fell in the Mutiny and those who fought or suffered in the Mutiny +are lying. Long ago as it was--1857--there are still a few vacant lots +destined to be filled. Chief of the tombstones that bear the honoured +names is that of the heroic defender who kept upon the topmost roof the +banner of England flying. It has the simple and touching inscription: +"Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. May the Lord have +mercy on his soul!" + +In the Residency every step of the siege and relief can be followed. +I was there first on a serene evening after rain; and but for some +tropical trees it might have been an English scene. All that was lacking +was a thrush or blackbird's note; but the grass was as soft and green +as at home and the air as sweet. I shall long retain the memory of the +contrast between the incidents which give this enclosure its unique +place in history and the perfect calm brooding over all. And whenever +any one calls my attention to a Bougainvillaea I shall say, "Ah! But you +should see the Bougainvillaea in the Residency garden at Lucknow." + +Everywhere that I went in India I found this noble lavish shrub in full +flower, but never wearing such a purple as at Lucknow. The next best was +in the Fort at Delhi. It was not till I reached Calcutta that I caught +any glimpse of the famous scarlet goldmore tree in leaf; but I saw +enough to realise how splendid must be the effect of an avenue of them. +Bombay, however, was rich in hedges of poinsettia, and they serve as an +introduction to the goldmore's glory. + +Before leaving the Residency I should like to quote a passage from the +little brochure on the defence of Lucknow which Sir Harcourt Butler, the +Governor of the United Provinces, with characteristic thoughtfulness has +prepared for the use of his guests. "The visitor to the Residency," +he wrote, thinking evidently of a similar evening to that on which we +visited it, "who muses on the past and the future, may note that upon +the spot where the enemy's assault was hottest twin hospitals for +Europeans and Indians have been erected by Oudh's premier Taluqdar, +the Maharaja of Balrampur; and as the sun sets over the great city, +lingering awhile on the trim lawns and battered walls which link the +present with the past, a strong hope may come to him, like a distant +call to prayer, that old wounds may soon be healed, and old causes of +disunion may disappear, and that Englishmen and Indians, knit together +by loyalty to their beloved Sovereign, may be as brothers before the +altar of the Empire, bearing the Empire's burden, and sharing its +inestimable privileges, and, it may be, adding something not yet seen or +dreamt of to its world-wide and weather-beaten fame." + +I left Lucknow with regret, and would advise any European with time +to spare, and the desire to be at once civilised and warm, to think +seriously of spending a winter there instead of in the illusory sunshine +of the Riviera, or the comparative barbarity of Algiers. The journey is +longer, but the charm of the place would repay. + + + + +A TIGER + + +To have the opportunity of hunting a tiger--on an elephant too--which by +a stroke of luck fell to me, is to experience the un-English character +of India at its fullest. Almost everything else could be reproduced +elsewhere--the palaces, the bazaars, the caravans, the mosques and +temples with their worshippers--but not the jungle, the Himalayas, the +vast swamps through which our elephants waded up to the Plimsoll, the +almost too painful ecstasies of the pursuit of an eater of man. + +The master of the chase, who has many tigers to his name, was Sir +Harcourt Butler, whose hospitality is famous, so large and warm is it, +and so minute, and it was because he was not satisfied that the ordinary +diversions of the "Lucknow Week" were sufficient for his guests, that +he impulsively arranged a day's swamp-deer shooting on the borders +of Nepaul. The time was short, or of elephants there would have been +seventy or more; as it was, we were apologised to (there were only about +six of us) for the poverty of the supply, a mere five and twenty being +obtainable. But to these eyes, which had never seen more than six +elephants at once, and those in the captivity either of a zoo or a +circus, a row of five and twenty was astounding. They were waiting for +us on the plain, at a spot distant some score of miles by car, through +improvised roads, from the station, whither an all-night railway +journey had borne us. The name of the station, if I ever knew it, I have +forgotten: there was no room in my heated brain for such trifles; but I +have forgotten nothing else. + +It was after an hour and a half's drive in the cool and spicy early +morning air--between the fluttering rags on canes which told the drivers +how to steer--that we came suddenly in sight of some distant tents and +beside them an immense long dark inexplicable mass which through the +haze seemed now and then to move. As we drew nearer, this mass was +discerned to be a row of elephants assembled in line ready to salute the +Governor. The effect was more impressive and more Eastern than anything +I had seen. Grotesque too--for some had painted faces and gilded toes, +and not a few surveyed me with an expression in which the comic spirit +was too noticeable. Six or seven had howdahs, the rest blankets: those +with howdahs being for the party and its leader, Bam Bahadur, a noted +shikaree; and the others to carry provisions and bring back the spoil. +On the neck of each sat an impassive mahout. + +To one to whom the pen is mightier than the gun and whose half a +century's bag contains only a few rabbits, a hedgehog and a moorhen, +it is no inconsiderable ordeal to be handed a repeating rifle and some +dozens of cartridges and be told that that is your elephant--the big one +there, with the red ochre on its forehead. To be on an elephant in +the jungle without the responsibilities of a lethal weapon would be +sufficient thrill for one day: but to be expected also to deal out death +was too much. In the company of others, however, one can do anything; +and I gradually ascended to the top, not, as the accomplished hunters +did, by placing a foot on the trunk and being swung heavenwards, but +painfully, on a ladder; by my side being a very keen Indian youth, +the son of a minor chieftain, who spoke English perfectly and was to +instruct me in Nimrod's lore. + +And so the procession started, and for a while discomfort set acutely +in, for the movement of a howdah is short and jerky, and it takes some +time both to adjust oneself to it and to lose the feeling that the +elephant sooner or later--and probably sooner--must trip and fall. But +the glory of the morning, the urgency of our progress, the novelty and +sublimity of the means of transport, the strangeness of the scene, and +my companion's speculations on the day's promise, overcame any personal +want of ease and I forgot myself in the universal. Our destination was +a series of marshes some six miles away, where the gonds--or +swamp-deer--were usually found, and we were divided up, some elephants, +of which mine was one, taking the left wing, with instructions on +reaching a certain spot to wait there for the deer who would move off in +that direction; others taking the right wing; and others beating up the +middle. + +We began with a trial of nervous stamina--for a river far down in its +bed below us almost immediately occurred, and this had to be crossed. +I abandoned all hope as the elephant descended the bank almost, as it +seemed, perpendicularly, and plunged into the water with an enormous +splash. But after he had squeeged through, extricating himself with a +gigantic wrench, the ground was level for a long while, and there was +time to look around and recollect one's fatalism. Far ahead in a blue +mist were the Himalayas. All about were unending fields, with here +and there white cattle grazing. Cranes stretched their necks above the +grass; now and then a herd of blackbuck (which were below our hunting +ambitions) scampered away; the sky was full of wild-duck and other +water-fowl. + +Of the hunting of the gond I should have something to say had not a +diversion occurred which relegated that lively and elusive creature to +an obscure place in the background. We had finished the beat, and most +of us had emerged from the swamp to higher ground where an open space, +or maidan, corresponding to a drive in an English preserve, but on the +grand scale, divided it from the jungle--all our thoughts being set upon +lunch--when suddenly across this open space passed a blur of yellow and +black only a few yards from the nearest elephant. It was so unexpected +and so quick that even the trained eyes of my companion were uncertain. +"Did you see?" he asked me in a voice of hushed and wondering awe. +"Could that have been a tiger?" I could not say, but I understood his +excitement. For the tiger is the king of Indian carnivorae, the most +desired of all game. Hunters date their lives by them: such and such +a thing happened not on the anniversary of their wedding day; not when +their boy went to Balliol; not when they received the K.C.I.E.; but in +the year that they shot this or that man-eater. + +That a tiger had really chanced upon us we soon ascertained. Also that +it had been hit by the rifle on the first elephant and had disappeared +into the jungle, which consisted hereabouts of a grass some twenty feet +high, bleached by the sun. + +A Council of War followed, and we were led by Bam Bahadur on a +rounding-up manoeuvre. According to his judgment the tiger would remain +just inside the cover, and our duty was therefore to make a wide detour +and then advance in as solid a semicircle as possible upon him and force +him again into the open, where the hunter who had inflicted the first +wound was to remain stationed. Accordingly all the rest of us entered +the jungle in single file, our elephants treading down the grass with +their great irresistible feet or wrenching it away with their invincible +trunks. It was now that the shikaree was feeling the elephant shortage. +Had there been seventy-five instead of only twenty-five, he said, all +would be well: he could then form a cordon such as no tiger might +break through. For lack of these others, when the time came to turn and +advance upon our prey he caused fires to be lighted here and there +where the gaps were widest, so that we forged onwards not only to +the accompaniment of the shrill cries of the mahouts and the noise of +plunging and overwhelming elephants, but to the fierce roar and crackle +of burning stalks. + +And thus, after an hour in this bewildering tangle, with the universe +filled with sound and strangeness, and the scent of wood smoke mingling +with the heat of the air, and the lust of the chase in our veins, we +drew to the spot where the animal was guessed to be hiding, and knew +that the guess was true by the demeanour of the elephants. Real danger +had suddenly entered into the adventure; and they showed it. A wounded +tiger at bay can do desperate things, and some of the elephants now +refused to budge forward any more, or complied only with terrified +screams. Some of the unarmed mahouts were also reluctant, and shouted +their fears. But the shikaree was inexorable. There the tiger was, and +we must drive it out. + +Closer and closer we drew, until every elephant's flank was pressing +against its neighbour, the outside ones being each at the edge of +the open space; in the middle of which was the twenty-fifth with its +vigilant rider standing tense with his rifle to his shoulder. The noise +was now deafening. Every one was uttering something, either to scare +the tiger or to encourage the elephants or his neighbour or possibly +himself; while now and then from the depths of the grass ahead of us +came an outraged growl, with more than a suggestion of contempt in it +for such unsportsmanship as could array twenty-five elephants, half a +hundred men and a dozen rifles against one inoffensive wild beast. + +And then suddenly the grass waved, there was a rustle and rush and a +snarl of furious rage, and once again a blur of yellow and black crossed +the open space. Six or more reports rang out, and to my dying day I +shall remember, with mixed feelings, that one of these reports was the +result of pressure on a trigger applied by a finger belonging to me. +That the tiger was hit again--by other bullets than mine--was certain, +but instead of falling it disappeared into the jungle on the other side +of the maidan, and again we were destined to employ enclosing tactics. +It was now intensely hot, but nobody minded; and we were an hour and a +half late for lunch, but nobody minded: the chase was all! The phrase +"out for blood" had taken on its literal primitive meaning. + +The second rounding-up was less simple than the first, because the tiger +had more choice of hiding places; but again our shikaree displayed his +wonderful intuition, and in about an hour we had ringed the creature +in. That this was to be the end was evident from the electrical +purposefulness which animated the old hands. The experienced shots were +carefully disposed, and my own peace of mind was not increased by the +warning "If the tiger leaps on your elephant, don't shoot"--the point +being that novices can be very wild with their rifles under such +conditions. As the question "What shall I do instead?" was lost in the +tumult, the latter stages of this momentous drama were seen by these +eyes less steadily and less whole than I could have wished. But I saw +the tiger spring, growling, at an elephant removed some four yards from +mine, and I saw it driven back by a shot from one of the native hunters. +And then when, after another period of anxious expectancy, it emerged +again from the undergrowth, and sprang towards our host, I saw him put +two bullets into it almost instantaneously; and the beautiful obstinate +creature fell, never to rise again. + + + + +THE SACRED CITY + + +The devout Hindu knows in Benares the height of ecstasy: but, if I am +typical, the European experiences there both discomfort and inquietude. +Nowhere else in India did I feel so foreign, so alien. To be of cool +Christian traditions and an Occidental, an inquisitive sightseer among +these fervent pilgrims intent upon their pious duties and rapt +in exaltation and unthinking inflexible belief, was in itself +disconcerting, almost to the point of shame; while the pilgrims were so +remarkably of a different world, a different era, that one felt lost. + +This, however, is not all. India is never too sanitary, except where the +English are in their own strongholds, but Benares--at any rate the parts +which the tourist must visit--is least scrupulous in such matters. The +canonization of the cow must needs carry a penalty with it, and Benares +might be described as a sanctified byre without any labouring Hercules +in prospect. Godliness it may have, but cleanliness is very distant. The +streets, too, seem to be narrower and more congested than those in any +other city; so that it is often embarrassingly difficult to treat the +approaching ruminants with the respect due to them. Fortunately they +are seldom anything but mild and unaggressive. Part perplexed, part +inquisitive, and part contemptuous, they are met everywhere, while +in one of the temples in which the unbeliever may (to his great +contentment) do no more than stand at the entrance, they are frankly +worshipped. In another temple monkeys are revered too, careering about +the walls and courtyards and being fed by the curious and the devout. + +Holiness is not only the peculiar characteristic of Benares: it is also +its staple industry. In the streets there is a shrine at every few feet, +while the shops where little lingams are for sale must be numbered by +hundreds. + +The chief glory of Benares is, however, the Ganges, on one side of which +is the teeming sweltering city with its palaces and temples heaped high +for two or three miles, and bathers swarming at the river's edge; while +the other bank is flat and bare. A watering-place front on the ocean's +shore does not end more suddenly and completely. There is nothing that +I have seen with which to compare the north bank of the Ganges, with the +morning sun on its many-coloured facades and towers, but Venice. As one +is rowed slowly down the river it is of Venice that one instinctively +thinks. As in Venice, the palaces are of various colours, pink and red +and yellow and blue, and the sun has crumbled their facades in the +same way. But there is this difference--that over the Benares roofs the +monkeys scamper. + +Gradually Venice is forgotten as the novel interest of the scene +captures one's whole attention. At each of the ghauts (a landing place +or steps) variegated masses of pilgrims--no matter how early the hour, +and to see them rightly one ought to start quite by six--are making +their ablutions and deriving holiness from the yellow tide. You saw them +yesterday trudging wearily through the streets, the sacred city at last +reached; and here they are in their thousands, brown and glistening. +They are of every age: quite old white-bearded men and withered women, +meticulously serious in their ritual, and then boys and girls deriving +also a little fun from their immersion. Here and there the bathing ghaut +is diversified by a burning ghaut, and one may catch a glimpse of the +extremities of the corpse twisting among the faggots. Here and there is +a boat or raft in which a priest is seated under his umbrella, fishing +for souls as men in punts on the Thames fish for roach. And over all +is the pitiless sun, hot even now, before breakfast, but soon to be +unbearable. + +I was not sorry when the voyage ended and we returned to the Maharajah's +Guest House for a little repose and refreshment, before visiting the +early Buddhist stronghold at Sarnath, the "Deer Park," where the Master +first preached his doctrine and whither his five attendants sought +a haven after they had forsaken him. Drifting about its ruins and +contemplating the glorious capital of the famous Asoka column--all that +has been preserved--I found myself murmuring the couplet,-- + + With a friendly Buddhist priest I seek respite from + the strife + And manifold anomalies which go to make up life-- + +but the odds are that even the early Buddhists were not immune. + + + + +CALCUTTA + + +Calcutta and Bombay are strangely different--so different that they can +only be contrasted. Bombay, first and foremost, has the sea, and I can +think of nothing more lovely than the sunsets that one watches from the +lawn of the Yacht Club or from the promenade on Warder Road. Calcutta +has no sea--nothing but a very difficult tidal river. Calcutta, again, +has no Malabar Hill. But then Bombay has no open space to compare +with the Maidan; and for all its crowded bazaars it has no street so +diversified and interesting as Harrison Road. It has no Chinatown. Its +climate is enervating where that of Calcutta, if not bracing--and no +one could call it that--at any rate does not extract every particle of +vigour from the European system. + +But the special glory of Calcutta is the Maidan, that vast green space +which, unlike so many parks, spreads itself at the city's feet. One +does not have to seek it: there it is, with room for every one and a +race-course and a cricket-ground to boot. And if there is no magic in +the evening prospect such as