From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People — Sec 11 From India to China (1908)

THE INDIAN OCEAN

On October 14, 1908, we leave Bombay in the steamer _Delhi_,[13] which is bound for Shanghai with passengers and cargo.

The _Delhi_ is a fine steamer, 495 feet long, and of 8000 tons burden; it is one of the great fleet of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (usually known as the P. & O.

), which receives an annual subsidy from the Government to carry the mails to India and Australia.

We cast off from the quay, and in about an hour's time are slowly drawing out between the ends of the harbour breakwaters; then the steamer glides more quickly over the bay between innumerable vessels under different flags, and Bombay lies behind us with its large houses, its churches, towers, and chimneys, and its dense forest of ships' masts.

Soon the city has disappeared and we are out on the Indian Ocean.

The weather is fine; there is no sea on, only the faintest swell; sailing boats lie motionless waiting for a wind, and only a faint breeze renews the air under the awnings of the promenade deck.

It is so warm and sultry that starched shirts and collars become damp and limp after a couple of hours.

We gradually draw off from the coast, but still the mountain chain known as the Western Ghâts, which extends to the southern extremity of India, is visible.

Next morning we leave Goa behind, and at noon have the Laccadive group of islands to starboard.

The coast of India is still in sight--a belt of sand, over which the surf rolls in from the sea, surmounted by a fringe of coco-palms.

On the morning of October 17 we pass the southernmost point of India, Cape Comorin.

Here our course is changed to southeast, and about midday the coast of Ceylon can be distinguished on the horizon.

From a long distance we can see the white band of breakers dashing against the beach, and as we approach closer a forest of steamer funnels, sails, and masts, and beyond them a long row of Asiatic and European buildings.

That is Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, and a very important port for all vessels which ply between Europe and the Far East.

Gently the _Delhi_ enters the passage between the harbour moles, and is at once surrounded by a fleet of rowing boats from the shore.

Singalese and Hindus swarm up the gangways, and throw themselves with much jabbering on the traveller's possessions.

They are scantily clothed with only a shirt or a white sash round the loins and a cloth or a comb on the head.

We go on shore and find in the principal streets of the town a curious jumble of copper-brown coloured people, carriages, tramways, and small, two-wheeled "rickshas" which are pulled by half-naked men.

The huts of the natives and the dwelling-houses of the Europeans nestle among groves of the slender coco-palm.

The next day the steamer _Moldavia_ (also belonging to the P. & O.

) arrived from England, and was moored close to the _Delhi_ in order to transfer to her passengers and goods for the Far East, after which the _Moldavia_ was to continue her voyage for two weeks more to Australia.

When all is ready the _Delhi_ swings out to sea again, the band of the _Moldavia_ playing a march and her crew and passengers cheering.

In the evening we double the southern point of Ceylon, turning due east--a course we shall hold as far as the northern cape of Sumatra, 1000 miles away.

THE SUNDA ISLANDS

On the morning of October 21 all field-glasses are pointed eastwards.

Two small, steep islands stand up out of the sea, a white ring of surf round their shores, and beyond them several other islands come into sight, their woods ever green in the perpetual summer of these hot regions.

Now islands crop up on all sides, and we are in the midst of quite an archipelago.

To the south-west we can see rain falling over Sumatra.

Asia is the largest continent of the world.

It has three other divisions of the world as its neighbours, Europe, Africa, and Australia, and Asia is more or less connected with these, forming with them the land of the eastern hemisphere, while America belongs to the western hemisphere.

Europe is so closely and solidly connected with Asia that it may be said to be a peninsula of it.

Africa is joined to Asia by an isthmus 70 miles broad, which since 1869 has been cut through by the Suez Canal.

On the other hand, Australia is like an enormous island, and lies quite by itself; the only connection between it and Asia consists of the two series of large islands and innumerable small ones which rise above the surface of the intervening sea.

The western chain consists of the Sunda Islands, the eastern of the Philippines and New Guinea.

Sumatra is the first island of the immense pontoon bridge which extends south-eastwards from the Malay Peninsula.

The next is Java, and then follows a row of medium-sized islands to the east.

[Illustration: THE SUNDA ISLANDS.

] The animal and vegetable life of these islands is very abundant.

In their woods live elephants, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; in the brushwood lurk tigers and panthers; and in the depths of their primeval forests dwell monkeys of various species.

The largest is the orang-utang, which grows to a height of five feet, is very strong, savage and dangerous, and is almost always seen on trees.

On these islands, too, grow many plants and trees which are invaluable to the use of man--sugar-cane, coffee and tea, rice and tobacco, spices, coco-palms, and the tree the bark of which yields the remedy for fever, quinine.

This remedy is needed not least on the Sunda Islands themselves, for fever is general in the low-lying districts round the coasts, though the climate 4000 or 5000 feet above sea-level, among the mountains which occupy the interior of the islands, is good and healthy.

