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28 chapters
CHAPTER I “CROSSIN’ THE POND WI’ THE BULLOCKS”
CHAPTER I “CROSSIN’ THE POND WI’ THE BULLOCKS”
After spending some sixteen years in schools and colleges, I decided, one spring, to take a year off and make a trip around the world. I had no money for such a journey; but that didn’t matter for I meant to “work my way” from place to place. I spoke French and German, and had some knowledge of Spanish and Italian. I believed that if I had to work among the people of foreign countries I would learn more of them and of their languages than in any other way. So I was not sorry that I had to start
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CHAPTER II “ON THE ROAD” IN THE BRITISH ISLES
CHAPTER II “ON THE ROAD” IN THE BRITISH ISLES
At noon the next day I received my wages and a printed certificate stating that I had been a sailor on the cattle-boat. I kept it, for the police would surely demand to know my trade while I was tramping through the countries of Europe. Tucking my camera into an inside pocket, I struck out along the Clyde River toward the Highlands of Scotland. I passed through Dumbarton, a town of factories, and at evening reached Alexandria. A band was playing. I joined the crowd on the village green, and watc
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CHAPTER III IN CLEAN HOLLAND
CHAPTER III IN CLEAN HOLLAND
Three days later I took passage to London, and that same afternoon sailed for Rotterdam. At sunrise the next morning I climbed on deck, and found the ship steaming slowly through a peaceful canal. On all sides were flat plains, stretching as far as the eye could see. Far below us were clusters of squat cottages with the white smoke of kindling fires curling slowly upward from their chimneys. Here and there a peasant, looking very tiny from our high deck, crawled along over the flat meadows. In t
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CHAPTER IV NOT WELCOME IN THE FATHERLAND
CHAPTER IV NOT WELCOME IN THE FATHERLAND
One afternoon, while in my favorite coffee-house, I heard some one say that a cargo-boat was to leave for a town in Germany on the Rhine, and that passengers could go along for a song. It was to leave at four. I thrust a lunch into a pocket, and hurried down to the boat. She was a big canal-boat, as black as a coal-barge, but not so clean. Her uncovered deck was piled high with boxes, barrels, and crates, holding everything from beer mugs to noisy chickens. I scrambled over the cargo, and found
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CHAPTER V TRAMPING THROUGH FRANCE
CHAPTER V TRAMPING THROUGH FRANCE
The month of August was drawing to a close when I started southward. At first I had to pass through noisy, dirty villages filled with crying children and many curs. Beyond, travel was more pleasant, for the national highways are excellently built. The heaviest rain raises hardly a layer of mud. But these roads wind and ramble like mountain streams. They zigzag from village to village even in a level country, and where hills abound there are villages ten miles apart with twenty miles of tramping
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CHAPTER VI CLIMBING OVER THE ALPS
CHAPTER VI CLIMBING OVER THE ALPS
I tramped through several villages, and came to the bank of the Upper Loire River. A short distance beyond, the road began winding up the first foot-hills of the Alps. Along the way every rocky hillside was cut into steps to its very top, and every step was thickly set with grape-vines. As I continued climbing upward I left the patches of grape-vines below me, and came to waving forests where sounded the twitter of birds and now and then the cheery song of a woodsman or shepherd boy. At sunset I
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CHAPTER VII IN SUNNY ITALY
CHAPTER VII IN SUNNY ITALY
The next morning I continued my tramp into sunny Italy. The highway was covered with deep mud, and my garments were still wet when I drew them on. But the day was bright with sunshine. The vine-covered hillside and rolling plains below, the lizards basking on every shelf of rock, peasant women plodding barefoot along the route, made it hard to realize that the weather of the day before had been dismal and chilling. As I walked on I met countless poor people. Ragged children quarreled for the pos
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CHAPTER VIII AMONG THE ARABS
CHAPTER VIII AMONG THE ARABS
On a peaceful sea the Warwickshire sped eastward. My work was “polishin’ ’er brasses,” and I can say without boasting that the ship was brighter because I was there. On the morning of the fifth day out, I was ordered into the hold to send up the trunks of Egyptian travelers. When I climbed on deck after the last chest, the deep blue of the sea had turned to a shabby brown, but there was no land in sight. Suddenly there rose from the sea a flat-topped building, then another and another, until a w
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CHAPTER IX A LONELY JOURNEY
CHAPTER IX A LONELY JOURNEY
For miles the road climbed sharply upward, or crawled along the face of a mountain at the edge of a yawning pit. The villages were far apart, and as they were low and flat, and built of the same rock as the mountains, I did not notice them until I was almost upon them. In every such place one or more of the householders marched back and forth on the top of his dwelling, dragging after him a great stone roller and chanting a mournful tune that seemed to cheer him on in his labor. At first sight t
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CHAPTER X CITIES OF OLD
CHAPTER X CITIES OF OLD
The whistle of the locomotive is now heard in the suburbs of Damascus; for, besides the railway to the coast, a new line brings to the ancient city the produce of the vast and fertile plain beyond Jordan. A few single telegraph wires, too, connect “Shaam” with the outside world, and the whir of the American sewing-machine is heard in her long, tunnel-like streets. But these few modern improvements make the ancient ways of the city seem stranger still. Here is a man with a stone hammer, beating i
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CHAPTER XI THE WILDS OF PALESTINE