the sea and its ships under the flaming +or mysterious enveiling sky can offer to the eye at Bombay, there is a +quality of golden richness in the twilight over Calcutta, as seen across +the Maidan, through its trees, that is unique. I rejoiced in it daily. +This twilight is very brief, but it is exquisite. + +It is easier in Calcutta to be suddenly transported to England than +in any other Indian city that I visited. There are, it is true, more +statues of Lord Curzon than we are accustomed to; but many of the homes +are quite English, save for the multitude of servants; Government House, +serene and spacious and patrician, is a replica of Kedlestone Hall in +Derbyshire: the business buildings within and without are structurally +English, and the familiar Scotch accent sounds everywhere; but the +illusion is most complete in St. John's Church, that very charming, +cool, white and comfortable sanctuary, in the manner of Wren, and in St. +Andrew's too. Secluded here, the world shut off, one might as well be +in some urban conventicle at home on a sunny August day, as in the +glamorous East. St. John's particularly I shall remember: its light, its +distinction, its surrounding verdancy. + + + + +ROSE AYLMER + + + Ah, what avails the sceptred race, + Ah, what the form divine! + What every virtue, every grace! + Rose Aylmer, all were thine! + + Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes + May weep, but never see, + A night of memories and sighs + I consecrate to thee. + +One curious task which I set myself in Calcutta was to find Rose +Aylmer's grave, for it was there that, in 1800, the mortal part of the +lady whom Landor immortalised was buried. But I tried in vain. I walked +for hours amid the sombre pyramidal tombs beneath which the Calcutta +English used to be laid, among them, in 1815, Thackeray's father, but I +found no trace of her whom I sought. I have seen many famous cemeteries, +all depressing, from Kensal Green to Genoa, from Rock Creek to +Montmartre, but none can approach in its forlorn melancholy the tract of +stained and crumbling sarcophagi packed so close as almost to touch each +other, in the burial ground off Rawdon Street and Park Street. Let no +one establish a monument of cement over me. Any material rather than +that! + + + + +JOB AND JOE + + +If I did not find Rose Aylmer's tomb, I found, in St. John's pleasant +God's Acre, the comely mausoleum of Job Charnock, and this delighted me, +because for how long has been ringing in my ears that line-- + + "The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown + girl's for you." + +which I met with so many years ago in "The Light That Failed," where the +Nilghai sings it to his own music! He got it, he said, from a tombstone, +in a distant land; and the tombstone is now incorporated with Job +Charnock's, the distant land being India; but the verses I have had to +collect elsewhere. I found them in Calcutta, in my host's library. + +Joe was Joseph, or Josiah, Townsend, a pilot of the Ganges, and +tradition has it that he and Job Charnock, who, as an officer of the +East India Company, founded Calcutta in 1690, saved a pretty young Hindu +widow from ascending her husband's funeral pyre and committing suttee. +Tradition states further that Job Charnock and his bride "lived lovingly +for many years and had several children," until in due time she was +buried in the mausoleum at St. John's, where her husband sacrificed a +cock on each anniversary of her death ever after. The story has been +examined and found to be improbable, but Charnock was a bold fellow who +might easily have started many legends; and the poem remains, and if +there is a livelier, I should like to know of it. I have been at the +agreeable pains of reconstructing the verses as they were probably +written, so that there are two more than the Nilghai sang. The whole is +a very curious haunting ballad, leaving us with the desire to know much +more of the lives of both men--Job Charnock the frontiersman, and Joseph +Townsend, "skilful and industrious, a kind father and a useful friend," +who could navigate not only the Ganges but the shifting Hooghli. Rarely +can so much mixed autobiography and romance have been packed into six +stanzas--and here too the adventurous East and West meet:-- + + I've shipped my cable, messmates, I'm dropping down + with the tide; + I have my sailing orders while ye at anchor ride, + And never, on fair June morning, have I put out to sea + With clearer conscience, or better hope, or heart more light and free. + + An Ashburnham! A Fairfax! Hark how the corslets ring! + Why are the blacksmiths out to-day, beating those men at the spring? + Ho, Willie, Hob and Cuddie!--bring out your boats amain, + There's a great red pool to swim them o'er, yonder in Deadman's Lane. + + Nay, do not cry, sweet Katie--only a month afloat + And then the ring and the parson, at Fairlight Church, my doat. + The flower-strewn path--the Press Gang! No, I shall never see + Her little grave where the daisies wave in the breeze on Fairlight Lee. + + "Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge! + Out with the hangers, messmates, but do not strike with the edge!" + Cries Charnock, "Scatter the faggots! Double that Brahmin in two! + The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown girl for you." + + Young Joe (you're nearing sixty), why is your hide so dark? + Katie had fair soft blue eyes--who blackened yours? Why, hark! + The morning gun! Ho, steady! The arquebuses to me; + I've sounded the Dutch High Admiral's heart as my lead doth sound the + sea. + + Sounding, sounding the Ganges--floating down with the tide, + Moor me close by Charnock, next to my nut-brown bride. + My blessing to Katie at Fairlight--Howell, my thanks to you-- + Steady!--We steer for Heaven through scud drifts cold and blue. + + + + +EXIT + + +I arrived in Bombay on the last day of 1919 and embarked at Calcutta for +Japan on the evening of February 17th, seven weeks later. But to embark +at Calcutta is not to leave it, for we merely dropped down the river a +short distance that night, and for the next day and a half we were in +the Hooghli, sounding all the way. It is a difficult river to emerge +from; nor do I recommend any one else to travel, as I did, on a boat +with a forward deck cargo of two or three hundred goats on the starboard +side and half as many monkeys on the port, with a small elephant +tethered between and a cage of leopards adjacent. These, the property +of an American dealer in wild animals, were intended for sale in the +States; all but one of the leopards, which, being lame, he had decided +to kill, to provide a "robe" for his wife. Nothing could be more +different than the careless aimless activities of the monkeys I had seen +among the trees between Agra and Delhi and scampering over the +parapets of Benares, all thieves and libertines with a charter, and +the restriction of these poor cowering mannikins, overcrowded in their +cages, with an abysmal sorrow in their eyes. Many died on the voyage, +and I think the Indian Government should look into the question of their +export very narrowly. + + + + +JAPAN + +INTRODUCTORY + + +I ought not to write about Japan at all, for I was there but three +short weeks, and rain or snow fell almost all the time, and I sailed +for America on the very day that the cherry blossom festivities began. +But--well, there is only one Fujiyama, and it is surpassingly beautiful +and satisfying--the perfect mountain--and I should feel contemptible if +I did not add my eulogy of it--my gratitude--to all the others. + +Since, then, I am to say something of Fuji, let the way be paved. + + + + +THE LITTLE LAND + + +One is immediately struck, on landing at Kobe--and continually after--by +the littleness of Japan. The little flimsy houses, the little flimsy +shops, the small men, the toylike women, the tiny children, as numerous +and like unto each other as the pebbles on the shore--these are +everywhere. But although small of stature the Japanese men are often +very powerfully built and many of them suggest great strength. They are +taking to games, too. While I was in the country baseball was a craze, +and boys were practising pitching and catching everywhere, even in the +streets of the cities. + +Littleness--with which is associated the most delicate detail and +elaborate finish--is the mark also of modern Japanese art. In the +curiosity shops whatever was massive or largely simple was Chinese. Even +the royal palaces at Kyoto are small, the rooms, exquisite as they are, +with perfect joinery and ancient paintings, being seldom more than a few +feet square, with very low ceilings. I went over two of these palaces, +falling into the hands, at each, of English-speaking officials whose +ciceronage was touched with a kind of rapture. At the Nijo, especially, +was my guide an enthusiast, becoming lyrical over the famous cartoons of +the "Wet Heron" and the "Sleeping Sparrows." + +In India I had grown accustomed to removing my shoes at the threshold +of mosques. There it was out of deference to Allah, but in Japan the +concession is demanded solely in the interests of floor polish, and you +take your shoes off not only in palaces and houses but in some of the +shops. It gave one an odd burglarious feeling to be creeping noiselessly +from room to room of the Nijo; but there was nothing to steal. The place +was empty, save for decoration. + +There is a certain amplitude in some of the larger Kyoto temples, with +their long galleries and massive gateways, but these only serve to +accentuate the littleness elsewhere. In the principal Kyoto temple I had +for guide a minute Japanese with the ecstatic passion for trifles +that seems to mark his race. A picture representing the miracle of the +"Fly-away Sparrows," as he called them, was the treasure on which he +concentrated, and next to that he drew my attention to the boards of the +gangway uniting two buildings, which, as one stepped on them, emitted a +sound that the Japanese believe to resemble the song of Philomela. To +me it brought no such memory, and the fact that this effect, common in +Japan, is technically known as "a nightingale squeak," perhaps supports +my insensitiveness. + +If old Japan is to be found anywhere it is in Kyoto--in spite of its +huge factory chimneys. In Tokio, complete European dress is common in +the streets, but in Kyoto it is the exception. Tokio also wears boots, +but Kyoto is noisy with pattens night and day. Not only are there +countless shops in Kyoto given up to porcelain, carvings, screens, +bronzes, old armour, and so forth, but no matter how trumpery the normal +stock in trade of the other shops, a number of them have a little glass +case--a shop within a shop, as it were--in which a few rare and ancient +articles of beauty are kept. A great deal of Japan is expressed in this +pretty custom. + + + + +THE RICE FIELDS + + +My first experience of Japanese scenery of any wildness was gained +while shooting the rapids of the Katsuragava, an exciting voyage among +boulders in a shallow and often very turbulent stream in a steep and +craggy valley a few miles from Kyoto. Previous to this expedition I +had seen, from the train, only the trim rice fields,--each a tiny +parallelogram with its irrigation channels as a boundary, so carefully +tended that there is not a weed in the whole country. Japan is cut up +into these absurd little squares, of which twenty and more would go into +an ordinary English field. Often the terminal posts are painted a bright +red; often a little row of family tombs is there too. The watermill is +a common object of the country. But birds are few and animals one sees +never. Indeed in all my three weeks I saw no four-footed animals, except +a dead rat, two pigs and one cat. I am excluding of course beasts of +draught--horses and bullocks--which are everywhere. Not a cow, not a +sheep, not a dog! but that there are cattle is proved by the proverbial +excellence of Kobe steaks, which I tested and can swear to. In all +my three weeks, both in cities and the country, I saw only one crying +child. Of children there were millions, mostly boys, but only one was +unhappy. + + + + +SURFACE MATERIALISM + + +In spite of Kyoto's eight hundred temples I could not get any but a +materialistic concept of its inhabitants; and elsewhere this impression +was emphasised. A stranger cannot, of course, know; he can but record +his feelings, without claiming any authority for them. But I am sure +I was never in a country where I perceived fewer indications of any +spiritual life. Every one is busy; every one seems to be happy or at any +rate not discontented; every one chatters and laughs and is, one feels, +a fatalist. Sufficient unto the day! After all, it is the women of a +nation that chiefly keep burning the sacred flame and pass it on; but in +Japan, I understand, the women are far too busy in pleasing the men +to have time for such duties; Japan is run by men for men. It is an +unwritten law that a woman must never be anything but gay in her lord's +presence, must never for a moment claim the privilege of peevishness. + +As an instance of the Japanese woman's indifference to fate and +readiness to oblige, I may say that we had on our ship two or three +hundred girls in charge of a duenna or so, who were bound for Honolulu +to be married to Japanese settlers there, to whom their photographs had +been forwarded. These girls are known as "Picture Brides." At Honolulu +their new proprietors awaited them, and I suppose identified and +appropriated them, although to the European eye one face differed no +whit from another. + +The Japanese have the practical qualities that consort with materialism. +They are quick to supply creature comforts; their hotels are +well-managed; their cooks are excellent; their sign-posts are numerous +and, I believe, very circumstantial; at the railway stations are lists +of the show places in the neighbourhood; the telephone is general. But +there are strange failings. The roads, for example, are often very bad, +although so many motor-cars exist. Even in Tokio the puddles and mud are +abominable. There is no fixed rule to force rickshaw men to carry bells. +There is no rule of the road at all, so that the driver of a vehicle +must be doubly alert, having to make up his mind not only as to what he +is going to do himself, but also what the approaching driver is probably +going to do. From time to time, I believe, a rule of the road has been +tried, but it has always broken down. + +The rickshaw bells are the more important, because the Japanese are not +observant. They may see Fuji and stand for hours worshipping a spray of +cherry blossom, but they do not see what is coming. Normally they look +down. + +The rickshaw is comfortable and speedy; but to be drawn about by a +fellow-creature is a humiliating experience and I never ceased to feel +too conspicuous and ashamed. I discovered also how easy it is to lose +one's temper with these men. I used to sit and wonder if there had ever +been a runaway, and I never hired a rickshaw without thinking of Mr. +Anstey's story of the talking horse. + + + + +FIRST GLIMPSE OF FUJI + + +I left Kyoto for Yokohama on Wednesday night, March 17, 1920, at eleven, +and Thursday, March 18, 1920, thus remains with me as a red-letter day, +for it was then, at about half-past seven in the morning, that, lifting +the blind of my sleeping compartment, I saw--almost within reach, as it +seemed, dazzlingly white under its snow against a clear blue sky, with +the sun flooding it with glory--Fujiyama. I was to see it again several +times--for I went to Myanoshita for that purpose--but never again so +startlingly and wonderfully as this. + +When I am asked to name in a word the most beautiful thing I saw on my +travels I mention Fujiyama instantly. There is nothing else to challenge +it. Perhaps had I seen Everest from Darjeeling I might have a different +story to tell; but I missed it. The Taj? Yes, the Taj is a divine +work of man; but it has not the serene lofty isolation of this sublime +mountain, rising from the plain alone and immense with almost perfect +symmetry. + +I was not to see Fujiyama again for a week or so, but in the meanwhile +I saw the Daibutsu, the giant figure of Buddha, at Kamakura, in all its +bland placidity. These were the only big things I found in Japan. + + + + +TWO FUNERALS + + +Yokohama is industrial and dirty everywhere but on the drive beside the +harbour, and on the Bluff, where the rich foreigners live. I visited one +house on this pleasant eminence and there was nothing in it to suggest +that it was in Japan any more than in, say, Cheltenham. The form was +English, the furniture was English, the pictures and books were English; +photographs of school and college cricket elevens gave it the final home +touch. Only in the garden were there exotic indications. The English +certainly have the knack of carrying their atmosphere with them. I had +noticed that often in India; but this Yokohama villa was the completest +exemplification. + +Wandering about the city I came one morning on a funeral procession that +ought to have pleased Henry Ward Beecher, who, on the only occasion on +which I heard him, when he was very old and I was very young, urged upon +his hearers the importance of bright colours and flowers instead of the +ordinary habiliments and accoutrements of woe. For when a soul is on its +way to paradise, he said, we should be glad. The Yokohama cortege was +headed by men bearing banners; then came girls all in white, riding in +rickshaws; then the gaudy hearse; then priests in rickshaws; and +finally the relations and friends. The effect conveyed was not one of +melancholy; but even if every one had been in black, impressiveness +would have been wanting, for no one can look dignified in a rickshaw. + +Compared, however, with a funeral which I saw in Hong-Kong, the Yokohama +ceremony was solemnity in essence. The Hong-Kong obsequies were those +of a tobacco-magnate's wife and the widower had determined to spare no +expense on their thoroughness. He had even offered, but without success, +to compensate the tramway company for a suspension of the service, the +result of his failure being that every few minutes the procession was +held up to permit the cars to go by; which meant that instead of taking +only two hours to pass any given point, it took three. The estimated +cost of the funeral was one hundred thousand dollars and all Hong-Kong +was there to see. + +To Chinese eyes it doubtless had a sombre religious character, but to us +it was merely a diverting spectacle of incredible prolongation. We were +not wholly to blame in missing its sanctity, for the participants, +who were more like mummers than mourners, had all been hired and were +enjoying the day off. For the most part they merely wore their fancy +dress and walked and talked or played instruments, but now and then +there was a dragon and a champion boxing it and these certainly earned +their money. At intervals came bearers with trays on which were comforts +for the next world or symbolical devices, while, to infinity both in +front and behind, banners and streamers and lanterns danced and jogged +above all. A miracle-show of the middle ages can have been not unlike +it. + + + + +THE LITTLE GEISHA + + +I left Japan, as I have said, just before the cherry-blossom festivities +began, but I was able to see a number of the dances--which never change +but are passed with