The equator passes through the middle of Sumatra and Borneo, and therefore perpetual summer with very moist heat prevails in these islands.

The only seasons really distinguishable are the rainy and dry seasons, and the Sunda Islands constitute one of the rainiest regions in the world.

The people are Malays and are heathen, but along the coasts Mohammedanism has acquired great influence.

The savage tribes of the interior have a blind belief in spirits, which animate all lifeless objects, and the souls of the dead share in the joys and sorrows of the living.

The larger Sunda islands are four: Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Celebes.

Java, one of the most beautiful and most productive countries in the world, has an area nearly equal to that of England without Wales, and its population is also nearly the same--about 30 millions.

Sumatra, which the _Delhi_ has just left to starboard, is three times the size of Java, but has only one-seventh of its population.

The curiously shaped island of Celebes, again, is about half the size of Sumatra, while Borneo is the third largest island on the globe not ranking as a continent, its area being about 300,000 square miles.

The Sunda Islands are subject to Holland, only the north-eastern part of Borneo belonging to England.

In the strait between Sumatra and Java lies a very small volcanic island, Krakatau, which in the summer of 1883 was the scene of one of the most violent eruptions that have taken place in historic times.

The island was uninhabited, and was only visited occasionally by fishermen from Sumatra; but if it had been inhabited, not a soul would have survived to relate what took place, for on two other islands which lay a few miles distant the inhabitants were killed to the last man.

The outburst proper began on August 26, and the fire-breathing mountain cast out such quantities of ashes that a layer three feet thick was deposited on the deck of a vessel which happened at the time to be a considerable distance off.

It lightened and thundered, the sea was disturbed, and many boats were sunk or hurled up on land.

The next day the island fell in and was swallowed up by the sea, only a few fragments of it being left.

Thereupon a huge wave, 100 feet high, poured over the neighbouring coasts of Sumatra and Java, washing away towns and villages, woods and railway lines, and when it retreated the country was swept bare, and corpses of men and animals lay all around.

This wave was so tremendous that it was propagated as far as the coasts of Africa and America, and it was thus possible to calculate the speed with which it had traversed the oceans.

The noise produced by the eruption was so great that it was heard even in Ceylon and Australia, at a distance of 2000 miles.

If this outburst had taken place in Vienna, it would have been heard all over Europe and a considerable distance beyond its limits.

Loose ashes ejected from the volcano fell over the earth, covering an area considerably larger than France, and 40,000 persons perished.

PENANG AND SINGAPORE

The _Delhi_ holds her course for Penang, a town on a small island close to the coast of the Malay Peninsula.

At length land is sighted straight ahead, and the letter-writers make haste to get their correspondence ready.

We glide into a beautiful sound, the anchor rattles out, and we are at once surrounded by a swarm of curious boats which come to establish communication between the vessel and the town.

The main street of Penang--with its large buildings, hotels, banks, clubs, and commercial houses--presents much the same appearance as almost always meets the eye in the port towns on the south coast of Asia.

The small single-seated "ricksha" is drawn by a Chinaman in a loose blue blouse, bare-legged, and with a pointed straw hat on his head.

We go out to the Botanical Gardens, and find them really wonderful.

There are trees and plants from India, the Sunda Islands, and Australia, all labelled with their English and scientific names.

Monkeys climb actively among the trees, and sit swinging on the boughs, and a high waterfall tumbles down a cliff surrounded by dense luxuriant vegetation.

Darkness falls suddenly, as always in the tropics, and is accompanied by pelting rain.

In a few moments all the roads are under water.

The rain pours down, not in drops but in long streams of water, and we are wet through long before we reach the pier where the launch is waiting.

Soon after we get on board, the _Delhi_ moves out into the night down the Strait of Malacca.

Singapore is only thirty hours' voyage ahead, and the steamer follows closely the coast of the Malay Peninsula.

At sunrise on October 24 we arrive.

Singapore is the chief town of the Malay Peninsula, which is subject to Great Britain, and contains nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants--Europeans, Malays, Indians, but mostly Chinese.

All steamers to and from the Far East call at Singapore, which is also the chief commercial emporium for the Sunda Islands and the whole of the Dutch Archipelago.

It lies one degree of latitude north of the equator, and the consequence is that there is a difference of only three degrees of temperature between winter and summer.

It is always warm, and rain falls almost every day.

At five o'clock the same afternoon the _Delhi_ steams out again, accompanied by a swarm of light canoes rowed by naked copper-brown Malay boys.

These boys swim like fishes, and they come out to the steamers to dive for silver coins which the passengers throw into the sea for them.

When the _Delhi_ increases her pace, they drop behind and paddle back to the harbour with the proceeds of their diving feats.

The sound gradually widens out, and as long as twilight lasts the land and islands are in sight.