CHAPTER XI THE WILDS OF PALESTINE
The sun rose clear and red the next morning. It was the best sort of day for continuing my journey. The teachers set out to accompany me to the foot of the Nazarene mountains. They struck off through the village as the crow flies, paying no attention to the run of the streets. Down through the market, dodging into tiny alleys, under covered passageways, through spaces where we had to walk sidewise, they led the way. Where a shop was in the way they marched boldly through it, stepping over the me
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CHAPTER XII CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS
CHAPTER XII CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS
In all of north Africa there was no place that I wanted to visit more than Cairo. I had heard, too, that I might find work there easily. At any rate, I felt that I must get there soon, before my money was entirely gone. I went to the railway station in Alexandria, and found that the fare to Cairo was just three piasters more than I had. Should I go by train as far as my money would take me, and finish the journey on foot and penniless? Or should I save the few coins I had for food on the way, an
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CHAPTER XIII A TRIP UP THE NILE
CHAPTER XIII A TRIP UP THE NILE
One fine morning, some two weeks after my introduction to Tom, I left my post in the consul’s household, and set about making plans for a journey up the Nile. For I knew that if I once journeyed up or down this river with open eyes, I would know all there is to know about this long and narrow country. I left Cairo on foot, and, crossing the Nile, turned southward along a ridge of shifting sand beyond the village of Gizeh. There was an irrigating ditch near the ridge. Scores of natives, moving wi
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CHAPTER XIV STEALING A MARCH ON THE FAR EAST
CHAPTER XIV STEALING A MARCH ON THE FAR EAST
All through that month of February in Cairo I studied the posters of the steamship companies to learn what ships were sailing eastward; for I hoped to get work on one of them as a sailor, and continue my trip around the world. While I was in the train on my way to Port Said, I saw four giant steamers gliding southward through the canal, so close that I could read from my window the books in the hands of the passengers under the awnings. How fortunate those people seemed to me! They were already
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CHAPTER XV IN THE LAND OF THE WANDERING PRINCE
CHAPTER XV IN THE LAND OF THE WANDERING PRINCE
The scenery that met my gaze as I moved through the streets of Colombo seemed much like that of some great painting. The golden sunshine, the rich green, the dark bodies moving here and there among figures clad in snowy white, were more colorful than I had ever imagined. At noonday the fiery sun beat down on me so unmercifully that I sought shelter in a neighboring park. There I dreamed away my first day’s freedom from the holy-stone. A native runner awoke me toward nightfall, and thrust into my
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CHAPTER XVI THE MERRY CIRCUS DAYS
CHAPTER XVI THE MERRY CIRCUS DAYS
I returned to Colombo by train, reaching the city in the late afternoon. I made my way at once to Almeida’s. In the roofless dining-room sat Askins and the Swede, highly excited over the news that Colombo was to be visited by a circus. “That means a few chips a day for some of us,” said Askins. “Circuses must have white workmen. Natives won’t do.” “Huh! Yank,” roared the Swede half a minute later, “you get burn some, eh, playing mit der monkeys in der jungle? Pretty soon you ban sunstroke. Here,
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CHAPTER XVII THREE WANDERERS IN INDIA
CHAPTER XVII THREE WANDERERS IN INDIA
The merry circus days had left me so great a fortune that I decided to sail to the peninsula of India at once. Marten, of Tacoma, offered to go with me, and I agreed; for the ex-pearl-fisher could speak the Hindu language freely and he knew the country well. On the morning of April fourth we bought our tickets for passage on the afternoon steamer, and set out to bid farewell to our acquaintances in the city. It was almost time to sail, when Haywood burst in upon us at Almeida’s. “I hear,” he sho
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CHAPTER XVIII THE WAYS OF THE HINDU
CHAPTER XVIII THE WAYS OF THE HINDU
It was my good fortune to find employment while in Madras. The job was the easiest I had yet had, and it brought me three rupees a day. All I had to do was to sit in street-cars and watch the Hindu conductors poke the fares paid into the cash-registers they wear around their necks, and to make sure they did not make a mistake and put some of the coppers into their pockets instead. For the Hindu makes many mistakes, and is naturally so careless that he has even been known to forget to collect far
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CHAPTER XIX IN THE HEART OF INDIA
CHAPTER XIX IN THE HEART OF INDIA
Late that afternoon we met at the Sailors’ Home. It was not long before Marten and I decided that we must rid ourselves of Haywood once for all. Go where we would, he was ever at our heels, bringing disgrace upon us. Picking pockets was his glee. When there was no other excitement, he took to filching small articles from the stores along the way. As we were returning to the Home along a crowded street on our second day in Calcutta, his behavior became unbearable. The natives of the big city did
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CHAPTER XX BEYOND THE GANGES
CHAPTER XX BEYOND THE GANGES
Two hours after my arrival in Calcutta, there was seen making his way through the streets of that city a youth who had been turned away from the Sailors’ Home by a hard-hearted manager because he had once left that place without permission for a trip “up country.” In his pocket was a single rupee. His cotton garments were threadbare rags through which the torrid sun had reddened his once white skin. Under one arm he carried a tattered, sunburned bundle of the size of a camera. In short, ’twas I.