exactitude, step for step, gesture for gesture and +expression for expression, from one geisha to another--as performed by +a child who was being educated for the profession. Although so young +she knew accurately upwards of sixty dances, and the pick of these she +executed for a few spectators, in a little fragile paper-walled house +outside Yokohama, while her adoring aunt played the wistful repetitive +accompaniments. + +The little creature--a mere watch-chain ornament--had a typical Japanese +face, half mask, half mischief, and a tiny high voice which now and then +broke into the dance. But dances, strictly speaking, they are not. +They are really posturing and the manoeuvres of a fan. To me they are +strangely fascinating, and, with the music, almost more so than our +Western ballets. But there is a difference between the ballet and the +geisha dances, and it is so wide that there is no true comparison; for +whereas the ballet stimulates and excites, these Japanese movements +hypnotise and lull. + + + + +MANNERS + + +The public manners of the Japanese are not good. In all my solitary +walks about Myanoshita I met with no single peasant who passed the time +of day, and in the streets of Tokio English people were being jostled +and stared at and treated without respect. It was a moment when +Americans were unpopular, and the theory was broached that for fear of +missing the chance to be rude to an American the Japanese became rude +to all outlanders indiscriminately. One indeed gathered the impression +that, except in Kyoto, which is a backwater, foreigners are no longer +wanted. "Japan for the Japanese" would seem to be the motto: one day, +not far distant, to be amended to "The World for Japan." I shall never +forget the humiliation I suffered in a stockbroker's office in Tokio, +into which, seeing the words "English spoken" over the door, I had +ventured in the hope of being directed to an address I was seeking. +Not a word of English did any one know, but the whole staff left its +typewriters and desks to come and laugh. I was always willing to remove +the gravity of Japanese children by my grotesque Occidentalism, but +I have a very real objection to being a butt for the ridicule of +grown-ups. Such an incident could not have occurred, I believe, anywhere +else. But it is not only the foreigners to whom the Japanese are rude: +they do nothing for their fellows either. The want of chivalry in trains +and trams was conspicuous. + +The ceremonial manners of the Japanese can, however, be more precise and +formal than any I ever witnessed. A wedding reception chanced to be in +progress in my Tokio hotel one afternoon, and through the open door I +had glimpses of Japanese gentlemen in frock coats bowing to Japanese +ladies and making perfect right angles as they did so. So elaborate +indeed were the courtesies that to Western eyes they bordered +dangerously on burlesque. + +The destination that I was seeking when I entered the stockbroker's +office was a certain book-store, and when I eventually found it I was +asked a question by a Japanese youth that still perplexes me. It was +in the English section, the principal volumes in which, as imported to +supply Japanese demands, were American, and all bore either upon +success in engineering and other professions and crafts, or on the rapid +acquirement of wealth. "How to double your income in a week"; "How +to get rich quickly"; "How to succeed in business"; and so forth; all +preaching, in fact, the new gospel which is doing Japan no good. +There were also, however, a certain number of novels, and one of the +customers, a boy who looked as though he were still at school, noting my +English appearance, brought a translation of Maupassant to me and asked +me what "soul" meant--"A Woman's Soul" being the new title. Now I defy +any one with no Japanese to make it clear to a Japanese boy with very +little English what a woman's soul is. + + + + +THE PLAY + + +At Tokio I was present for an hour or so at a performance in a national +theatre. It had been in progress for a long time when I entered and +would continue long after I left, for that is the Japanese custom. In +London people with too little to do are on occasion prepared to spend +the whole day outside theatres waiting for the doors to open. They will +then witness a two and a half hours' performance. But in Japan the +plays go on from eleven a.m. to eleven p.m. and the audience bring their +sustenance and tobacco with them. The seats are mats on the ground, and +the actors reach the stage by a passage through the auditorium as well +as from the wings. The scenery is very elementary, and there is always a +gate which has to be opened when the characters pass through and closed +after them, although it is isolated and has no contiguous wall or fence. + +None of our Western morbid desire for novelty, I am told, troubles the +Japanese play-goer, who is prepared to witness the same drama, usually +based on an historical event or national legend thoroughly familiar to +him, for ever and ever. It is as though the theatres in England were +given up exclusively to, say, Shakespeare's Henry IV, V and VI sequence. +On the occasion of my visit there was little of what we call acting, +but endless elocution. During the performance the attendants walk about, +with the persistence of constables during a London police-court hearing, +carrying refreshments and little charcoal stoves. The signal for the +next act is a deafening clicking noise made by one of the stage hands +on two sticks, which gradually rises to a shattering crescendo as the +curtain is drawn aside. It must be understood that the theatre that I am +describing was set apart for national drama. In others there are topical +farces and laughter is continuous; but I did not visit any. On board +ship, however, we had a series of performances of such pieces by the +Japanese cabin attendants and waiters, many of whom were professional +actors. The Japanese passengers enjoyed them immensely. + + + + +MYANOSHITA + + +A whole week of my too short stay was given to Myanoshita, whither I was +driven by the impossibility of retaining a room in either Yokohama or +Tokio, and where I stayed willingly on, out of delight in the place +itself. After being cooped up for so long on ships, and kept inactive +under the heat of India, it was like a new existence to take immense +walks among these mountains in the keen rarified air, even though there +was both rain and snow. Myanoshita stands some four thousand feet high +and is situated in a valley in which are many summer cottages and health +resorts. The heart of this Alpine settlement is the Fujiya Hotel, +where I was living, which is kept by an enterprising Americanised and +Europeanised Japanese proprietor and his very charming wife, Madame +Yamaguchi, whose father was the founder of the house, and, I believe, +the discoverer of the district, and who herself is famous as a +gracious hostess throughout Japan. No hotel so well or so thoughtfully +administered have I ever stayed in; nor was I ever in another where the +water for the bath gushes in from a natural hot spring. But hot springs +are numerous in this region, while there is a gorge which I visited, +some four miles distant, where boiling sulphur hisses and bubbles for +ever and aye. + +Many of the Myanoshita dishes were new to me and welcome. There is an +excellent salad called "Slow," and the bamboo, which is Japan's best +friend--serving the nation in scores of ways: as fences, as walls, +as water-pipes, as supports, as carrying-poles, as thatch, as +fishing-rods--here found its way into the salad bowl and was not +distasteful. The custom of drinking a glass of orange juice before +breakfast might well be adopted with us; but not the least of the +oddities of England which I realised as I moved about the earth is our +unwillingness to eat fruit. Japan also has a perfect mineral water, +"Tansan." + +When not making long expeditions to catch new glimpses of Fuji I roamed +about the hill-sides among the little villages, or leaned over crazy +bridges to watch the waterfalls beneath; for there is water everywhere, +tumbling down to the distant ocean, a wedge of which can be seen from +the hotel windows. This Japanese valley might be in Switzerland, save +for the absence of any but human life. Not a cow, not a goat. + +The labourers wear blue linen smocks, usually with some device upon +them, and they merge into the landscape as naturally as French or +Belgian peasants. These men, whether working on the soil or the roads, +or engaged in cutting bamboos or building houses, wear the large straw +hats that one sees in the old Japanese prints. Nothing has changed in +their dress. But the modernized Japanese, the dweller in the cities or +casual visitor to the country, pins his faith to the bowler. The bowler +is so much his favourite headgear that he wears it often with native +costume on his body. Perhaps it is to Japan that all the bowlers have +gone, now that London has taken to the soft Homburg. It was odd to meet +groups of these bizarre little men among the precipices: even stranger +perhaps were their little ladies, especially on Sunday, in the gayest +Japanese clothes, their faces plastered with rice powder and cigarettes +in their mouths. Too many of them are disfigured by gold teeth, which +are so common in Japan as to be almost the rule. An English resident +assured me that I must not assume that the Japanese teeth are therefore +unusually defective: often the gold is merely ostentation, a visible +sign that the owner of the auriferous mouth is both alive to American +progress and can afford it. + +Even in Myanoshita Fujiyama has to be sought for and climbed for, the +walls of rock that form the valley being so high and enclosing. But the +result is worth every effort. Immediately above the hotel is a hill from +whose summit the upper part of the enchanted mountain can be seen, and I +ascended tortuously to this point within an hour of my arrival. The next +day I walked to Lake Hakone (where the Emperor has a summer palace), +some eight miles away, in the hope of getting Fuji's white crest +reflected on its surface; but a veil of mist enshrouded all. And then +twice I went to the edge of the watershed at the head of the valley: +once struggling through the snow to the Otome Pass, on an immemorial +and nearly perpendicular bridle path, and once by the modern road to +the tunnel which, with characteristic address, the Japanese have bored +through the rock, thus reducing a very steep gradient. + +In the tunnel the icicles were hanging several feet long and as big as +masts, and the air was biting. But one emerged suddenly upon a prospect +the wonder of which probably cannot be excelled--a vast plain far below, +made up of verdure and villages and lakes, with distant surrounding +heights, and immediately in front, filling half the sky, Fuji himself. +It is from this point, and from the ancient Otome Pass, a mile or +so away on the same ridge, that the symmetry of the mountain is most +perfect; and here one can best appreciate the simplicity of it, the +quiet natural ease with which it rises above its neighbours. There was +more snow on the slopes than when I had seen it from the train a few +days before; and the sky again was without a cloud. I have never been so +conscious of majestic serenity, without any concomitant feeling of awe. +Fuji is both sublime and human. + +No other country has a symbol like this. When the Japanese think of +Japan they visualise Fuji: returning exiles crowd the decks for the +first glimpse of it; departing exiles with tears in their eyes watch +it disappear. There is not a shop window but has Fuji in some +representation; it is found in every house; its contours are engraved +on teaspoons, embossed on ash-trays. You cannot escape from its +counterfeits; but if you have seen it you do not mind. + +When on my way home I found myself in an American picture gallery, +either in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston or New York, I lingered longest +in the rooms where the coloured prints of the Japanese masters hang--and +America has very fine collections, particularly in Boston--and I stood +longest before those landscapes by Hokusai and Hiroshige in which Fuji +occurs. Hokusai in particular venerated the mountain, and in many of his +most beautiful pictures people are calling to each other to admire some +new and marvellous aspect of it. It was he who drew Fuji as seen through +the arch of a breaking wave! I was looking at the British Museum's +example of this daring print only a few days ago, and, doing so, living +my Myanoshita days again. + +There is much in Japan that is petty, much that is too material and not +a little that is disturbing; but Fuji is there too, dominating all, calm +and wise and lovely beyond description, and it would be Fuji that lured +me back. + + + + +AMERICA + +DEMOCRACY AT HOME + + +My first experience of democracy-in-being followed swiftly upon boarding +the steamboat for San Francisco, when "Show this man Number 231" was the +American steward's command to a cabin boy. I had no objection to being +called a man: far from it; but after years of being called a gentleman +it was startling. This happened at Yokohama; and when, in the Customs +House at San Francisco, a porter wheeling a truck broke through a queue +of us waiting to obtain our quittances, with the careless warning, "Out +of the way, fellers!" I knew that here was democracy indeed. + +I confess to liking it, although I was to be brought up with another +jolt when a notice-board on a grass-plot suddenly confronted me, bearing +the words:-- + +[Illustration: KEEP OFF. THIS MEANS YOU.] + +But I like it. I like the tradition which, once your name is written in +the hotel reception book, makes you instantly "Mr. Lucas" to every one +in the place. There is a friendliness about it: the hotel is more of +a home, or at any rate, less of a barrack, because of it. And yet this +universal camaraderie has some odd lapses into formality. The members of +clubs in America are far more ceremonious with each other than we are +in England. In English clubs the prefix "Mr." is a solecism, but in +American clubs I have watched quite old friends and associates whose +greetings have been marked almost by pomposity and certainly by ritual. +Yet Americans, I should say, are heartier than we; more happy to be with +each other; less critical and exacting. They certainly spend less time +in discussing each other's foibles. That may be because the dollar is so +much more an absorbing theme, but more likely it is because America is a +democracy, and the theory of democracy, as I understand it, is to assume +that every man is a good fellow until the reverse is proved. I should +not like to say that the theory of those of us who live under a monarchy +is the opposite, but it seemed to me that Americans are more ready than +we to be sociable and tolerant. + +Try as I might I could never be quick enough to get in first with that +delightful American greeting, "Pleased to meet you," or "Glad to +know you, Mr. Lucas." I pondered long on the best retort and at last +formulated this, but never dared to use it for fear that its genuineness +might be suspected: "I shall be sorry when we have to part." + + + + +SAN FRANCISCO + + +It was in San Francisco that I learned--and very quickly--that it is as +necessary to visit America in order to know what Americans are like +as it is to leave one's own country in order to know more about that. +Americans when abroad are less hearty, less revealing. They are either +suffering from a constraint or an over-assertiveness; and both moods may +be due to not being at home. In neither case are they so natural as +at home. I suppose that on soil not our own we all tend to be a little +over-anxious to proclaim our nationality, to maintain the distinction. +In our hats can perhaps be too firmly planted the invisible flag of our +country. + +Be this as it may, I very quickly discerned a difference between +Americans in America and in England. I found them simple where I had +thought of them as the reverse, and now, after meeting others in various +parts of the country, even in complex and composite New York, I should +say that simplicity is the keynote of the American character. It is in +his simplicity that the American differs most from the European. Such +simplicity is perfectly consistent with the impatience, the desire for +novelty, for brevity, of the American people. We think of them as +always wishing to reduce life to formulae, as unwilling to express any +surprise, and these tendencies may easily be considered as signs of a +tiring civilisation. But in reality they are signs of youth too. + + + + +ROADS GOOD AND BAD + + +San Francisco I shall chiefly recollect (apart from personal reasons) +for the sparkling freshness and vigour of the air; for the extent and +variety of Golden Gate Park, where I found a bust of Beethoven, but +no sign of Bret Harte; for the vast reading-room in the library at +Berkeley, a university which is so enchantingly situated, beneath such a +sun, and in sight of such a bay, that I marvel that any work can be +done there at all; and for the miles and miles of perfect tarmac roads +fringed with burning eschscholtzias and gentle purple irises. That was +in April. I found elsewhere in America no roads comparable with these. +Even around Washington their condition was such that to ride in a +motor-car was to experience all the alleged benefits of horseback, while +in the Adirondacks, anywhere off the noble Theodore Roosevelt Memorial +Highway, with its "T.R." blazonings along the route, one's liver +was bent and broken. While I was in America the movement to purchase +Roosevelt's house as a national possession was in full swing, but this +Memorial Highway strikes the imagination with more force. That was an +inspiration, and I hope that the road will never be allowed to fall into +disrepair. + + + + +UNIVERSITIES, LOVE AND PRONUNCIATION + + +Watching the young men and maidens crowding to a lecture in the Hearst +Amphitheatre at Berkeley, under that glorious Californian sky, I was +struck by the sensible, frank intimacy of them all, and envied them the +advantages that must be theirs over the English methods of segregation +at the same age, which, by creating shyness and destroying familiarity, +tends to retard if not destroy the natural understanding which ought to +subsist between them and if it did would often make life afterwards so +much simpler. + +I asked one of the professors to what extent marriages were made in +Berkeley, but he had no statistics. All he could say was that Cupid +was very little trouble to the authorities and that Mr. Hoover and Mrs. +Hoover first met each other as students at Stanford. And then I asked an +ex-member of one of the Sororities and she said that at college one +was a good deal in love and a good deal out of it. The romance rarely +persisted into later life. + +She pronounced romance with the accent on the first syllable, whereas +somewhere half-way across the Atlantic the accent passes to the second; +and why such illogical things should be is a mystery. The differences +can be very disconcerting, especially if one refuses to give way. I had +an experience to the point when talking with some one in Chicago and +wishing to answer carefully his question as to the conditions under +which the poor of our great cities live. These are, in my