Then we turn off north-eastwards, leaving the equator behind us, and steer out over the Chinese Sea after having doubled the southernmost extremity of the Asiatic mainland.

UP THE CHINA SEA

In two days we had left Cochin-China, Saigon, and the great delta of the Mekong behind us, and when on October 27 we came into contact with the current from the north-east which sweeps along the coast of Annam, the temperature fell several degrees and the weather became fresher and more agreeable.

The north-east monsoon had just set in, and the farther we sailed northwards the harder it would blow in our faces.

We had then to choose between two routes--either out to sea with heavy surge and boisterous wind; or along the coast, where the current would similarly hinder us.

Whichever way was chosen the vessel would lose a couple of knots in her speed.

The captain chose the course along the coast.

The eastern part of the peninsula of Further India consists of the French possessions, Cambodia, Cochin-China, Annam, and Tonkin.

Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin, is the headquarters of the Governor-General of all French Indo-China.

To the south Saigon is the most important town;

it is situated in the Mekong delta, which is increasing in size every year by the addition of the vast quantities of silt carried down by the great river.

The country abounds in wild animals, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, alligators, poisonous snakes, monkeys, parrots, and peacocks.

In area the French possessions are about half as large again as France itself, and the population is about 20 millions.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING VOYAGE FROM BOMBAY TO HONG KONG (pp. 152-160).

] A large part of Further India is occupied by the kingdom of Siam, which lies between the lower courses of the Mekong and the Salwin, both of which rise in eastern Tibet.

Siam is about two-thirds the size of French Indo-China, but has only 9 million inhabitants of various races--Siamese, Chinese, Malays, and Laos.

Bangkok, the capital of the King of Siam, contains half a million inhabitants, and is intersected by numerous canals, on which a large proportion of the people live in floating houses.

There are many fine and famous pagodas, or temples, with statues of Buddha.

Some of them are of gold.

In Siam the Buddhist religion has been preserved pure and uncorrupted.

The white elephant is considered sacred, and the flag of Siam exhibits a white elephant on a red field.

The Siamese are of Mongolian origin, of medium, sturdy build, with a yellowish-brown complexion, but are not highly gifted.

They are addicted to song, music, and games, and among their curious customs is that of colouring the teeth black.

[Illustration: PLATE XVI.

ON THE CANTON RIVER.

] On the morning of October 29 we steam past a fringe of islets, the beautiful and charming entrance to Hong Kong.

The north-east monsoon is blowing freshly, and the salt foam hisses round the bow of the _Delhi_ and falls on the deck in fine spray lighted by the sun.

There is little sea, for we are in among the islands which check and subdue the violence of the waves.

At noon we glide in between a small holm and the island into the excellent and roomy harbour of Hong Kong, well sheltered on all sides from wind and waves.

A flotilla of steam launches comes out to meet us as we glide slowly among innumerable vessels to our anchorage and buoys.

Here flutter in the wind the flags of all commercial nations;

the English, Chinese, Japanese, American, and German colours fly side by side.

The water in the harbour basin is so shallow that the turn of the propeller stirs up the greyish-brown mud from the bottom.

Victoria is the chief town of Hong Kong, and contains nearly the half of the population, which amounts to 440,000 souls, most of them Chinese.

There are five important points on the sea-route to the Far East--Gibraltar, Aden, Colombo, Singapore, and Hong Kong--and all of them are in the hands of England.

Hong Kong has been a British Crown Colony since 1842, and it is now an extraordinarily important port.

Vessels with an aggregate tonnage of nearly 20 millions pass through Hong Kong annually, and the little island surpasses in this respect even London, Hamburg, and New York.

Regular lines of steamers connect Hong Kong with countless ports in Asia, America, Europe, and Australia, and the trade of the port is immense.

It is also a station for the east Asiatic squadron of the Royal Navy--with fine docks and berths, a coal depôt, arsenal, and barracks.

Ninety miles north-west of Hong Kong lies the second city of China, Canton (Plate XVI.

).

It stands near the mouths of two rivers which give access to the interior of the country, and Canton is therefore an important commercial town, surpassed only by Shanghai.

The famous Chinese silk is exported from Canton in larger quantities than from any other town, and the industries of silk-weaving, porcelain, and other manufactures are flourishing.

Canton is one of the thirty-seven Chinese "treaty ports"--that is, those which are open to foreign commerce.

It has 900,000 inhabitants, and is the capital of the southernmost of the eighteen provinces of China proper and the residence of a viceroy.

Its streets are so narrow that no wheeled vehicle can pass through them.

A

large part of the inhabitants live on boats moored to posts on the river.

A railway 1200 miles long connects Canton with the capital of the empire, Peking.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] This is the vessel which was wrecked on the coast of Morocco, near Cape Spartel, on December 13, 1911, having the Duke and Duchess of Fife (Princess Royal) on board.

XII CHINA[14]