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CHAPTER XXI TRAMPING THROUGH BURMA
CHAPTER XXI TRAMPING THROUGH BURMA
At the time we reached Rangoon, that town was filled with sailors who had been looking for a chance to “sign on” for months past, with no success. Moreover, they assured me that there was no work ashore, that the city was suffering from the plague, and that we had fallen upon the most unlucky port in the Orient. Nevertheless, we were there, and we had to make the best of it. We struck off through the city to see the sights. The native town, squatting on the flat plain along the river, had street
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CHAPTER XXII IN THE JUNGLES OF BURMA
CHAPTER XXII IN THE JUNGLES OF BURMA
The next morning we went to call on an American missionary. He lived in a handsome bungalow set in a wooded park on a hill just outside the town. The first persons we saw when we reached the place were a native gardener clipping away at the shrubbery on the grounds, and another servant following two very little girls who drove about the house a team of lizards harnessed together with reins tied to their hind legs. When we told the missionary that we were looking for work, he quickly found someth
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CHAPTER XXIII IN SIAM
CHAPTER XXIII IN SIAM
The distance to the free state was not great. When we reached the boundary we came upon a camp of native soldiers. Here we stopped, as was our duty before crossing into Siam. The soldiers were simple, good-hearted fellows who showed their astonishment and their sorrow at the condition of our feet through the language of signs, and did their best to prepare us a good dinner from the rice and jungle vegetables they had. It was fortunate for us that they were so generous, for there were no stores i
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CHAPTER XXIV HUNGRY DAYS
CHAPTER XXIV HUNGRY DAYS
The territory beyond Banpáwa was more savage than any we had yet seen. Everywhere the climbing and creeping plant life was so thick and interwoven that our feet could not reach the ground. Often, when we tried to plunge through a thicket, we were caught as if in a net. It was impossible to get through, and we crawled out with torn garments and bleeding hands and faces to fight our way around the spot. We were now in the very heart of the mountains. Range after range appeared, covered with unbrok
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CHAPTER XXV FOLLOWING THE MENAM RIVER TO BANGKOK
CHAPTER XXV FOLLOWING THE MENAM RIVER TO BANGKOK
The path to Bangkok, such as it was, lay on the eastern bank of the Menam River. This time we crossed the stream in a dugout canoe fully thirty feet long, which held, besides ourselves and four paddlers, twenty-two natives, chiefly women. All day we tramped through jungle as wild as that to the westward, following the course of the river. We passed many bamboo villages, and for every hut at least a half dozen yellow curs added their yelpings to the uproar that greeted us as we came near. The inh
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CHAPTER XXVI ON THE WAY TO HONG-KONG
CHAPTER XXVI ON THE WAY TO HONG-KONG
Spread out in the low, flat valley of the Menam, Bangkok was a dull city of rambling rows of cottages. Her poorly paved streets were crossed by many canals, on which low-roofed boats and floating houses set on bamboo rafts were rising and falling with the tide. The people of the city were dull and careless. They had the black teeth, the bristling pompadour, and they wore no more clothing than their brothers of the trackless bush. There were many Chinamen and some Europeans. We found that deck pa
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CHAPTER XXVII WANDERING IN JAPAN
CHAPTER XXVII WANDERING IN JAPAN
“Set me down at the Sailors’ Home,” I ordered, stepping into the first ’rickshaw to reach me. “No good,” answered the runner, dropping the shafts. “Sailor Home be close.” My ’rickshaw man whose picture I took from my seat in the ’rickshaw while seeing the sights of Tokio. However, I found a hotel beside a canal down near the harbor. The proprietor, awakened from a doze, gurgled a welcome. He was an American who had lived for some years in Nagasaki. The real manager of the hotel was his Japanese
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CHAPTER XXVIII HOMEWARD BOUND
CHAPTER XXVIII HOMEWARD BOUND
It was Saturday, nearly two weeks after my arrival in Yokohama, that I saw a chance to escape from Japan. The American consul had promised to speak for me to the captain of a fast mail steamer to sail a few days later. Early the following Monday, the last day of July, I turned in at the American consul’s office just as two men stepped out. One was the vice-consul; the other, a large man of some fifty years, wearing thick-rimmed spectacles and a broad-brimmed felt hat. His black hair was unusuall
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