observation, +infinitely worse in England than in America. Indeed I hardly saw any +poor in America at all--not poverty as we understand it. But I could not +frame my reply because "squalor" (which we pronounce as though it rhymed +with "mollor") was the only fitting epithet and he had just used it +himself, pronouncing it in the American way--or at any rate in his +American way--with a long "a." So I turned the subject. + +Neither nation has any monopoly of reasonableness in pronunciation. The +American way of saying "advertisement" is more sensible than ours of +saying "adver'tisment," since we say "advertise" too. But then, although +the Americans say "inquire," just as we do, they illogically put the +stress on the first syllable when they talk about an "in'quiry." The +Tower of Babel is thus carried up one storey higher. The original idea +was merely to confuse languages; it cannot ever have been wished that +two friendly peoples should speak the same language differently. + +But I have wandered far from Berkeley and Stanford. I am not sure as to +my course of conduct if I had a daughter of seventeen, but I am quite +convinced that if I had a son of that age I should send him to an +American university for two or three years after his English school. He +should then become a citizen of the Anglo-Saxon world indeed. + + + + +FIRST SIGNS OF PROHIBITION + + +We had met Prohibition first at Honolulu, not a few of the passengers +receiving the shock of their lives on learning at the hotel that only +"soft drinks" were permitted. Our second reminder of the new regime came +as we entered American waters off the Golden Gate and the ship's bar was +formally closed. And then, in San Francisco, we found "dry" land indeed. +In this connection let me say that in the hotel I made acquaintance +with an official of great power who was new to me: the buttoned boy +who rejoices in the proud title of Bell Captain. He gave me a private +insight into his precocity (but that is not the word, for all boys in +America are men too), and into his influence, by offering to supply me +with forbidden fruit, in the shape of whisky, at the modest figure +of $25 a bottle. He did not, however, say dollars: like most of his +compatriots (and it is a favourite word with them) he said something +between "dollars" and "dallars." + +I had, a few days later, in Chicago, a similarly friendly offer from a +policeman of whom I had inquired the way. Recognizing an English accent, +he had instantly divined what my dearest wish must be. I then asked him +how prohibition was affecting the people on his beat. He said that a few +drunkards were less comfortable and a few wives more serene; but for the +most part he had seen no increase of happiness, and the extra money +that it provided was spent either on the movies, dress, or "other +foolishness." I did not allow him to refresh me. After a course of +American "tough" fiction, of which "Susan Lenox" remains most luridly in +the memory, I had a terror of all professional upholders of the law. + + + + +R.L.S. + + +Coming by chance upon the Robert Louis Stevenson memorial at San +Francisco, on the edge of Chinatown, I copied its inscription, and in +case any reader of these notes may have forgotten its trend I copy it +again here; for I do not suppose that its application was intended +to cease with the Californian city. It is counsel addressed to the +individual, but since nations are but individuals in quantity such +ideals cannot be repeated amiss: + +To be honest; to be kind; to earn a little; to spend a little less; to +make upon the whole a family happier for his presence; to renounce when +that shall be necessary and not to be embittered; to keep a few friends, +but these without capitulation; above all, on the same grim condition, +to keep friends with himself--here is a task for all that man has of +fortitude and delicacy. + +It is a far cry from San Francisco to Saranac, yet Stevenson is their +connecting chain, with the late Harry Widener's amazing collection +of Stevensoniana, in his memorial library at Harvard, as a link. The +Saranac cottage, which on the day of my visit was surrounded by the +sweetest lilac blooms that ever perfumed the air, is still a place of +pilgrimage, and one by one new articles of interest are being added to +the collection. It was pleasant indeed to find an English author thus +honoured. Later, in Central Park, New York, I was to find statues of +Shakespeare, Burns and Sir Walter Scott. + +It was, oddly enough, in the Adirondacks that I came upon my only +experience of simplified spelling in the land of its birth. It was in +that pleasant home from home, the Lake Placid Club, where one is adjured +to close the door "tyt" as one leaves a room; where one drinks "cofi"; +and where that most necessary and mysterious of the functionaries of +life, the physician, is able to watch his divinity dwindle and his +dignity disappear under the style "fizisn." + + + + +STORIES AND HUMOURISTS + + +I heard many stories in America, where every one is a raconteur, but +none was better than this, which my San Francisco host narrated, from +his own experience, as the most perfect example of an honest answer ever +given. When a boy, he said, he was much in the company of an old trapper +in the Californian mountains. During one of their expeditions together +he noticed that a camp meeting was to be held, and out of curiosity he +persuaded Reuben to attend it with him. Perched on a back seat, they +were watching the scene when an elderly Evangelical sister placed +herself beside the old hunter, laid her hand on his arm, and asked him +if he loved Jesus. He pondered for some moments and then replied thus: +"Waal, ma'am, I can't go so far as to say that I love Him. I can't go so +far as that. But, by gosh, I'll say this--I ain't got nothin' agin Him." + +The funniest spontaneous thing I heard said was the remark of a farmer +in the Adirondacks in reply to my question, Had they recovered up there, +from the recent war? "Yes," he said, they had; adding brightly, "Quite a +war, wasn't it?" + +In a manner of speaking all Americans are humourists. Just as all +French people are wits by reason of the epigrammatic structure of their +language, so are all Americans humourists by reason of the national +stores of picturesque slang and analogy to which they have access. I +think that this tendency to resort to a common stock instead of striving +after individual exactitude and colour is to be deplored. It discourages +thought where thought should be encouraged. Adults are, of course, +beyond redemption, but parents might at least do something about it with +their children. One of the cleverest American writers whom I met made no +effort whatever to get beyond these accepted phrases as he narrated +one racy incident after another. With the pen in his hand (or, more +probably, the typewriter under his fingers) his sense of epithet is +precise; but in his conversational stories men were as mad "as Sam +Hill," injuries hurt "like hell," and a knapsack was as heavy "as the +devil." We all laughed; but he should have had more of the artist's +pride. + +Three American professional humourists whom I had the good fortune to +meet and be with for some time were Irvin Cobb, Don Marquis, and Oliver +Herford, each authentic and each so different. Beneath Mr. Cobb's fun is +a mass of ripe experience and sagacity. However playful he may be on the +surface one is aware of an almost Johnsonian universality beneath. It +would not be extravagant to call his humour the bloom on the fruit of +the tree of knowledge (I am talking now only of the three as I found +them in conversation). Don Marquis, while equally serious (and all the +best humourists are serious at heart), has a more grotesque fancy and is +more of a reformer, or, at any rate, a rebel. His dissatisfaction with +hypocrisy provoked a scorn that Mr. Cobb is too elemental to entertain. +Some day perhaps Don Marquis will induce an editor to print the +exercises in unorthodoxy which he has been writing and which, in +extract, he repeated to us with such unction; but I doubt it. They are +too searching. But that so busy a man should turn aside from his work +to dabble in religious satire seemed to me a very interesting thing; +for nothing is so unprofitable--except to the honest soul of him who +conceives it. + +One of Don Marquis's more racy stories which I recollect is of a loafer +in a country town who had the habit of dropping into the store every +day at the time the free cheese was set on the counter, and buying very +little in return. When the time came for the privilege to be withdrawn +the loafer was outraged and aghast. Addressing the storekeeper (his +friend for years) he summed up his ungenerosity in these terms: "Your +soul, Henry," he said, "is so mean, that if there were a million souls +like it in the belly of a flea, they'd be so far apart they couldn't +hear each other holler." + +As for Oliver Herford, he is an elf, a sprite, a creature of fantasy, +who may be--and, I rejoice to say, is--in this world, but certainly is +not of it. This Oliver is in the line of Puck and Mercutio and Lamb and +Hood and other lovers and makers of nonsense, and it is we who ask for +"more." He had just brought out his irresponsible but very searching +exercise in cosmogony, "This Giddy Globe," dedicated to President +Wilson ("with all his faults he quotes me still") and this was the first +indigenous work I read on American soil. Oliver Herford is perhaps best +known by his "Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten," and there is a kitten also +in "This Giddy Globe": + + "Hurray!" cried the Kitten, "Hurray!" + As he merrily set the sails, + "I sail o'er the ocean to-day + To look at the Prince of Wales." +--this was when the Prince was making his triumphant visit to New York +in 1919-- + + "But, Kitten," I said dismayed, + "If you live through the angry gales + You know you will be afraid + To look at the Prince of Wales." + + Said the Kitten, "No such thing! + Why should he make me wince? + If a Cat may look at a King + A Kitten may look at a Prince!" + +This reminds me that the story goes that when the Prince expressed his +admiration for Fifth Avenue he was congratulated upon having "said +a mouthful." Beyond a mouthful, as an encomium of sagacity or +sensationalism in speech, there is but one advance and that is when one +says "an earful." + + + + +THE CARS + + +The journey from San Francisco to Chicago, once the fruit country is +passed, is drearily tedious, and I was never so tired of a train. The +spacious compartments that one travelled in on the Indian journeys, +where there are four arm-chairs and a bath-room, are a bad preparation +for the long narrow American cars packed with humanity, and for the +very inadequate washing-room, which is also the negro attendant's +bed-chamber: "Although," he explained to me, "when the car isn't full +I always sleep in Berth Number 1." If the night could be indefinitely +prolonged, these journeys would be more tolerable; but for the general +comfort the sleeping berths must be converted into seats at an early +hour. In addition to books, I had, as a means of beguilement, the +society of a returned exile from the Philippines, who told me the story +of his life, showed me the necklace he was taking home to his daughter's +wedding, and asked my advice as to the wisdom or unwisdom of marrying +again, the lady of his wavering choice having been at school with him in +New England and being now a widow in Nebraska with property of her own. +Besides being thus garrulous and open, he was the most helpful man I +ever met, acting as a nurse to the three or four restless children in +the car, and even producing from his bag a pair of scissors and a bottle +of gum with which to make dolls' paper clothes. Never in my life have +I called a stranger "Ed" on such short acquaintance; never have I been +called "Poppa" so often by the peevish progeny of others. + +It was on this train that I began to realise how much thirstier the +Americans are than we. The passengers were continually filling and +emptying the little cups that are stacked beside the fountains in the +corridors, and long before we reached Chicago the cups had all been +used. In England only children drink water at odd times and they not to +excess. But in America every one drinks water, and the water is there +for drinking, pure and cold and plentiful. It is beside the bed, in the +corners of offices, awaiting you at meals, jingling down the passages of +hotels, bubbling in the streets. In English restaurants, water bottles +are rarely supplied until asked for; in our hotel bedrooms they seldom +bear lifting to the light. As to whether the general health of +the Americans is superior or inferior to ours by reason of this +water-drinking custom, I have no information; but figures would be +interesting. + + + + +CHICAGO + + +In Chicago the weather was wet and cold, and it was not until after +I had left that I learned of the presence there of certain literary +collections which I may now perhaps never see. But I spent much time in +the Museum, where there is one of the finest Hobbemas in the world, and +where two such different creative artists as Claude Monet and Josiah +Wedgwood are especially honoured. But the chief discovery for me was +the sincere and masterly work in landscape of George Inness, my first +impression of whom was to be fortified when I passed on to Boston, and +reinforced in the Hearn collection in the Metropolitan Museum in New +York. + +It was in Chicago, in the Marshall Field Book Department--which is to +ordinary English bookshops like a liner to a houseboat--that I first +realised how intense is the interest which America takes in foreign +contemporary literature. In England the translation has a certain +vogue--Mrs. Garnett's supple and faithful renderings of Turgenev, +Tolstoi, Dostoievski, and Tchekov have, for example, a great +following--but we do not adventure much beyond the French and the +Russians; whereas I learn that English versions of hundreds of other +foreign books are eagerly bought in America. Such curiosity seems to +me to be very sensible. I was surprised also to find tables packed high +with the modern drama. In England the printed play is not to the general +taste. + +It was in Chicago that I found "window-shopping" at its most +enterprising. In San Francisco the costumiers' windows were thronged all +Sunday, but in Chicago they are brilliantly lighted till midnight, long +after closing hours, so that late passers-by may mark down desirable +things to buy on the morrow. + +The spirited equestrian statue of General John A. Logan, in a waste +space by Michigan Avenue, which I could see from my bedroom window, was +my first and by no means the least satisfying experience of American +sculpture on its native soil--to be face to face with St. Gaudens' +figure of "Grief" in Rock Creek Cemetery, at Washington, having long +been a desire. In time I came to see that beautiful conception, and +I saw also the fine Shaw monument in Boston, fine both in idea and in +execution; and the Sheridan, by the Plaza Hotel in New York; and the +Farragut in Madison Square; and the Pilgrim in Philadelphia--all the +work of the same firm, sensitive hand, a replica of whose Lincoln is now +to be seen at Westminster. + +The statue seems almost as natural a part of civic ornament in America +as it is in France, and is not in England; and the standard as a rule is +high. In particular I like the many horsemen--Anthony Wayne dominating +the landscape at Valley Forge; and George Washington again and again, +and not least in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia (where there is also a +bronze roughrider realistically set on a cliff--as though from Ambrose +Bierce's famous story--by Frederic Remington). American painters can +too often suggest predecessors, usually French, but the sculptors have +a strength and directness of their own, and it would not surprise me if +some of the best statues of the future came from their country. No one +would say that all American civic sculpture is good. There is a gigantic +bust of Washington Irving behind New York's Public Library which would +be better away; nor are the lions that guard that splendid institution +superabundantly leonine; but the traveller is more charmed than +depressed by the marble and bronze effigies that meet his eye--and +few witnesses have been able to say that of England. Among the more +remarkable public works I might name the symbolical figures on the +steps of the Boston Free Library, and the frieze in deep relief on the +Romanesque church on Park Avenue in New York, and I found something big +and impressive in the Barnard groups at Harrisburg. Many of the little +bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum--at the other extreme--are exquisite. + + + + +THE MOVIES + + +We have our cinema theatres in England in some abundance, but the cinema +is not yet in the blood here as in America. In America picture-palaces +are palaces indeed--with gold and marble, and mural decorations, built +to seat thousands--and every newspaper has its cinema page, where the +activities of the movie stars in their courses are chronicled every +morning. Moreover, America is the home of the industry; and rightly so, +for it has, I should say, been abundantly proved that Americans are +the only people who really understand both cinema acting and cinema +production. Italy, France and England make a few pictures, but their +efforts are half-hearted: not only because acting for the film is a +new and separate art, but because atmospheric conditions are better in +America than in Europe. + +It was in Chicago that I had my only opportunity of seeing cinema stars +in the flesh. The rain falling, as it seems to do there with no more +effort or fatigue to itself than in Manchester, I had, one afternoon, +to change my outdoor plans and take refuge at the matinee of a musical +comedy called "Sometime," with Frank Tinney in the leading part. Tinney, +I may say, during his engagement in London some years ago, became +so great a favourite that one performer has been flourishing on an +imitation of him ever since. The play had been in progress only for a +few minutes when Frank, in his capacity as a theatre doorkeeper, was +presented by his manager with a tip. A dialogue, which to the trained +ear was obviously more or less an improvisation, then followed: + +_Manager_: "What will you do with that dollar, Frank?" + +_Frank_: "I shall go to the movies. I always go to the movies when +there's a Norma Talmadge picture. Ask me why I always go to the movies +when there's a Norma Talmadge picture." + +_Manager_: "Why do you always go to the movies when there's a Norma +Talmadge picture, Frank?" + +_Frank_: "I go because, I go because she's my favourite actress. +(_Applause_.) Ask me why Norma Talmadge is my favourite actress." + +_Manager_: "Why is Norma Talmadge your favourite actress, Frank?" + +_Frank_: "Norma Talmadge is my favourite actress because she is always +saving her honour. I've seen her saving it seventeen times. (_To the +audience_) You like Norma Talmadge, don't you?" (_Applause from the +audience_.) + +_Frank_: "Then wouldn't you like to see her as she really is? (_To +a lady sitting with friends in a box_.) Stand up, Norma, and let the +audience see you." + +_Here a slim lady with a tense, eager, pale face and a mass of hair +stood up and bowed. Immense enthusiasm_. + +_Frank_: "That's Norma Talmadge. You do like saving your honour, don't +you, Norma? And now (_to the audience_) wouldn't you like to see Norma's +little sister, Constance? (_More applause_.) Stand up, Constance, and +let the audience see you." + +Here another slim lady bowed her acknowledgments and the play was +permitted to proceed. + +What America is going to do with the cinema remains to be seen, but +I, for one, deplore the modern tendency of novelists to be lured +by American money to write for it. If the cinema wants stories from +novelists let it take them from the printed books. One has but to +reflect upon what might have happened had the cinema been invented a +hundred years ago, to realise my disturbance of mind. With Mr. Lasky's +millions to tempt them Dickens would have written "David Copperfield" +and Thackeray "Vanity Fair," not for their publishers and as an +endowment to millions of grateful readers in perpetuity, but as plots +for the immediate necessity of the film, with a transitory life of a +few months in dark rooms. Of what new "David Copperfields" and "Vanity +Fairs" the cinema is to rob us we shall not know; but I hold that +the novelist who can write a living book is a traitor to his art and +conscience if he prefers the easy money of the film. Readers are to be +considered before the frequenters of Picture Palaces. His privilege +is to beguile and amuse and refresh through the ages: not to snatch +momentary triumphs and disappear. + +The evidence of the moment is more on the side of the pessimist than +the optimist. I found in America no trace of interest in such valuable +records as the Kearton pictures of African jungle life or the Ponting +records of the Arctic Zone. For the moment the whole energy of the +gigantic cinema industry seemed to be directed towards the filming +of human stories and the completest beguilement, without the faintest +infusion of instruction or idealism, of the many-headed mob. In short, +to provide "dope." Whether so much "dope" is desirable, is the question +to be answered. That poor human nature needs a certain amount, is beyond +doubt. But so much? And do we all need it, or at any rate deserve it? is +another question. Sometimes indeed I wonder whether those of us who have +our full share of senses ought to go to the cinema at all. It may be +that its true purpose is to be the dramatist of the deaf. + + + + +THE AMERICAN FACE + + +Perhaps it is one of the travellers' illusions (and we are very +susceptible to them), but I have the impression that American men are +more alike than the English are. It may be because there are fewer +idiosyncrasies in male attire, for in America every one wears the same +kind of hat; but I think not. In spite of the mixed origin of most +Americans, a national type of face has been evolved to which they seem +satisfied almost universally to pay allegiance. Again and again in the +streets I have been about to accost strangers to whom I felt sure I had +recently been introduced, discovering just in time that they were merely +doubles. In England I fancy there is more individuality in appearance. +If it is denied that American faces are more true to one type than ours, +I shall reopen the attack by affirming that American voices are beyond +question alike. My position in these two charges may be illustrated by +notices that I saw fixed to gates at the docks in San Francisco. On one +were the words "No Smoking"; on the other "Positively No Smoking." + +And what about the science of physiognomy? I have been wondering if +Lavater is to be trusted outside Europe. In China and Japan I was +continually perplexed, for I saw so many men who obviously were +successful--leaders and controllers--but who were without more than the +rudiments of a nose on which to support their glasses; and yet I have +been brought up to believe that without a nose of some dimensions it +was idle to hope for worldly eminence. Again, in America, is it possible +that all these massive chins and firm aquiline beaks are ruling the +roost and reaching whatever goal they set out for? I doubt it. + +The average American face is, I think, keener than ours and healthier. +One sees fewer ruined faces than in English cities, fewer men and women +who have lost self-respect and self-control. The American people as +a whole strike the observer as being more prosperous, more alert and +ambitious, than the English. Where I found mean streets they were always +in the occupation of aliens. + +To revert to the matter of clothes, the American does as little as +possible to make things easy for the conjectural observer. In England +one can base guesses of some accuracy on attire. In a railway carriage +one can hazard without any great risk of error the theory that this man +is in trade and that in a profession, that another is a stockbroker, and +a fourth a country squire. But America is full of surprises, due to the +uniformity of clothing and a certain carelessness which elevates comfort +to a ritual. The man you think of as a millionaire may be a drummer, the +drummer a millionaire. Again, in England people are known to a certain +extent by the hotels they stay at, the restaurants they eat at, and the +class in which they travel. Such superficial guides fail one in America. + + + + +PROHIBITION AGAIN + + +I can best indicate, without the mechanical assistance of dates, the +time of my sojourn in New York by saying that, during those few weeks, +Woodrow Wilson's successor was being sought, the possibility of the +repeal of the Prohibition Act was a matter of excited interest, +and "Babe" Ruth was the national hero. During this period I saw the +President sitting on the veranda of the White House; I had opportunities +of honouring Prohibition in the breach as well as in the observance; and +these eyes were everlastingly cheered and enriched by the spectacle of +the "Babe" (who is a baseball divinity) lifting a ball over the Polo +Ground pavilion into Manhattan Field. I hold, then, that I cannot be +said to have been unlucky or to have wasted my time. + +I found (this was in the spring of 1920) Prohibition the universal +topic: could it last, and should it last? In England we are accused of +talking always of the weather. In America, where there is no weather, +nothing but climate, that theme probably was never popular. Even if it +once were, however, it had given way to Prohibition. At every lunch or +dinner table at which I was present Prohibition was a topic. And how +could it be otherwise?--for if my host was a "dry" man, he had to begin +by apologising for having nothing cheering to offer, and if he possessed +a cellar it was impossible not to open the ball by congratulating him on +his luck and his generosity. Meanwhile the guests were comparing notes +as to the best substitutes for alcoholic beverages, exchanging recipes, +or describing their adventures with private stills. + +I visited a young couple in a charming little cottage in one of the +garden cities near New York, and found them equally divided in their +solicitude over a baby on the top floor and a huge jar in the basement +which needed constant skimming if the beer was to be worth drinking. + +One effect of Prohibition which I was hoping for, if not actually +expecting, failed to materialise. I had thought that the standard of +what are called T.B.M. (Tired Business Men) theatrical shows might be +higher if the tendency of alcohol to make audiences more tolerant (as +it undoubtedly can do in London) were no longer operative. But these +entertainments seemed, under teetotallers, no better. + + + + +THE BALL GAME + + +After seeing my first ball game or so I was inclined to suggest +improvements; but now that I have attended more I am disposed to think +that those in authority know more about it than I do, and that such +blemishes as it appears to have are probably inevitable. For one thing, +I thought that the outfield had too great an advantage. For another, not +unassociated with that objection, I thought that the home-run hit was +not sufficiently rewarded above the quite ordinary hit--"bunch-hit," is +it?--that brings in a man or men. In the English game of "Rounders," the +parent of baseball, a home-run hit either restores life to a man already +out or provides the batting side with a life in reserve. To put a +premium of this kind on so noble an achievement is surely not fantastic. +So I thought. And yet I see now that the game must not be lengthened, +or much of its character would go. It is its concentrated American fury +that is its greatest charm. If a three-day cricket match were so packed +with emotion we should all die of heart failure. + +I thought, too, that it is illogical that a ground stroke behind the +diamond should be a no-ball, and yet, should that ball be in the air +and caught, the striker should be out. I thought it an odd example of +lenience to allow the batsman as many strokes behind the catcher as he +chanced to make. But the more baseball I see the more it enchants me as +a spectacle, and these early questionings are forgotten. + +Baseball and cricket cannot be compared, because they are as different +as America and England; they can only be contrasted. Indeed, many of the +differences between the peoples are reflected in the games; for cricket +is leisurely and patient, whereas baseball is urgent and restless. +Cricket can prosper without excitement, while excitement is baseball's +life-blood, and so on: the catalogue could be indefinitely extended. +But, though a comparison is futile, it may be interesting to note some +of the divergences between the games. One of the chief is that baseball +requires no specially prepared ground, whereas cricket demands turf in +perfect order. Bad weather, again, is a more serious foe to the English +than to the American game, for if the turf is soaked we cannot go on, +and hence the number of drawn or unfinished matches in the course of a +season. A two hours' game, such as baseball is, can, however, always be +played off. + +In baseball the pitcher's ball must reach the batter before it touches +the ground; in cricket, if the ball did not touch the ground first and +reach the batsman on the bound, no one would ever be out at all, for the +other ball, the full-pitch as we call it, is, with a flat bat, too easy +to hit, for our bowlers swerve very rarely: it is the contact with the +ground which enables them to give the ball its extra spin or break. +Full-pitches are therefore very uncommon. In cricket a bowler who +delivered the ball with the action of a pitcher would be disqualified +for "throwing": it is one of the laws of cricket that the bowler's elbow +must not be bent. + +In cricket (I mean in the first-class variety of the game) the decisions +of the umpire are never questioned, either by players or public. + +In baseball there are but two strokes for the batter: either the +"swipe," or "slog," as we call it, where he uses all his might, or the +"bunt," usually a sacrificial effort; in cricket there are scores of +strokes, before the wicket, behind it, and at every angle to it. These +the cricketer is able to make because the bat is flat and wide, and he +holds it both vertically and at a slant, as occasion demands, and is +allowed, at his own risk, to run out to meet the ball. In the early days +of cricket, a hundred and fifty years ago, the bat was like a baseball +club, but curved, and the only strokes then were much what the only +baseball strokes are now--the full-strength hit and the stopping hit. So +long as the pitcher delivers the ball in the air it is probable that the +baseball club will remain as it is; but should the evolution of the game +allow the pitcher to make use of the ground, then the introduction of a +flattened club is probable. But let us not look ahead. All that we can +be sure of is that, since baseball is American, it will change. + +To resume the catalogue of contrast. In baseball the batsman must run +for every fair hit; in cricket he may choose which hits to run for. + +In baseball a man's desire is to hit the ball in the air beyond the +fielders; in cricket, though a man would like to do this, his side is +better served if he hits every ball along the ground. + +In baseball no man can have more than a very small number of hits in +a match; in cricket he can be batting for a whole day, and then again +before the match is over. There are instances of batsmen making over 400 +runs before being out. + +Another difference between the games is that in cricket we use a new +ball only at the beginning of a fresh inning (of which there cannot be +more than four in a match) and when each 200 runs have been scored; and +(this will astonish the American reader) when the ball is hit among the +people it is returned. I have seen such rapid voluntary surrenders at +baseball very seldom, and so much of a "fan" have I become that the +spectacle has always been accompanied in my breast by pain and contempt. +I had the gratification of receiving from the burly John McGraw an +autograph ball as a souvenir of a visit to the Polo Ground. I put it +in my pocket hurriedly, conscious of the risk I ran among a nation of +ball-stealers in possessing such a trophy; and I got away with it. But +I am sure that had it been a ball hit out of the ground by the mighty +"Babe" Ruth, which--recovering it by some supernatural means--he had +handed to me in public, I should not have emerged alive, or, if alive, +not in the ball's company. + +In cricket the wicket-keeper, who, like the baseball catcher, is +protected, although he has no mask, is the most difficult man to obtain, +because he has the hardest time and the least public approbation; in +baseball the catcher is a hero and every boy aspires to his mitt. + +In cricket no player makes more than three hundred pounds a season, +unless it is his turn for his one and only benefit, when he may make +a thousand pounds more. But most players do not reach such a level of +success that a benefit is their lot. But baseballers earn enormous sums. + +If a match could be arranged between eleven cricketers and eleven +baseballers, the cricketers to be allowed to bowl and the baseballers +to pitch, the cricketers to use their own bats and the baseballers their +own clubs, I fancy that the cricketers would win; for the difficulty of +hitting our bowling with a club would be greater than of hitting their +pitching with a bat. But their wonderful fielding and far more accurate +and swifter throwing than ours might just save them. Such throwing we +see only very rarely, for good throwing is no longer insisted upon in +cricket, much to the game's detriment. That old players should lose +their shoulders is natural--and, of course, our players remain in +first-class cricket for many years longer than ball champions--but there +is no excuse for the young men who have taken advantage of a growing +laxity in this matter. Chief of the few cricketers who throw with any of +the terrible precision of a baseball field is Hobbs. It must be borne +in mind, however, that cricket does not demand such constant throwing at +full speed as baseball does; for in cricket, as I have said, the +batsman may choose what hits he will run for, and if he chooses only the +perfectly safe ones the fieldsmen are never at high pressure. There is +also nothing in cricket quite to compare with base-stealing. + +When it comes to catching, the percentage of missed catches is far +higher at cricket than at baseball; but there are good reasons for this. +One is that in baseball a glove is worn; another that in baseball +all catches come to the fieldsmen with long or sufficient notice. The +fieldsmen are all, except the catcher, in front of the batsmen; there +is nothing to compare with the unexpected nimbleness that our point and +slips have to display. + +In the hypothetical contest that I have suggested, between baseballers +and cricketers, if the conditions were nominally equal and the +cricketers had to pitch like baseballers and the baseballers to use the +English bat, why then the baseballers would win handsomely. + +Baseball, I fancy, will not be acclimatised in England. We had our +chance when London was full of American soldiers and we did not take it. +But we were very grateful to them for playing the game in our midst, +for the authorities were so considerate as to let them play on Sundays +(which we are never allowed to do) and I was one of those who hoped +that this might be the thin end of the wedge and Sunday cricket also be +permitted. But no; when the war was over and the Americans left us, the +old Sabbatarianism reasserted itself. If, however, we ever exchanged +national games, and cricket were played in America and baseball in +England, it is the English spectator who would have the better of the +exchange. I am convinced that although we should quickly find baseball +diverting, nothing would ever persuade an American crowd to be otherwise +than bored by cricket. + + + + +SKYSCRAPERS + + +Perhaps if I had reached New York from the sea the skyscrapers would +have struck me more violently. But I had already seen a few in San +Francisco (and wondered at and admired the courage which could build so +high after the earthquake of 1906), and more in Chicago, all ugly; so +that when I came to New York and found that the latest architects were +not only building high, but imposing beauty on these mammoth structures, +surprise was mingled with delight. No matter how many more millions of +dollars are expended on that strange medley of ancient forms which go +to make up New York's new Cathedral, where Romanesque and Gothic seem +already to be ready for their divorce, the Woolworth Building will be +New York's true fane. Mr. Cass Gilbert, the designer of that graceful +immensity, not only gave commerce its most notable monument (to date), +but removed for ever the slur upon skyscrapers. The Woolworth Building +does not scrape the sky; it greets it, salutes it with a _beau geste_. +And I would say something similar of the Bush Building, with its +alabaster chapel in the air which becomes translucent at night; and +the Madison Square Tower (whose clock face, I noticed, has the amazing +diameter of three storeys); and the Burroughs Welcome Building on 41st +Street, with its lovely perpendicular lines; and that immense cube of +masonry on Park Avenue which bursts into flower, so to speak, at the top +in the shape of a very beautiful loggia. But even if these adornments +become, as I hope, the rule, one could not resent the ordinary +structural elephantiasis a moment after realising New York's physical +conditions. A growing city built on a narrow peninsula is unable to +expand laterally and must, therefore, soar. The problem was how to make +it soar with dignity, and the problem has been solved. + +In the old days when brown stone was the only builders' medium New York +must have been a drab city indeed; or so I gather from the few ancient +typical residences that remain. There are a few that are new, too, but +for the most part the modern house is of white stone. Gayest of all is, +I suppose, that vermilion-roofed florist's on Fifth Avenue. + +One has to ascend the Woolworth Building to appreciate at a blow with +what discretion the original settlers of New York made their choice. It +is interesting, too, to watch Broadway--which, for all I know, is the +longest street in the world--starting at one's feet on its lawless +journey to Albany: lawless because it is almost the only sinuous +thing in this city of parallelograms and has the effrontery to cross +diagonally both Fifth Avenue and Sixth. Before leaving the Woolworth +Building, I would say that there seemed to me something rather comically +paradoxical in being charged 50 cents for access to the top of a +structure which was erected to celebrate the triumph of a commercial +genius whose boast it was to have made his fortune out of articles sold +at a rate never higher than 10 cents. + +Having dallied sufficiently on the summit--there are a trifle of +fifty-eight floors, but an express lift makes nothing of them--I +continued the implacable career of the tripper by watching for a while +the deafening kerb market, which presented on that morning an odd +appearance, more like Yarmouth beach than a financial centre, for there +had been rain, and all the street operators were in sou'westers and +sea-boots. There can be spasms of similar excitement in London, in +the neighbourhood of Capel Court, but we have nothing that compares so +closely with this crowd as Tattersall's Ring at Epsom just before the +Derby. + + + + +A PLEA FOR THE AQUARIUM + + +It was a relief to resume my programme by entering that abode of the +dumb and detached--the aquarium in Battery Park. For the kerb uproar +"the uncommunicating muteness of fishes" was the only panacea. The Bronx +Zoo is not, I think, except in the matter of buffalo and deer paddocks, +so good as ours in London, but it has this shining advantage--it is +free. So also is the Aquarium in Battery Park, and it was pleasing to +see how crowded the place can be. In England all interest in living +fish, except as creatures to be coaxed towards hooks and occasionally +retained there, has vanished; on the site of old Westminster Aquarium +the Wesleyans now manage their finances and determine their circuits, +while the Brighton Aquarium, once famous all the world over, is a +variety hall with barely a fin to its name. + +After seeing the aquarium in Honolulu, which is like a pelagic rainbow +factory, and the aquarium in New York with all its strange and beautiful +denizens, I am a little ashamed of our English apathy. To maintain +picture galleries, where, however beautiful and chromatic, all is dead, +and be insensitive to the loveliness of fish, in hue, in shape and in +movement, is not quite pardonable. + + + + +ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES + + +In essentials America is American, but when it comes to inessentials, to +trimmings, her dependence on old England was noticeable again and again +as I walked about New York. The fashion which, at the moment, the print +shops were fostering was for our racing, hunting and coaching coloured +prints of a century ago, while in the gallery of the distinguished +little Grolier Club I found an exhibition of the work of Randolph +Caldecott and Kate Greenaway. In such old bookshops as I visited all +the emphasis was--just then--laid upon Keats and Lamb and Shelley, whose +first editions and presentation copies seem to be continually making the +westward journey. I had not been in New York twenty-four hours before +Keats' "Lamia," 1820--with an inscription from the author to Charles +Lamb--the very copy from which, I imagine, Lamb wrote his review, was in +my hands; but it would have been far beyond my means even if the pound +were not standing at 3.83. These "association" books, in which American +collectors take especial pleasure, can be very costly. At a sale soon +after I left New York, seven presentation copies of Dickens' books, +containing merely the author's signed inscription, realised 4870 +dollars. To continue, in Wanamaker's old curiosity department I found +little but English furniture and odds and ends, at prices which in their +own country would have been fantastically high. In the "Vanity Fair" +department, however (as I think it is called), the source was French. I +suppose that French influence must be at the back of all the costumiers +and jewellers of New York, but the shops themselves are far more +spacious than those in Paris and not less well-appointed. Tiffany's is +a palace; all it lacks is a name, but its splendid anonymity is, I take +it, a point of honour. + +It used to be said that good Americans when they died went to Paris. The +Parisian lure no doubt is still powerful; but every day I should guess +that more of Paris comes to America. The upper parts of New York have +boulevards and apartment houses very like the real thing, and I noticed +that the architecture of France exerts a special attraction for the +rich man decreeing himself a pleasure dome. There are millionaires' +residences in New York that might have been transplanted not only from +the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, but from Touraine itself; while when I +made my pilgrimage to Mr. Widener's, just outside Philadelphia, I found +Rembrandt's "Mill," and Manet's dead bull-fighter, and a Vermeer, and +a little meadow painted divinely by Corot, and El Greco's family group, +and Donatello's St. George, and one of the most lovely scenes that ever +was created by Turner's enchanted brush, all enshrined in a palace which +Louis Seize might have built. + +But America is even more French than this. Her women can be not less +_soignees_ than those of France, although they suggest a cooler blood +and less dependence on male society; her bread and coffee are better +than France's best. Moreover, when it comes to night and the Broadway +constellations challenge the darkness, New York leaves Paris far behind. +For every cabaret and supper resort that Paris can provide, New York has +three; and for every dancing floor in Paris, New York has thirty. Good +Americans, however, will still remain faithful to their old posthumous +love, if only for her wine. + +Apropos of American women, their position struck me as very different +from the position of women with us. English women are deferential to +their husbands; they are content to be relegated to the background on +all occasions when they are not wanted. They are dependent. They seldom +wear an air of triumph and rarely take the lead. But American women are +complacent and assured, they do most of the talking, make most of the +plans: if they are not seen, it is because they are in the background; +they are either active prominently elsewhere or are high on pedestals. +With each other they are mostly or often humorously direct, whereas with +men they seem to adopt an ironical or patronising attitude. American +women seem also to have a curious power of attracting to themselves +other women who admire them and foster their self-esteem. And, for all +that I know, these satellites have satellites too. Their federacy almost +amounts to a solid secret society; not so much against men, for men +must provide the sinews of war and other comforts, but for their own +satisfaction. Both sexes appear not to languish when alone. + + + + +SKY-SIGNS AND CONEY ISLAND + + +All visitors to New York speak of the exhilaration of its air, and I can +but repeat their testimony. After the first few days the idea of going +to bed became an absurdity. + +Among the peculiarly beautiful effects that America produces, sky signs +must be counted high. I had seen some when in San Francisco against the +deep Californian night, and they captivated the startled vision; but the +reckless profusion and movement of the Great White Way, as I turned out +of 42nd Street on my first evening in New York, came as something more +than a surprise: a revelation of wilful gaiety. We have normally nothing +in England to compare with it. Nor can we have even our Earl's Court +exhibition imitations of it so long as coal is so rare and costly. But +though we had the driving power for the electricity we could never get +such brilliance, for the clear American atmosphere is an essential ally. +In our humid airs all the diamond glints would be blurred. + +For the purest beauty of traceries of light against a blue background +one must go, however, not to Broadway, which is too bizarre, but to Luna +Park on Coney Island. Odd that it should be there, in that bewildering +medley of sound and restlessness, that an extreme of loveliness should +be found; but I maintain that it is so, that nothing more strangely and +voluptuously beautiful could be seen than all those minarets and domes, +with their lines and curves formed by myriad lamps, turning by contrast +the heavens into an ocean of velvet blue, mysterious and soft and +profound. + +Only periodically--when we have exhibitions at Earl's Court or at +Olympia--is there in England anything like Coney Island. At Blackpool in +August, and on Hampstead Heath on Bank Holidays, a corresponding spirit +of revelry is attempted, but it is not so natural, and is vitiated by +a self-conscious determination to be gay and by not a little vulgarity. +The revellers of Steeplechase Park seemed to me to be more genuine +even than the crowds that throng the Fete de Neuilly; and a vast deal +happier. + +One very striking difference between Coney Island and the French fair +is the absence of children from New York's "safety-valve," as some one +described it to me. I saw hardly any. It is as though once again the +child's birthday gifts had been appropriated by its elders; but as +a matter of fact the Parks of Steeplechase and Luna were, I imagine, +designed deliberately for adults. Judging by the popularity of the +chutes and the whips, the switchbacks and the witching waves, eccentric +movement has a peculiar attraction for the American holiday-maker. As +some one put it, there is no better way, or at any rate no more thorough +way, of throwing young people together. Middle-aged people, too. But the +observer receives no impression of moral disorder. High spirits are +the rule, and impropriety is the exception. Even in the auditorium +at Steeplechase Park, where the _cognoscenti_ assemble to witness the +discomfiture of the uninitiated, there is nothing but harmless laughter +as the skirts fly up before the unsuspected blast. Such a performance in +England, were it permitted, would degenerate into ugliness; in France, +too, it would make the alien spectator uncomfortable. But the essential +public chastity of the Americans--I am not sure that I ought not here to +write civilisation of the Americans--emerges triumphant. + +It was at Coney Island that I came suddenly upon the Pig Slide and had a +new conception of what quadrupeds can do for man. + +The Pig Slide, which was in one of the less noisy quarters of Luna +Park, consisted of an enclosure in which stood a wooden building of two +storeys, some five yards wide and three high. On the upper storey was a +row of six or eight cages, in each of which dwelt a little live pig, +an infant of a few weeks. In the middle of the row, descending to the +ground, was an inclined board, with raised edges, such as is often +installed in swimming-baths to make diving automatic, and beneath each +cage was a hole a foot in diameter. The spectators and participants +crowded outside the enclosure, and the thing was to throw balls, which +were hired for the purpose, into the holes. Nothing could exceed the +alert and eager interest taken by the little pigs in the efforts of the +ball-throwers. They quivered on their little legs; they pressed their +little noses against the bars of the cages; their little eyes sparkled; +their tails (the only public corkscrews left in America) curled +and uncurled and curled again: and with reason, for whereas if you +missed--as was only too easy--nothing happened: if you threw accurately +the fun began, and the fun was also theirs. + +This is what occurred. First a bell rang and then a spring released the +door of the cage immediately over the hole which your ball had entered, +so that it swung open. The little pig within, after watching the +previous infirmity of your aim with dejection, if not contempt, had +pricked up his ears on the sound of the bell, and now smiled a gratified +smile, irresistible in infectiousness, and trotted out, and, with +the smile dissolving into an expression of absolute beatitude, slid +voluptuously down the plank: to be gathered in at the foot by an +attendant and returned to its cage all ready for another such adventure. + +It was for these moments and their concomitant changes of countenance +that you paid your money. To taste the triumph of good marksmanship +was only a fraction of your joy; the greater part of it consisted in +liberating a little prisoner and setting in motion so much ecstasy. + + + + +THE PRESS + + +America is a land of newspapers, and the newspapers are very largely +the same. To a certain extent many of them are exactly the same, for +the vastness of the country makes it possible to syndicalise various +features, so that you find Walt Mason's sagacious and merry and punctual +verse, printed to look like prose but never disappointing the ear, in +one of the journals that you buy wherever you are, in San Francisco, +Salt Lake City, Chicago or New York; and Mr. Montagu's topical rhymes +in another; and the daily adventures of Mutt and Jeff, who are national +heroes, in a third. Every day, for ever, do those and other regular +features occur in certain of the papers: which is partly why no American +ever seems to confine himself, as is our custom, to only one. + +Another and admirable feature of certain American papers is a column +edited by a man of letters, whose business it is to fill it every +day, either with the blossoms of his own intelligence or of outside +contributors, or a little of each: such a column as Don Marquis edits +for _The Sun_, called "The Sundial," and Franklin R. Adams for _The +Tribune_, called "The Conning Tower," and Christopher Morley for the New +York _Evening Post_, called "The Bowling Green." Perhaps the unsigned +"Way of the World" in our _Morning Post_ is the nearest London +correlative. + +These columns are managed with skill and catholicity, and they impart +an element of graciousness and fancy into what might otherwise be +too materialistic a budget. A journalist, like myself, is naturally +delighted to find editors and a vast public so true to their writing +friends. Very few English editors allow their subscribers the +opportunity of establishing such steady personal relations; and in +England, in consequence, the signed daily contribution from one literary +hand is very rare--to an American observer probably mysteriously so. The +daily cartoon is common with us; but in London, for example, I cannot +think of any similar literary feature that is signed in full. We have +C.E.B.'s regular verse in the _Evening News_ and "The Londoner's" daily +essay in the same paper, and various initials elsewhere; but, with us, +only the artists are allowed their names. Now, in America every name, +everywhere, is blazoned forth. + +Whatever bushel measures may be used for in the United States the +concealing of light is no part of their programme. + +Another feature of American daily journals comparatively unknown in +England is the so-called comic pictorial sequence. All the big papers +have from one to half a dozen of these sequences, each by a different +artist. Bud Fisher with "Mutt and Jeff" comes first in popularity, I +believe, and then there are his rivals and his imitators. Nothing more +inane than some of these series could be invented; and yet they persist +and could not, I am told, be dropped by any editor who thought first of +circulation. + +After the individual contributions have been subtracted, all the +newspapers are curiously alike. The same reporters might be on every +one; the same sub-editors; the same composers of head-lines. If we think +of Americans as too capable of cynical levity it is largely because of +these head-lines, which are always as epigrammatic as possible, always +light-hearted, often facetious, and often cruel. An unfortunate woman's +failure at suicide after killing her husband was thus touched off in one +of the journals while I was in New York: + +POOR SHOT AT HERSELF BUT SUCCEEDS IN LODGING BULLET IN SPOUSE. + +When it comes to the choice of news, one cannot believe that American +editors are the best friends of their country. I am holding no brief for +many English editors; I think that our papers can be common too, and can +be too ready to take things by the wrong handle; but I think that more +vulgarising of life is, at present, effected by American journalists +than by English. There are, however, many signs that we may catch up. + +Profusion is a characteristic of the American newspaper. There is too +much of everything. And when Sunday comes with its masses of reading +matter proper to the Day of Rest one is appalled. One thing is +certain--no American can find time to do justice both to his Sunday +paper and his Maker. It is principally on Sunday that one realises +that if Matthew Arnold's saying that every nation has the newspapers it +deserves is true, America must have been very naughty. How the Sunday +editions could be brought out while the paper-shortage was being +discussed everywhere, as it was during my visit, was a problem that +staggered me. But that the shortage was real I was assured, and +jokes upon it even got into the music halls: a sure indication of +its existence. "If the scarcity of paper gets more acute," I heard a +comedian say, "they'll soon have to make shoes of leather again." + +But it is not only the Sunday papers that are so immense. I used to hold +the _Saturday Evening Post_ in my hands, weighed down beneath its bulk, +and marvel that the nation that had time to read it could have time for +anything else. The matter is of the best, but what would the prudent, +wise and hard-working philosopher who founded it so many years +ago--Benjamin Franklin--say if he saw its lure deflecting millions of +readers from the real business of life? + +When we come to consider the American magazines--to which class the +_Saturday Evening Post_ almost belongs--and the English, there is no +comparison. The best American magazines are wonderful in their quality +and range, and we have nothing to set beside them. It is astonishing to +think how different, in the same country, daily and monthly journalism +can be. Omitting the monthly reviews, _Blackwood_ is, I take it, our +finest monthly miscellany; and all of _Blackwood_ could easily +and naturally be absorbed in one of the American magazines and be +illustrated into the bargain, and still leave room for much more. And +the whole would cost less! Why England is so poorly and pettily served +in the matter of monthly magazines is something of a mystery; but part +of the cause is the rivalry of the papers, and part the smallness of our +population. But I shall always hold that we deserve more good magazines +than we have now. + + + + +TREASURES OF ART + + +I was fortunate in being in New York when the Metropolitan Museum +celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its birth, for I was therefore +able to enjoy not only its normal treasures but such others as had +been borrowed for birthday presents, which means that I saw Mrs. H. E. +Huntington's Vermeer, as well as the supreme Marquand example of that +master; more than the regular wealth of Rembrandts, Manet's "Still +Life," Gauguin's "Women by the River," El Greco's "View of Toledo," +Franz Hals' big jovial Dutchman from Mr. Harry Goldman's walls, and +Bellini's "Bacchanale"--to say nothing of the lace in galleries 18 and +19, Mr. Morgan's bronze Eros from Pompeii, and the various cases of +porcelain from a score of collections. But without extra allurements I +should have been drawn again and again to this magnificent museum. + +Two of the principal metropolitan donors--Altman and Hearn--were the +owners of big dry goods stores, while Marquand, whose little Vermeer is +probably the loveliest thing in America, was also a merchant. In future +I shall look upon all the great emporium proprietors as worthy of +patronage, on the chance of their being also beneficent collectors of +works of art. This thought, this hope, is more likely to get me into a +certain Oxford Street establishment than all the rhetoric and special +pleading of Callisthenes. + +The Frick Gallery was not accessible; but I was privileged to roam at +will both in Mr. Morgan's library and in Mr. H. E. Huntington's, in each +of which I saw such a profusion of unique and unappraisable autographs +as I had not supposed existed in private hands. Rare books any one with +money can have, for they are mostly in duplicate; but autographs and +"association" books are unique, and America is the place for them. I had +known that it was necessary to cross the Atlantic in order to see the +originals of many of the pictures of which we in London have only the +photographs. I knew that the bulk of the Lamb correspondence was in +America, and at Mr. Morgan's I saw the author's draft of the essay +on "Roast Pig," and at Mr. Newton's, in Philadelphia, the original of +"Dream Children," an even more desirable possession; I knew that America +had provided an eager home for everything connected with Keats and +Shelley and Stevenson; but it was a surprise to find at Mr. Morgan's +so wide a range of MSS., extending from Milton to Du Maurier, and from +Bacon to "Dorian Gray"; while at Mr. Huntington's I had in my hands the +actual foolscap sheets on which Heine composed his "Florentine Nights." + +I ought, you say, to have known this before. Maybe. But that ignorance +in such matters is no monopoly of mine I can prove by remarking that +many an American collector with whom I have talked was unaware that +the library of Harvard University is the possessor of all the works +of reference--mostly annotated--which were used by Thomas Carlyle in +writing his "Cromwell" and his "Frederick the Great," and they were +bequeathed by him in his will to Harvard University because of his +esteem and regard for the American people, "particularly the more silent +part of them." + +My hours in these libraries, together with a glimpse of the Widener room +at Harvard and certain booksellers' shelves, gave me some idea of what +American collectors have done towards making the New World a treasury of +the Old, and I realised how more and more necessary it will be, in the +future, for all critics of art in whatever branch, and of literature in +whatever branch, and all students even of antiquity, if they intend to +be thorough, to visit America. This I had guessed at, but never before +had known. + +The English traveller lighting upon so many of the essentially English +riches as are conserved in American libraries, and particularly when he +has not a meagre share of national pride, cannot but pause to wonder how +it came about--and comes about--that so much that ought to be in its own +country has been permitted to stray. + +In England collectors and connoisseurs are by no means rare. What, then, +were they doing to let all these letters of Keats and Shelley, Burns and +Byron, Lamb and Johnson--to name for the moment nothing else--find +their resting-place in America? The dollar is very powerful, I know, +but should it have been as pre-eminently powerful as this? Need it have +defeated so much patriotism? + +Pictures come into a different category, for every artist painted more +than one picture. I have experienced no shade of resentment towards +their new owners in looking at the superb collections of old and new +foreign masters in the American public and private galleries; for so +long as there are enough examples of the masters to go round, every +nation should have a share. With MSS., however, it is different. +Facsimiles, such as the Boston Bibliographical Society's edition of +Lamb's letters, would serve for the rest of the world, and the originals +should be in their author's native land. But that is a counsel of +perfection. The only thing to do is to grin and bear it, and feel happy +that these unique possessions are preserved with such loving pride +and care. Any idea of retaliation on America on the part of England by +buying up the MSS. of the great American writers, such as Franklin and +Poe, Hawthorne and Emerson, Thoreau and Lowell, Holmes and Whitman, was +rendered futile by the discovery that Mr. Morgan possesses these too. I +had in his library all the Breakfast Table series in my hands, together +with a play by Poe not yet published. + + + + +MOUNT VERNON + + +Mention of the beautiful solicitude with which these treasures are +surrounded, suggests the reflection that the old country has something +to learn from the new in the matter of distinguished custodianship. We +have no place of national pilgrimage in England that is so perfect a +model as Washington's home at Mount Vernon. It is perhaps through lack +of a figure of the Washington type that we have nothing to compare with +it; for any parallel one must rather go to Fontainebleau; but +certain shrines are ours and none of them discloses quite such +pious thoroughness as this. When I think of the completeness of the +preservation and reconstruction of Mount Vernon, where, largely +through the piety of individuals, a thousand personal relics have been +reassembled, so that, save for the sightseers, this serene and simple +Virginian mansion is almost exactly as it was, I am filled with +admiration. For a young people largely in a hurry to find time to be so +proud and so reverent is a significant thing. + +Nor is this spirit of pious reverence confined to national memorials. +Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Massachusetts, although still only a +hostelry, compares not unfavourably with Dove Cottage at Grasmere and +Carlyle's house in Chelsea. The preservation is more minute. But to +return to Mount Vernon, the orderliness of the place is not its least +noticeable feature. There is no mingling of trade with sentiment, as +at Stratford-on-Avon, for example. Within the borders of the estate +everything is quiet. I have never seen Americans in church (not, I +hasten to add, because they abstain, but because I did), but I am sure +that they could not, even there, behave more as if the environment were +sacred. To watch the crowds at Mount Vernon, and to contemplate the +massive isolated grandeur of the Lincoln Memorial now being finished +at Washington, is to realise that America, for all its superficial +frivolity and cynicism, is capable of a very deep seriousness. + + + + +VERS LIBRE + + +It would have been pedantic, while in America, to have abstained from an +effort at _vers libre_. + + + + +REVOLT + + +I had been to the Metropolitan Museum looking at beautiful things and +rejoicing in them. + +And then I had to catch a train and go far into the country, to Paul +Smith's. + +And as the light lessened and the brooding hour set in I looked out of +the window and reconstructed some of the lovely things I had seen--the +sculptures and the paintings, the jewels and the porcelain: all the fine +flower of the arts through the ages. + +It seemed marvellous beyond understanding that such perfection could +exist, and I thought how wonderful it must be to be God and see His +creatures rising now and again to such heights. + +And then I came to a station where there was to be a very long wait, and +I went to an inn for a meal. + +It was a dirty neglected place, with a sullen unwashed man at the door, +who called raspingly to his wife within. + +And when she came she was a slattern, with dishevelled hair and a soiled +dress and apron, and she looked miserable and worn out. + +She prepared a meal which I could not eat, and when I went to pay for +it I found her sitting dejectedly in a chair looking with a kind of dumb +despair at the day's washing-up still to do. + +And as I walked up and down the road waiting for the car I thought of +this woman's earlier life when she was happy. + +I thought of her in her courtship, when her husband loved her and they +looked forward to marriage and he was tender and she was blithe. + +They probably went to Coney Island together and laughed with the rest. + +And it seemed iniquitous that such changes should come about and +that merry girls should grow into sluts and slovens, and ardent young +husbands should degenerate into unkempt bullies, and houses meant for +happiness should decay, and marriage promises all be forgotten. + +And I felt that if the world could not be better managed than that I +never wanted to see any of God's artistic darlings at the top of their +form again and the Metropolitan Museum could go hang. + + + + +DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE + + +I believe that few statements about America would so surprise English +people as that it has beautiful architecture. I was prepared to find +Boston and Cambridge old-fashioned and homelike--Oliver Wendell Holmes +had initiated me; I had a distinct notion of the cool spaciousness of +the White House and the imposing proportions of the Capitol and, of +course, I knew that one had but to see the skyscrapers of New York to +experience the traditional repulsion! But of the church of St. Thomas on +Fifth Avenue I had heard nothing, nor of Mr. Morgan's exquisite library, +nor of the Grand Central terminus, nor of the Lincoln Memorial at +Washington, nor of the bland charm of Mount Vernon. Nor had I expected +to find Fifth Avenue so dignified and cordial a thoroughfare. + +Even less was I prepared for such metal work and stone work as is to +be seen in some of the business houses--such as, for example, the new +Guaranty Trust offices, both on Broadway and in Fifth Avenue. Even the +elevators (for which we in England, in spite of our ancient lethargy, +have a one-syllable word) are often finished with charming taste. + +Least of all did I anticipate the maturity of America's buildings. Those +serene facades on Beacon Street overlooking Boston Common, where the +Autocrat used to walk (and I made an endeavour to follow his identical +footsteps, for he was my first real author)--they are as satisfying as +anything in Georgian London. And I shall long treasure the memory of the +warm red brick and easy proportions of the Boston City Hall and Faneuil +Hall, and Independence Hall at Philadelphia seen through a screen of +leaves. But in England (and these buildings were English once) we still +have many old red brick buildings; what we have not is anything to +correspond with the spacious friendly houses of wood which I saw in the +country all about Boston and at Cambridge--such houses as that which was +Lowell's home--each amid its own greenery. Nowhere, however, did I see a +more comely manor house of the old Colonial style than Anthony Wayne's, +near Daylesford, in Pennsylvania. In England only cottages are built of +wood, and I rather think that there are now by-laws against that. + +Not all the good country houses, big and little, are, however, old. +American architects in the past few years seem to have developed a very +attractive type of home, often only a cottage, and I saw a great number +of these on the slopes of the Hudson, all the new ones combining taste +with the suggestion of comfort. The conservation of trees wherever +possible is an admirable feature of modern suburban planning in America. +In England the new suburb too often has nothing but saplings. In +America, again, the houses, even the very small ones, are more often +detached than with us. + + + + +BOSTON + + +Once the lay-out of New York has been mastered--its avenues and numbered +cross streets--it is the most difficult city in the world in which to +lose one's way. But Boston is different. I found Boston hard to learn, +although it was a pleasant task to acquire knowledge, for I was led into +some of the quietest little Georgian streets I have ever been in, +steep though some of them were, and along one of the fairest of green +walks--that between the back of Beacon Street and the placid Charles. + +Against Boston I have a certain grudge, for I could find no one to +direct me to the place where the tea was thrown overboard. But that +it was subjected to this indignity we may be certain--partly from the +testimony of subsequent events not too soothing to English feelings, +and partly from the unpopularity which that honest herb still suffers +on American soil. Coffee, yes; coffee at all times; but no one will take +any but the most perfunctory interest in the preparation of tea. I found +the harbour; I traversed wharf after wharf; but found no visible record +of the most momentous act of jettison since Jonah. In the top room, +however, of Faneuil Hall, in the Honourable Artillery Company's +headquarters, the more salient incidents of the struggle which followed +are all depicted by enthusiastic, if not too talented, painters; and I +saw in the distance the monument on Bunker's Hill. + +My cicerone must be excused, for he was a Boston man, born and bred, +and I ought never to have put him to the humiliation of confessing his +natural ignorance. But the record is there, and legible enough. The +tablet (many kind correspondents have informed me since certain of +these notes appeared in the _Outlook_) is at 495 Atlantic Avenue, in the +water-front district, just a short walk from the South Station, and it +has the following inscription: + + * * * * * + +HERE FORMERLY STOOD + +GRIFFIN'S WHARF + +at which lay moored on Dec. 16, 1773, three British ships with cargoes +of tea. To defeat King George's trivial but tyrannical tax of three +pence a pound, about ninety citizens of Boston, partly disguised +as Indians, boarded the ships, threw the cargoes, three hundred and +forty-two chests in all, into the sea and made the world ring with the +patriotic exploit of the + +BOSTON TEA PARTY + + "No! ne'er was mingled such a draught + In palace, hall, or arbor, + As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed + That night in Boston Harbor." + + * * * * * + +Boston has a remarkable art gallery and museum, notable for its ancient +Chinese paintings, its collection of Japanese prints--one of the best +in the world, I believe--and a dazzling wall of water-colours by Mr. +Sargent. It was here that I saw my first Winslow Homers--two or three +rapid sketches of fishermen in full excitement--and was conquered by his +verve and actuality. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York I found him +again in oils and my admiration increased. Surely no one ever can have +painted the sea with more vividness, power and truth! We have no example +of his work in any public gallery in London; nor have we anything by +W. M. Chase, Arthur B. Davies, Swain Gifford, J. W. Alexander, George +Inness, or De Forest Brush. It is more than time for another American +Exhibition. As it is, the only modern American artists of whom there is +any general knowledge in England are Mr. Sargent, Mr. Epstein and Mr. +Pennell, and the late E. A. Abbey, G. H. Boughton, and Whistler. Other +Americans painting in our midst are Mr. Mark Fisher, R.A., Mr. J. J. +Shannon, R.A., Mr. J. McLure Hamilton, and Mr. G. Wetherbee. + +The Boston Gallery is the proud possessor of the rough and unfinished +but "speaking" likeness of George Washington by his predestined limner +Gilbert Stuart, and also a companion presentment of Washington's wife. +Looking upon this lady's countenance and watching a party of school +girls who were making the tour of the rooms, not uncomforted on their +arduous adventure by chocolate and other confections, it occurred to me +that if America increases her present love of eating sweets, due, I +am told, not a little to Prohibition, George Washington will gradually +disappear into the background and Martha Washington, who has already +given her name to a very popular brand of candy, will be venerated +instead, as the Sweet Mother of her Country. + +An American correspondent sends me the following poem in order to +explain to me the deviousness of Boston's principal thoroughfare. The +poet is Mr. Sam Walter Foss:-- + + One day through the primeval wood + A calf walked home, as good calves should; + + But made a trail all bent askew, + A crooked trail, as all calves do. + + Since then two hundred years have fled, + And, I infer, the calf is dead. + + But still he left behind his trail, + And thereby hangs my moral tale. + + The trail was taken up next day + By a lone dog that passed that way; + + And then a wise bell-wether sheep + Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep, + + And drew the flock behind him too, + As good bell-wethers always do. + + And from that day o'er hill and glade + Through those old woods a path was made, + + And many men wound in and out, + And dodged and turned and bent about, + + And uttered words of righteous wrath + Because 'twas such a crooked path; + + But still they followed--do not laugh-- + The first migrations of that calf, + + And through this winding wood-way stalked + Because he wabbled when he walked. + + The forest path became a lane + That bent and turned and turned again; + + This crooked lane became a road, + Where many a poor horse with his load + + Toiled on beneath the burning sun, + And travelled some three miles in one. + + And thus a century and a half + They trod the footsteps of that calf. + + The years passed on in swiftness fleet, + The road became a village street, + + And then before men were aware, + A city's crowded thoroughfare, + + And soon the central street was this + Of a renowned metropolis. + + And men two centuries and a half + Trod in the footsteps of that calf. + + Each day a hundred thousand rout + Followed the zigzag calf about; + + And o'er his crooked journey went + The traffic of a continent. + + A hundred thousand men were led + By one calf near three centuries dead. + + They followed still his crooked way + And lost one hundred years a day; + + For thus such reverence is lent + To well-established precedent. + + A moral lesson this might teach, + Were I ordained and called to preach. + + For men are prone to go it blind + Along the calf-paths of the mind, + + And work away from sun to sun + To do what other men have done. + + They follow in the beaten track, + And out and in and forth and back + + And still their devious course pursue, + To keep the paths that others do. + + But how the wise old wood-gods laugh + Who saw the first primeval calf! + + Ah, many things this tale might teach--But + I am not ordained to preach. + + + + +PHILADELPHIA + + +I was fortunate in the city over which William Penn, in giant effigy, +keeps watch and ward, in having as guide, philosopher and friend Mr. +A. Edward Newton, the Johnsonian, and the author of one of the best +examples of "amateur" literature that I know--"The Amenities of +Book-Collecting." Mr. Newton took me everywhere, even to the little +seventeenth-century Swedish church, which architecturally may be +described as the antipodes of Philadelphia's newer glory, the Curtis +Building, where editors are lodged like kings and can be attained to +(if at all) only through marble halls. We went to St. Peter's, where, +suddenly awaking during the sermon, one would think oneself to be in a +London city church, and to the Historical Museum, where I found among +the Quaker records many of my own ancestors and was bewildered amid +such a profusion of relics of Penn, Washington and Franklin. In the old +library were more traces of Franklin, including his famous electrical +appliance, again testifying to the white flame with which American +hero-worship can burn; and we found the sagacious Benjamin once more at +the Franklin Inn Club, where the simplicity of the eighteenth century +mingles with the humour and culture of the twentieth. We then drove +through several miles of Fairmount Park, stopping for a few minutes +in the hope of finding the late J. G. Johnson's Vermeer in the gallery +there; but for the moment it was in hiding, the walls being devoted to +his Italian pictures. + +Finally we drew up at the gates of that strange and imposing Corinthian +temple which might have been dislodged from its original site and hurled +to Philadelphia by the first Quaker, Poseidon--the Girard College. This +solemn fane we were permitted to enter only on convincing the porter +that we were not ministers of religion--an easy enough task for Mr. +Newton, who wears with grace the natural abandon of a Voltairean, but +a difficult one for me. Why Stephen Girard, the worthy "merchant and +mariner" who endowed this institution, was so suspicious of the cloth, +no matter what its cut, I do not know; no doubt he had his reasons; but +his prejudices are faithfully respected by his janitor, whose eye is +a very gimlet of suspicion. However, we got in and saw the +philanthropist's tomb and his household effects behind those massive +columns. + +That evening I spent in Mr. Newton's library among Blake and Lamb and +Johnson autographs and MSS., breaking the Tenth Commandment with a +recklessness that would have satisfied and delighted Stephen Girard's +gatekeeper; and the next day we were off to Valley Forge to see with +what imaginative thoughtfulness the Government has been transforming +Washington's camp into a national park and restoring the old landmarks. +It was a fine spring day and the woods were flecked with the white +and pink blossoms of the dogwood--a tree which in England is only an +inconspicuous hedgerow bush but here has both charm and importance +and some of the unexpectedness of a tropical growth. I wish we could +acclimatise it. + +The memorial chapel now in course of completion on one of the Valley +Forge eminences seemed to me a very admirable example not only of modern +Gothic but of votive piety. And such a wealth of American symbolism +cannot exist elsewhere. But in the severe little cottage where +Washington made his headquarters, down by the stream, with all his +frugal campaigning furniture and accessories in their old places, I felt +more emotion than in the odour of sanctity. The simple reality of it +conquered the stained glass. + + + + +GENERAL REFLECTIONS + + +Looking back on it all I realise that America never struck me as a new +country, although its inhabitants often seemed to be a new people. The +cities are more mature than the citizens. New York, Chicago, Boston, +Philadelphia, Washington--all have an air of permanence and age. The +buildings, even the most fantastic, suggest indigenousness, or at least +stability; nor would the presence of more ancient structures increase +this effect. To the eye of the ordinary Englishman accustomed to work in +what we call the City, in Fleet Street, in the Strand, in Piccadilly, or +in Oxford Street, New York would not appear to be a younger place than +London, and Boston might easily strike him as older. Nor is London more +than a little older, except in spots, such as the Tower and the Temple +and the Abbey, and that little Tudor row in Holborn, all separated by +vast tracts of modernity. Indeed, I would almost go farther and say that +London sets up an illusion of being newer even than New York by reason +of its more disturbing street traffic both in the roads and on the +footways, and the prevalence of the gaily coloured omnibuses which +thunder along so many thoroughfares in notable contrast with the +sedate and sober vehicles that serve Fifth Avenue and are hardly seen +elsewhere. + +Meanwhile an illusion of antiquity is set up by New York's habit of +commingling business houses and private residences, which surely belongs +to an older order of society. In London we have done away with such +a blend. Our nearest approach to Fifth Avenue is, I suppose, Regent +Street; but there are no mansions among the shops of Regent Street. Our +shops are there and our mansions are elsewhere, far away, in what we +call residential quarters--such as Park Lane, Queen's Gate, Mayfair, the +Bayswater Road, and Grosvenor Square. To turn out of Fifth Avenue into +the quiet streets where people live is to receive a distinct impression +of sedateness such as New York is never supposed to convey. One has the +same feeling in the other great American cities. + +But when it comes to their inhabitants there are to the English eye +fewer signs of maturity. I have never been able to get rid of the idea +that every one I have met in America, no matter how grave a senior, +instead of being really and self-consciously in the thick of life, +is only getting ready to begin. Perhaps this is due in part to the +pleasure--the excitement almost--which American business men--and all +Americans are business men--take in their work. They not merely do it, +but they enjoy doing it and they watch themselves doing it. They seem to +have a knack of withdrawing aside and observing themselves as from +the stalls, not without applause. In other words, they dramatise +continually. Now, one does not do this when one is old--it is a childish +game--and it is another proof that they are younger than we, who do not +enjoy our work, and indeed, most of us, are ashamed of it and want the +world to believe that we live like the lilies on private means. + +Similarly, many Americans seem, when they talk, to be two persons: one +the talker, and the other the listener charmed by the quality of his +discourse. There is nothing detrimental in such duplicity. Indeed, +I think I have a very real envy of it. But one of the defects of the +listening habit is perhaps to make them too rhetorical, too verbose. It +is odd that the nation that has given us so much epigrammatic slang and +the telegraph and the telephone and the typewriter should have so little +of what might be called intellectual short-hand. But so it is. Too many +Americans are remorseless when they are making themselves clear. + +Yet the passion for printed idiomatic sententiousness and arresting +trade-notices is visible all the time. You see it in the newspapers and +in the shops. I found a children's millinery shop in New York with +this laconic indication of its scope, in permanent letters, on the +plate-glass window: "Lids for Kids." A New York undertaker, I am told, +has affixed to all his hearses the too legible legend: "You may linger, +but I'll get you yet." + +When it comes to descriptive new words, coined rapidly to meet +occasions, we English are nowhere compared with the Americans. Could +there be anything better than the term "Nearbeer" to reveal at a blow +the character of a substitute for ale? I take off my hat, too, to +"crape-hanger," which leaves "kill-joy" far in the rear. But "optience" +for a cinema audience, which sees but does not hear, though ingenious, +is less admirable. + +Although I found the walls of business offices in New York and elsewhere +decorated with pithy counsel to callers, and discouragements to +irrelevance, such as "Come to the point but don't camp on it," "To hell +with yesterday," and so forth, I am very doubtful if with all these +suggestions of practical address and Napoleonic efficiency the American +business man is as quick and decisive as ours can be. There is more +autobiography talked in American offices than in English; more getting +ready to begin. + +I have, however, no envy of the American man's inability to loaf and +invite his soul, as his great democratic poet was able to do. I think +that this unfamiliarity with armchair life is a misfortune. That article +of furniture, we must suppose, is for older civilisations, where men +have either, after earning the right to recline, taken their ease +gracefully, or have inherited their fortune and are partial to idleness. +It consorts ill with those who are still either continually and +restlessly in pursuit of the dollar or are engaged in the occupation of +watching dollars automatically arrive. + +One of the things, I take it, for Americans to learn is how to transform +money into a friend. So many men who ought to be quietly rejoicing in +their riches seem still to be anxious and acquisitive; so many men who +have become suddenly wealthy seem to be allowing their gains to ruin +their happiness. For the nation's good nearly every one, I fancy, has +too much money. + +My experience is that England has almost everything to learn from +America in the matter of hotels. I consider American second and +third-class hotels to be better in many ways than our best. Every +American restaurant, of each grade, is better than the English +equivalent; the appointments are better, the food is served with more +distinction and often is better too. When it comes to coffee, there is +no comparison whatever: American coffee is the best in the world. Only +quite recently has the importance of the complete suite entered the +intelligence of the promoters of English hotels, and in myriads of these +establishments, called first class, there is still but one bathroom to +twenty rooms. Heating coils and hot and cold water in the rooms are even +more rare: so rare as to be mentioned in the advertisements. Telephones +in the rooms are rarer. In too many hotels in England there is still +no light at the head of the bed. But we have certain advantages. For +example, in English restaurants there is always something on the table +to eat at once--_hors d'oeuvres_ or bread and butter. In America there +is too often nothing ready but iced water--an ungenial overture to +any feast--and you must wait until your order has been taken. Other +travellers, even Americans, have agreed with me that it would be more +comfortable if the convention which decrees that the waiter shall bring +everything together could be overruled. Something "to go on with" is a +great ameliorative, especially when one is hungry and tired. + +In thus commending American hotels over English it is, however, only +right to admit that the American hotels are very much more expensive. + +While on the subject of eating, I would say that for all their notorious +freedoms Americans have a better sense of order than we. Their policemen +may carry their batons drawn, and even swing them with a certain +insolent defiance or even provocation, but New York goes on its way +with more precision and less disturbance than London, and every one +is smarter, more alert. The suggestion of a living wage for all is +constant. It is indeed on this sense of orderliness that the success +of certain of the American time-saving appliances is built. The Automat +restaurants, for example, where the customer gets all his requirements +himself, would never do in London. The idea is perfect; but it requires +the co-operation of the customer, and that is what we should fail to +provide. The spotless cleanliness and mechanical exactitude of these +places in New York would cease in London, and gradually they would +decline and then disappear. At heart, we in England dislike well-managed +places. Nor can I see New York's public distribution of hot water +adopted in London. Such little geysers as expel steam at intervals +through the roadway of Fifth Avenue will never, I fear, be found in +Regent Street or Piccadilly. Our communism is very patchy. + +There are some unexpected differences between America and England. It is +odd, for instance, to find a nation from whom we get most of our tobacco +and who have the reputation of even chewing cigars, with such strict +rules against smoking. In the Music Halls, which are, as a rule, better +than ours, smoking is permitted only in certain parts. Public decorum +again is, I should say, more noticeable in an American than an +English city, and yet both in San Francisco and New York I dined in +restaurants--not late--between 7 and 8--and not furtive hole-in-corner +places,--where girls belonging to the establishment, wearing almost +nothing at all, performed the latest dances, with extravagant and daring +variations of them, among the tables. In London this kind of thing is +unknown. In Paris it occurs only in the night cafes. It struck me as +astonishing--and probably not at all to the good--that it should be an +ordinary dinner accompaniment. + +I was asked while I was in America to set down some of the chief things +that I missed. I might easily have begun with walking-sticks, for until +I reached New York I seemed to be the only man in America who carried +one, although a San Francisco friend confessed to sometimes "wearing +a cane" on Sundays. I missed a Visitors' Book either at the British +Embassy in Washington or at the White House. After passing through +India, where one's first duty is to enter one's name in these volumes, +it seemed odd that the same machinery of civility should be lacking. I +missed any system of cleaning boots during the night, in the hotels; but +I soon became accustomed to this, and rather enjoyed visiting the "shine +parlours," in one of which was this crisp notice: "If you like our work, +tell your friends; if you don't like it, tell us." I missed gum-chewing. + +But it was on returning to England that I began really to take notice. +Then I found myself missing America's cleanliness, America's despatch, +its hotel efficiency, its lashings of cream, its ice on every hand. All +this at Liverpool! I missed later the petrol fountains all about the +roads, a few of which I had seen in India, at which the motorist can +replenish; but these surely will not be long in coming. I don't want +England to be Americanised; I don't want America to cease to be a +foreign country; but there are lessons each of us can learn. + +If I were an American, although I travelled abroad now and then (and +I hold that it is the duty of a man to see other lands but live in his +own) I should concentrate on America. It is the country of the future. I +am glad I have seen it and now know something--however slight--about +it at first hand. I made many friends there and amassed innumerable +delightful memories. But what is the use of eight weeks? I am ashamed +not to have gone there sooner, and humiliated by the brevity of my +stay. I have had the opportunity only to lift a thousand curtains, get +a glimpse of the entertainment on the other side and drop them again. I +should like to go there every other year and have time: time to make the +acquaintance of a naturalist and learn from him the names of birds and +trees and flowers; time to loiter in the byways; time to penetrate into +deeper strata where intimacies strike root and the real discoveries +are made; time to discern beneath the surface, so hard and assured, +something fey, something wistful, the sense of tears. + + + + +INDEX + + + Adirondacks, etc. + Agra and its Fort + Aitken, E. H., his three books + Akbar + America, its democracy + its humour + its slang + its trains + its women + its newspapers + its MSS. + its hotels + its maturity + American painters in England + Americans, at home and abroad + Americans, their clothes + their physiognomy + their disturbing wealth + Aquariums + Architecture in America + "Association" books + + Baker, Mr. Herbert + Bam Bahadur, that great hunter + Baseball and cricket + Beecher, Henry Ward + Benares + Berkeley University + Bernier on the Moguls + Betel-nut chewing + Birds in India + Blackbuck, the agile + Bombay--Towers of Silence + Boston + Butler, H.E., Sir Harcourt + + Calcutta--the piano-carriers + its snake charmers + and the Maidan + and its English buildings + its old cemetery + Charnock, Job + Chicago, its hospitable policeman + its pictures + Cinema, the + Cobb, Mr. Irvin + Comparisons between America and England + Coney Island + Cow-worship in India + Cricket and baseball + Curzon, Lord, his preservation of ancient buildings + + Dances in India and Japan + Delhi--the camel omnibuses + its architecture + and the Mutiny + Fort + Dickens, Charles, presentation copies + + "Eha," his three books + Elephanta, caves of + + Fakirs in India + Fatehpur-Sikri + Faneuil Hall, Boston + Fifth Avenue + Foss, Mr. Samuel W., his Boston poem + Franklin, Benjamin + Fujiyama + Funerals in India and England + + Ganges, the + Geisha dances + Gilbert, Mr. Cass + Girard, Stephen + Goschen, Lord, wounds the tiger + + Hakone, Lake + Hawking + Herford, Mr. Oliver + Hindus, the, and animals + Hokusai + Holmes, Oliver Wendell + Hong-Kong, funeral at + Honolulu + Hooghli, the + Hotels in America + Humayun's Tomb + Huntington, Mr. H. E. + + Jahan, Shah, his buildings + Jains, the, their preservation of life + Japan--its lack of idlers + and animal life + its women + its American reading + Japanese, their small stature + materialism + public manners + their gold teeth + Journalism in America + + Katsuragava rapids + Keats' _Lamia_, 1820 + Kesteven, Sir Charles, his library + Khan, Sir Umar Hayat + Kohinoor, the + Kutb Minar, the + Kyoto, its temples + + Lake Placid Club + Lamb, Mr. A. M., his distress at Honolulu + Charles, first editions + manuscripts + Landor, Walter Savage + Lavater abroad + Lincoln Memorial + Liston, Lt.-Col. Glen + Lucknow and the Mutiny + its delectability + Lutyens, Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., goes hawking + and Imperial Delhi + and the priests + and the divers + hunts the tiger + Marquis, Mr. Don + Moguls, the + Mohammedan customs + priests + Monkeys + Morgan, Mr. J. Pierpont + Mount Vernon + Mutiny, the + Myanoshita + + Nautch, the + Nawanagar, the Jam of + New or Imperial Delhi + New York, its skyscrapers + its buildings + its aquarium + its shops + its dances + its sky signs + its pictures + its MSS. + its maturity + Newspapers in America + Newton, Mr. A. Edward + + Otome Pass + + Painters, American, in England + Parsees, the + Peacock Throne, the + Philadelphia + Pictures in America + Prince of Wales in New York + Prohibition + Pronunciation in America + + Ranjitsinhji, Prince + Rickshaws + Roosevelt, Theodore, his Memorial Road + "Rose Aylmer" + Ruth, "Babe" + + San Francisco + Saranac + _Saturday Evening Post_, the + Scott, Mr. A. P., his house + Sculpture in America + Shaw, Mr. Bernard + Simplified spelling + Skyscrapers + Skysigns + Slang in America + Snake-poison antidotes + St. Gaudens, Augustus + Stevenson, Robert Louis + Swamp-deer hunting + Swan, Mr. Thomas, his despair at Honolulu + + Taj Mahal, the + Talmadge, Constance + Norma + Tavernier on the Moguls + Theatre, the, in Japan + Tiger hunt, a + Tinney, Frank + Tokio, its dress + its theatre + Tolstoi, Count Leo + Towers of Silence + Townsend, Joe, his ballad + + Valley Forge + Venice and Benares + Vers Libre + Vultures + + Washington + George + Martha + Wayne, Anthony + Wayside Inn, the + Wheeler, Mr. Charles Stetson, his story + Women in America + in Japan + Woolworth Building, the + + Yamaguchi, Madame + Yokohama + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Roving East and Roving West, by E. V. 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